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Is Christopher Nolan an 'anti-white racist'? An interpreter of The Odyssey weighs in · The Morning Edition

0:07
S1: Christopher Nolan's $250 million film The Odyssey was always going
0:12
S1: to inspire and enrage fans. That's what you get when
0:17
S1: you take on one of the oldest surviving stories in
0:20
S1: history and refashioning the hero at its center for your
0:24
S1: own purposes. I'm Samantha Zellinger Maurice, and you're listening to
0:29
S1: The Morning Edition from The Age and the Sydney Morning
0:32
S1: Herald today. Daniel Mendelsohn, editor at large for the New
0:36
S1: York Review of Books and a translator of The Odyssey
0:39
S1: on what Christopher Nolan is trying to tell us with
0:42
S1: his version and why it's provoked Elon Musk and Donald
0:47
S1: Trump Jr. It's July the 22nd. Welcome, Daniel, to the podcast.
0:57
S2: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
0:59
S1: First up, can you just briefly tell us the story
1:01
S1: of the Odyssey, and then perhaps your reflections on what
1:05
S1: it is about this epic poem. It's nearly 3000 years
1:08
S1: old that you know. Why do we keep coming back
1:10
S1: to it?
1:11
S2: Well, the Odyssey belonged to a vast group of of
1:15
S2: epic poems, almost all of which have disappeared except for
1:20
S2: the Iliad and the Odyssey that treated the Trojan War.
1:25
S2: It's the run up to the war, the reasons for
1:28
S2: the war, the war itself and its aftermath. So it's
1:31
S2: the story of how the great hero Odysseus, who was
1:35
S2: famed above all for his trickery, his cleverness, his intellectual power,
1:42
S2: his way with words, took ten years to get home
1:46
S2: after the war was over because he was cursed by
1:50
S2: the sea god Poseidon. So we are with him as
1:55
S2: he either remembers all these incredible things that happened to
1:59
S2: him on the way home, or as we follow him
2:02
S2: in the final stages of his homecoming journey, which are
2:05
S2: filled with shipwrecks and encounters with witches and seductresses and
2:10
S2: monsters and whirlpools. And the other half of the story
2:14
S2: is what's going on at home. He has. When he
2:17
S2: went off to war 20 years ago, he left a
2:19
S2: young wife and a newborn baby. It's now 20 years later.
2:23
S2: The wife has been holding out, hoping that he will
2:26
S2: come home. Meanwhile, there are 108 young men from the
2:31
S2: island and the surrounding islands who are courting her because
2:35
S2: they want to now replace the missing Odysseus, whom everyone
2:40
S2: assumes has is MIA or war dead? Long dead. Once
2:46
S2: he gets home, he has to get rid of these
2:49
S2: 108 guys who had been camping out in his castle
2:52
S2: for the past several years. So there's a climactic, incredible
2:57
S2: revenge story as well. Why does it have eternal appeal?
3:02
S2: Everybody wants a little spice and adventure in their lives.
3:06
S2: But we also want a home. We want stable relationships.
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S2: ET cetera. ET cetera. And the Odyssey sort of gives
3:12
S2: you both of these. It allows us to indulge our
3:15
S2: fantasies of adventure and encountering new kinds of things. But ultimately,
3:22
S2: it is the story of, you know, there's no place
3:27
S2: like home. So I do think it speaks to something
3:30
S2: very deep inside of us.
3:32
S1: It's quite amazing. And you have written that over many years.
3:36
S1: You know, other poets have taken Odysseus and sort of
3:39
S1: refashioned him for their own purposes. You know, in Dante's Inferno, Odysseus,
3:44
S1: who's called Ulysses, is damned for deceitfulness and madly sails
3:48
S1: over the edge of the world. And then you've written
3:50
S1: that in the 19th century, Odysseus perpetual restlessness made him
3:54
S1: a romantic hero. So what do you think of how
3:57
S1: Christopher Nolan has refashioned his hero? And what do you
4:01
S1: think it tells us about the time that we're living in.
4:03
S1: You know, perhaps something that Christopher Nolan thinks we need
4:06
S1: to hear or be reminded of.
4:08
S2: Well, certainly, I mean, you know, the Odyssey has made
4:11
S2: this character available to subsequent generations. And so, Nolan, I'm
4:18
S2: a big Nolan fan. I have admired a lot of
4:21
S2: his movies. I think he's a very ingenious, very ingenious filmmaker.
4:27
S2: So I was quite excited when I heard he was
4:29
S2: doing The Odyssey, actually. And what he has done is
4:34
S2: he has taken, you know, the hero of the Odyssey.
4:38
S2: And if you if you've watched Christopher Nolan films, you
4:42
S2: know that there's a very specific type of hero that
4:45
S2: he keeps organizing these movies around, you know, tormented dark
4:53
S2: men who are haunted by guilt, whether it's Batman in
4:57
S2: The Dark Knight series or Oppenheimer, you know, men who
5:02
S2: have great power but feel guilty about it. And what
5:07
S2: what Nolan has done in this film is to turn
5:09
S2: our charming, clever, seductive, amusing, James Bond ish Odysseus into
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S2: a guilt ridden hero. So this sort of operative theme
5:20
S2: of the movie is that he's tormented by guilt about
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S2: having won the Trojan War and the terrible destruction of
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S2: Troy that followed the Greek victory, which, as everybody knows,
5:33
S2: even if you haven't read The Odyssey, was made possible
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S2: by the Trojan Horse. That's how the Greeks finally infiltrated
5:40
S2: the city of Troy. And the Trojan Horse, by the way,
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S2: was Odysseus idea, because he's the great trickster. So it
5:48
S2: is a. It is not Homer's Odysseus. It is very
5:52
S2: much of a Christopher Nolan. Odysseus.
5:57
S3: Do you think that.
5:58
S1: That message is particularly resonant, perhaps, in this geopolitical climate
6:02
S1: in which obviously. Um yeah. Well, tell us how.
6:05
S2: Well, remember, you know, guilt is a modern notion. The
6:10
S2: Greeks didn't experience guilt. They experienced what anthropologists call a
6:15
S2: shame culture. So you acted in a certain way because
6:19
S2: you didn't want to be shamed by other people in
6:23
S2: your group, not because you felt an internal sense of guilt,
6:28
S2: but because this shame was being imposed from outside. So
6:32
S2: it's not a very Greek notion, but I do think
6:35
S2: your point is very well taken. Certainly this kind of
6:38
S2: guilt ridden character is the kind of character we're familiar with.
6:44
S2: And I also do think that Nolan has gotten something
6:49
S2: very right that is also very much in Homer's Odyssey,
6:54
S2: which is Odysseus is a loner. You know, in the Iliad,
6:59
S2: the prequel to The Odyssey. It's a it's a war story.
7:02
S2: So there's a lot of guys and their comrades and
7:05
S2: they have fights, but they have to get along. And
7:09
S2: this is about one guy trying to make his home
7:13
S2: through a kind of post-apocalyptic landscape where he doesn't know
7:16
S2: the rules anymore. The other thing that's worth saying is,
7:20
S2: in the Iliad, the gods are all over the place.
7:23
S2: They're in the plot, they're pulling strings. They're hooking up.
7:26
S2: They're there on the battlefield. They're fighting with their favorite mortals.
7:30
S2: They're watching the action in the Odyssey. They're basically gone.
7:34
S2: Athena sometimes shows up, but otherwise you really feel that
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S2: this is a person alone in a sinister landscape where
7:42
S2: the old rules don't apply anymore. And for that reason,
7:46
S2: I feel it's very modern.
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S3: And is I mean, is that particularly.
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S1: Resonant in the Donald Trump era, do you think?
7:54
S4: Well. Daniel, I don't know what I don't know what's.
7:59
S2: Resonant in the Donald Trump.
8:01
S3: Era. Well, I guess well, I guess just just hearing
8:02
S3: what you were speaking of, I know.
8:04
S2: But yeah, yeah yeah, yeah. Oh, to be serious, you know.
8:07
S2: I mean, I think, you know, the old rules don't
8:10
S2: apply anymore. We're in a strange landscape where we have
8:13
S2: to figure it out all for ourselves. So I definitely
8:16
S2: do think, you know, there is I always say there's
8:19
S2: something kind of post about the Odyssey, if that makes sense.
8:23
S2: You know, we're in we're in new territory and we
8:26
S2: haven't yet figured it out. And in that sense, I
8:30
S2: do think it speaks to modern times. You know, where
8:32
S2: post God knows we're post everything. You know, the the
8:36
S2: old order, certainly the global geopolitical order is falling apart.
8:43
S2: The order that was put in place after World War
8:46
S2: Two is obviously disintegrating, largely thanks to our president. And
8:52
S2: and certainly the I would say also the sort of
8:55
S2: just the way people talk to each other. You know,
8:57
S2: the rules of civil, civil conversation have disappeared. You know,
9:02
S2: everything is now a free for all. And so I
9:05
S2: do think we identify with this sense that you get
9:08
S2: in the odyssey of this guy doesn't know what the
9:12
S2: rules are. He's just making it up as he goes along.
9:15
S2: And that feels very modern, I think.
9:19
S1: After the break.
9:22
S2: Nobody in a contemporary, you know, version of a Greek
9:27
S2: classic is going to look anything like these people look like,
9:30
S2: whether they're black, white, orange or purple. And so if
9:35
S2: the only thing you care about is race, then that
9:37
S2: just says something about you.
9:47
S1: And what about like this theme? I think that runs
9:50
S1: through the poem and also the movie, which is sort
9:52
S1: of obligation that humans have to their fellow humans. Do
9:56
S1: you think that. Yeah. Christopher Nolan's film perhaps reminds us,
10:00
S1: in this age where obviously there's increasing geopolitical tension, there's
10:04
S1: two very sizable wars that I guess threaten to to
10:07
S1: become so-called forever wars. I mean, it's obviously a very
10:09
S1: dark time. Do you think he's reminding us that we
10:11
S1: have an obligation to our fellow citizens?
10:15
S2: Well, yes, there is a lot of talk, and this
10:17
S2: is something else I admired the film for because it
10:19
S2: captures something central to the epic. There's a lot of
10:23
S2: talk of what they call Zeus's law. So in the Odyssey,
10:27
S2: one of the. If the most important ethical law of
10:32
S2: the Odyssey is something that the Greeks called Xenia. It
10:36
S2: comes from the word xenos, which means a stranger. But
10:40
S2: it interestingly also means a guest because you're supposed to
10:44
S2: welcome strangers, even if you don't know them into your
10:48
S2: home as a guest. And in the movie, they call
10:52
S2: it Zeus's law. So in in ancient Greece, this was
10:56
S2: a real thing that if somebody showed up on your doorstep,
11:00
S2: you have to bathe them, feed them, you know, give
11:04
S2: them something to eat. And only then do you ask
11:06
S2: who they are. So this is and it's a reciprocal thing,
11:11
S2: because then if you're ever in their neighborhood, they have
11:13
S2: to do the same thing for you. So it's a
11:16
S2: little bit sort of golden rule ish.
11:18
S1: And quite a stark contrast to the immigration policies in
11:21
S1: your country at the moment, I guess.
11:22
S2: Yeah. No. God knows. Yeah. And so Nolan rightly harps
11:30
S2: on this all through the movie. So, you know, for example,
11:35
S2: the reason Odysseus, a lot of people are shocked by
11:38
S2: the end of Homer's Odyssey because Odysseus kills all 108
11:42
S2: of these suitors who had been pursuing his wife. And
11:45
S2: the reason he kills him is not because they have
11:48
S2: offended him personally, because they've been trying to marry his wife,
11:52
S2: but because they have violated this principle by entering this
11:56
S2: guy's house uninvited and eating him out of house and
11:59
S2: home while he's away. It's a violation of this principle
12:03
S2: of Xenia. And, and Nolan is onto this, And he
12:08
S2: keeps emphasizing it throughout the film in different ways. So
12:11
S2: I think in that sense, it does feel, you know,
12:15
S2: to connect it to what you were saying before, a
12:20
S2: little like a reminder of the way that we need
12:22
S2: to treat each other. Because of course, you know, as
12:26
S2: the Greek know, the Greeks knew, if you don't follow
12:29
S2: this law, which they held in the highest importance, Zeus
12:33
S2: himself will punish you. And in fact, in this movie,
12:39
S2: Nolan sort of twists the story a little bit, and
12:42
S2: he makes the it's the Greeks who were guilty of
12:45
S2: violating this by having sent the Trojan horse into Troy,
12:50
S2: which they pretended was a gift to the Trojans, but
12:54
S2: of course contained this deadly ambush. So Nolan wants that
13:00
S2: famous story to be seen as a violation of this
13:05
S2: principle of guest Hospitality.
13:09
S1: Interesting.
13:10
S2: It is interesting, but he's hip to the fact that
13:13
S2: this is important in the Odyssey, and he has found
13:15
S2: a way to sort of represent it.
13:18
S1: And I wanted to ask you about something you just wrote.
13:20
S1: You wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times
13:23
S1: about something of an outcry, which erupted after it was
13:26
S1: revealed that the incredible actress Lupita Nyong'o was cast as
13:31
S1: Helen of Troy. Uh, we know that Elon Musk and
13:34
S1: Donald Trump Jr have both lashed out against this amongst others,
13:38
S1: particularly amongst, I guess, conservative circles. So I guess tell
13:41
S1: us a bit about the outcry and what that says.
13:43
S1: If anything, I guess, about the challenges of the time
13:47
S1: we're living in perhaps.
13:49
S2: Yeah, I mean, I think so what happened was, you know,
13:52
S2: over the past year or so, Nolan has been dropping
13:56
S2: teaser trailers and, you know, which have then excited tremendous
14:00
S2: amounts of comment. And one of the trailers revealed that
14:05
S2: as Helen of Troy, who of course, is part of
14:07
S2: this story, Worry. He cast the Kenyan Mexican actress Lupita Nyong'o,
14:13
S2: who's an Academy Award winning actress and the, you know,
14:19
S2: the sort of right wing loonies went crazy. And they
14:22
S2: said it was a desecration of this great Western, you know,
14:26
S2: work of Western literature. And it was, you know, I
14:30
S2: think Musk said it was pissing on Homer's grave and blah, blah, blah.
14:34
S2: There were a lot of ugly, racist comments that rose
14:38
S2: to the surface and it launched a whole global, you know,
14:44
S2: online social media sort of firestorm of, you know, pros
14:49
S2: and cons, people defending Nolan for choosing an African, uh,
14:55
S2: looking actress to play Helen of Troy, the legendary beauty.
14:59
S2: And people, you know, hating on him for it. As
15:03
S2: I tried to point out my piece, I mean, first
15:07
S2: of all, this is 2026. The fact is, nobody in
15:12
S2: a contemporary, you know, version of a Greek classic is
15:16
S2: going to look anything like these people look like, whether
15:18
S2: they're black, white, orange or purple. And so if the
15:23
S2: only thing you care about is race, then that just
15:26
S2: says something about you.
15:32
S1: Well, Daniel, it has been such a pleasure speaking with you.
15:34
S1: Thank you so much for your time.
15:36
S2: For me too. Thank you so much.
15:44
S1: Today's episode was produced by Kai Wang. Our executive producer
15:49
S1: is Tammy Mills, and our podcasts are overseen by Lisa
15:52
S1: Muxworthy and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow
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