The literary debate over Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey is still not over.
On Wednesday, author Joyce Carol Oates defended the hit film following acclaimed translator Emily Wilson’s viral review slamming the movie.
The Blonde and We Were the Mulvaneys author wrote on X that Wilson’s “tone of dismissal & haughty superiority strike a sour note.”
“Rather than disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, speaks in the crude language of MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers,” the National Book Award winner continued. “One would expect a translator, of all people, beholden to a text, in service to a text, to be just a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is.”
Oates was responding to a commenter who had written, “This is tough because on one hand I deeply respect Wilson as a classicist and enjoy her translation of The Odyssey, but on the other this review is grounded in such bad faith and filled with outrageous takes that make me feel like she would’ve been hostile to any adaptation.”
In general, Oates said she liked Nolan’s film: “[I] highly recommend both Nolan’s film and the 1997 miniseries co-produced by Francis Coppola. The adaptations are notably different: one American, with the brooding middle-aged-boy-hero Matt Damon; the other very Mediterranean, with charismatic Armand Assante who more naturally inhabits the role … no reason why Nolan, or anyone else, should not re-imagine/re-envision a classical hero through the prism of his own invention.”
Wilson is an acclaimed translator of Homer’s epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, and the opening line of the latter (“Tell me about a complicated man”) was previously cited by Nolan.
Her review of the film earlier this week for the London Review of Books was a lengthy hot take on the project.
“Nolan’s Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great,” she wrote. “It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”
“The most troubling ethical problem with Nolan’s Odyssey concerns the decision to film part of the movie in the occupied territory of Western Sahara, thus normalising the ongoing violence against the indigenous Sahrawi people,” she added. “It is particularly galling that Nolan used this land simply as a visually striking backdrop for a film that centres, aggrandises and redeems the hero of a territorial war on account of his belated and partial acknowledgment of his own guilt.”
That said, Wilson noted that the film’s release was reason for celebration given how it supercharged public interest in Homer’s works — including her own translations.
Universal‘s The Odyssey is still crushing at the box office, surpassing $727 million globally after 12 days in theaters. The film is expected to slip from its chart-topping perch this weekend, however, when Sony’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day hits.
