Classicist and translator Emily Wilson published a critical review of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey in the London Review of Books.Wilson has loved Greek myths since childhood and has translated both the Iliad and Odyssey.
She has tattoos of a spear on one leg and a bow on the other — she says they represent Achilles and Odysseus.Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania via Liveright Publishing hide caption Christopher Nolan's new film The Odyssey is a box-office hit.
But University of Pennsylvania classics scholar Emily Wilson, who published her own translation of Homer's epic in 2017, says Nolan's script is poorly written and lacking in emotional depth and character development.And, she adds, there are no sex scenes — and all the food looks horrible."We need to have a protagonist with detailed, believable motivation," Wilson says.
"[But] these desires seem stripped from Odysseus.He doesn't seem to want food.
He doesn't seem to want sex.What does he want?"Set in the aftermath of the mythical Trojan War, The Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus, the Greek hero who embarks on an epic journey home to Ithaca.
Wilson's translation, which took six years to complete, has been hailed for its vibrant language and faithfulness to the original Greek text.But as the first woman to publish an English-language translation of The Odyssey, she's also faced an onslaught of misogynistic online commentary.I do think that it would have been better if Nolan had hired a script writer, because that would have solved a lot of the issues.Emily WilsonNolan has cited Wilson's translation in discussing his approach to the film, but Wilson says she was disappointed with the adaptation — and especially by Nolan's rendering of the central character.
In her translation, Wilson describes Odysseus as a "complicated" man.He outwits the Cyclops and constructs an o...