by liberal japonicus
Apologies for the radio silence, been watching lots of discussion about Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey. I limit myself to full length youtube videos, and I avoid shorts like the plague, but here is your invitation to post anything related that you think might be interesting.
It should probably be mentioned that, early on, Musk overstayed his visa. Which is to say, he was an illegal immigrant.
Under MAGAt orthodoxy, he should be rounded up and deported (without due process) to somewhere like South Sudan. Without, mind, the opportunity to take any possessions with him, beyond the clothes on his back.
this person, who has benefited enormously from Nolan’s film
I must say, this phrase in Joyce Carol Oates’s denunciation of Emily Wilson is pretty mind-blowing. Even though it echoes my earlier comment about Nolan fans angry about Wilson “biting the hand that feeds her”, I find it an extraordinary remark from such a source when referring to a gifted scholar (from a family, FWIW, numbering at least two previous generations of renowned scholars). Does she think that Wilson should not give her views about the depiction of a work which has obsessed her since childhood? Because (presumably by this she means economically) she has “benefitted enormously from Nolan’s film”? Good grief.
GftNC – agreed. Oates is feeding the hand that bites.
It’s funny. I think this is more or less what I was thinking, though I probably would have expressed it as something like, “It’s a f**king IMAX movie! What do you expect?”
Legit.
Does she think that Wilson should not give her views about the depiction of a work which has obsessed her since childhood?
This is where the MAGA comparison is really interesting. Perhaps it is because I’ve been thinking of identity and individuality as well as ownership, and, on the backdrop of the recent earthquake, how all that impacts life and society. I understand that Wilson has gotten a lot of grief for her translation choices, which she often aired out on Twitter. Here is a discussion of some of those points, and reading the tweet battles, I’m thinking that I’m mostly on Team Wilson. An underlying reason for that is that a lot of the attacks that were made on Wilson were, at their root, an idea that they owned the epic rather than her and therefore, she was not allowed to put forward her views.
However, her attack on Nolan seems to me to be that same argument, that she somehow owns the IP and Nolan is trespassing. I think that may be why Oates invokes the MAGA view, because it is fundamentally the same, claiming ownership of something that is really not theirs to own.
A lot of this is just human nature, this guardian article deploring the lack of Greek actors in the movie has the same sort of vibe.
I think in Wilson’s case it is less a sense of “ownership” than it is one of “guardianship.” I don’t think she treats the text as her own (propre – property) so much as she sees herself as having the text partially in her trust. She has, after all, given though to every single word of the original, and I would not doubt that she feels as if that gives her deeper insight into, and engagement with, the poem than what Nolan (or Oates) has. She is a gnostic initiate into the mysteries of the poem, where Nolan is merely inspired by its narrative.
She’s not saying Nolan’s film is illegitimate, just that it lacks a deep understanding of the deeper meanings of the original text, and has added new concerns that were not present in the original. (Recognizing here that “original” is a fraught term for a folk epic.)
It’s not so much a matter of ownership, as of authority and authenticity. Not how much the text belongs to you so much as how much you belong to the text.
Which is to say, I don’t think Wilson is being a gatekeeper in the way that MAGA absolutely is engaged in a project of gatekeeping.
The question is, when does this notion of guardianship cross the line to ownership? I’m sure that Elon would claim he is merely ‘guarding’ Western civilization.
A funny thread of opinion that has been coming out has been about how Odysseus is a shitty guy and no role model. This essay (which I highly recommend) begins with the sentence “My students don’t like Odysseus”. I remember an old blog post by Brad DeLong where he asked who would you like as your comrade in the fox-hole, Odysseus or Achilles. I can’t remember what his conclusion was, but I have to admit, having someone wily and willing to pull every trick is probably better than someone who goes into a berserk state of aristeia.
What is Musk if not a gatekeeper?
In A Pedagogy for Liberation (one of my go-to books for pedagogical inspiration, Ira Shor and Paulo Freire talk about the role of the teacher in the liberating classroom (opposed to the transfer classroom which indoctrinates students into the existing power structure). They agree that the role of the teacher is to model intellectual rigor to students – giving students license to question while asking their own questions to illuminate the parts of the students’ questions that they have not considered deeply enough. That strikes me as being akin to what Wilson is doing with her interventions in the public discourse.
Musk, meanwhile, is engaged in a reactionary project meant to indoctrinate his followers into his preferred vision of society. He’s a propagandist pretending to be a brave intellectual rebel.
WRT Achilles vs Odysseus, I think the foxhole framing is a bit reductive. The two heroes are not grunts, they are generals, albeit generals who engage in active combat.
So another question to ask here is whose orders you would trust more to properly value the lives of his men?
The answer to the latter question is a lot more, yes, “complicated.”
I seem to have lost the link to the old Obsidian Wings archives.
Could someone please repost it (and maybe put it also on the front page where currently only the new archives are linked.
I’m sure that Elon would claim he is merely ‘guarding’ Western civilization.
My view is that we are entitled to evaluate people’s claims according to the veracity of their claims in the past, and to a lesser extent what their likely motivation seems to be based on their past statements.
Hartmut – Try the “About our mascot” link at the top.
https://archive.obsidianwings.blog/
I’ve not worked on it for quite a while, but I think it is all there.
“At some point in the future I dearly hope we all have some kind of “perception reset” and treat him like a 21st-century Henry Ford.”
I figure Musk to be the 21st century’s Howard Hughes. Which does not bode well for him, long term.
Thank you
Despite my admiration for what I understand so far that Emily Wilson has done with her translation, I do believe there is a meta-issue here regarding what Nolan seems to have achieved with his film – which is, after all, an entirely different art form. I have not yet read the translation nor seen the film, but I am very struck by this Ezra Klein piece in today’s NYT. Given the huge popularity of the film, if he’s right its underlying message may turn out to herald a small but significant deviation in the current direction of our culture.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/02/opinion/christopher-nolan-odyssey-elon-musk.html?unlocked_article_code=1.2VA.MyYC.ioRu0gHOStGQ&smid=url-share
Haven’t seen the movie; last read the book (no idea what translation) over 50 years ago, but regarding the “difference in art form”: it is MUCH harder in a movie to reveal a character’s “inner dialog”.
Doable for live theater to an extent. But movies are a “show, not say” medium.
Klein is onto a productive line of thinking, and he does get at a big part of what Nolan is doing, but he only gets to a sort of halfway house for the full set of connections.
Nolan is not sneaking the Golden Rule and Judeo-Christian critiques in as a trickster. It’s not subterfuge that underlies that move, it’s more of a judo move. Wilson’s translation has a section in yhe intro where she discusses Xenia (Zeus’s law of hospitality). It’s not Judeo-Christian, it’s older than that in what the right has branded as Western Civilization.
Klein reads the film as a critique of the current US policy, but I think Nolan is thinking more of Britain and of the “small boats” seeking a welcome on civil shores. It’s a critique of colonialism moreso than of American imperialism, but Klein is still relevant because, like Xenia and the Golden Rule, those values rhyme.
I understand Wilson’s stance, wanting to make a case for the version of Odysseus’ character shown in the poem. I feel that urge myself when I see the hash that Klein makes of Loki and tricksters in his essay. He’s not on solid scholarly footing with his analysis. He lacks expertise, and is only operating on the level of a middlebrow audience.
But I fully recognize that the cultural struggle for shared value is mostly fought out in the ground covered by the popular press, and that we cannot fight good stories with facts and nuances. I’m not upset with what Klein is saying, I just wish his cup weren’t so full, and that he could stretch his understanding beyond his own limited experience.
I applaud and support Nolan in his smart critique of the wrongness of illiberal Western Chauvinism as defense of Western Civilization, and I applaud Wilson for having likely given Nolan the central value of his film in her front matter. It was a win for them both, and there is no need to try and force a conflict there where there is only a difference in choice over what to emphasize.
Klein: This “Odyssey” ostensibly hinges on Zeus’ law: Treat the beggar and the stranger as you would want to be treated. But as a horde of classicists have pointed out, that is not the law of Zeus, which is narrower
…..
Nolan has smuggled the core of Judeo-Christian ethics into “The Odyssey.”
nous: Wilson’s translation has a section in yhe intro where she discusses Xenia (Zeus’s law of hospitality). It’s not Judeo-Christian, it’s older than that in what the right has branded as Western Civilization.
Surely that is what Klein is saying? Only he says it is narrower, but neglects (understandably, surely?) to say it is older.
I think Nolan is thinking more of Britain and of the “small boats” seeking a welcome on civil shores.
I think he is talking about the whole phenomenon of not seeing foreigners, or the people seeking sanctuary/escape as human, or worthy of care and help: the small boats, colonialism, ICE, the Haitian immigrants, the Southern border.
And where Musk is concerned, his racism shows not only in his Lupita Nyong’o objections, but in his blithe denial that millions of third world children and adults are dying or going to die as a result of his DOGE adventure.
In which connection, I particularly liked Klein’s neat comment:
Elon Musk did not understand what this movie was. But this movie understands what Musk is.
nous, Klein refers to Lewis Hyde’s book, Trickster makes this world, and I’m wondering if you have read it.
Unfortunately, it will take some time before Nolan’s movie gets to me, especially with the earthquake, so I’ll hold off on any more comments, except to note this
https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/christopher-nolan-explains-problem-film-criticism-today/
The question about civilizational rise and fall seems to represent a Chinese view of the film, but this quote is interesting
“We’re looking at a lingua franca of storytelling created by Hollywood for the last hundred years that is effectively universal. … It is a very, 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,” Nolan added. “I’m thinking more of amateur criticism when I say that people who — because they feel they’ve identified the mechanism, they feel that it invalidates it. That can be true of certain elements, and film grammar (and) 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 (that) our audience has seen many films and they understand that language.”
I have not, though I did go to the publisher’s website and skimmed the excerpt they provide. I can see why it appealed to people like Atwood and Foster Wallace. It’s pithy and has a swing to it. It cites many examples, but it was touching on themes and didn’t spend much time trying to contextualize the stories. Maybe he does that later? I don’t know. What I read, though, doesn’t lead me to want to spend more time with his thoughts on the subject. I’d prefer something less wide ranging and associative and more grounded in the specifics of time and place.
Clearly Atwood disagrees with me, though, and Kirkus, so I’m probably not going to get many book club invites.
Ironically, the production itself is entangled in neo-colonialism:
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/16/the-odyssey-sahrawi-people-christopher-nolan-western-sahara
https://carnegieendowment.org/emissary/2026/07/odyssey-movie-western-sahara-morocco-film
wilson mentioned that at the end of her piece in the LRB, which seemed like picking up whatever convenient cudgel is at hand. If she did feel it important, she certainly buried the lede.
i usually don’t read reviews, but this stuff has been inescapable.
and what i’ve learned is that there is no way i will be able to enjoy this movie because everything it does is wrong for some reason and i should probably feel bad about even wanting to give Nolan any money.
which is why i usually don’t read reviews.