3 things to know before watching The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has sparked renewed interest in Homer's ancient Greek epic poem.
Based on Homer’s 3,000-year-old epic poem, the film follows King Odysseus on his long journey home after the Trojan War.
Some viewers have debated how closely the film follows the original text.
Hongbing Yu, professor of comparative cultural studies and a semiotician with expertise in mythology, says the film is a form of storytelling, and it’s important to pay attention to your own interpretation.
“Storytelling is an inevitable and crucial part of being human,” says Yu. “We tell stories to not only attempt to convey what we believe to be true and important, but also to make sense of the times and places we find ourselves in, as well as ourselves in relation to people around us.”
Both the film and Homeric poems are products of long and complex oral and written traditions.
“They are results of different modes and sources of storytelling, and between them there are apparent differences in storylines, characters and themes,” says Yu.
“At the end of the day, what matters more than the degree of fidelity of the movie to the ‘original’ poems is perhaps what the viewers can interpret out of the movie and the poems in their many editions of translation before and/or after watching the movie — about ourselves, about life and about what kind of world we wish to live peacefully in with others.”
Here are three things Yu says you should know before watching The Odyssey: