Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

lrb.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 183 posts

Re: An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

#81

Post by ButlerianJihad »

wzdd wrote: post #9
GlobalFrog wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And there are no sex scene in the original tale. Sex is slightly evocated by two mentions of Ulysses sharing the bed or Circe and Calypso, but without any depiction of sex.

Wilson didn’t write “sex scene”, she wrote “sex”. In the story there is plenty of implied sex. In the movie there is none. It’s not a major issue in itself, it’s part of a broader point about movie Odysseus being “uncomplicated” versus the story— both morally, and when it comes to passions (sex, food, revenge).

[flagged]

Re: An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

#82

Post by bragh »

squidsoup wrote: post #7
bragh wrote: post #3

Fair enough about the other points. But this is a ridiculous "hot take": > There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible. Yes and if there were sex scenes, then the film would get criticized for having sex scene(s), not being able to tell the story of a Greek epic without turning it into erotica or something.

Greek mythology is full of sex, and the Odyssey is no exception.

Yes, but the film was made for modern audiences using the modern translation. Isn't it somewhat ridiculous to criticize a film for exactly following the cultural conventions it is supposed to follow?

Re: An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

#83

Post by thinkingemote »

"The Odyssey is The Hero's Journey without a hero" - a quote about this adaptation referencing Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

I'm wondering if today films (the main form of story telling) also do not quite follow the apparently universal and archetypical story structure outlined by Campbell. Maybe these story structures are not actually universal across all cultures or maybe it's a sign of the culture that tells the stories. Wrt this movie, I think it does kind of fit in with a few of the structures but I've not seen any deeper analysis.

Re: An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

#84

Post by keiferski »

izacus wrote: post #79
keiferski wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the translation is not very good and dumbs down a lot of the language to fit the translator’s worldview. I’d say Wilson did “try to do it herself,” and it’s not much better than the film. Hence this critical review is a bit unnecessary, frankly. I say this as a subscriber to the LRB, which has at least one snarky put down review every issue.

There's no such thing as an "unnecessary" review, especially from people that are familiar with topics in a given media. People are allowed to have opinions. Yes, you too.

It’s a magazine that I pay money for. I’m allowed to have an opinion on the reviews they include, and yes, some reviews are unnecessary in the sense that they are overly critical just for the sake of it.

I don’t think Wilson’s translation is very good, and ergo I think a snarky review putting down a film is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black.

Re: An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

#85

Post by modo_mario »

jrimbault wrote: post #65
krige wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also one of the most controversial translations, if memory serves.

It's not controversial. It's only controversial in the culture wars part of the world. There has been some critics* of her translation among classicists, but not _controversies_. *: which is only natural, that's their job to criticize each others' translations

>It's only controversial in the culture wars part of the world.

I haven't read her version but I believe that's why I heard it criticised? That the culture war speeps into it.

In fact she keeps at it here "The race-neutral casting of Nolan’s Odyssey was inevitably deplored in some quarters. But there is nothing progressive about it. Most of the non-white actors – Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott – play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist."

Re: An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

#86

Post by antonvs »

warrenmiller wrote: post #64
antonvs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "doing his best to get the general public reading again" This seems very detached from reality. I very much doubt that many people seeing a movie like this will think "oh, I should read The Odyssey", or "I should read more." And most people who try the former are unlikely to get very far.

They are “ Nevertheless, Wilson acknowledged the impact the film is already having on cultural awareness of ancient Greek literature as well as cinema itself. Saying “the release of The Odyssey is still an event to celebrate,” she suggests: “This epic is bringing audiences back to cinemas … translations of Odyssey, including mine, are flying off the shelves … [and] perhaps the film will persuade a few college adminis…

It reminds me of the recent claim about how AI is resulting in a booming job market for philosophers. Then when you look at it, it turns out single-digit numbers have been hired at Anthropic and OpenAI, and that’s about it.

The point is it’s unlikely to have some sort of significantly or lasting cultural impact, any more than say “The 300” or “Beowulf” or “Gods of Egypt” or any of the other quite long list of such movies did.

Re: An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

#88

Post by jf »

izacus wrote: post #58
jf wrote: post #49

When I read a critique that could roughly be summarized as "I could have done better" my response generally falls somewhere between "you should" and "I'd like to see you try". Not everyone understands just how hard it is to create something from nothing, so I can excuse a certain level of ignorance in a critic. But I find it very disappointing when a critic does understand how hard it is in their domain, but isn't ab…

This is the person who created one of the translations this movie is based on (arguably THE translation Nolan based it on), so they - literally as it goes - indeed have tried and done better.

I knew of Emily Wilson and her credentials when I wrote my comment.

For what it’s worth, I think there’s a case to be made that Gareth Hinds‘ adaptation of The Odyssey was just as much of an influence.

Re: An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

#89

Post by weiliddat »

jf wrote: post #49

When I read a critique that could roughly be summarized as "I could have done better" my response generally falls somewhere between "you should" and "I'd like to see you try". Not everyone understands just how hard it is to create something from nothing, so I can excuse a certain level of ignorance in a critic. But I find it very disappointing when a critic does understand how hard it is in their domain, but isn't ab…

Orthogonal to the movie/review, but if I could upvote this 100 times I would. These 3 questions were drilled to me in an elective Study of Visual Arts course in college and changed how I thought about everything and everyone.

Re: An Uncomplicated Man – A review of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan

#90

Post by number6 »

miek wrote: post #77
beloch wrote: post #32

"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 T…

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 imagin…

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.

Post reply on HN