SPOILER ALERT:
I chose not to include spoiler tags. Spoilers are kind of embedded in my paragraphs below, so just be forewarned. If you know you want to see it, you might want to wait until after you’ve seen it, to read this post. If you are on the fence, you might be persuaded to see it by reading the rest of this.
I just saw it with my family last night. I'm glad I did, I thought overall it was well done. As a side note, on the way home after watching it, I successfully fact-checked one of my daughters, an art history major who has read Homer’s epic poems, on one question about Homer & the movie, which another daughter noted. I don’t recall the last time both my kids agreed that I was right about something. Dad Boss FTW!
My take on its criticisms, is that I suspect a lot of these critics have simply decided the film is too woke, and have decided to dislike it. If you have decided not to like it (and admittedly, it is not entirely faithful to what Homer wrote), there isn’t much I can say or do to make you like it. But I would still recommend people watch it. This film is an incredible rendition of the earliest European literature we have—a great story that has been handed down across thousands of years.
I saw it on an IMAX theater. I was disappointed in how small the screen was. It was larger than a typical screen in a theater, but not by much. That by far was my biggest disappointment with the movie. I do want to say that while IMAX will make it a better experience,
in no way do I consider this a "you have to see this on IMAX" movie. If you see it on a regular theater screen, or even just on TV, you can still enjoy it. If you think that the movie’s wokeness or historical inaccuracies are going to ruin it for you, then seeing it on a larger screen isn’t going to remove those issues.
Given all the criticisms about how many historical inaccuracies there were in the film, I was surprised at how faithful to Homer's epic it was. And this is where I suspect many (I’m not saying all) of Nolan’s critics never bothered to read Homer to being with. Its just that
none of Nolan’s embellishments or historical inaccuracies affect the basics of the plot at all.
But if you have never read Homer’s original writings, you would never know that. This criticism is just a big nothingburger for me. The changes were there; they just didn’t ruin the film or entirely change what Homer was depicting. My advice is just to see it and enjoy it for what it is. Nor am I saying that you have to read the original book, of any film adaptation, before criticizing it—just that doing so in this case would give a lot of the film’s critics, some context which they couldn’t otherwise have.
Speaking of the differences between Nolan’s portrayal of O. & that of Homer…
Odysseus was portrayed as a Greek warrior who was plagued either by guilt or PTSD, by the evils he saw and experienced. That really is Nolan's take—and certainly not Homer’s. Now its been at least 15 years (and probably a lot longer than that) since I read the original epic poems from cover to cover, but I don't recall Homer giving Odysseus too much guilt over bloodshed. The battle scene in the great banquet room towards the end of the film isn't the doing of a man who is convinced violence is wrong, or that he's just seen too much. There is a follow-up scene in Homer, which Nolan doesn’t depict, in which O. gears up for another fight, alongside his son, against the relatives of the people he had just killed. In that last scene, O.’s aged father is proud to see his son and his grandson vying with each other for military glory in that fight. No PTSD, or cynicism about war, is evident in that account. Only the goddess Athena manages to stop them from continuing the bloodshed, along with a thunderbolt produced by none other than Zeus himself. In place of this last interrupted battle, Nolan has a graceful exile from Ithaca of O. & his wife, sailing on a ship to the West like the elves in Lord of the Rings.
In regards to how accurate it was to Homer’s story, and to historical trends of the time, it was faithful enough for me. A black woman as the wife of Menelaus and also of Agamemnon (they were
not portrayed as such by Homer) just didn't move the needle for me, to ruin the film. I mean, come on--we're looking at a guy who talked with the spirits of the dead, who sailed too close to a sea monster that gobbled up some of his men, and who saved others from being turned into pigs by a witch--and we're going to make a stink about the ethnic background of two Greek queens, on the basis of realism?
This classic story wasn't designed to be realistic. This was an incredible adventure story, for a culture that didn't have TV or science fiction or the interwebs.
In fact, many scenes in Homer’s works show gods & goddesses (or other demigods like Circe & Calypso) either talking with each other, or with humans. That element was here in Nolan’s film, but it was not nearly as strong. Take for instance, the scene of O. talking with the spirits of the dead. That is much more pronounced in Homer’s epic poem, and he talks with more characters than Nolan shows O. talking to. So in this sense, one could easily say that Nolan’s film is
more realistic than Homer’s epic ever was—if that criteria is that important to you. It wasn’t important to Homer; I’m not suggesting it should be important to us.
Some have said that the film removed Odysseus' characterization as a cunning, shrewd soldier. I honestly don't see how people could make that criticism. He was explicitly praised as cunning by the two most powerful Greek kings (Agamemnon & Menelaus). The film, along with Homer originally, showed O. telling his men not to kill the Cyclops because they would then be trapped inside the cave. Homer also credits O. with the plan to drive a stake into the Cyclops’ eye; in the film it isn’t clear who came up with the idea. But O. was credited in the movie with coming up with the idea of the Trojan Horse. Now in Homer's writings, I remember almost every scene showing O. as a cunning warrior. It wasn't as pronounced here in the film, but it was still very strong.
The biggest lack of fidelity to Homer, that jumped out at me, was the difference in characterization of the fighting. In Homer (the
Iliad covered battles much more often than the
Odyssey does) champions will square off against each other, decked out in bronze armor from head to toe, and will face each other in one-on-one combat. Think of the David vs. Goliath episode from the Bible, when Goliath challenged one of the Israelites to meet him in single combat, instead of having the masses of Philistines and Israelites kill each other off. Goliath’s armor was described very similarly to what Homer ascribed to these champions. One idea that would occasionally appear in the
Iliad was the idea that Paris of Troy (the one who took Helen, King Menelaus’ wife) should meet Menelaus in single combat, and save everybody else the hassle. But in the film, a mass melee was the only type of battle shown in the movie. Also, the shields of these aristocratic champions were often described as being massive, whereas the shields shown in the movie were the smaller round ones (that became the norm later on in Greek history, after the compositions of the Iliad, estimated to be around 800 BC).
Now if you absolutely are a stickler for historical accuracy, you’d probably better appreciate another film version of the Odyssey, made in the 1990s, with
Armand Assante as Odysseus, and Vanessa Williams as Calypso. I watched it years ago and thought it was good, too. I just found out that this is available on Amazon Prime Video. If you simply want a film that mirrors pretty closely to what Homer wrote, this is the one to see. I just saw a trailer of it, and sure enough, most/all of the shields in the clip were similar to Nolan's--smaller & round. Go figure.
If you are going to watch this 90s version & show it to young kids, you might want to watch it with the remote in your hand. Having seen Nolan’s film last night, I have to say that there was no scene that I wouldn’t have shown middle-school kids. However, when I showed some middle school students (in a former life I was a teacher in the K-12 system) the VHS of the 1990s version, I had to remove a couple of scenes that were IMO too risque for such young bucks (Armand Assante with a couple of goddesses). Take that observation with as many grains of salt as you wish.
Later on this summer, I will watch the 1950s version,
Ulysses, with Kirk Douglass (that
@BHopkins mentioned above). That is also available on Amazon Prime Video.
For those who might want to crack open the originals here, one caveat—I’m not in a position to recommend one translation over another. But I’d still recommend the
Penguin translation of Homer by Robert Fagles to someone who wanted to start on Homer, but just had no idea which translation to pick up. When I was in grad school working on a history degree, I noticed that the Penguin translations always seemed a bit more readable and easier to understand than other translations, while still not sacrificing too much accuracy. FYI, the Iliad is the prequel to the Odyssey. You can read the Odyssey by itself if you want to, but you might want to read the Iliad first.
One thing I had to do, when reading Greek & Roman writers, was simply assume that there will be tons of people & place names that you won’t get. Just accept it and move on. If you want, you can also keep your phone open to an app that will give you a nice context for any term you aren’t familiar with, or keep a bookmark in the back of the book if they have a glossary, but you might quickly get overwhelmed by how often this happens. At a certain point, I just decide to keep moving on.
OK this has already become much longer than I ever wanted to write about it, and taken up more of my time than I thought it would take when I started this morning. I’m going out of town this weekend and have lots of work early next week. If anyone has any comments on this, I’ll try to get back ASAP early/mid next week.
