Odyssey: Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s timeless epic set in ancient Greece. An operatic fantasy tale about Odysseus, Telemachus, Antinous, and Athena. “Not only A “The story,” director Christopher Nolan announced at CinemaCon, “but the story.”
And also: My friend. Everyone looks like they’re from Ohio.
On Tuesday, Universal dropped the latest and most footage-packed trailer yet (below) for the highly anticipated film. Fans were impressed by the film’s scope and attractive star-studded cast. They’re also faced with one choice: The characters sound American and use language that sounds contemporary — more like Ithaca in New York than Ithaca in Greece. At one point, Odysseus, played by Matt Damon, leads a charge into battle by shouting, “Let’s go!” Even stars Tom Holland and Robert Pattinson, who are English, look American.
This choice is a stark departure from Hollywood’s unwritten rule of characters in historical epics using British accents – from Ten Commandments to Ben Hur to Gladiator To HBO Rome. clearly, Odyssey Characters speaking various dialects of Homeric, Attic and Hellenistic Koine Greek would not be suitable for an accessible film. But the modern British accent is traditionally considered universally enjoyable and “foreign enough” to convey a timeless quality (even though it has only been around in its current form for about 250 years or so).
The trope is so consistent and familiar that even fantasy shows set in other worlds, e.g game of thronesuse British accents. Perhaps the most amusing example of British bias is the use of an English accent on an 1980s HBO set Chernobyl Instead of subjecting viewers to five hours of Russian accents (limited series director Johan Renck put it bluntly, “[The Russian] The accent in the movie is so stupid.”
But you know what can seem a little silly sometimes, if we’re being honest? American accents.
Some comments on the trailer so far, taken from YouTube and Reddit, include: “People are complaining about The Shield being historically inaccurate. But at least they nailed Odysseus’s Boston accent.” “The phrase ‘My father’s coming home’ seems out of place in a sword-and-sandals movie with this much appeal.” And “it looks like they’re trying to have an epic conversation on the sidewalk outside Starbucks.” While another responded, saying: “I love all those ancient Greek and Roman movies with British accents, but the clichés don’t make sense, they can be dropped.”
And since Nolan himself is British, the Oscar winner probably doesn’t see anything strange about his own accent. Interestingly, Nolan’s brother and frequent collaborator, Jonathan Nolan, speaks with an American accent (the two went to school in different countries).
Ironically, Nolan has long been bemoaned by the presence of borderline inaudible dialogue in films like Tenet, Dunkirk and OppenheimerNow he feels a little sad about the dialogue, which seems as accessible as possible.
It’s worth noting that one director adopted archaic language dialogue for his big screen efforts – Mel Gibson. Gibson hit in 2004 Passion of Christ It was in Aramaic, Latin, Hebrew, and his 2006 film Apocalypto It was entirely in the Yucatec Maya.
Here’s the latest Odyssey Tractor. Check it out for yourself, bro.
