[beloch]

"But the representation of Odysseus as a reluctant warlord makes a nonsense of the movie’s imagined world. We are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it – a very different point. Any serious depiction of violence, ancient or modern, must show the perspectives of the victims as well as the perpetrators, and the Homeric poems easily clear the bar – but Nolan doesn’t. The Trojans are dehumanised by their masks; we know none of them by name or face. The hands of Odysseus and Telemachus are bloodied only by the most righteous, computer-game modes of killing, and we feel no pity or horror at the deaths of their victims, whether Trojans, giants, suitors or slaves. During the sack of Troy – which he supposedly organised – Odysseus gazes around in bewilderment and horror, as if he has never seen a massacre before."

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Odysseus, in the poem, is a bit of a monster by modern standards. He's intemperate, devious, unfaithful, greedy, and excessively violent in all the very human ways that modern Hollywood heroes aren't. Homeric Greeks were basically pirates, and not the Hollywood kind either! One of the epithets commonly applied to Odysseus in the poems is "sacker of cities", and that's in a very literal sense.

Were Odysseus played as written, modern audiences would have a very hard time empathizing with him. That's the real challenge to successfully adapting the Odyssey. When reading the original, you have abundant time to get into the mental space of the bronze age Achaeans. In a three hour movie that's a lot harder to do.

[miek]

This is insightful but entirely tangential to the heart of the quote you posted.

"... the Homeric poems easily clear the bar [of showing the perspectives of both victims and perpatrators]"

Homer's writing was very empathetic to Odysseus's victims. The movie sanitized the tragedy.

This quote is also easily misinterpreted: "But the representation of Odysseus as a reluctant warlord makes a nonsense of the movie’s imagined world."

A warlord from those times would not be reluctant. War was central to life, considered a duty of a leader in those times, but not in the sense of piracy as you put it. To grow and increase wealth was to protect your kingdom and increase odds of surviving not only war but downturns of all types.

[number6]

I did not read the odyssey yet, but I just finished the illiad and there the Warlords are measured in how much livestock they stole and Achilles gets mad about not getting his fair trophy share, which is measured in women.

Hectors wife is worried about her husband, and he tells her, that there is nothing to worry about, when he is dead, because if he dies, the city is sacked and she would become a slave and this would be that and since he would be dead, why should she worry then at all.

Oh and then there is the parley scene, where one of the main points is who gets whoms bronce armour after the duel is over.

Total maniacs from a modern viewpoint.

[keiferski]

At the end of the day, if you are judging a society's moral code from 3,000 years later... it's not going to make much sense.

The only logical approach IMO is to judge it from within its own context.

[eudamoniac]

What are you even talking about man. I don't know how you misinterpreted that so badly. He is saying yes I might die but if I don't risk my life you will be a slave, so I am going to fight for you:

"And tall Hector nodded, his helmet flashing: “All this weighs on my mind too, dear woman. But I would die of shame to face the men of Troy and the Trojan women trailing their long robes if I would shrink from battle now, a coward. Nor does the spirit urge me on that way. I've learned it all too well. To stand up bravely, always to fight in the front ranks of Trojan soldiers, winning my father great glory, glory for myself. For in my heart and soul I also know this well: the day will come when sacred Troy must die, Priam must die and all his people with him, Priam who hurls the strong ash spear . . . Even so, it is less the pain of the Trojans still to come that weighs me down, not even of Hecuba herself or King Priam, or the thought that my own brothers in all their numbers, all their gallant courage, may tumble in the dust, crushed by enemies — That is nothing, nothing beside your agony when some brazen Argive hales you off in tears, wrenching away your day of light and freedom! Then far off in the land of Argos you must live, laboring at a loom, at another woman's beck and call, fetching water at some spring, Messeis or Hyperia, resisting it all the way — the rough yoke of necessity at your neck. And a man may say, who sees you streaming tears, 'There is the wife of Hector, the bravest fighter they could field, those stallion-breaking Trojans, long ago when the men fought for Troy.' So he will say and the fresh grief will swell your heart once more, widowed, robbed of the one man strong enough to fight off your day of slavery. No, no, let the earth come piling over my dead body before I hear your cries, I hear you dragged away!”"

> Achilles gets mad about not getting his fair trophy share

He's mad because he is camped out on a beach for a decade helping Agamemnon, which he has no obligation to do, and Agamemnon steals his sex slave for little reason and tells him to fuck off. Achilles then refuses to war for this guy, very reasonably.

I think you must have skimmed this book very rapidly because you seem to not understand what you read.

[Balgair]

> > We are not shown that war or killing are bad, only that good men sometimes feel bad about it – a very different point. Any serious depiction of violence, ancient or modern, must show the perspectives of the victims as well as the perpetrators, and the Homeric poems easily clear the bar – but Nolan doesn’t.

Reacting to the article and not OP here, also spoilers:

I'm sorry, I know the movie was long, but did OP miss the Bronze-age Darth Vader with bones on his head? The very classic Nolan ending twist that Athena was a PTSD hallucination of the Trojan woman they killed? The constant and obvious murdering and pillaging that Odysseus and his crew do? That the Trojans were wearing white and the Greeks were wearing black? The very obvious scene where all the people that they have killed tell Odysseus that he is a bad guy and then they all go running after him and the crew?

Like, to me, I felt that it was over-the-top obvious, almost embarrassingly so from such a director, that the Greeks were the bad guys. He could not have communicated that more or better to my eyes. He comes out and says so at the ~90% mark. It is very clear.

But, and I apologize if I am also guilty of this sin with the article, it seems that he does not even still do enough to communicate that to many viewers.

[runarberg]

I have not seen the movie (and will not because I oppose the occupation of Western Sahara), but I think OP was clear about this. She described the protagonist as someone who’s main quality is feeling bad about the stuff his done, but that’s about it.

In modern times this is a common trope, that solders and military commanders do not have to face any consequences for their crimes as long as they say they feel bad about it, and as long as they were fighting for our team (see recent episode about Graham Platner). No focus on the victims, no focus on criminal justice against the protagonist, just repent and you shall be forgiven.

[izacus]

> Were Odysseus played as written, modern audiences would have a very hard time empathizing with him. That's the real challenge to successfully adapting the Odyssey. When reading the original, you have abundant time to get into the mental space of the bronze age Achaeans. In a three hour movie that's a lot harder to do.

And this is the strongest criticism of this movie - Nolan took the easy way out of just shoving the story in 21st century America instead of doing the work of transporting us into the world of different values and beliefs. It's an easy snack for infantilised audience who isn't trusted to actually engage into something that steps out of their locally cultural space.

It's about the most damning thing about this movie.

Looks pretty though.

[2Pacalypse-]

> Looks pretty though.

Does it though? Somehow Nolan made the mediterranean climate and Aegean sea look like washed out coast of Scotland or something. What's with the Hollywood's attack on color lately?

[Avicebron]

They've been dune-ified.

[quuxplusone]

You mean the new, worse, Dune movies. The David Lynch Dune movie was pretty colorful, right? So Dune itself was... Dunkirk-ified?

[Avicebron]

Yeah I mean the new worse ones. Now that I think about it Villeneuve probably started it with Sicario. So Sicario-ed?

[oliculipolicula]

>three hour movie

>transporting us into the world of different values and beliefs

I regret to inform you that Mel Gibson has been a better director

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypto

Might have been (more) loyal to the original had Nolan dubbed it into Greek or went with Victorian dialogue?

Note: Emily Wilson (TFA) wrote the "modern prose" cover that Nolan adapted. Maybe she's feeling responsible..

Apocalypto was all Mayan so Gibson's job was a bit easier

[dumberquestions]

A lot easier actually, writing a plot from scratch is very different from adapting an existing one.

[Gud]

Why would that be easier?

Have a look what happened to GoT when they ran out of original material.

[marcuschong]

Emily Watson about the movie: "I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.”