A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from Brian Truitt, film critic and entertainment editor for USA Today, asking to interview me about the Odyssey. He was looking for answers to some questions related to the opening of the Odyssey-based film, The Return. I was delighted to be asked and very pleased with the outcome. Of course, he was only able to use a small part of what I said. So . . . since I haven’t completed an essay for inclusion on my Substack this month, I thought I’d post our email exchange. I also provide a link to the resulting article at the end.
BT: The Odyssey is one of the most widely read and known books ever, so you’d think in theory - since more people probably have read that than a Batman or Spider-Man comic in their lives – there would have been a Homeric Cinematic Universe by now. An Odysseus trilogy at least, and perhaps a Sirens Disney+ origin series or something. But outside of a few films and a ‘90s miniseries, it hasn't really been touched in a real way. Why do you think that’s the case, that Hollywood’s not hot for the Odyssey the way it has been over the years for, say, other literary material like Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and even the Bible?
MY: That question leads me both to what makes the Odyssey so great and at the same time makes it so challenging, for readers and, I think I can venture to say, for filmmakers as well. I can suggest three major reasons I see for Hollywood’s reluctance to embrace the Odyssey as it has other literary classics. First, there’s the challenge of reading it. (The Coen Brothers, in making one of the most far-fetched and yet most perceptive adaptations, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, claimed they hadn’t actually read it. I think that’s hilarious; I also think it’s a lie.) I insist that it isn’t as difficult as it’s often thought to be—it’s a great read. And thanks to some wonderful modern translations, it’s accessible to almost everyone who reads at a high-school level and beyond. But it’s also a commitment, one that I admit most people, even most readers, are no longer willing to make. I’ve heard so many times from those who made the effort, though, that they absolutely loved it. I’m hopeful that the recent translation by Emily Wilson—which got an amazing amount of press coverage—will help change the negative preconception.
The second reason has to do with current ideology. Most readers and viewers these days seem to prefer works that mirror themselves and their ideals and/or clearly condemn anything that doesn’t. The Odyssey doesn’t provide that kind of comfortable mirror-gazing. It’s going to challenge our contemporary world view, not cater to it. Rather than a mirror, it provides a window on a weird, unfamiliar, contradictory, fascinating, beautiful, terrifying world.
And third, focusing primarily on Hollywood’s ethos, I’d suggest that the biggest issue might be Hollywood’s (understandable) lack of tolerance for complexity and ambiguity. Both the hero and the poem itself are unapologetically ambiguous. Odysseus is described in the very first line as “polytropos.” Literally it means “many-turning.” The word has no single direct translation, but Emily Wilson translates it as “complicated,” and I do think that sums it up pretty well. Everything about the work and its hero introduces complications and contradictions. Is Odysseus a hero or an anti-hero? Is he the first modern civilized man or a vicious barbarian? Is he the man who unjustly suffers or the one who causes suffering for himself and others—in today’s political jargon, the oppressed or the oppressor? The work raises all of these questions and so many others—and never answers them.
All of that said, I love the idea of a “Homeric Cinematic Universe”!
BT: Does it have anything to do with the fact that, at least for me and my generation and probably lots of others, we had to read it in school multiple times? Is there some turnoff there, that maybe it's considered more “academic” than entertaining? (Though there is plenty of adventure and drama and all that stuff contained within.)
MY: Yes, that could be part of it—although honestly, I don’t think many students are faced with it these days, except maybe in elite private schools. And even then, I don’t think many actually make the effort to read it. In my entire college teaching career, I came across only a handful of students who had. But in any case, the idea that it’s an ancient classic linked with academic study suggests to many people that it can’t possibly be enlightening or enjoyable. Not surprising, then, that Hollywood would shy away.
BT: Odysseus has one of the seminal hero’s journeys. What more famous pop culture hero do you think most matches his?
MY: That’s a tough one. As I’ve suggested, pop culture in general tends to simplify, not to present complexity. (I don’t mean to dismiss it for that reason—in fact, I think that’s one of the many reasons we need it!) A number of pop culture heroes undertake journeys that correspond to Odysseus’ in some respects, but I don’t know of one that closely matches it in any significant way. Odysseus’ journey is as contradictory as he is. I think it’s often overlooked that he doesn’t make the journey for the sake of adventure or out of duty to some higher cause. It’s actually a desperate and seemingly hopeless attempt to return home from the ten-year Trojan War. But the journey—or at least the story Odysseus himself tells about it—is full of wild adventure, amazing feats, fascinating characters, and magical realms. And that’s only half the story. When he at last reaches his island of Ithaca, midway through the work, he finds that his home isn’t the place he left, that he’ll have to risk everything once again to redeem and reclaim it. (That’s the part often left out in recountings of the plot—but interestingly, the part The Return focuses on.) Also, the entire narrative is marked by constant transitions between gloomy darkness and sparkling light, between tragedy and folktale. Most popular heroes’ journeys, by contrast, follow either the dark, tragic path or the bright, optimistic one. So, by the way, do most adaptations of the Odyssey: the Coen Brothers obviously focused on the light side; judging by the advance information and the trailer I’ve seen, The Return opted for the dark side.
The same thing applies to a match for Odysseus himself. Even in our postmodern world of supposedly ambiguous heroes, I really can’t find one who compares. It’s true that some of our contemporary heroes, in contrast to those of the past, are portrayed as darker and more conflicted, particularly those coming out of contemporary comics/graphic novels. That might be a place to look. My husband, on the other hand, points to Gus McCrae from Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. I agree that McCrae is the sneaky, fast-talking Odysseus to Woodrow Call’s upright Achilles, so he might come close. But he doesn’t have anything like Odysseus’ complexity. For that, we’d need to find the hero who fervently longs to return to his provincial home—so much that he gives up the offer of immortality—but also wants to squeeze every drop of adventure, excitement, and knowledge he can grasp along the way; the one who repeatedly risks his life to defend his men and his cause—and then repeatedly jeopardizes both of those through his vanity, self-interest, and desire for fame; the one who is always prepared to break the rules in a society that is strictly rule-bound; the one who can, on one day, inspire his followers to be unswervingly loyal and on the next, disastrously distrustful; the one who loves his wife and son with true tenderness—and yet chooses to spend years with other women (well, goddesses), and to undertake a risky flirtation with a young marriageable foreign princess; the one who lies, cheats, and tricks his way through one episode after another and then tells the whole story of his travels and his transgressions when he is at his most vulnerable; the one who can be unjustly cruel and heartbreakingly sensitive. That’s the one who matches Odysseus. Do you have any candidates? I’d love to know!
BT: Homer's epic is more than two thousand years old. What do you think about its narrative and themes resonates now in 2024?
MY: Pretty much everything I’ve mentioned. I think the Odyssey brilliantly acknowledges and presents the contradictions of our own present-day life—or maybe of life, period: the simultaneous longing for the thrill of adventure and the comfort of home, for revenge and forgiveness, for violence and love, for power and submission. Humans are complex and contradictory, terrible and wonderful. And through it all, we keep on swimming. Beyond a great story, that insight into humanity is what I think the Odyssey has to offer, and that’s what I hope will continue to resonate.
'The Return' is an epic 'Odyssey' movie. Why isn't there a Homeric Cinematic Universe yet?
It is hard to believe in a couple thousand years no one has attempted to copy Odysseus...speaks to the complexity of the Homeric epic... Abdulrazak Gurnah's Saleh from _By the Sea_ is the closest I can come up with and that ain't very close
Marvelous, M, particularly on Odysseus's complexity as a human. When I taught it, I focused on that, too, emphasizing his human flaws, including egotism and desire, as you note. (My male students liked to argue that he was powerless before the beautiful goddesses.) Throughout, despite his flaws, he is supremely clever--and Penelope is his match intellectually. I wonder if the film will show that. I think that one of the enduring (and despairing) lessons from the ending of the epic is that it takes Athena's intervention to end the cycle of violence and revenge (even after Odysseus and his men receive a warning sign from Zeus).