You don’t treat a classic like a school assignment. Immerse yourself in Nolan’s world

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey will remain in cinemas for a few more weeks, and then finally, with summer behind us, we’ll be able to start discussing it in earnest. Not that there was any shortage of significant contributions to the heated summer debate. Many reviews, for better or worse, have expressed disappointment at the lack of respect shown to Homer, the obliteration of the poem’s narrative complexity and the protagonist’s multifaceted ingenuity, and, finally, the disappointment at having been presented with ‘merely’ an adaptation (a Hollywood one at that!) rather than the pure essence of the classic. A few days before the film’s release, the Wall Street Journal reassured readers that they would survive this odyssey, whilst nearly a month later, the New York Times diagnosed ‘Odyssey fatigue’. A deluge of clips and memes did the rest. Meanwhile, leading experts have assured us that, when all is said and done, this film is something to be ashamed of. But don’t worry: it’s a great piece of entertainment, so switch off your brain and enjoy yourself.

The debate surrounding "The Odyssey" has highlighted our lack of understanding of the life of the classic within history, of its rewritings, of what Aby Warburg called the "Nachleben". One of the most ambitious and controversial contemporary directors takes on Homer, and what do we ask of him? That he do his homework: the candidate must faithfully summarise "The Odyssey". We are taught to keep the classics out of history, whereas in reality they are studied, read, challenged, rewritten and lived out. We mummify the past, wait in vain for a new epiphany, and lament the end of the humanities. This is our problem, not Christopher Nolan’s. In fact, there should be no contradiction—and indeed there isn’t—between enjoying The Odyssey and the Valla Foundation’s six-volume critical edition of the poem. Provided, that is, we broaden our horizons and view Nolan’s work not from a rarefied Olympus of the elect, but within a millennia-old history in which artists of all kinds engage with Homer by creating—and this is the crux of the matter—something new. Most analyses of The Odyssey, by contrast, have ended where they should have begun: by acknowledging the gap between the film and the poem.

It is precisely in this discrepancy that the very essence of the film lies, and it is upon this discrepancy that we must build our understanding. In other words, we must begin to watch the film not for what we might have wanted Nolan to do, but for what he actually did. Nolan has plunged headlong into the Odyssey and, as a free artist, has competed with Homer in telling the story, making clear choices and playing with our expectations to deliver a bold and thoroughly original vision. He has orchestrated a coherent and impressive narrative mechanism, driven forward by a relentless pace and punctuated by constant symmetries emphasised by the editing and the soundtrack. He wove his complex tapestry of temporal subplots until he unravelled them through what Aristotle, in the Poetics, considered the finest form of recognition: that which arises from within the narrative itself. In the scene of Odysseus’s confession to Penelope, the film’s psychological, theological, political and narrative layers merge in unison, triggering multiple, spine-tingling moments of recognition. For this scene alone, The Odyssey has earned a unique place in the Nachleben of the Odyssey. Homer then recounts in Book XXI (lines 404–411) that Odysseus strings his bow as a bard strings his lyre and plucks the string that sings like a swallow. Nolan combines and reworks this dual simile—a unique feature of the poem—on several occasions, emphasising it through the soundtrack, and makes it both the central element of Odysseus’s identity, triggering the final recognition, and the embodiment of the film’s central dynamic: the descent of war into a lawless hunt. The reinvention of the Horse and the last night of Troy as the final fate of a civilisation are linked to the ambiguity of Odysseus’s bow.

These are two of many examples of what Nolan has done, rather than what we think he should have done. It is, of course, perfectly legitimate not to like The Odyssey, to spot a few flaws, or to feel out of step with Nolan’s style and worldview. However, dismissing this generation’s cinematic Odyssey as a farcical spectacle of mere entertainment that is ‘unfaithful’ to the original would represent a significant loss. Once the initial furor has subsided, it will be necessary to revisit the film and chart new paths—with whoever is willing—in university and school lecture theatres, in magazines and in cultural circles. For the moment, the film remains in cinemas for only a little while longer; make the most of it. The sense of loss at Nausicaa’s absence becomes apparent on a second viewing. From the third viewing onwards, enthusiasm for the overall picture grows stronger, the actors’ performances are appreciated more fully, and one becomes more deeply immersed in the details: one truly enters the work. Rereading Homer in parallel enhances the pleasure of the film, and vice versa. On a personal note, having watched it well over ten times in every possible format, I am still surprised by new details and always moved to tears by the same scene. Other odysseys will follow, and rightly so. But in the meantime, Christopher Nolan has given us a great film: at once a daring intellectual challenge, a powerful commentary on the present, a thrilling reinterpretation of Homer and, without shame, spectacular entertainment. The bard Travis Scott is summoning us to the cinema.