Like his previous film Oppenheimer (2023) Nolan's adaptation of the Odyssey has been a film impossible to ignore or overlook this summer; many podcasters and YouTubers I follow have made references or indeed entire podcasts about it.
The story is known to many from childhood – the Cyclops, Circe turning men into swine, Scylla and Charybdis, Calypso's island, the Trojan Horse, the return to his wife Penelope at Ithaca.
What interested me in particular was the frequent references to 'the peoples of the sea', and a reference to the characters 'living in the Age of Bronze'. Nolan is explicitly connecting the Late Bronze Age collapse with the mysterious Sea Peoples, something that Homer does not do.
The Iliad and the Odyssey are epics attributed to Homer, who lived in the 8th century BC. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, while the Odyssey deals with its aftermath and Odysseus's ten-year journey home. The Trojan Horse and the sacking of Troy, which take place after the events of the Iliad, are recalled in the Odyssey. The historicity of the Trojan War is one for academics to argue about, but there is a consensus view that if there was such a conflict, it would have taken place in the late 12th century BC, around 400 years before Homer's time. So the Trojan War occurred during the Bronze Age collapse.
Why so many Mediterranean civilisations all collapsed within a couple of decades at the turn of the 12th century BC remains a mystery, the Sea Peoples being one explanation. Current thinking points towards a combination of factors – climate change and drought, crop failures and famine, political instability, disrupted trade networks, warfare, migration and internal revolt. The Sea Peoples may therefore have been as much a symptom of the Bronze Age collapse as its cause.
Nolan couples the Sea Peoples narrative onto the idea of breaking Zeus' law. He takes the ancient Greek concept of xenia – a structured reciprocal institution governing relations between host and stranger, and enlarges it. A stranger arriving at one's house is to be received, fed and protected; in turn, the guest owes respect to the host and must not exploit their hospitality. Nolan expands the 'law of Zeus' into a general Christian principle of reciprocity – treating others as you yourself would wish to be treated.
The sacking of Troy is portrayed by Nolan as an act that contributes to the breakdown of what we'd now call the international rules-based order. Odysseus – his soldiers and indeed the Greek armies – have transgressed the laws of Zeus, and will pay dearly for doing so. Their hubris brings nemesis
He – his soldiers and indeed the Greek armies – have transgressed the laws of Zeus, for which they will pay dearly. What links The Odyssey with Oppenheimer? The Bomb and the Horse. A war-winning device that destroys the old order and unleashes a world of moral uncertainty. Odysseus's realisation that "we are the peoples of the sea" is a pivotal point in the film. The enemy is not some mysterious aquatic barbarians from beyond the known world – it's actually men like Odysseus himself. As trust breaks down between kingdoms, so do trade, diplomacy and the restraints governing warfare; collapse becomes self-reinforcing. The Bronze Age was doomed.
Ultimately, Odysseus has the gods – in particular Athena – on his side. Odysseus knows he will prevail, he will return to Ithaca and cleanse his palace of the egregiously behaving suitors. Has order triumphed over disorder?
Nolan ends his Odyssey with Odysseus and Penelope sailing off to the west, with their son Telemachus taking up the throne of Ithaca. Quite unlike Homer's original, in which Odysseus remains on the throne. Nolan seems to be signaling the need for generational change to ensure continuity of civilisation.
Any adaptation of a classic work of literature inevitably views it through the anxieties of its own age. Nolan gives us an Odyssey for a time preoccupied with collapsing international norms, displaced peoples, the fragility of trade and civilisation, and the consequences of discovering that rules can be broken with impunity.
This time two years ago:
Consciousness everywhere
This time three years ago:
International Awareness Awareness Day
This time six years ago:
Reflections on late-August
This time eight years ago:
Conscious of a waning summer
This time 12 years ago:
Plans for modernising the Warsaw-Radom railway line
This time 13 years ago:
World's largest ship calls in at Gdańsk
This time 15 years ago:
Raymond's Treasure - a short story
This time 16 years ago:
Now an urban legend: Kebab factory under W-wa Centralna
This time 17 years ago:
It was twenty years ago today
This time 18 years ago:
By bike to Czachówek again
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment