{"id":570341,"date":"2026-08-01T13:26:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T13:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/570341\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T13:26:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T13:26:11","slug":"christopher-nolan-on-the-flaws-of-film-criticism-and-the-shared-philosophy-of-oppenheimer-and-the-odyssey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/570341\/","title":{"rendered":"Christopher Nolan on the Flaws of Film Criticism and the Shared Philosophy of Oppenheimer and The Odyssey"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you have already grown tired of the hundredth interview of The Odyssey team discussing what it was like shooting an entire film on IMAX cameras or capturing everything as practically as possible, then a gift from the gods has now arrived. During the Beijing press stop tour for his box office behemoth, Christopher Nolan sat down with political philosophy lecturer and doctoral student Zhong Shu<\/a> for the most thorough, fascinating interview yet on the making of his Homer adaptation.<\/p>\n

For a director who can often be evasive\u2013\u2013or perhaps not questioned enough\u2013\u2013when it comes to the philosophical decisions behind his movies, Zhong Su does a stellar job in a relatively brief period to get Nolan to open up about his thoughts on \u201cChristianizing\u201d Homer\u2019s poem, the themes of atonement in the film, his thoughts on the flaws of film criticism (be sure to read our less-than-enthused review<\/a> of his latest), breaking storytelling conventions, his portrayal of the gods, and more.<\/p>\n

In discussing the adaptation and perspective of historical distance, Nolan says, \u201cThe main point is this 400-year-or-so gap between the events that Homer is describing and when Homer\u2019s story was written down or first received by audiences. That\u2019s a pretty interesting gap. For me, I don\u2019t think I\u2019m completely at odds with the way Homer is telling the story when you look at it from a historical perspective. The reason is\u2014and what I became interested in as I adapted it\u2014is that Homer is writing about an era hundreds of years earlier that his audience viewed as being more advanced than theirs. So, while they were a civilization on the rise, they were trying to get back to where they had been 400 years before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat idea of a cycle\u2014the idea of, as you say, a civilization at dusk\u2014I think is there in the past, but it\u2019s subtle. When you look at the history, and you see that when they would unearth these walls of old palaces that had crumbled, they called them \u2018Cyclopean walls\u2019 because they thought only a giant could have built such grand walls. They had this idea of the greatness of this past civilization. I became interested in that collapse\u2014what they call the \u2018catastrophe,\u2019 the Bronze Age collapse\u2014and what happens between the events of the Trojan War and Homer. From a modern perspective, that is something that is frightening, interesting, and intriguing. For me, it partly comes out of having worked on\u00a0Oppenheimer\u00a0before this, which is very much a film about the end of the world and the collapse of civilization. I definitely carried that sensibility into this adaptation of\u00a0The Odyssey.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about adding the concept of \u201catonement,\u201d which doesn\u2019t exist in Greek culture and what could be construed as \u201cChristianizing\u201d The Odyssey, Nolan responds, \u201cI wasn\u2019t too conscious of how I was approaching it philosophically, other than that I really honed in on the idea of what\u2019s termed\u00a0xenia. In the film, we call it \u2018Zeus\u2019s Law\u2019 for simplicity, but it\u2019s that idea of mutual respect\u2014that I treat you the way I want to be treated. In their theology, it\u2019s because the stranger standing in front of you might be a god in disguise. I really drilled down on that, and I started to realize that, for me, a lot of what\u2019s interesting about the interaction of history and mythology is this idea of the \u2018Sea Peoples\u2019\u2014the people from the sea who were thought to have precipitated the Bronze Age collapse. It\u2019s one of the great mysteries of history: who were they?\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds, \u201cThe idea that a violation of\u00a0xenia\u2014a violation of Zeus\u2019s Law, which is what the suitors are doing in the palace\u2014is what causes this difficulty and damage. I think the idea of atonement, in a way, is what we bring as viewers to the story. I don\u2019t know whether there really is atonement in the film, or whether we just feel that catharsis in the final meeting we\u2019ve waited for between Odysseus and Penelope. In that sense, we may be bringing our more modern sensibility to it. Insofar as it\u2019s there, it\u2019s not a deliberate attempt to Christianize it, but rather an outgrowth or a natural conclusion of burrowing in on this philosophical idea of what happens when you break Zeus\u2019s Law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Discussing the ideas of Odysseus repenting for his hubris, Nolan says, \u201cI suppose the question could be asked: what difference would it make if he repented? That\u2019s the interesting thing about these philosophical approaches. His repentance would be purely internal; it would purely be for his own spiritual self. It wouldn\u2019t necessarily affect anything outside of him because the damage is done.\u00a0Xenia\u00a0is broken, maybe for all time. I think that is the thing about hubris\u2014it\u2019s tragic because it\u2019s irreversible, essentially. That\u2019s where Christian theology looks at it in a different way, but in a practical sense, it doesn\u2019t necessarily change what\u2019s happened. Therefore, in storytelling terms, it isn\u2019t necessarily relevant. As I said, we bring our understanding to it, so we feel that there\u2019s catharsis because there\u2019s confession, honesty, and intimacy between Odysseus and Penelope. That was very important to me and I\u2019m very invested in that emotionally. But if his repentance has no practical effect and the catastrophe is coming anyway\u2014the collapse is coming\u2014then what difference does it make for the events? Are we concerned with his spiritual well-being or the world that he lives in and feels he\u2019s damaged?\u201d<\/p>\n

Following Oppenheimer with The Odyssey, two tales of \u201cgreat\u201d men who go through an experience of repentance, Nolan opened up about his approach and criticism surrounding it. \u201cWhen you\u2019re characterizing somebody\u2014the trite version of this, or the criticism often leveled at movies in general\u2014is: \u2018Oh, the character has to be made sympathetic,\u2019 so the character is manipulated and changed in different ways,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s a fundamental flaw of film criticism or storytelling criticism, because to be able to identify the mechanism does not invalidate the mechanism. That\u2019s a real problem in criticism today because people have this idea that because they can understand why the story affects them the way it does, it therefore didn\u2019t work. That\u2019s not how storytelling works.\u201d<\/p>\n

He adds, \u201cSo, when we create a heroic figure in a story as storytellers, we have to be mindful of the energy the audience brings to that story and the interaction between our intention and the way the audience receives it. The fact that the mechanism is identifiable to people doesn\u2019t invalidate it. Part of that mechanism is asking: are we going to treat greatness as an absolute? Or, coming from a more democratic or idealized philosophical state that we live in today where we want to view people as equal, do we have to apologize for that greatness? The answer is: yes, we do, or the audience rejects the greatness. That is part of the mechanism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce again, the fact that the mechanism is identifiable doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s invalid or shouldn\u2019t be used,\u201d he clarifies, \u201cFor me, as we talk about it\u2014and none of these are things I try to be conscious of when I\u2019m writing\u2014we realize that my attempt to do that is to retain it within the philosophical surrounding of the breaking of\u00a0xenia\u00a0that I found interesting in the story. I\u2019m trying to be true to the thematics of the story as I create a character that the audience can invest in and feel satisfied by.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Speaking to his approach in rethinking the standard structures of cinematic storytelling, Nolan says, \u201cFilm itself is its own language. That language is understood by people all over the world, which is what\u2019s incredible about it. It is a very accessible modern language of storytelling, and it has certain rules and conventions. You can break those conventions, you can bend them, you can move them, but you have to be aware of them the whole time. As I say, we as filmmakers avail ourselves of that common language. We build on that understanding. Our audience has seen many films and they understand that language\u2014the language of genre, the language of audience sympathy, the language of clarity of narrative direction, and how you guide people through a story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Opening up about his breakthrough feature, he adds, \u201cYou can\u2019t throw everything away. You have to make your choices in terms of how you are arranging the story. For example, one of my first films,\u00a0Memento, was a story that I structured in reverse [chronological order]. But what I retained was a very clear and simple three-act structure. So, the structure of the film as it\u2019s received by the audience is very conventional, but the chronology is unconventional. Those are the choices you make. You say, \u2018OK, I need this to be extremely familiar underneath so that I can change what\u2019s on the surface.\u2019 That\u2019s a continual mechanism that\u2019s evolving and that you\u2019re working with the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lastly, Nolan discusses his portrayal of the Greek gods in The Odyssey, saying, \u201cTo the characters in the story, the gods are reality. What I found interesting about looking at the idea of gods\u2014and how to address it from the point of view of people who would have lived at that time, for whom in a pre-scientific era, evidence of divinity was everywhere\u2014is that the existence of gods is not an article of faith; it\u2019s simple reality. Thunder and lightning are gods speaking to them. The state of the ocean is moved by the gods. They have no other explanation for it. Just as we accept things from science as absolute fact\u2014the Earth is round and we travel around the sun\u2014we take them as faith because they\u2019re presented as facts. The same would be true of the theological structure that explains nature to people of that time. So, for me, the gods are real, but they are inside the people. They are being projected by the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watch the full interview below from Bilibili<\/a> (via Nolan Archives<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you have already grown tired of the hundredth interview of The Odyssey team discussing what it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[146,85,46,397],"class_list":["post-570341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}