Christopher Nolan Says There’s A ‘Flaw’ In Film Criticism

Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has been broadly praised by critics. The record-breaking movie has a whopping 94% on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes (that jumps up to 97% for the audience-generated Popcornmeter score).

Still, the adaptation has received its fair share of criticism, too. Nolan’s version of the millennia-old story was partly inspired by classical studies professor Emily Wilson’s translation of the poem.

But Wilson, it seemed, wasn’t such a fan. While she was “humbled” the director had cited her work, the classics expert said she would “be ashamed to have written any part of” the script.

Writer Joyce Carol Oates has since defended the director’s interpretation. And now, Nolan himself has chimed in on the discourse.

Speaking with translator, lecturer and podcaster Zhong Shu, Nolan talked about “a fundamental flaw of film criticism”.

When asked about how his version of the Greek classic portrays Odysseus (played by Matt Damon) in a more contemporary way, the director said: “The criticism that’s often levelled at movies in general is, ‘Oh, the character has to be made sympathetic, so the character is manipulated in different ways or changed in different ways’.”

“And that’s a fundamental flaw of film criticism in a way, or storytelling criticism. Because to be able to identify the mechanism does not invalidate the mechanism. And that’s a real problem in criticism today.”

The Oppenheimer auteur continued, “I’m thinking more of amateur criticism, because they feel they’ve identified the mechanism, they feel that it invalidates it. That can be true of certain elements, and film grammar, film language evolves with that.

“So when a trope becomes too familiar to an audience, then it has to be changed. But we do, as filmmakers, avail ourselves of that common language. We build on that understanding. Our audience has seen many films and they understand that language.”

You can watch Zhong Shu’s podcast here.