Good interview of Nolan about the Odyssey by doctoral student in China

Loading Twitter/X Embed...
If tweet fails to load, click here.

quote:

---

Are you a bard for a civilization at dusk? (Contrasting Homer’s celebratory tone in a rising Greek culture with Nolan’s post-Oppenheimer sensibility of collapse and irreversible consequence.)?

Nolan finds the historical gap between the Trojan War events and Homer’s time intriguing. Homer described an earlier era that his audience saw as more advanced (the Bronze Age). Nolan became interested in the idea of civilizational cycles and the Bronze Age collapse. He acknowledges carrying the sensibility of collapse and the end of the world from Oppenheimer into this adaptation.


• Did you Christianize The Odyssey? (Noting that the concept of atonement does not exist in Greek culture, the Greek language, or Homer’s original poem, yet it appears in Nolan’s film. Why does it become important amid catastrophe?)

?Nolan says he was not consciously approaching it that way. He focused instead on the Greek concept of xenia (hospitality/mutual respect, called “Zeus’s Law” in the film), rooted in the idea that a stranger might be a god in disguise. The suitors’ violation of xenia drives the story’s damage and catastrophe. Any sense of atonement is largely what modern audiences bring to the film (especially in the Odysseus–Penelope reunion) rather than a deliberate Christian overlay; it emerges naturally from exploring the consequences of breaking that law.


• Should Odysseus repent for his hubris (human pride)? (Drawing a parallel to Thucydides’ account of Athenian hubris leading to decline; is pride appropriate for a great man?)

?Nolan questions what practical difference repentance would make. It would be purely internal and spiritual; it would not undo the external damage already done by the broken xenia. Hubris is tragic precisely because its consequences are irreversible. While audiences may experience catharsis through confession and intimacy (especially with Penelope), the story is more concerned with the damaged world than purely with the character’s spiritual state.


• How do you approach greatness in storytelling in an age that often demands apologies for it? (Homer celebrates greatness; modern Hollywood and audiences frequently require reflection, self-criticism, or contextualization of it.)?

Storytelling is always in conversation with audience expectations and energy. Nolan critiques a common flaw in (especially amateur) film criticism: identifying the mechanism that makes a character sympathetic does not invalidate that mechanism. In a more egalitarian/democratic cultural context, storytellers often need to “apologize” for or contextualize greatness so audiences can accept it. He tries to root this within the story’s own thematics of xenia rather than being self-consciously modern about it.

• What are the gods—figments of imagination or necessary noble lies?

To the characters in the story, the gods are simply reality. In a pre-scientific worldview, natural phenomena (thunder, the sea, etc.) were understood as divine. Nolan portrays the gods as real within that framework, while also suggesting they are projected from within people.
Additional related points covered include film as a near-universal storytelling language (with conventions that can be bent but must be understood) and the idea that civilization itself depends on mutual respect/xenia.

---