When the first teaser for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey dropped online earlier this year, many viewers were surprised to hear Tom Holland’s Telemachus say “dad is coming home”.
But director Christopher Nolan has said the use of modern English was a deliberate creative decision. Nolan talked about the choice in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, saying he wanted to use “language that has emotional not intellectual meaning to people”.
“I was maybe being naive, it might bite me on the a**, but I wanted an earthy narrative. To me it was a no-brainer," he said.
The filmmaker acknowledged that his adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic involved several creative choices that have generated debate online, but said he anticipated that reaction.
Nolan also described Homer as his co-writer on the film. The original epic, believed to date from around the 7th or 8th century BC, follows the events after the Trojan War and the 20-year journey of Odysseus as he attempts to return home to his wife Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway, and son Telemachus, played by Holland.
During Odysseus’ absence, Penelope is besieged by suitors demanding that she marry one of them.
Explaining why he was drawn to the project, Nolan said the story represented a cultural space that had not been fully explored on a large cinematic scale.
“As a filmmaker, you are looking for a gap in the culture and this felt like an important one.. That world felt like it hadn’t been addressed. Ray Harryhausen did it working on a shoestring, but the opportunity to take this on - on a big scale - was there, and it hadn’t been there before.”
The Odyssey will be released in theatres on July 17 by Universal Pictures. Nolan is also scheduled to visit Mumbai later this week to promote the film in India.