Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated summer blockbuster “The Odyssey” hit theaters over the weekend. A cinematic retelling of Homer’s epic is not a particularly original idea. The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) lists no fewer than 53 adaptations and, inevitably, the website omitted smaller or older productions. The first feature-length film of “The Odyssey,” the 1911 Italian “L’Odissea,” did not make the list, nor did “L’ile de Calypso ou Le Géant Polyphème,” the 1905 six-minute short by the pioneering French filmmaker Georges Méliès, which was most likely the first adaptation.
Nolan, then, is not necessarily doing anything new. In every land and in every generation for nearly 3,000 years, people have found resonance in the story of Odysseus’ journey home, making changes to the plot and characters as made sense for that era and people.
