The Things I Really Like

But I'm also a writer, and I think this focus on historical accuracy is often misguided and takes away from more interesting ways to engage with a story.

First, regardless of how accurate a work of historical fiction is, it will never be a perfect source for knowledge about a time and place. For instance, for all the praise a show like HBO's Rome gets for its accuracy, if someone wants to learn about the fall of the Roman Republic and that period in the city, the most accurate source of information is ultimately the primary sources we have from 1st century BC Rome. I think it is fool-hardy to fault a work of fiction for failing to be non-fiction source material. It is like blaming a cat for not being a dog.

Next, considering that, it is also worth considering that the original Homerian epics are themselves works of historical fiction. Most scholars believe the Iliad and Odyssey was originally composed in the 8th or 7th century BC. They tell a mythologized version of a Trojan War that many scholars believe is based on an actual historical conflict or conflicts around the 12th or 11th century BC. As such, the poems describe a conception of Bronze Age Greece from the perspective of the Archaic era. The Greek culture explored in the poems is thus more emblematic of the era it was composed in than the actual historical setting, not unlike how it would be safe to say that Nolan's modern retelling reflects our modern cultural sensibilities grafted onto this centuries-old story.

Finally, we also need to consider the history of the "historical epic" classic film genre. Hollywood has a long of history of making films set in the Classical world; these films often fail to be historically accurate, but they are interesting works of art nonetheless. The 1951 film Quo Vadis explores the persecution of the Christians in early imperial Rome; as a film, it perpetuates many historical inaccuracies, particularly about the emperor Nero, but it remains a fascinating work because its Christian/heathen narrative reflects the embrace of a Christian identity by America at the dawn of the Cold War in opposition to perceived Soviet atheism. Stanley Kubrick's 1960 film Spartacus, a classic of the genre written by the HUAC-blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, uses the historical slave uprising led by the gladiator Spartacus to tell a contemporary tale about class inequality and persecution. The point is, there is a long film tradition of this genre being used to tell stories set in historical times that reflect contemporary issues. I think it is important to consider this film as Nolan's contribution to this tradition.

also "there was no unified greek nation-state" does not mean there was no collective achaean identity, shared culture or concept of civilization. homer refers to the coalition collectively throughout the epics. "greece" is obviously modern translation shorthand, not evidence that telemachus had invented the westphalian state.

the xenia complaint is even stranger because zeus xenios is literally the divine guarantor of hospitality and the poem explicitly says strangers and beggars come from zeus. "zeus's law" may be simplified dialogue, but it is describing the actual religious logic behind xenia rather than randomly replacing it.

and calling penelope's political intelligence "modern feminism" is arguably more presentist than giving her political intelligence. she spends the original poem deceiving over a hundred aristocratic men, preserving odysseus's household and controlling the conditions of her remarriage. apparently women only become historically authentic once they stand silently in a veil with their hair pinned up.

Bursting through the stall door with a baseball bat hoisted over his head, director Christopher Nolan reportedly confronted moviegoer Luke Dias on Friday for using the bathroom during The Odyssey. “You just couldn’t hold it, could you?” the Oscar-winning filmmaker said as he kicked his victim off the toilet seat and delivered a violent swing that shattered the porcelain stool.