Why I did not like Nolan’s version of The Odyssey

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Without understanding that the Greek gods were fickle, humanlike beings, there would have been no stories.

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Many of my friends, very clever ones I dare say, have raved about Christopher Nolan’s version of The Odyssey. It took me a while to go and see it, and sadly I was underwhelmed when I did.

Face it: The movie was gorgeous and the story mostly well told. The cast was excellent. But, finally, during one of the many thunderbolts, I got it: Nolan has removed the gods, and there was no sex.

This is, therefore, no Greek epic.

Nolan has created an all-American action hero, called Odysseus. Our somewhat confused American action hero then blithely acts out selected parts of the old story attributed to Homer, who in turn based his narrative on ancient Greek mythology. Parts of the story are extremely well told, but its heart has been ripped out and replaced with a pin that says: Made to be seen in conservative America.

Let me say what I did like:

Heavens, let’s be honest: I loved it that someone has bothered to bring these old stories to life again. Bravo!
The visuals were spectacular.
The music was really good.
The acting was good – the faults lay in the script.
Nolan’s handling of the sirens was clever.
The ship captain’s anger after escaping the whirlpool and losing six men to the monster was a well-crafted piece of poetic licence.
Nolan’s focus on Telemachus early on was good. Not only did he follow Homer’s lead, but his handling of it brought a clever human interest angle to his otherwise gung-ho lead character.
It was very good that Nolan chose not to include all of Odysseus’s journey – even Homer allowed the narrative to be quite abrupt regarding the land of the lotus eaters and the floating island, etc.
The fight scenes were very good, and never gory.
Thank heavens he spared us things like the hanging of the chamber maids, etc.

Lots to like, therefore. Lots, indeed.

Do I want people to see the movie? Yes. I do.

Why then bother to criticise it? Well, I am keen to explain where Nolan’s reading of the story went wrong, for hopefully his movie will lead to a renewed reading of the Greek myths.

The Greek myths are about fickle gods

The Greek myths are about the gods’ interaction with humans. They are not about humans. Even those special, chosen humans, like Odysseus, could only survive due to godly interactions.

Odysseus was immensely strong, much more powerful than most men and clearly a clever fighter. Yes. True. But he owed a large part of his fame and strength to Athena (also known as Minerva), the goddess of war. Without Athena, Odysseus would not have survived and his son would have been killed. Odysseus without Athena is like Harry Potter without a wand.

Let us use an example that Bible-thumping America would understand: One could, for instance, try to retell a modern-day story from the Old Testament about an action hero called Noah who has to build a ship in record time to save animals. And, yes, one could try to do so without talking about a god. But where would one get all the rain, if no god were involved to send it? And why bother to build a ship in the first place, unless there were a godly threat?

Well, let us dream smaller, then. Maybe our American action hero called Noah only has to save a few thousand animals that would drown due to the building of a large new dam. Cool, then we do not need a god, only a strong man who can chop trees (that would have drowned anyway) and et viola: Magically, the ship would be ready just as the water starts lapping at the frightened animals’ feet. Please add a vicious tribe who wants to save themselves from drowning by hijacking the ship; then our action hero can single-handedly slaughter them all before boarding his ship to calm the frightened animals with a soft touch and wise words.

Touché. Americans can save the day without a god. Sorry, Nolan. You have shown us how.

Are Americans not ready for humanlike gods?

The thing Bible-thumping America seems not to understand, or be ready for, is that unlike the God of their Bible, who is a solo player and all-powerful, the gods of the Greek myths are playful and trite. They act like humans do.

Even the powerful warrior gods had flaws – we still use the term Achilles’ heel in our everyday language. Why? Achilles could not be defeated – ever – unless he got hit on one tiny little spot on his heel. There you have it. He was all-powerful and nearly invincible, but for one fatal flaw.

Also, while the biblical God could be read as cold and distant, the Greek gods are warm-blooded and partial to sex. Herein lie many tales. Homer told some juicy ones.

The Iliad, also attributed to Homer, tells the story of gods running off with other men’s women. It is that simple. The entire Trojan War, in which our Odysseus was a hero, got started when Paris, a Trojan prince, ran off with the gorgeous Helen of Troy. She was married when he took her.

Without sex, the Greek myths make no sense. Without understanding that the Greek gods were fickle, humanlike beings, there would have been no stories. Now, let us look why I think there are flaws in Nolan’s version of The Odyssey.

Athena, goddess of war, Odysseus and his son Telemachus

Athena seemed to have a crush on Odysseus, although she did not try to get him into bed. Instead, she offered him all sorts of protection. But, more importantly, she helped to raise Odysseus’s son, Telemachus.

Athena in Homer’s version often took on the male role of Mentor. She was the one who told Telemachus to stand up to the suitors. She was the one who suggested that Telemachus should make a journey to find news of his father. Mentor, in Nolan’s version, seemed to be some dude left behind by Odysseus.

Athena was the one who protected Telemachus from the suitors when they wanted to kill him on his return, according to Homer’s version. In Nolan’s version, our gung-ho all-American action hero rushed back, with the clock ticking, and got there just in time to save his own son from the suitors. Very American!

Perhaps Nolan realised that his conservative American audiences could not stomach a woman standing tall in a man’s world? More so: How would conservative America react to a woman dressed as a man? Is that why he simply wrote her out of the script?

We’ll get back to Athena in a while.

Left behind or taken by lottery

Nolan spent many screen minutes dwelling on a lottery which would see some men go to war, others not. Why?

To me, this sounds very much like the US military. I have not come across this system in Homer or the other Greek myths, but please help me if I am wrong. Was the lottery his excuse to cull the gods?

Big mistake: The Trojan horse

Most of the scenes around the Trojan horse were excellent, but it starts with a massive blunder. Why the hell did Nolan place the thing in the sea?

Homer himself is silent on the building of the horse, but other myths, including that of Laocoön, tell how the horse was built within sight of the Trojans. It was crafted close to their gates. Over days, or weeks, the puzzled Trojans could not figure out what their enemy was doing.

Then, one morning, the horse was left standing and all the soldiers (bar a few hidden recces and those in the horse) were gone. The ships were gone. The Trojans rejoiced, thinking that the enemy had given up, so they ran out to inspect the horse.

Why, oh, why, would Nolan’s soldiers build the thing in the sea? Which warrior would be so silly to get into a horse that would be filled with water every 12 hours?

The whole point of the horse was to have it so close to the gates of the city that the Trojans would accept the “gift” without much effort. In the Greek version, the operation was nearly spoilt by Laocoön, a priest, who warned the Trojans not to accept the gift. Alas. Priests are not needed if there are no gods.

The horse in the sea was a major blunder. Nolan probably had it dropped off by helicopter and liked the shot.

But okay. Bar this silly oversight, the rest of the saga was handled well.

The cyclops

Overall, the scenes with the cyclops were very well done. In Homer, the cyclops talked from day one and held clever conversations with Odysseus, which in part was why the Greeks were so shocked when the same cyclops began eating them.

Nolan took some poetic licence with the escape between the sheep, but that was okay. Overall, reasonably well done, thus.

But Nolan chose to turn the cyclops into a silly monster, while Homer told the story of a highly intelligent, amoral being. Its intelligence was important to the Greeks, because the clever cyclops managed to provoke Odysseus, who in turn angered Poseidon through his words and actions. Once Poseidon decided to punish Odysseus, our story got new teeth. (Nolan, at least, acknowledged Poseidon, albeit only as a form of superstition in the men’s minds.)

Circe

Nolan’s Circe is an old woman who pleads with the soldiers not to harm her. Our wonderful American soldiers then tell her that (unlike them Greeks or the Russians after World War Two) Americans do not harm women.

The soldiers’ sin, though, in Nolan’s movie, was that they were so hungry that they ate like pigs. Oh, well. Not quite how the ancients told the story.

Circe, according to the myths, was a sex-starved goddess who lured men to her bed. She would thereafter feed them and change them into animals with her magic staff.

But Nolan allowed no lewd scenes for an American audience! Sex? No, thanks. In Nolan’s account, Odysseus, our brave and ever so smart all-American action hero, was clever enough to see through Circe’s plot single-handedly and refuse to touch her food, hence saving his men. Is that what Homer tells us about Odysseus on Circe’s island?

Nope: According to Homer, it was Hermes, messenger of the gods, who came to warn Odysseus of Circe’s powers. Hermes also fed Odysseus a herb that would make him immune to the potion in Circe’s food. In Homer’s account, Odysseus walked into her house, and Circe immediately said: Come to bed, babe! Not yet, Odysseus said. I’ll eat first.

He ate. And nothing happened. Circe was confused and realised that Odysseus must have had help from the gods. Homer’s Odysseus acknowledged the godly intervention, drew his sword and said: I’ll have sex with you only once you turn my men back into themselves. Circe did so. Odysseus took off his clothes and became Circe’s toy boy for an entire year. Yes, folks. One whole year of feasting and fornication happened. After a year of folly, Odysseus and his men chose to go back to their families.

Calypso

After Nolan took us through a heavily censored version of the killing of the sun god’s cattle, our all-American action hero washed up on the shores of Calypso’s island.

In Nolan’s version, Odysseus sat around confused, drugged and in dire need of therapy. Fortunately, Nolan understood American minds, so our Charlize, nogal, turned into a psychiatrist, helping our ailing American hero through therapy and drugs to remember that he has a house and a family. Well, okay. Homer tells a different story.

Homer’s Calypso took the good-looking dude straight to bed. And forced herself unto him every night. She was so delighted with her new sex toy, that she offered Odysseus eternal life and her body forever, should he stay.

Goodness me. Eternal life and guaranteed sex with onse Charlize (um, Calypso)? Yip. Sounds good?

It does, but Homer tells us at the start of his book that after seven years of sex, Odysseus grew tired of Calypso and chose to go home. Yes, good Sunday school kids, it took seven years of sex to grow tired of it. Thereafter, Odysseus would still service Calypso every night, but he would go to the beach in the morning to cry about his wife.

Athena (remember her?), who had all along kept a close eye on Odysseus, felt so sorry for him that she asked Zeus to interfere. Athena chose a time when Poseidon could not come to the meeting, and begged Zeus to free Odysseus. Zeus obliged and sent Hermes to deliver the message.

Then, one of the most wonderful moments in Homer’s story happened: Calypso flew into a rage. She accused the male gods of hypocrisy. Why is it, she asked Hermes, that male gods could pick and choose women among the mortals, but she, a woman, is not allowed to keep her sex toy? Profound question.

Such a question was not to be found in Nolan’s story. Could our all-American action hero not be tainted with a feminist in his proximity? Tut, tut.

Perhaps of equal importance: Has their orange ogre, who has crowned himself omnipotent king, fogged the American brains so much that it would be impossible even to consider mortality above eternal life and a godlike status?

Skip, skip, skip

Nolan now skipped huge parts of the story, including the part where the sea goddess Leucothea told Odysseus to strip naked and fold himself in her shawl. (Granted, American action heroes cannot accept help from women.)

Leucothea’s intervention led to a hilarious scene, where a stark-naked Odysseus ran into a group of young women – equally naked. Most of the women fled when they saw that Odysseus was thus in need (as Homer put it), but one gorgeous, naked princess stood her ground.

Fast-forward. After finally getting dressed, our hero was helped by the same princess and her parents, according to Homer. How? They managed to get him home. No small help, in my eyes.

But okay. Let us underline it. American action heroes should not be naked on screen and should definitely not be rescued by a naked woman either.

The homecoming

Nolan did most things rather well in the homecoming and its aftermath. That moment with the dying dog was gorgeous. There were two big blunders, though.

Nolan forgot to credit Athena for her help with the killing of the suitors. (But then, hey, okay, we know mos by now that American action heroes do not need women to help them. So, sorry.) Finally, Nolan provided our American action hero with a lengthy script in which he atoned for all his sins in a gentle speech. Tissue moment. It showed us that American action heroes are capable of deep regrets for harming people during collateral damage. Um. Who scripted that soliloquy? It was not Homer!

I am not against adaptations

When one artist adapts a story to fill the contours of another genre, changes need to be made. One of the best examples of a masterful adaptation happened when the British playwright Harold Pinter created a screenplay of John Fowles’s novel The French lieutenant’s woman. Pinter’s text was augmented by director Karel Reisz to the point where Reisz was co-credited as a writer for the movie.

The book was a postmodern novel on writing a novel. The movie became a movie about making a movie. The storylines were similar, but the movie was different. Importantly, though, the movie understood the heart of the book. It cut out a lot of the prostitution present in the book, but it kept the essence of the story.

Much more recently, George Clooney and Grant Heslov adapted their own movie, Goodnight and good luck, into a stage production. My word. Both were masterpieces. Then they filmed the screenplay for TV and created a fabulous third genre. Top-notch.

I have fervently been looking for someone who can blow modern-day movie magic into the stories of the Greek gods. Just imagine how much fun one could have with the inhabitants of Olympus and their shenanigans! Sadly, Nolan failed dismally in this.

I’ll then leave you with two questions, only the first of which I’ll answer.

Did I want more sex in Nolan’s movie?
What would a remake of Harry Potter look like, with Harry all buffed up as a mixed martial arts champion turned American action hero, and with absolutely no magic in it?

Yes, I wanted more sex. Why? Because the Greek myths are full of human lust and folly. Stripping that out, to be replaced with men and their muscles, is shameful. Sex can be beautifully done on screen.

And Potter without magic? Answer that one for yourselves.

Litnet