Version 1: Fri, Sep 4, 2026
By
Classical Numismatic Group,
Inc. http://www.cngcoins.com,
CC
BY-SA 3.0,
Link
Head of Odysseus wearing a pileus depicted on a 3rd-century BC coin from Ithaca / Thunderbolt within wreath, 300-191 BC. Æ 18mm (3.48 g).
Bret C. Devereaux
Dr. Bret C. Devereaux teaches at North Carolina State University
Personal site: A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry: A look at history and popular culture https://acoup.blog/
Odysseus at the End of Civilization: Nolan’s film confronts the betrayal of the West’s own values https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/07/23/odyssey-civilization-collapse-history/ By Bret Devereaux - Foreign Policy - July 23, 2026 - Archive https://archive.is/5zORe
This is the only positive review of the film in this post. A case of bending over backwards to defend and explain everything. When Devereaux linked ancient Greeks with MAGA machismo he lost me. Nolan couldn’t get a better review even if he paid.
.jpg#/media/File:The_Blinding_of_Polyphemus,_cast_reconstruction_of_the_group,_Sperlonga_(14969535228).jpg)
By
Carole
Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany -
The
Blinding of Polyphemus, cast reconstruction of the group, Sperlonga,
CC
BY-SA 2.0,
Link
Keith Woods
Keith Woods: Nationalism https://www.keithwoods.com/
Amazon bio excerpt: Keith Woods is an Irish writer, activist, and content creator.
Eat, Pray, Sail: Christopher Nolan’s Therapeutic Odyssey https://www.keithwoods.com/p/the-odyssey Jul 19, 2026
An excerpt with added emphasis:
[…] For all his adaptability, Odysseus is among literature’s great figures of rootedness. He can assume innumerable identities and survive within radically different worlds, yet he never forgets the particular place to which he belongs. Calypso offers him immortality and eternal youth, but he chooses an ageing wife and a poor, rocky island. He prefers a finite life that is his own to an endless existence severed from his household, ancestry and name. In an age of globalism and a distrust of the rooted and familiar, an age of oikophobia, this is a powerful message, and one Hollywood has predictably deemed unfit for a modern audience. In fact, it is through examining this ancient relationship between a man and his home that we can best see the gulf that exists between us and the ancients.
This is best explored in Fustel de Coulanges’ The Ancient City. Coulanges presents an ancient world in which the household was not merely a private residence or source of emotional comfort. It was simultaneously a family, religious institution and political order. Its hearth was sacred, its land contained the ancestral dead, and its descendants maintained the rites joining past and future generations. Coulanges clarifies the true stakes of Odysseus’ homecoming. For the ancient man, “Whatever man held most dear was associated with the idea of country. In it he found his property, his security, his laws, his faith, his god. Losing it he lost everything.”
By
Arnold
Böcklin -
Sotheby’s
London, 11 June 2012, lot 8 (has longer description), Public Domain,
Link
by Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901)
Hua Bin
Hua’s Substack: My personal Substack on topics related to China, trade, technology, military, and more - no ideology, only data and facts https://huabinoliver.substack.com/
The Odyssey and the futility of fake cultural universalism: Christopher Nolan spoiled a timeless classic with blatant tokenism https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/the-odyssey-and-the-futility-of-fake - Aug 18, 2026 - Archive https://archive.is/RsQKm
Two excerpts:
Damon is the ultimate safe choice – a white, proven, bankable A-list Hollywood superstar.
Nolan and the studio would never experiment with an Indian or a Hispanic actor for this role, however much such a choice would promote cultural universalism.
Because you can bet your bottom dollar that an Indian or Hispanic lead as Odysseus will crush the box office.
and he continues later on:
True cultural diversity relies on the faithful preservation of each civilization’s specific roots, contexts, and characteristics.
It means respecting differences and preserving the unique history of distinct peoples.
You protect the integrity, boundaries, and unique identities of each civilization by ensuring that European, Asian, and African stories are told with respect to their actual origins.
Blending them all into a modern, interchangeable melting pot under the guise of “universality” erases the very civilizational identity it claims to celebrate.
Nolan and the Hollywood have also done no favors to the “underprivileged” races to include them in historically inaccurate depiction.
Inserting actors of color into historically or textually inaccurate European roles is a superficial shortcut.
Instead of writing original, high-budget epics rooted in African, Asian, or Indigenous histories and mythologies, Hollywood simply changes the skin color of existing European characters.
This is corporate cynicism.
It treats historical truth, objective texts, and ancestral traditions as completely meaningless.
By
Giorces
derivative work:
Habib
M’henni - File:GiorcesBardo54.jpg, Public Domain,
Link
Odysseus and the Sirens, Ulixes mosaic at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis, Tunisia, 2nd century AD.
Hamid Dabashi
Hamid Dabashi is Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he teaches Comparative Literature, World Cinema, and Postcolonial Theory. His latest books include: After Savagery: Gaza, Genocide, and the Illusion of Western Civilization (2025) https://mesaas.columbia.edu/faculty-directory/hamid-dabashi/
Christopher Nolan remakes the Odyssey as an Anglo-American imperial fantasy https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/christopher-nolan-odyssey-anglo-american-imperial-fantasy by Hamid Dabashi - Middle East Eye - 14 August 2026 - Archive https://archive.is/DLO0b
Homer’s epic emerged from the eastern Mediterranean, but Hollywood’s latest adaptation continues a long tradition of appropriating ancient Greece for an invented western identity
Two excerpts with emphasis:
The film’s diverse supporting cast has meanwhile drawn fire from the opposite direction: Elon Musk generated much nonsense when objecting to Lupita Nyong’o being cast as Helen.
But such choices are entirely within the purview of studio executives seeking to cover all demographic bases for their own financial reasons - whereby we see the British-Indian actor Himesh Patel cast as Eurylochus, John Leguizamo as Eumaeus, Lupita Nyong’o as both Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, and the transgender actor Elliot Page as Sinon.
These are not “politically correct” decisions. These are financially opportune choices to touch base with various demographic audiences - which is why Nolan and his stars Damon and Tom Holland went to Mumbai on 10 July 2026 to promote their film in a vastly populated market where Himesh Patel is a known commodity.
and he zeros in on the supposedly anti-war message:
They say Nolan’s Odyssey is anti-war. I don’t think so - and even if it were, it would be anti-war from the perspective of a nuclear-powered white-saviour fantasy. People around the globe do not like such fantasies, and find them entirely offensive.
Nolan’s Odysseus has PTSD: having first come up with the idea, then built the Trojan Horse, then caused the slaughter of his enemies, he has nightmares recalling what he has done - which is exactly how his Oppenheimer worked.
First you cause and stage the mayhem and murder of fragile humanity at your mercy; then you go and make a film about the traumas of the mass murders you have inflicted upon the world.
Israel is a master of this kind of cinema, with films such as Lebanon (2009), Waltz with Bashir (2008), and Beaufort (2007). The world must first endure Israel’s criminal atrocities, and then have sympathy for the perpetrators when they have nightmares remembering what they have done to human beings.
By concentrating on Odysseus’s PTSD, the film is in fact pro-war, not anti-war. It humanises the warmongers while dehumanising their victims. It focuses on the hero’s psychological trauma, not on the transmutation of his murderous arrogance into hubris.
More on Homer
A Chorus Of Poets: On The Possible Existence Of Multiple Homers: Henry Power Considers Theories On The Authorship Of The Iliad And The Odyssey https://lithub.com/a-chorus-of-poets-on-the-possible-existence-of-multiple-homers/ - Literary Hub - Fri, 17 Jul 2026 - Archive https://archive.is/ojvFJ
Henry Power studied Classics and English at Oxford.
Another Odyssey
I left the best for last:
Nostos: The Return (1989) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcTok5q_Tfs ~85 min A film by Franco Piavoli
Minimal budget, and very few spoken words in a language that was made up! No need for huge Hollywood tech, this is true cimema, the power of images!
Started: Fri, Sep 4, 2026
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