The Odyssey expert's second salvo at Nolan: “Visually stunning, emotionally empty”

More importantly, he believes that Nolan's way of depicting violence sabotages the film's own message.

Wilson's objection can be summarized as follows: The script tells the audience that human life and compassion are important, while the camera transforms the massacres into a large-scale spectacle, establishing a different value system.

The Trojan Horse sits at the center of the debate

A significant portion of the new article is dedicated to Nolan's interpretation of the Trojan Horse.

Wilson acknowledges that the approximately 12-meter tall structure built for the film is physically impressive. He particularly notes the effectiveness of the scene where the horse traps the soldiers inside as the seawater rises.

However, he sees the problem not in the image itself, but in what this spectacle conveys within the story.

Wilson argues that in Homer and later in Virgil, the Trojan Horse narrative raises more complex questions about war, deception, sacrifice, and the cost of victory. In Nolan's film, he believes that mechanical processes — moving the horse, opening the doors, hiding weapons — overshadow the inner worlds of the characters.

He expresses this quite harshly in one sentence: The film shows the inside of the horse but does not show the inner lives of the characters.

The fundamental objection to the interpretation of Odysseus remains unchanged

The main disagreement between Wilson and Nolan centers around the character of Odysseus.

Nolan's Odysseus, portrayed by Matt Damon, is reinterpreted as a traumatized man returning from war, burdened with guilt.

Wilson, however, argues that Homer's character cannot be reduced to such a singular psychological axis. According to him, the Odysseus in the source text is a more complex figure driven by numerous sometimes conflicting desires such as fame, food, sex, family, status, survival, and returning home.

Therefore, Wilson's fundamental objection is not as simple as “Nolan was not faithful to the book.”

In his first article, Wilson clearly stated that adaptations do not have to follow the source text verbatim, and that sometimes the best adaptations radically change the original. The issue he has is not that Nolan made changes, but that he believes the changes made do not produce a sufficiently strong idea within themselves.

He included the filming location of Western Sahara in the discussion

One of the harshest sections of the second article that differs from the first critique concerns the film's production.

Wilson criticizes the filming of the Calypso scenes in the disputed Western Sahara region, controlled by Morocco. He finds the production, carried out without the consent of the local Sahrawi people, contradictory to the themes the film attempts to build around entering foreign lands, utilizing resources, and hospitality ethics.

This shows that Wilson is no longer conducting the debate solely at the level of “it wasn't like this in Homer.” The new article treats the film as a whole that should be evaluated within the same ethical framework concerning the source text, cinematic language, and production choices.

Nolan did not respond directly

Wilson's first article quickly turned into a discussion not only in cinema circles but also in the literary and academic world.

Author Joyce Carol Oates criticized the language used by Wilson, while other classicists argued that Nolan did not give enough space to the adaptation choices. Supporters of Wilson's approach believe that an academic who has worked with the source text for decades speaking so openly against a popular director enriches the debate.

Nolan, however, did not respond directly to Wilson. In a later interview, he spoke about some “amateur film critiques,” but did not present his words as a direct answer to Wilson.

The discussion surrounding The Odyssey has thus transcended film criticism. The Guardian considers the debate over the production's adaptation choices, female characters, and relationship with the source text as one of the major cultural agendas of literature.

The debate is now bigger than the question of “Is it faithful to the book?”

Wilson concludes his new article by linking it to the issue of compassion.

According to him, in a time filled with hatred and misinformation, art must do more than produce striking images; it needs to genuinely convey the human cost of violence and why compassion is necessary. In his view, Nolan's film fails precisely at this point.

Thus, reading the debate between Christopher Nolan and Emily Wilson as a classic “Which is better, the book or the film?” argument falls short.

Nolan brought Homer to the modern audience by referencing Wilson's translation. Wilson, however, is now questioning not only how closely that adaptation resembles Homer but also what idea Nolan put in place while changing the 3,000-year-old story.

And instead of retreating after the first critique, his publication of a second lengthy article shows that this debate is far from closing.