Christopher Nolan dealt huge blow as renowned translator behind The Odyssey rips apart movie: 'I'd be ashamed!'

Christopher Nolan dealt huge blow as renowned translator behind The Odyssey rips apart movie: 'I'd be ashamed!'

Emily Wilson, the classical scholar whose 2017 translation of Homer's epic poem was a major inspiration for Christopher Nolan's blockbuster film adaptation, has published a blistering critique of the director's The Odyssey in the London Review of Books. The University of Pennsylvania professor of classical studies accused the film of having "nothing convincing to say," lambasting it for its absence of "psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth." Mr Nolan had praised Ms Wilson during his promotional tour, telling Empire magazine that the famous opening line of her translation, "Tell me about a complicated man", served as a guiding principle for shaping Matt Damon's portrayal of Odysseus. In her review, Ms Wilson wrote that she had hoped Mr Nolan's engagement with Homeric themes "might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters." TRENDING Stories Videos Your Say Instead, she found the film displayed "his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality," with a vision "too confused" and characters "too underdeveloped" to deliver on its intellectual ambitions. However, she conceded it excels at "conveying big bangs and big giants." Ms Wilson described the narrative structure as "gimmicky" and the screenplay as "abysmal," noting that no character possesses believable motivation. "I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script," she said. Despite her withering assessment, Ms Wilson acknowledged that the film's release remains a cause for celebration. "This epic is bringing audiences back to cinemas," she said in an interview with the Sunday Times. She added that "translations of Odyssey, including mine, are flying off the shelves." She also expressed hope that the cultural moment generated by Mr Nolan's adaptation might have a practical benefit for the humanities, suggesting "perhaps the film will persuade a few college administrators not to cut their literature, language and his