Christopher Nolan’s Approach to The Odyssey’s Historical Accuracy Is Actually Brilliant

Ever since footage was first shown off, Christopher Nolan’s upcoming movie, The Odyssey, has been questioned by some for its purported historical accuracy. Nolan recently addressed why the movie looks to be avoiding a strict adherence to accuracy, and like most decisions in his films, it will likely end up making the movie better.

Speaking to Time in a recent interview, Nolan touched on a handful of the biggest adaptation choices he’s made, including the anachronistic armor. After the first teaser trailer was released, some criticized the look of the armor in the movie, including that of Agamemnon (Benny Safdie), who wears untraditional, very large armor compared to that of everyone around him.

While many would think Nolan did little research into things, the opposite is actually true. The director spoke about the film’s setting, which takes place right around the end of the Bronze Age as Greece is about to plunge into a dark age. Critics argued that the armor in that time period would be much brighter and less dark overall, but Nolan bucked back against that thought.

Christopher Nolan’s non-traditional approach is best for the movie

“There are Mycenaean daggers that are blackened bronze. The theory is they probably could have blackened bronze in those days. You take bronze, you add more gold and silver to it and then use sulfur,” said Nolan. “With Agamemnon, Ellen [Mirojnick], our costume designer, is trying to communicate how elevated he is relative to everyone else. You do that through materials that would be very expensive.”

Nolan also explained many of his other choices by comparing it to the way Homer told the story of The Odyssey. For Nolan, the way Homer told the story also included depictions of how they were living in current age Greece, even though the events of The Odyssey would’ve taken place hundreds of years prior. To the director, this is just continuing the tradition of using somewhat different ideas to complete a story.

“The oldest depictions of Homeric characters tend to be depicted in the manner of people living in Homer’s time,” he says. “So there’s a pretty strong case there for portraying things that way because that’s the way the first audience received the story.”

In the days since the film’s latest trailer, more critics have come forward, this time for casting choices. A vocal minority on social media have complained about the fact that Lupita Nyong’o will play Helen of Troy in the movie, as well as the fact that Travis Scott and Elliot Page will appear in the movie. Like most of Nolan’s decisions though, they’ll likely end up looking just as brilliant as the overall movie will, and for a few simple reasons.

As Nolan already noted, his desire with The Odyssey isn’t to tell a 1:1 recreation of Homer’s book, but to explore the myth behind the story. In converting that into a movie, it isn’t strange at all to see Nolan utilizing looks and actors many thought wouldn’t be in the movie, because they serve the specific story Nolan is telling. Furthermore, actors like Nyong’o are at the top of their game, so those questioning an Oscar-winning actress for being in the movie alone are a bit off.

Although Nolan’s movie isn’t out just yet, we also have his past history of success to point to. We don’t have to look too far to see the last time Nolan distorted history to make a successful film, as he did with Oppenheimer. That movie didn’t rerpesent the exact history of J. Robert Oppenheimer, but it conveyed enough to get his story across in a way fit for the movie, and it’d be silly to begin doubting the legendary director now that he’s ready to tackle this Greek epic.

Source: Comingsoon.net