Christopher Nolan responds to rightwing bigots' backlash to his film "The Odyssey"

[Magical Realist]

"Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has weighed in on the backlash his new film The Odyssey faced before anyone had even seen it.

Released later this week, The Odyssey boasts an all-star cast that includes the likes of Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya.

However, certain small-minded critics have taken issue with some of the movie’s casting choices.

Most notably, the decision to have Lupita Nyong’o play Helen Of Troy in Nolan’s take on Homer’s Ancient Greek epic was met with racist backlash, while some also slammed the choice for Elliot Page to appear in the cast, reuniting the director and actor for the first time since the latter’s transition.

During a new interview with The Telegraph, the Oscar-winning director made it clear that this kind of discourse doesn’t really get to him, as it “comes with the territory”.

“These conversations that happen before people see the film – they’re always irrelevant, because no one having them knows what the film actually is yet,” he claimed.

Nolan also pointed out that, earlier on in his career, he “spent 10 years of my life dealing with Batman”, meaning he’s well-versed in these kinds of debates.

“When I came on to Batman Begins, writers and artists had been working on this beloved character for almost 65 years, and a lot of freighted thoughts were out there about what he represents,” he said.

“And what I learnt over my time on that trilogy is you can’t worry about any of that at all. What you have to do is honour the original text by interpreting it in the strongest way you personally can.”

He concluded: “All I can do is make the best film I possibly can in the most sincere way. It’s very different from how anyone else would do it, but that’s what adaptation is.”

Praising Lupita Nyong’o’s work in his latest film, the Oppenheimer director told Elle earlier this year: “The strength and the poise were so important to the character of Helen. And Lupita makes it look effortless.

“I’m sure there’s a tremendous amount of discipline and training that goes into projecting that kind of poise and feeling the emotion bubbling beneath the character, the layers of the character right there underneath. She’s just an incredible person to work with, and I was absolutely desperate for her to do the part.”

More recently, he has also responded to the polarised takes on The Odyssey’s approach to historical accuracy – including the inclusion of modern dialogue in the film.

The Odyssey hits cinemas on Friday 17 July."

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/c...upqokZZQEg

[C C]

And the entertainment industry does depict non-Western cultures inaccurately, too (their history, customs, mythos, etc). Despite professing that they go to great effort to make sure they get it right and sometimes making adjustments due to ensuing criticism. For instance, the excerpt at the bottom that pertains to the TV series Dark Winds.

The only difference is that they don't have to show any respect to, say, the history and ancient story narratives of the privileged and oppressive West. Social justice doesn't apply to the latter, so they can portray or change _X_ however they want and just economically flash a finger to the whining objectors. (For the '50s and '60s, the shows Annie Oakley and Daniel Boone were ridiculously unfaithful outrages that were disapproved by historical societies.)

Though, admittedly, this may be a period where some films could be suffering at the box office due to that lack of cultural sensitivity, and eventually money does start to matter. But it's just a temporary bump that will fade as many other trends have in the past.
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Critical response: The Navajo Times criticized the series for its stereotypical presentations of Navajo people and incomprehensible delivery of the language by non-native speakers of Diné bizaad. Series director Chris Eyre responded to the criticism, and commented, "It's critically important to all of us that we represent the culture correctly. If there's course-correction to be made, we're happy to do that." For the second season, the series hired Navajo cultural advisor George R. Joe to help create more accurate portrayals of the Navajo culture.

[C C]

Mixed reaction for Chris Gore, who's going to watch it a second time. Disaster rating from Alan Ng. Both agreed that the "controversial castings" didn't even matter. The identity-swapping stuff or whatever that was actually about.

With regard to the use of modern speaking, there have always been B-movies of historical periods since the 1950s that were too cheap to even bother with sounding faux-antique (Hercules speaking with a NYC accent, etc). And it's hilarious that we feel substituting posh or affected British accents and elitist Mid-Atlantic speech for ancient Greco-Roman languages in movies is authentic. Especially when the contemporary UK speech pattern didn't even begin emerging until the late 1700s. The accents used in Shakespearean acting are blatantly anachronistic, as is that application in Robin Hood themes and any historical drama set in the pre-1800s.
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FILM THREAT
https://youtu.be/aGisZUaV7JQ

NG: I was bored out of my mind. I was checked out of this movie pretty much from the beginning. The sound was awful. I couldn't understand dialogue. And then I started to understand dialogue and realized how bad the dialogue is. This is the most pretentious movie I've seen all year.

GORE: The thing that didn't work for me mostly was the accents. The way they spoke, I felt diminished the film. It just felt too modern.

There are parts that drag, especially the first half, but then there are also moments, in particular with the Cyclops, that I thought were great. The fall of Troy. I thought Samantha Ward was very good as the witch and the way the soldiers transform. I'm not going to go into detail there. I thought that was very clever.

But for the most part, I'm still marinating on it. It's not a disaster. But I'll say the controversial castings were not a big deal. It's not that big a deal because of screen time, right? They might as well be cameos. They're really not in the movie all that much.

[...] It's one of those things where you see a Nolan film the first time, and you're like, why did he do this and that, and then the second time you see it, maybe it bothers you less.

NG: That's not going to happen for me.

GORE: We'll see. I'm seeing it a second time.

NG: Here's my big problem. That was Matt Damon on screen. That was Anne Hathaway on screen. That was Tom Holland on screen. There was no characterization, no effort to say, "I'm playing this character." Instead, I'm seeing Matt Damon and hatboy and everyone. And it just doesn't feel part of the period.

GORE: I don't like that the colors were muted. It felt very muted. It should have been grand and colorful, and it wasn't that. And I thought the music was not the best for a Nolan film. Usually the score carries the movie a lot. This one didn't.

NG: A lot of drumming.

GORE: The Travis Scott song over credits.

NG (sarcasm): Oh yeah. I can't wait to see it at the Academy Awards this year.

GORE: You won't.

I will say this movie will probably win a lot of technical Oscars, and it is guaranteed to win an Oscar for casting, and there's a reason for that.

[...] This is initial reaction, and my reaction is that it's not a disaster but mixed. For Alan it is a disaster, not mixed.

Just out of the theater reactions ... https://youtu.be/aGisZUaV7JQ

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/aGisZUaV7JQ

[Magical Realist]

"A group of movie critics saw Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey last week. They posted social media impressions about the film, all of which were uniformly positive. Now, we are on round 2, just a few days ahead of the The Odyssey’s official premiere this weekend, as a new invite-only preview has spawned yet another host of online takes, many of which are from the press.

Well, guess what? Like the first batch, they are unanimously glowing. Not just glowing, some are so over the top it’s almost hard to believe. Here is a sampling:

Austin Burke: “#TheOdyssey is an experience… Maybe THE experience of 2026. Nolan has crafted something monumental. While it’s an impressive spectacle, the performances are fantastic… A few of them are nomination locks.”

Stephen Ford: “the odyssey is the kinda movie where you find yourself completely forgetting you're even watching a movie. it felt like i was dreaming. a mythical nightmare that blends elements from all of nolan's films. so lucky to see this in theaters. i'm in awe that this movie even exists.”

Gene Park (Washington Post): “im absolutely speechless. what an experience.”

They go on like this indefinitely. The worst one I’ve seen is a “mixed” review:

Edward Douglas: “Gonna struggle to give The Odyssey more than a mixed review cause it suffers from many issues, including lighting, pacing, and a muddy sound mix that made it tough to understand anything or anyone. Best parts were the ones involving things like Circe and the Cyclops."

There is, of course, still the frequent skepticism on social media that anyone invited to an early screening will be biased toward liking the film. This ignores the countless times this happens with every single movie that is screened for press, where those films range in scores from 0% to 100% on the Rotten Tomatoes scale. It doesn’t make sense that this is some sort of cabal put in place by Universal to artificially boost the film’s hype. I would brace for low, review-bombed user scores for The Odyssey, however, as with the online discourse it has spawned about its casting of minority actors and alleged “faithfulness to the source material,” things are obviously heading in that direction. That may not be the case on Rotten Tomatoes, where anti-bombing measures now make moviegoers verify they actually saw the film (thanks, Captain Marvel). If you want a preview of the situation brewing here, you can read the comments under practically any Odyssey social media post on the internet, including many of these reviews.

The next question is box office. It seems like a reach that Nolan can top his Batman movies, but a more immediate comparison is Oppenheimer, which grossed $975 million. Then, of course, awards. Critics are already saying The Odyssey is a serious contender for a slew of them, and Oppenheimer won Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, among others. We’ll see how The Odyssey stacks up."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2...unanimous/