Author Joyce Carol Oates came to the defense of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” after translator Emily Wilson wrote a viral review attacking the film.
“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,” Carol wrote on X. “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.”
Wilson, who translated a 2017 version of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” slammed Nolan’s take in a review for the London Review of Books. She wrote that the film lacked “psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth” and had “nothing convincing to say.”
Wilson’s review reads, “I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters. But ‘The Odyssey’ features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality … the film’s vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas – although it is very good at conveying big bangs and big giants.”
She later added, “The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has a convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”
Nolan previously praised Wilson for her translation of the ancient text. He told Empire that he used the opening line of her version, “Tell me about a complicated man,” as a north star when fleshing out Matt Damon’s role as Odysseus.
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