Christopher Nolan Tries Making a Blockbuster Worthy of Homer

“Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys … longing for his wife and his homecoming.”

So begins Homer’s “Odyssey” (in Richard Lattimore’s translation), the poet recounting Odysseus’ travels back to wife, kin, and homeland after 10 years’ battle in Troy.

The epic is, above all, a story of homecoming, both in the literal sense of the king’s reunion with his kingdom and spiritually: Odysseus is a “man of many ways.” It is not enough that he should triumph over tempests, sea monsters, and vengeful gods. To achieve true greatness, Odysseus must also overcome temptation, distraction, and his own disordered character and priorities.

Many times over the years, I have had the privilege of teaching “The Odyssey” to college freshmen. At first, all they can see is the violence, the intrigue, the gods’ petty squabbles. Yet as their discussion and the narrative unfold, they are stirred by the movement of Odysseus’ soul; they discern truths especially relevant at their stage in life: the false promises of vanity, greed, glory, lust—and the enduring value of home and family.

Whether Christopher Nolan’s big-screen adaptation of “The Odyssey” can preserve these timeless themes, or whether it loses them amid the spectacle, remains to be seen. Credit the director for an ambitious undertaking: Odysseus’s journey is epic in every sense of the word.

Homer’s opening paean notwithstanding, the king’s heart is not always longing for his suffering wife, Penelope; their beloved Ithaca; or even their effectively fatherless son, Telemachus. Having engineered the wooden horse and the conquest of Troy, the king and his men embark on their homeward sail. A wind carries them, as if by chance, to Ismaros, land of the Kikonians, and Odysseus responds savagely. “I sacked their city and killed their people … taking their wives and many possessions.”

This town holds no tactical or strategic value; nor is Odysseus avenging some evil done to his people. His ships are already laden with Trojan booty. What kind of man, Homer seems to ask, would engage in such an act of wanton piracy, behavior so plainly antithetical to the common good? Not one ready to re-enter civilized society.

Odysseus and his crew only depart Ismaros when the Kikonians gather their strength and counterattack—a battle that costs the Achaeans many men. Upon their escape, his crew eventually arrives at the Island of the Cyclops, where Odysseus continues to exhibit astonishingly little prudence or virtue.

Recognizing the one-eyed giant as “monstrous” and “wild, with no true knowledge of laws or any good customs,” his men urge him to put out to sea at once, but he chooses to linger. “I would not listen to them … not until I could see him, see if he would give me presents.”

Presents? From a lawless brute?

Odysseus knows better than to expect any such hospitality. He brings a potent wine with him, anticipating that he will need to inebriate the monster—that is, he expects another escape will be necessary. And escape he does, thanks to his characteristic guile and wit, but only after another six crewmates pay for his recklessness with their lives, their brains splattered in the dirt as the Cyclops smashes and devours them.

In all, Odysseus makes 12 stops over the course of his 10-year voyage back to Ithaca. Most significant is stop number seven, when—after a yearlong, adulterous dalliance with the nymph Circe—he travels to Hades, land of the dead, and meets his mother, Antikleia.

Until this point, Odysseus has given no thought to his mother, who, he learns, died longing for his return. He also hears of his father’s suffering and Penelope, whose “wretched nights, and the days also, waste her away with weeping” while 108 suitors clamor for the home and family he has long neglected.

The spirits in Hades celebrate Penelope as “circumspect” and “virtuous,” a devoted and faithful wife—unlike the many unfaithful spouses, including Odysseus, who populate Homer’s verse. Through her tireless fidelity, Penelope demonstrates a devotion to marriage that Odysseus only now begins to understand.

On his last stopover, Odysseus visits Scheria, land of the Phaiakians, not by accident or misfortune, but at Zeus’ decree. Scheria is one of the few remaining well-ordered societies, one with a culture of hospitality, sport, leisure, and social tranquility. Here, Odysseus discovers the importance of good law and good habits, both for the household and city. At last, he is properly longing for home, and Zeus brings him to this oasis of civilization to learn what sort of home to govern.

In their generosity, the Phaiakians deliver Odysseus back to Ithaca, where he dispatches the suitors, restoring his kingdom while, at the same time, becoming himself restored to his wife and son. Heroically, he achieves the goods of family life and the peaceful city, goods which Homer depicts as greater than the glories of war.

Both in ancient societies and our own, such goods can be all too easily overlooked. Winds, wars, wealth, and wanderings conspire to pull us away. Sometimes, we need our own corrective journeys of the soul to set aright our priorities, which is why “The Odyssey” continues to resonate after 28 centuries.

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