{"id":1106,"date":"2026-07-23T04:13:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T04:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=1106"},"modified":"2026-07-23T04:13:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T04:13:07","slug":"when-homer-meets-hollywood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=1106","title":{"rendered":"When Homer Meets Hollywood"},"content":{"rendered":"
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N<\/span>o one\u2019s really sure how long ago the blind poet sang of that famous man of \u201ctwists and turns\u201d whose cunning has captivated the centuries since. Eratosthenes <\/span>claimed<\/span> that Homer lived a mere 100 years after the events he described, which, by his timeline, would make the text almost exactly 3,000 years old today. Herodotus, the famous historian, thought that idea was hogwash and posited the text couldn\u2019t have been written before 850 B.C.<\/span><\/p>\n

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But there\u2019s a problem with even Herodotus\u2019s date: The Greeks didn\u2019t even have an alphabet until the 8th century B.C., which at least makes writing the thing down a bit difficult. That wasn\u2019t really a problem for Joseph ben Matthias (a Jew from the first century A.D. who is better known as Josephus); his assertion that Greeks were rather poor writers until relatively late in their history is the reason most of us are told that Homer\u2019s poetry began as an oral work, rather than as a written one. Modern scholars are even more stingy. Perhaps, they say, <\/span>The<\/span><\/i> Odyssey<\/span><\/i> wasn\u2019t written until 650 B.C. Perhaps it wasn\u2019t even composed by Homer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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No one is saying that Nolan needed to have his star-studded cast speak ancient Greek or Beowulfian Old English, but maybe we could have elevated things just ever so slightly.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Bernard Knox (writing some 30 years ago) went with the most obvious read of the situation. Homer authored The Odyssey<\/em>, probably not later than 700 B.C. (given that we have archeological evidence of the story from that era), and he did so by writing the thing down \u2014 archaic language, non-chronological order, and all.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But historical quibbles over dates and the manner of dissemination aren\u2019t as important as the fact that this tale has captivated all of us so thoroughly that we keep retelling it millennia later. Petrarch actually tried to learn Greek just so he could read it (he failed, if that makes you feel better about your own linguistic forays). If you were to read into the weeks of squabbling we\u2019ve had over Christopher Nolan\u2019s portrayal of the tale, you might conclude that modernity still deeply cares about a text most of us haven\u2019t touched since 9th grade.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At this point, you\u2019d have to live under a rock (or at the very least, spend very little of your time on the internet) not to know the litany of things wrong with Nolan\u2019s epic remake: Helen isn\u2019t white, a Greek soldier is played by the 118-lb Ellen Page (a woman convinced her name ought to be Elliot), and the whole text is based on Emily Wilson\u2019s \u201cfeminist\u201d and dumbed-down translation of the work. Nolan, the critics complain, has given in to the demands of the woke mob, and he\u2019s ruined the ancient tale as a result.<\/span><\/p>\n

The box office, however, doesn\u2019t seem to care. The film grossed $124.5 million domestically in its opening weekend. After all, Christopher Nolan directed the thing, and it\u2019s nothing if not cool to watch. The average moviegoer apparently doesn\u2019t particularly care if the armor Odysseus is wearing isn\u2019t a <\/span>precise<\/span> reconstruction of what we think a Greek might have worn in 2000 B.C.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So is all the hullabaloo just overblown squabbling by purists who were already planning on hating the film anyway? Well, possibly. But the purists might have a point.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the reasons, for instance, that Nolan\u2019s retelling of the story rankles purists is that his screenwriters did not shy away from modern vocabulary like \u201cmum,\u201d \u201cdad,\u201d and \u201cf\u2013k off.\u201d At one point in the trailer, Odysseus yells to his Greek hordes of soldiers, \u201cLet\u2019s go!\u201d There are no thees, thous, or archaic vocabulary.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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From Nolan\u2019s perspective, this isn\u2019t exactly a problem. It makes his protagonist relatable \u2014 or in the words of the director: \u201cIt might bite me on the ass, but I wanted an earthy narrative. To me it was a no-brainer.\u201d What his decision to Americanize and modernize the language doesn\u2019t do is honor the original art.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Homer, you see, didn\u2019t write (or sing, if we\u2019re adopting Josephus\u2019s theories) in a Greek that anyone ever spoke. He pulled words from all sorts of dialects around Greece and from ancient languages nobody spoke anymore. It would be as though Stephen King sat down to write an epic tale and decided to employ Old English terms like \u201cheort,\u201d the more Shakespearian \u201cmethinks,\u201d and the Scottish \u201cdreich.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The difference is this: Homer\u2019s approach shrouds his tale in mystery. The reader or listener always has the sense that he doesn\u2019t quite grasp the meaning of the story. The more time he spends attempting to understand the text, the more he learns about man\u2019s nature, the kinds of relationships we form, and what Homer believes should be our relationship with the gods. By stripping away that sense of mystery, Nolan\u2019s approach risks tricking his viewer into thinking he\u2019s understood everything about the story after just a first pass \u2014 which is tragic, because the story itself is a deeply instructive one.<\/span><\/p>\n

No one is saying that Nolan needed to have his star-studded cast speak ancient Greek or Beowulfian Old English, but maybe we could have elevated things just ever so slightly to remind people that, you know, this <\/span>is<\/span><\/i> an epic and ancient tale, not a Marvel movie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is why, unfortunately, modernity can\u2019t tell these ancient stories convincingly. We have a bad habit of stripping away mystery to try to make characters \u201crelatable.\u201d Odysseus wasn\u2019t supposed to be relatable, after all, the average Greek wasn\u2019t getting hit on by an enchantress and being offered immortality. No, Odysseus was supposed to be a hero.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The result is this: Nolan\u2019s film is breathtaking, but, as one reviewer at the <\/span>Spectator<\/span><\/i> pointed out, it just lacks depth. Perhaps someone else will come along and make the definitive cinematographic retelling of the blind bard\u2019s ancient tale; unfortunately, Nolan didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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