As a cornerstone of Western literature, The Odyssey
reflects eternal verities as well as contemporary sentiments. According to
Homer, the Odyssey is a celebrated warrior’s tale rife with cunning schemes and
many turns. According to Christopher Nolan, it is a patriarch’s revelation of
regret and redemption.
In the original poem, Homer ends his tale with the vengeful
families of the dead suitors slain by Odysseus. They demand his blood, as any
upstanding Ancient Greek would. In the midst of the battle to come, divine
authorities Athena and Zeus refuse to take sides (stark contrast to their
choices in Homer’s Iliad) and force a permanent truce among all parties,
ending the cycle of violence. With his wife Penelope and his kingdom restored
to him, Odysseus rules over Ithaca in peace.
In the movie, Odysseus and his wife reconnect, but they
cannot rest and celebrate their renewed love. They must travel west so he can
atone for his sins (having violated Zeus’ law) and provide a proper death and burial
for his fallen crewmates.
Homer’s original ending would have served just as well by
blockbuster standards. Yet Nolan’s unique twist on the man of many turns
commands its own respect, revealing the temperament of our time.
Nolan’s decision for Odysseus to go west reminds me of
another account of the famed wayward wayfarer: the celebrated Italian epic poet
Dante Alighieri in his medieval masterpiece The Divine Comedy.
Aside from enthusiasts of Italian literature, classicists, and
hard-core humanists, the general public is not aware of Dante’s interpretation
of Homer’s much-traveled hero: not just flaws and flaunts, follies and failures,
but flames and hellfire, too. Yet Dante’s Divine Comedy deserves more
respect and recognition than it currently receives, especially because his work
forms a seminal part of Western literature, too. Dante, along with Homer (and Virgil), is one
of the finest, most sophisticated epic poets in the Western Tradition, and his
take on Odysseus, or rather Ulysses, is illustrative not just of the power of
Homer’s epic, but its ongoing influence on Western thinkers and creators today.
Nolan and Dante share in this magnificent effort, and their interpretations of
the Ancient Greek epic and hero complement each other.
How one views the Odyssey, and its main character, is
shaped by the times and trials of the author, the readers, and the times. How
did Dante view Odysseus, whom he calls Ulysses per the Latin tradition?
Let’s visit Inferno, the first part of Dante’s Comedy,
where we find the poet facing the medieval version of a mid-life crisis. His
poetic mentor, Virgil, finds Dante, then informs him that he has been called
from on high to go on a spiritual journey through Hell and Purgatory, then to
achieve moral perfection and redemption in Paradise. Like Homer’s Odysseus,
Dante will take many turns, but he will be guided by reason, then revelation.
Like Nolan’s Odysseus, Dante will learn from his failures, and he will document
his journey through hell, where sinners of all backgrounds suffer commensurate
punishment for their sins.
In Canto XXVI of Inferno, Virgil leads Dante
into the eighth of ten bolge, or pockets, in the Eighth Circle of Hell
(which has nine total). In the eighth bolgia, the false counselors burn in
all-encompassing flames. Not only do they suffer for defrauding others, but also
because they misused their God-given gifts to seduce others to partake in evil
deeds.
Dante portrays Ulysses as a subject of this eternal,
infernal torment (along with Diomedes, who burns with him in the same flame) specifically
because of their deceitful plot to aid the Greeks’ entry and destruction of
Troy. In contrast, Nolan allows Odysseus to atone for his sins while alive,
while Dante ensures his eternal damnation.
Here we see where Dante and Nolan’s interpretations intersect:
Odysseus is not necessarily a hero, but certainly a flawed man who did a great
evil. The poet and the director expound upon a man who ruined a civilization, but
condemn his actions and require restitution for his wrongdoing.
According to Dante, how does Homer die? Ulysses tells Dante
through Virgil that he set sail for the West, seducing his men to come with him.
He conjoins them to his ill-fated voyage by telling them not to settle for
their limited knowledge and imagination:
Considerate la vostra semenza:
fatti non foste a viver come bruti,
ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.'
(XXIV, 118-120)
[Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;
Ye were not made to live like unto brutes,
But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge.'] (Translation, Henry
Wadsworth Longfellow)
The irony in this phrasing is unmistakable.
Odysseus/Ulysses' men are brutes, not just figuratively because of their part
in the destruction of Troy, but also literally: they became such at Circe’s
hand. True, their captain convinced the sorceress to reverse her evil curse,
but the brutish nature of his crew never disappeared and curses them in the
end. Just as Ulysses rallied them to deceive the Trojans and sack Troy, so too he
bewitches his men to sail west to their doom.
According to Dante’s account, Ulysses’ men see a large
mountain (Mount Purgatory in Dante’s cosmology) rising above the Atlantic
horizon. Then a mighty whirlwind rushes at them from the mountain, whips their
ship around, causing the water to overcome them, “Until the sea above us closed
again” (Inferno, XXVI, 142), to their doom.
In contrast to Dante’s depiction of Ulysses’ ignoble end, how
does Nolan’s movie end? On a ship together, the warrior and his wife embrace
the exile. There is a forlorn sorrow in this necessary departure.
They share these final words:
Odysseus: A new dawn will break over the darkened world
when our mistakes will once again be forgotten.
Penelope: We will endure.
Like in Dante’s poem, Nolan’s film ends with Odysseus going West,
but with hope. For Dante, it is in the West where Ulysses perishes, having
transgressed another boundary unfit for them to touch, and faces well-deserved
torment.
One could argue that Nolan’s Odysseus borrowed this
“Western” ending from Dante’s treatment of Ulysses. Nolan dismisses the sailor/schemer’s
vanity and cleverness, focusing on his brazen disregard for Zeus’ Law, and the
irreparable harm that follows.
Homer’s Odysseus does not respect boundaries, but he is
celebrated and receives a happy ending. Why do Nolan and Dante treat him
differently, punishing him for these transgressions? They interpret him through
their times and values.
Dante viewed Troy and its successor, Aeneas, with great
reverence (in large part because of Dante’s supreme appreciation for Virgil’s Aeneid),
as precursors to the Roman Empire and then the medieval Italian states under Papal
authority. For Dante, Christian rule under the Pope will end the political
rivalries and constant warfare ravaging his homeland. Ulysses dishonored those
honored figures and frustrated that hopeful end, so he must pay an eternal
price.
In contrast to Dante’s apparent Christian themes, Nolan taps
into the latent Christian sensibilities of a post-Christian world, entertaining
his time and audiences with the expectation that Odysseus’ wrongdoing will be
corrected, but also that the warrior is a good man who did bad things, and he
can be redeemed.
In Dante and Nolan’s accounts, Odysseus/Ulysses does not
stay in Ithaca. For Dante, the Homeric hero’s internal wanderlust inevitably leads
him to his demise. In the movie, Odysseus/Ulysses takes his wife and wends his
way West to embrace self-exile for violating Zeus’ law. Not as terrible as
burning in hell, but it’s a punishment all the same.
The focus on the West as a theme also deserves our
attention. Homer’s works are foundational to the Western Tradition. The works
of Homer (as well as Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, etc.) invite, nay, demand that
other future artists contend with them, comment on them, and even adapt them
for their times. Odysseus/Ulysses may not be an Everyman to some, but every man
can appreciate the wonders and works of his ventures, and also pass judgment on
them for their contemporary readers and viewers to consider.
While some critics (including myself) would have preferred
Nolan to remain faithful to the original epic, Nolan’s film in itself did not
suffer for this change. I don’t necessarily agree that Ulysses is evil because
of his sacking of Troy, but I can appreciate why the Italian epic poet punishes
him. In that way, Dante’s religious epic and Nolan’s breathtaking movie amass
incredible respect for not only referencing one of the West’s most frequently
cited and revered characters, but having the audacity to condemn him for his
deeds, whether through exile or eternal flames.
Perhaps this essay will encourage Nolan to focus his next
movie project on the epic poem The Divine Comedy. He could detail the
Tuscan political outcast’s journey from Hell to Paradise, documenting the
tortures, trials, and triumphs of his contemporaries and well-known historical
and literary figures. At the very least, Dante’s Inferno deserves a
broader appreciation than it currently receives, and based on current sales,
Nolan’s compelling film has generated a renewed respect for The Odyssey.
