A debate among scholars and writers over Christopher Nolan's new film Odiseo, released in Hollywood in 2026, has pushed the movie to the top of the box office, columnist Mirko Lauer wrote.
Lauer said he had not yet seen the film, partly for lack of time, partly out of disinterest, and partly because he felt he already knew enough versions of Homer's story. Still, he said the controversy surrounding it deserved attention.
At the center of the dispute are Emily Wilson, a well known translator of ancient Greek, and Joyce Carol Oates, a prominent novelist. According to Lauer, Wilson has said Nolan's script is weak, while Oates has said the criticism aimed at Wilson is unfair. Lauer said opinions around the two women were multiplying like seaweed on the Greek coast.
How the story is usually told
Lauer noted that younger readers typically encounter the tale as the story of a sailor who loses his way, his kingdom and his family, and then recovers them, with the returning Greek warrior standing in for all travelers. He said the current debate suggests that reading captures only a tiny part of the story.
Lauer pointed out that James Joyce's 1922 novel Ulysses, widely regarded as the most valued modern novel, draws its plot, structure, themes and character parodies from Homer's epic poem. He said Ezra Pound does something similar in his Cantos, quoting the lines about going down to the ship and setting keel to breakers, sliding into the divine sea.
Why the film has drawn controversy
Homer's work has been adapted into several dozen film versions, many of them in Hollywood, each reflecting its own era, Lauer wrote. He said Nolan's version is no exception, featuring today's biggest stars and a talent for staging spectacle, and he asked why it had become so controversial.
Lauer suggested the answer lies in the ongoing war in the eastern Mediterranean, a subject serious enough to prompt Wilson's objections. He cited Daniel Mendelsohn, another celebrated translator of the work, who said Nolan stripped Odiseo of important traits to remake him in his own image, like Oppenheimer's younger brother, referring to the inventor of the atomic bomb.
Lauer said he would go see Nolan's film once box office crowds thinned out, adding that for now the cinematic, academic and literary controversy was spectacle enough.
