Christopher Nolan’s “THE ODYSSEY”: Where the Lines Between Commercialism, Grandiosity, and Good Taste Blur

My perspective as an Eastern European filmmaker

It has always been particularly risky for directors and dramaturgists to stage adaptations of classic works, whether on screen or on stage. The problems arise on several fronts – either academics, literary scholars, and other scholars dispute the authenticity of the adaptation and consequently its entire worth (because for them these two factors are equivalent), or the ordinary public rejects it on the pretext of finding it boring (if the adaptation in question has adhered even to the pacing of the original classic).

As a filmmaker, I have more than once had the ambition to one day adapt a work by an author – whether a world-renowned classic or simply an established author who remains relevant despite the trials of time. Honestly, every time I have set out to create a dramaturgical text based on someone else’s work, the following thought overtakes me: who am I to retell something already said well enough in its original formulation? There has not been a literary text that, when I’ve fallen in love with, has not also made me feel insignificant compared to the depth and mastery with which it was crafted.

In Bulgaria, if you take up foreign authors, use foreign names in your texts – be it a screenplay, prose, poems, and so on – if you dare to tell a foreign story, you’re a “traitor to your people” (not literally, of course). And along these lines, I find myself puzzling over Christopher Nolan’s grandiosity; from what’s visible in the trailers of his highly anticipated new film, he clearly doesn’t take to heart that his work is not at all historically accurate in its visual interpretation. I want to insert here that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – on the contrary, isn’t that precisely why we retell old stories, to look at them through new eyes? But above all, he himself is quite far from identifying with “The Odyssey” – what I mean to say is that it makes me a little sad that this piece of heritage, becomes the subject of a Hollywood interpretation simply because it matches the scale of Nolan’s production ambitions.

Bulgarian people’s tendency to scorn seeing its own artists adapt foreign authors, is a diseased fruit of a fragile national ego, but it is right about one thing – the further you yourself are from the story you’re telling, the less pure your intentions toward it become.

On the other hand, I’m very curious to see how he has integrated rap music and other examples of contemporary pop culture into the interpretation of the work; I think this is a very bold  choice. The same could be said for the visual characteristics of the film (again, based on what we see in the trailers). The setting resembles one of the planets from “Interstellar” or “Dune,” so as to appear more epic; the ships resemble Viking vessels, because their imagery is the most easily digestible for a mass audience and most quickly signals “old, very old ship.”

Soon we will all get to see Nolan’s new film, but as a director, I’ll be taking notes precisely in this direction – on where the line blurs between commercialism and good taste.