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“THE ODYSSEY” HAS PERSISTED FOR NEARLY 3,000 YEARS. At this rate, it may get another 3,000. Everyone seems to be talking about it, prepping to watch it, or has already seen the current global film sensation.
I am not a scholar of Homer’s epic poem, but I love almost everything Christopher Nolan puts on the big screen (hello, “Memento,” “Interstellar” and “The Dark Knight;” others, like “Tenet” and “Inception,” left me confused).
For this installment of “X Teaches Sree About Y,” our new series (here’s Andy Rich teaching me how to sell anything; and Bobby Ghosh teaching me about the World Cup), I had Tara Maria Fernandez, Ph.D in the Teaching Literature, and my son, Krishna Sreenivasan, teach me about “The Odyssey” (the poem and the movie) and, as it happens, “The Iliad” as well.
Here’s the full half hour—I hope you learn something too. And please nominate yourself or a friend to teach me something.
The working document, in a sense, between Homer’s poem and the Nolan film is Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey, published in 2017.
Nolan praised Wilson’s translation when discussing his film, but Wilson was…unimpressed with the big screen version. Wilson’s critique is certainly a fair one—and one that came up in our discussion—Nolan’s penchant for brooding men knows no bounds. The women of "The Odyssey are prominent, strong characters who have something to say. This is not the case in Nolan’s telling, and the same can be said for the non-white casting—there’s a lot of what Wilson calls “Black Best Friend” energy here. Speaking of such characters in the film, I am a fan of Himesh Patel, who apparently steals the show. He was the star of the little-seen Beatles fable “Yesterday” (please rent it immediately!) and has been cast as the male lead in the Ryan Coogler reboot of “The X-Files.”
Both Tara and Krishna recommend seeing the film—and both were quite sure they would be going again. Nolan is making films that have real staying power, and his version of “The Odyssey” is already that.
Have you seen “The Odyssey” yet? Do you plan to? LMK in the comments.
Nominate yourself or a friend to teach me something. Here’s a quick form you can share.
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