The debate sparked by Emily Wilson’s critique of Nolan’s "Odyssey"

Emily Wilson, the British-born Greek scholar who became a naturalised American citizen and one of the most authoritative contemporary translators of Homer, has heavily criticised Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of the Odyssey in an article published in the London Review of Books. And her scathing review, writes Neil Vigdor in the New York Times, “running to over 4,000 words, crashed the magazine’s website and fuelled a debate on the balance between commercial success and literary authenticity”. Her 2017 English translation of the Odyssey was, in fact, highly acclaimed for its accessible and modern language; the American director himself had cited it as one of the references used in making the film. In her translation, explains the Net, “Wilson has departed from the male-centred approach used by her predecessors. She has stated on several occasions that this choice has exposed her to online harassment and displays of misogyny from men and far-right figures who contest her translation”.

The New York Times reports that five days before the premiere of Nolan’s film, Wilson, appearing as a guest on the 12 July episode of “The Daily”, the New York Times podcast, ‘said she was “thrilled” to see how the story would be portrayed on the big screen. When asked about purists who might take issue with Nolan’s artistic choices, the translator replied that it would not be the first time Homer’s epics had been adapted for the screen.” But after seeing the film, the criticism came: “Wilson wrote that Nolan’s adaptation lacked many of the elements that make the poem great. ‘It has nothing compelling to say about time, memory, history, war, or the relationship between a warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, his adversaries, his comrades, his friends and his neighbours,’ she wrote. ‘It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is contrived. ‘The screenplay is terrible’,” writes the American newspaper.

“Wilson argued that the film prioritised style over substance,” continues Neil Vigdor’s article, “and Nolan’s casting choices also drew criticism from Wilson. Wilson later expressed his regret on Bluesky about the way he had presented that criticism. ‘In this article, I regret the paragraph on the use of POC actors [acronym for people of colour] – who are all very talented, but in my opinion underused (and why couldn’t Himesh Patel have played Odysseus instead?)’, he wrote. ‘I still think the film largely wastes its highly talented cast, but I phrased it badly.’ But what has been the response to Wilson’s criticism? Nolan has not, as yet, responded publicly. However, among those who have challenged the American translator and come to the director’s defence is the writer Joyce Carol Oates, a former professor of humanities at Princeton and winner of the National Book Award. ‘Yes, her dismissive tone and air of haughty superiority rings false,’ Oates wrote on X. ‘Instead of engaging with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner, this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film, uses the crude language of MAGA supporters to attack those with different views,’ writes the NYT. ‘Oates said she would have expected a translator – whose role she described as subjective – to be more tolerant.’

Joyce Carol Oates was not, however, the only one to comment on Wilson’s critique. As reported by the New York Times, ‘In an online commentary published on Slate, Theo Nash, an author of studies on the textual history of the Odyssey, accused Wilson of resorting to “baffling arguments” to “slaughter” Nolan’s latest film. Nash argued that the director was entitled to his own artistic interpretation. ‘Wilson is naturally at her best when discussing the poem itself: it is a work to which she has devoted years of her life and which she knows intimately,’ wrote Nash. ‘But all too often she merely criticises Nolan for straying from it, as if the director’s choices were not themselves an act of interpretation. The meticulous attention to the text that characterises Wilson’s translation is lacking in her reading of the film, and the idea that Nolan might have something new to say about the Odyssey is dismissed’.” Daniel Mendelsohn, a professor of humanities at Bard College, whose translation of the Odyssey was published last year by the University of Chicago Press, wrote in The New York Review of Books that “the most authentic aspect of the film is its ‘densely interwoven narrative’, whilst ‘the tormented hero is reminiscent of the heroes in Christopher Nolan’s films’. ‘Regardless of his long-standing fascination with the epic, Nolan has merely remade Homer’s hero in his own image, just as he has imposed values entirely alien to Homer on the adventures of Ulysses,’ wrote Mendelsohn.”