Nolan's 'The Odyssey': a tale of a hero and trickster retold for modern times
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What is Nolan’s overall vision for adapting The Odyssey for modern audiences?
It's Consider This, where every day we go deep on one big news story. With each iteration, a new generation of storytellers gets a chance to portray Odysseus, the complicated man, the man of twists and turns, trying to make his way to his wife Penelope after the Trojan War.
No one could stand between me and home.
Not even the gods. No.
The Odyssey, a tale of resilience, loyalty, and homecoming, is resonating big with today's audiences. It's got box office numbers to prove it, emerging from its opening weekend with at least $124 million in domestic ticket sales. Director Christopher Nolan is known for depicting different kinds of heroes, like 2023's Oppenheimer.
The word most commonly associated with Odysseus or Ulysses back in the day was always wily. And that's not a word you traditionally associate with your hero.
And he's been thinking about adapting The Odyssey for more than 20 years. Consider this. The Odyssey is a story that's almost 3,000 years old. A tale of a hero and trickster that's been retold time and time again. So what does it reveal in Christopher Nolan's telling? One made for a contemporary audience.
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It's Consider This from NPR. As if Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, and Zendaya all in the same movie weren't enough of a draw, Christopher Nolan's Odyssey is the first feature film shot entirely with IMAX cameras. And though he allowed himself two hours and 52 minutes, the director said the entirety of Homer's epic was too much for one movie. He told my colleague Scott Detrow that he started by making choices.
I did it in stages, and one of the first things I did, after I'd reacquainted myself with the poem, I sat down and I wrote a list of what defines the Odyssey. Things like the cyclops, things like the sirens. I think for a lot of people, the lotus eaters would be one of those things. And so I was trying to strike a balance. between your sort of thoughts on what this thing is before you get really acquainted with it, and then the specifics of it.
And yet at the same time, you're adding. You know, you're scaling down, but then you're adding. Like, I was struck by both Penelope and Circe are present characters in the poem, but they're, for a lot of reasons, kind of more in the background, and you give them both, you know, speeches almost, talking about their point of view on this world.
How did Nolan decide which episodes and characters from Homer to include or omit?
Look at this great house. Stones as old as knowledge. At the mercy of some greedy, unwanted guests. The structure's nothing without people's respect for its meaning.
Zeus's law. I mean, I imagine that's a whole different challenge. Like, where am I going to add? Where am I going to put background story and motivations? Things like that.
Sure. I mean, I don't think of it so much as adding and subtracting as trying to translate your experience of reading the poem and absorbing the poem. into the cinematic medium. So sometimes, yes, what feels like adding things, in a way, you're sometimes just looking at the source material with a specific lens, a modern lens.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is Nolan’s overall vision for adapting The Odyssey for modern audiences?
0:00–4:05
2
How did Nolan decide which episodes and characters from Homer to include or omit?
4:05–7:14
3
Why did Nolan expand the roles and perspectives of Penelope and Circe in the film?
7:14–9:36
4
What central themes like nostos and Xenia did Nolan want to emphasize?
9:36–12:46
5
Which Odyssey set pieces (Trojan Horse, Cyclops) posed the biggest filmmaking challenges?
12:46–15:03
6
How did Nolan balance grounded, practical effects with the story’s fantasy elements?
15:03–15:19
Speakers
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