The Odyssey, based on a nearly 3000-year-old Greek poem written by Homer, is widely acknowledged as the foundational text of Western Literature. This sprawling epic brimming with gods, goddesses and fearsome creatures has endured through millennia. For his telling, director Christopher Nolan relied on Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation; incidentally Wilson is the first woman to translate the poem into English. Her text begins with the line, “Tell me about a complicated man.”
This complicated man is Odysseus, revered general, renowned warrior, the wily strategist who came up with the defining deceit of the Trojan horse, who is also a husband and father and who has been away from home for 20 years. In an interview, Nolan said that he’s been telling this story in all his films for years.
In many ways, The Odyssey is a culmination of Nolan’s key obsessions — the cruel and relentless passage of time, the importance of family, the yearning to go home, the enduring ache of living with the consequences of your actions and the struggle for control.
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