Christopher Nolan is one of the entertainment industry’s most celebrated filmmakers. He’s responsible for some of the biggest financial and critical successes since the turn of the century.
“The Dark Knight.” “Inception.” “Dunkirk.” “Interstellar.” And his most recent release, “Oppenheimer,” which won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director. Nolan, like few other modern directors, has achieved an “auteur” status, essentially a signature style and control over the creative process and output that’s distinctive compared to his peers.
When news broke that Nolan’s next project would be “The Odyssey,” it seemed like an unexpected, fascinating fit. The 55-year-old director has tackled different subjects with unique, high-quality film-making. “Batman Begins” was credited with redefining the comic book, superhero movie by grounding it in realism with a much darker tone than more cartoonish predecessors. “Dunkirk” featured an exceptional recreation of an aerial battle in World War II, and “Interstellar” was so groundbreaking in its scientific accuracy that it led to an academic research paper on its portrayal of a black hole. “Tenet” was a fascinating and original exploration of time that was fanatical in its commitment to the rules of the film, outlandish though they might have been. Even “Oppenheimer,” though it took plenty of historical license, was praised for the depiction of the first test of a nuclear bomb as part of The Manhattan Project.
All of this attention to detail and grounded realism despite remarkable scale, made “The Odyssey” such an interesting choice. An epic story, one of history’s oldest, interweaving mythology and the very human story of Odysseus trying to return home to his family. But with mythological elements seemingly a new direction for Nolan to take.
The film is set to release this summer on July 17th, and speculation over its cast started as soon as some of the list hit the internet. Along with Matt Damon was Zendaya, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, Elliot Page and many others. Initially, it wasn’t clear which characters those actors and actresses would portray.
But a new interview with the director and cast published on Tuesday by Time, confirmed some of the most rumored details. And in doing so, brought him in for some heavy criticism or outright confusion. It starts with Matt Damon, playing Odysseus, saying that Nolan is “…very faithful to Homer because that’s not somebody you rewrite. But thematically, what he looked at was really interesting.”
Nolan’s attention to detail and commitment to authenticity went as far as building a “genuinely seaworthy” ship for Odysseus and his crew that could sail around the Mediterranean. Which is what makes his casting choices so…well, odd.
The Time article explains that the character of “Helen,” famously known in the story as “the most beautiful woman in the world,” and described by Homer as having white skin and other historic authors as golden, or having light hair, is played by Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o.
Then, Nolan reportedly told composer Ludwig Göransson “not to use an orchestra in the score.” Göransson added, “It’s not like the orchestra existed back then,” per the Time story. Nolan also put rapper Travis Scott in the film, saying, “I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap.”
So his dedication to accuracy was so extreme that he had his crew build an actual seaworthy ship for Odysseus, refused to use an orchestra to score the film, and his lead actor praised how “faithful” he was to Homer’s text. And yet he cast a Kenyan-Mexican actress to play a Greek woman, and used a modern rapper to nod to oral poetry from 2,700 years ago?
Nolan’s earned the benefit of the doubt, and his films are always fascinating, even if there are legitimate, sometimes plentiful criticisms of the writing or plot points. “The Odyssey” will undoubtedly contain his trademark scale and technical quality. But it’s odd that he chose to abandon that realism to subvert specific characters. Nyong’o is a very talented and attractive actress who’s deserving of being in a Christopher Nolan movie…and also totally miscast as Helen of Troy.
You could make a similar case with Matt Damon, who has a Nordic ethnic background that’s looks little like someone born around the Mediterranean. It’s made even more bizarre by how Nolan brags about how much “research” went into the movie.
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“Nolan speaks with pride about the level of research that went into the production from all departments,” the story says. Then explains soon after, “The oldest depictions of Homeric characters tend to be depicted in the manner of people living in Homer’s time. So there’s a pretty strong case there for portraying things that way because that’s the way the first audience received the story.”
Except for the cast? Did the audience who first “received the story” get it by way of Travis Scott?
Again, none of this means Nyong’o shouldn’t be in the movie. Or Scott for that matter, though given his limited acting experience, it’s possible he immediately pulls the audience out of the movie. But it’s an odd disconnect to focus on historic realism, research, and attention to detail, and then thoroughly discard descriptions of characters in order to meet a modern expectation.
It’s unlike Nolan. Or at least, what Nolan seemed to represent, until now.
