Christopher Nolan says his adaptation of The Odyssey stays true to Homer’s vision

Christopher Nolan says his adaptation of The Odyssey remains faithful to Homer's vision while exploring the Bronze Age collapse through a modern lens. The filmmaker also revealed that the themes of Oppenheimer significantly influenced his interpretation of the ancient Greek epic.

Los Angeles: Legendary filmmaker Sir Christopher Nolan, who has helmed ‘The Odyssey’, has shared that he doesn’t think his adaptation of ‘The Odyssey’ is “at odds” with Homer’s ancient Greek epic.

The 56-year-old director spoke about the differences between his adaptation and Homer’s poem, which follows the heroic king of Ithaca, Odysseus, during his homecoming journey after the Trojan War.

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He told podcaster Zhong Shu, “Homer is describing when Homer’s story was written down, or first received by readers and audiences. That’s a pretty interesting gap, and for me, I don’t think I’m completely at odds with the way Homer is telling the story”.

He went on, “When you look at it from a sort of historical perspective and the reason is, and what I got interested in as I adapted it, is that Homer’s writing about an era before his, he’s writing about an era hundreds of years before. His audience viewed it as being more advanced than theirs. They had this idea of the greatness of this past civilisation. And so I became interested in that collapse, what they call the catastrophe, the Bronze Age collapse. What happens between the events of the Trojan War and Homer”.

He further mentioned that his biopic ‘Oppenheimer’ influenced his approach to ‘The Odyssey’. He said, “I think (those themes are) something that from a modern perspective is frightening and interesting and I think for me it partly comes out of having worked on Oppenheimer before this, which is very much a film about the end of the world, about the end of and collapse of civilization, ultimately. So I think yeah I definitely carried that sensibility into this adaptation of ‘The Odyssey’”.

‘The Odyssey’ features an ensemble cast including Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya and Charlize Theron. With Nolan’s signature large-scale filmmaking, practical effects and ambitious storytelling, the film has generated immense excitement among cinephiles.