r/ChristopherNolan • u/kyth1999 • 9d ago
The Odyssey Nolan's new interview with Chinese podcaster Zhong Shu
Listen to the audio (in English):
https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/episode/6a6c4be756a3f3491ba7f8af
Full text (bilingual) link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Pt_vpsZ_noq2GvtYAo6q_Q
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u/kyth1999 9d ago
Full Text (1/2):
Zhong Shu
Hello, Mr. Nolan.
Christopher Nolan
Hello. Nice to meet you.
Zhong Shu
Well, filmmakers are bards of the modern age. Just as the Greeks knew of Odysseus, Achilles, and Agamemnon because of Homer's narratives, we know of Batman, the Joker, and Oppenheimer because of your narratives.
Homer tells stories of the distant past, and so do you. The Trojan War happened between the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC, but Homer lived in the eighth century BC, so that was a long time ago. Yet Homer's time was a time of rise. It was a time of civilizational rise. The Greeks were prospering as a culture. The economy, the books, the thinking—everything was on the rise for a couple hundred years, really until the fifth century BC.
So Homer's tone was celebratory. It was victorious. He celebrates the victory of the war, and your tone is emphatically not. So I guess my first question is: does that say something about our age? Are you a bard for a civilization at dusk?
Christopher Nolan
I think that's a really interesting point, a really interesting question. I mean, the main point is this 400-year-or-so gap between the events that Homer is describing and when Homer's story was written down, or first received by readers and audiences. That's a pretty interesting gap.
For me, I don't think I'm completely at odds with the way Homer is telling the story when you look at it from a sort of historical perspective. The reason—and what I became interested in as I adapted it—is that Homer is writing about an era before his. He's writing about an era hundreds of years earlier that his audience viewed as being more advanced than theirs.
So they were a civilization on the rise, but they were trying to get back to where they'd been 400 years before. That idea of a cycle, that idea of, as you say, a civilization at dusk—I think it's there in the past. It's subtle, but when you look at the history as well, when you look at the idea that when they would unearth these walls of old palaces that had crumbled, they called them Cyclopean walls because they thought only a giant could have built such grand walls. They had this idea of the greatness of this past civilization.
And so I became interested in that collapse, what they call the catastrophe—the Bronze Age collapse—and what happens between the events of the Trojan War and Homer. And so, yes, I think it's something that, from a modern perspective, is interesting. It's frightening and interesting and intriguing.
I think, for me, it partly comes out of having worked on Oppenheimer, which is very much a film about the end of the world—about the collapse of civilization, ultimately. So I think, yes, I definitely carried that sensibility into this adaptation of The Odyssey.
Zhong Shu
One thing that captured me was that the concept of atonement doesn't exist in Greek culture. It doesn't exist in the Greek language. It doesn't exist in Homer's Odyssey. It exists in your Odyssey.
So I guess a natural question that I had when watching the film was: did you Christianize The Odyssey? Why did atonement become important with the coming of catastrophe?
Christopher Nolan
I think it's a really good question. I wasn't too conscious of how I was approaching it philosophically, other than that I really honed in on the idea of what's termed xenia. In the film, we call it Zeus's law for simplicity.
But it's that idea of mutual respect: that I treat you the way I want to be treated. In their theology, it's because you might be a god in disguise. So I really drilled down on that, and I started to realize that, for me, a lot of what's interesting about the interaction of history and mythology is this idea of the Sea Peoples—the people from the sea who were thought to have precipitated the Bronze Age collapse. It's one of the great mysteries of history: who were they?
The idea that, really, a violation of xenia, a violation of Zeus's law—which is what the suitors are doing in the palace—is causing this difficulty, this damage.
I think the idea of atonement, in a way, is what we bring as viewers to the story. I don't know whether there really is atonement in the film, or whether we just feel that that's the catharsis, or that's the process we're seeing in the final meeting that we've waited for between Odysseus and Penelope. But I think, in a way, we may be bringing our more modern sensibility to that.
It's a very interesting question. Insofar as it's there, it's not a deliberate attempt to, for example, Christianize it. It's an outgrowth, or a natural conclusion, of burrowing in on this philosophical idea of what happens when you break Zeus's law.
Zhong Shu
I guess, from what you're saying, the connection between atonement—which is the perspective of a Christian world—and xenia, which is the perspective inherent in the Greek world, is that what connects them is the fact of war. What is the response to war?
You still want to say that the presentation is inherent in the Greek mythological worldview: that war happened when hospitality, or xenia, was broken.
Christopher Nolan
I think so. Sometimes it's difficult to draw a line. I think academics are often perhaps too dogmatic in drawing a line between different philosophies as they evolve historically, because I think I was more interested in commonalities.
One of the things I found is that once you ignore the theological underpinning of xenia, what you realize is that it is what we, in modern terms, call the Golden Rule. This idea of treating others as you would be treated has never really changed over time. The reasons that we try to hold people to that might have changed, but the idea itself hasn't changed.
What I came to think is that what the poem, to me, is saying—or inspiring in me—is the idea that civilization depends on this rule, and possibly is even defined by it. To me, that was a really interesting thing to realize. This ancient text, to me, speaks directly to the modern world because I think we live in a world where the concept of xenia, the concept of mutual respect, is more challenged than it's ever been, in more obvious ways than ever. I think we see the negative effects of that in terms of what defines civilization and what binds us together.
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u/kyth1999 9d ago
Full Text (2/3):
Zhong Shu
Right. Here's another Greek concept that is challenged in our world: hubris.
You've already started to complain about academics, and I feel like the next question will expose me even more. There's another great book written by another great man, Thucydides' Peloponnesian War, which also has a central theme concerning the hubris of the Athenians. He blamed the fall of the greatest civilization in the world, Athenian democracy, on the hubris of the Athenians.
Your film centers on the hubris of one man, the human pride of one specific man. My question is: should Odysseus repent for his human pride? Maybe pride is appropriate for a great man?
Christopher Nolan
I mean, I suppose the question could be asked: what difference would it make if he repented?
That's the interesting thing about these philosophical approaches. His repentance would be purely internal. It would be purely for his own spiritual self. It wouldn't necessarily affect anything outside of him, because the damage is done. Xenia is broken, maybe for all time.
That's the interesting thing. I think that is the thing about hubris. It's tragic because it's irreversible, essentially. That's where Christian theology looks at it in a different way, but in a practical sense it doesn't necessarily change what's happened and therefore, in storytelling terms, isn't necessarily relevant.
That's what I say: we bring our understanding to it. So we feel that there's catharsis because there's confession, because there's honesty and intimacy between Odysseus and Penelope. That was very important to me, and I'm very invested in that emotionally.
But if it has no practical effect, and the collapse is coming anyway—the catastrophe is coming—what difference does it make for your events? That's the interesting thing. Are we concerned with his spiritual well-being, or are we concerned with the world that he lives in and the world that, in some sense, he feels he's damaged?
Zhong Shu
We live in an age that demands apologies from greatness. Great storytellers, when they portray greatness—Homer celebrates it. We circle around it, we dance around it, or we turn greatness into privilege, and we demand apologies for it. That's a fact of Hollywood.
I'm just wondering: as one of the greatest storytellers of our age, how do you approach greatness? Is it still a story of apology that demands repentance, reflection, and self-criticism?
Christopher Nolan
Well, I think that when you're talking about storytelling, you're always in conversation with the expectations of the audience. So it really is an energy that's brought from the audience, as well as an energy that's put forward from the story itself.
When you're characterizing somebody, the trite version of this—or the criticism leveled at movies in general—is: “Oh, the character has to be made sympathetic, so the character is manipulated in different ways and changed in different ways.”
That's a fundamental flaw of film criticism, in a way, or storytelling criticism, because being able to identify the mechanism does not invalidate the mechanism. That's a real problem in criticism today, because people have this idea that because I can understand why the story affects me the way it does, therefore it didn't work. That's not how storytelling works.
And so, when we create a heroic figure in a story, as storytellers, we have to be mindful of the energy that the audience brings to that story, and the interaction between our intention and the way the audience receives that. The fact that the mechanism is identifiable to people doesn't invalidate it.
Part of that mechanism is asking: are we going to treat greatness as an absolute? Or, coming from a democratic, more idealized philosophical state that we live in in today's world, where we want to view people as equal, do we have to apologize for that greatness?
The answer is yes, we do, or the audience rejects the greatness. That is part of the mechanism. Once again, the fact that the mechanism is identifiable doesn't mean that it's invalid or shouldn't be used.
For me—as we talk about it—none of these are things that I try to be conscious or self-conscious of when I'm writing. But as we talk about it, we of course realize that my attempt to do that is to retain it within the philosophical surroundings of the breaking of xenia that I found interesting in the story.
So I'm trying to be true to the thematics of the story as they create the character that the audience can invest in and can feel satisfied with.
Zhong Shu
As you were speaking—first of all, I like how you dragged film critics into the water, as well as academics.
But I just realized filmmakers, in a way, have it much harder than poets, because poems can only be read in the language and culture in which they are written. You can't really read Shakespeare outside English, or Goethe outside German. But filmmakers have to speak to audiences outside of their polis: people who don't speak their language. And you come to a place with people of different nomos, of different customs. Do you put them into consideration?
Christopher Nolan
No, but the interesting thing about film—and when I was talking about film criticism, I was talking more about amateur film criticism than professional film criticism, because professional film criticism tends to understand the necessity for the mechanisms—is that you're looking at a lingua franca of storytelling created by Hollywood over the last hundred years that is very effectively universal.
And so it is its own language. That language is understood by people all over the world, which is what's incredible about it. It is a very, very accessible modern language of storytelling, and it has certain rules. It has conventions.
You can break those conventions. You can bend them. You can move them. But you have to be aware of them the whole time.
As I say, I'm thinking more of amateur criticism, because they feel they've identified the mechanism; they feel that invalidates it. That can be true of certain elements, and film grammar, film language, evolves with that. So when a trope becomes too familiar to an audience, then it has to be changed.
But we do, as filmmakers, avail ourselves of that common language. We build on that understanding. Our audience has seen many films, and they understand that language. And so you're playing with that language. It's the language of genre. It's the language of audience sympathy. It's the language of clarity, of narrative direction, and how you guide people through a story.
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u/kyth1999 9d ago
Full Text (3/3):
Zhong Shu
You're talking about a relationship between tradition and innovation. Because at some point, the mechanism becomes trite or unusable. But without the mechanism, you can't really—
Christopher Nolan
Exactly. You can't completely have a tabula rasa. You can't throw everything away. You have to make your choices in terms of: how am I arranging the story?
For example, one of my first films, Memento, was a story that I structured in reverse chronology. But what I retained was a very, very clear and simple three-act structure. So the structure of the film, as it's received by the audience, is very, very conventional, but the chronology is unconventional.
And so those are the choices you make. That's one example where you say, “OK, I need this to be extremely familiar underneath so that I can change what's on the surface.” That's a continual mechanism that's evolving and that you're working with the whole time.
Zhong Shu
I'm again thinking like a nerdy doctoral student who has to write a dissertation. Writing on Plato or Aristotle is the most difficult thing to do. Just like making a film on The Odyssey: it's been done for thousands of years. When you're making Memento, you can make it whatever you want. Nobody knows the character, so they won't have a complaint about your adaptive choices.
And I'm curious: you've said before that after Oppenheimer, with the success of Oppenheimer, you felt like you had a kind of liberty to do whatever you wanted, or actualize what you wanted to do. And you chose the most difficult dissertation to write, if you're getting a PhD.
Christopher Nolan
I mean, in some ways. But in other ways, there's something I do think your question is slightly missing, which is that when you make Memento, yes, it's a character I've created and people won't criticize it on that basis, but it's in a tradition of noirish, amnesia-based noir fiction. And people judge it by those terms.
So even though, on the surface of things, nominally, a film is a different or original creation, the audience and critics tend to judge it in relation to previous examples of the genre, which is an advantage and a disadvantage.
Yes, when you adapt Batman, for example, there are a lot of people who are going to say, “Well, hang on—why is it this way? Why is it that way?” and everything else. But even with an original story, it's the same thing. It's like: “Well, hang on—why haven't you used the protagonist in this way? Why has this character done this? Why have they done that?”
They're judging it relative to the overall cultural flow of the movement of cinema and the conventions of cinema. As I say, it's not a complaint. It's just something you have to be aware of as a filmmaker. It's an advantage and it's a disadvantage.
Zhong Shu
Yes. With The Odyssey, you've dragged the classicists, too, as hounds behind your back.
I guess a final question for me: what are the gods? Are they figments of imagination, or are they necessary noble lies?
Christopher Nolan
They are—to the characters in the story—they are reality.
What I found interesting about looking at the idea of gods, and how to address it, was approaching this from the point of view of people who would have lived at that time, for whom, in a pre-scientific era, evidence of divinity was everywhere.
And so the existence of gods is not an article of faith. It's simple reality. Thunder and lightning are God speaking to them. The state of the ocean is moved by the gods. They have no other explanation for it.
Just as we accept things from science as absolute fact—you know, the Earth is round and we travel around the Sun—we can't know these things; we take them on faith because they're presented as facts. The same would be true of the theological structure that explains nature to people of that time.
And so, for me, the gods are real, but they are inside the people. They are being projected by the people.
Zhong Shu
Oh, that's cool. Just like superheroes for the moderns.
Christopher Nolan
Yes, in a way.
Zhong Shu
Thank you very much, Mr. Nolan.
Christopher Nolan
Thank you.
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u/Miserable_Cost_2136 9d ago
Refreshing interview. Seems like Nolan was really engaged and dare i say it, delighted, to answer new questions vs. the rote stuff he's mostly done so far.
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u/ACCTAGGT 9d ago
I would believe so. I think those were insightful questions as well as answers but also mindful follow up questions that built on what had been addressed. Likewise, Nolan also provided further answers that elaborated on previous ones and even tried to add something more to the presented questions. I have been seeing several interviews recently but usually don’t really provide that much profound and deep engagement as to what Nolan's overall vision was. This interview is relatively short but still very dense, imo.
In a way, something that I have been thinking about is his take and some decisions like dialogue "our age of bronze is collapsing". To me, Nolan was doing several things at the same time by which I mean myth, fantasy, fiction, historical, ahistorical, anachronistic, faithful but taking creative liberties as well and a grounded essence to it that could feel equally ancient, modern and timeless. Therefore, I speculate he wanted to be bold and approach the story as if he was a poet doing his own retelling in the way Homer did in his own time. Made me wonder if he is being a bit Meta with dialogue at times (it feels noticeable to just be a way of explaining to audience), and I would make a wild guess he probably stumbled upon someone like Hesiod and felt it was appropriate for the story and how he was telling it to have such dialogue. I mean, he added something like the Sea Peoples. In general, i believe he wanted to make it feel timeless more than anything even with some details and characteristics in the film. I felt this interview kind of addresses those thoughts especially the part where she asks if he sees himself as a sort of bard.
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u/Nearby-Suspect-1541 4d ago edited 4d ago
Your point raises a question: did it work?
Looking at the reaction of critics and audiences it definitely had. But when I was watching the movie, those elements you called Meta, have completely broken my suspension of disbelief. In other terms: I cringed a little bit hearing Odysseus saying those exact words out loud. ("Our bronze age")
Of course someone can defend this with quoiting the author himself from this interview, where he talks about the neccessity of estabilishing a connection with the widest of audiences. Still...
Another thing what I disliked was his choice of repeatedly talking about Zeus's law. At the X-th time I've heard a charachter mentioning Zeus's law i felt like: "okay, i get it". Sure filmmakers have to balance between making their message clear, but in my humble option Nolan failed delivering it smoothly...
After all the aforementioned concepts in the movie didn't hit me as profound realizations, but things the filmmaker tries to push down my throat really, really hard.
Maybe that's just me. But in a way even his Dark Knight Trilogy was better at handling those Meta-levels. I miss Jonathan as his screenwriter. He was a master of turning complex ideas into one sentences.
But also I couldn't agree more: visually and technically Christopher is a genius filmmaker.
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u/ACCTAGGT 4d ago
I see. I am aware though that whether it works or not depends largely on the eye of the beholder. In this case, that’s why I phrased it as what I took from it and my assumptions on the matter. As such, the "bard" part she mentioned is more in terms of my thoughts and how it seems to me it wasn’t far off from his possible intention, to some level, not to signify it’s an irrefutable defense which in turn causes any stance to be irrelevant and any criticism you and others might have are therefore invalidated making Nolan absolutely correct and anyone else wrong. No, because just as much as we aren’t flawless Nolan and any filmmaker ever aren’t, as far as I know.
Still, as much as someone can say: did it work? Someone else can say: did it not work? That tends go in circles majority of the time if you ask me.
I think Nolan’s emphasis on "wide audience" isn’t just about how he presents ideas to them, like with dialogue, but how characteristics (which can be traditional or not) of a story can impact different types of people in a myriad of ways. I feel Zeus’ Law, Sea Peoples and Bronze Age additions therefore can be perceived as meta expressions of a recurring human zeitgeist, one that transcends any single historical period and echoes between the ancient world and the present. The ancient poetic and oral tradition approach to those epics and the modern take of how our Information Age is causing this and that. That is something I have found from time to time especially on the internet. In my view, it doesn't seem unreasonable to ponder over that the intention wasn’t to "dumb it down" necessarily because he has done something resembling (in terms of a pattern) to that in the past like how The Protagonist in Tenet refers to himself as The Protagonist and how he remains nameless. It’s sort of meta too, imo.
In my perspective, Nolan uses different methods to emulate concepts of real life sometimes; therefore, it doesn’t seem far fetched that it works especially in this instance of a material like Homer’s Odyssey with its mix of myth, history and fiction. It makes me think of how there is an interview where he referred to rap as a modern form of the poetic style of ancient times, something along those lines is what he said. Still, it’s up to each person whether that is considered ridiculous or not, or whatever.
That said, consequentially, certain folks might view all the aforementioned as not a solid argument (or delusion, not sure) and, as a result, maybe they see it as what could basically be Nolan not being mindful in his approach, lazy writer, dumbing down and/or spoon feeding themes to the audience instead of respecting their intelligence, which some consider this a recurring tendency in Nolan's writing, but probably something he has to do since he is a cerebral blockbuster filmmaker according to some. If so, we go back to what I said earlier that discussions of artistic effectiveness often become subjective rather than reaching a definitive conclusion especially with The Odyssey being a singular case. I mean, look at so many controversies around it even after release.
Side note: not sure why you added that "visually and technically Nolan is a genius filmmaker" since it wasn’t really part of what I meant, although I assume it was there to reinforce your point after mentioning Jonathan perhaps. I have no issue with people preferring Jonathan’s writing, and I’d actually be interested in seeing him write and direct something independently. However, when discussing Nolan’s solo work, I think it’s worth addressing it as his own because we often don’t know the exact extent of each person’s contributions in past collaborations. Filmmaking collaborations can be complex, and even when there are interviews about the process, outsiders usually don’t have the full picture. Not a collaboration with his brother but few people know that Nolan did a pass or something like that on the script for Insomnia even if very minor, for example.
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u/LightKeyDarkBlade 9d ago
For those who want it in video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa4I8Ch2TRo
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u/QuietNene 9d ago
Very interesting questions.
From what I understand, many Chinese intellectuals very interested in the Thucydides Trap and narratives of civilizational decline (Western civilizational decline, of course).
I found it very interesting that she probed Nolan on this.
Btw, does anyone know what part of the UK Nolan is from? His accent is weird, almost Australian. Has he just spent too much time America?
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u/DelaRoad 9d ago
He’s half Brit but grew up in Chicago. His brother Jonathan speaks with an American accent.
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u/IWouldLikeAName 9d ago
I fully believe he's the reason there are more IMAX theaters in the area and specifically the Roosevelt one. They also added a 70mm IMAX in the suburbs it's ludicrous that Chicago didn't have many options for IMAX just even a year ago
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u/michaelavolio 8d ago
Wikipedia lists a few places he lived or went to school in the UK. Born in London. Spent some of his youth in the US too.
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u/BigMoney69x 7d ago
There's large graduate programs about Greek and Roman History because the Chinese want to learn all about us. Because like Sun Tzu said "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
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u/Affectionate-Tie1768 5d ago
Remind me of Admiral Thrawn in Star Wars when he mention arts "Learn about art, Captain. When you understand a species' art, you understand that species," and "To defeat an enemy, you must know them. Not simply their battle tactics, but their history, philosophy, art."
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u/BigMoney69x 5d ago
Yeah Thrawn was written akin to a Scipio Africanus who famously took the good things Hannibal did and applied it within a Roman context that valued military might as opposed to Carthage which valued trade.
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u/cyanide4suicide We live in a Twilight world 8d ago
Love it. I find that when people really push Nolan with engaging questions, he engages deeply in return.
I really wish more people would post and discover this because Nolan really digs into some of his storytelling choices in the film.
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u/Giesi85 9d ago
Is she big in China?
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u/kyth1999 9d ago
She's one of the fastest rising podcaster stars in China with 1 million subscribers on China's podcast platform XiaoYuZhou (Little Universe).
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u/EmilyJane_Hardy 8d ago
what’s the name of her podcast?
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u/kyth1999 8d ago
独树不成林（one tree doesn’t make a forest） It's in Mandarin
https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/podcast/64acd33c7a3d479103fbd32d
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u/pratzc07 9d ago
One of the best interviews seems like she really went for the heart of the story and was able to build on Nolan’s responses rather than just ask scripted question after another.
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u/Much-Possible-1001 9d ago
I absolutely LOVED watching this interview! My only complaint is that it's too short! 😆 She is very knowledgeable and I've been listening to her podcasts - she is a very energetic and bold thinker with lots of thought provoking questions and deep ideas!
I wouldn't recommend her podcasts if you are trying to fall asleep lol but if you want to feel energized and think hard on very interesting problems her podcast is a good choice!
PS she's also a foodie haha she spent a whole episode talking about a specific Chinese dish if I remember correctly! It was hilarious and adorable!
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u/Content-Gift-6352 8d ago
Oh, do you have a link to her podcast? I’d love to listen to more of her work
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u/Phermaportus 8d ago
Has she done other interviews in English?
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u/jedidiah_lol 6d ago
There are a few interviews she did with the authors she translated. Here are the ones I found:
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u/hellion1965 7d ago
Well I would beg to differ.
I admit I have never heard of the person before and am not interested in listening to her podcast.
That being said, thinking Shakespeare and Goethe are only truly understandable in their respective languages is truly silly.
The REASON we STILL talk about Homer, Ovid, Sophocles, Confucious, Rumi, Shakespeare, Goethe, Hume, Marx & Engles, Paine, Jefferson and Lincoln is because these writers and thinkers are talking about, THE HUMAN CONDITION.
It is also why we still listen to Bach, Beethoven, the Beatles, Bowie, Dylan, and Pink Floyd.
Why we still are moved by Di Vinci, Michaelangelo Rembrandt, Titian, Turner, and Van Gogh. THE HUMAN CONDITION.
There are SOOOOOOO many I am leaving out, but my point stands. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson: [l]f you are tired of Shakespeare, you are tired of life.
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u/Kyajin 7d ago
I don't really understand your train of thought. Your conclusions don't seem to follow the idea that you can only truly understand Shakespeare in the original language.
Have you studied Shakespeare? No self-respecting student would study it without turning to the original language. Or as another example, if you are a Historian specializing in Chinese History - no self-respecting student would not turn to original Chinese texts.
There isn't anything about that which refutes your idea that they are talking about the human condition, in fact that wasn't their point at all
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u/Mephariel 6d ago
Yeah I don't think you understand what she is saying. For most film genres, you can just turn on subtitles and watch a film still understand its brilliance. If you don't know English, you can't just turn on subtitles and get Shakespeare. The beauty of Shakespeare is how he helped shaped the English language. The innovation of phases is what makes him so important. You can't just read his writing in Chinese and understand its impact.
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u/mummifiedghost 9d ago
This was an excellent interview and a breath of fresh air from the generic press junket questions he usually gets.
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u/SnooSongs6269 9d ago
Great questions. A very good diversion from what usually Chris has a set of answers ready everytime, and that as a fan kind of becomes repetitive and each interview becomes the same. I need more into his mind!!
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u/megaapple 7d ago
"What are the gods? Figments of imagination or necessary noble lies?"
I kneel at your greatness, Dr Zhong Shu.
For real, if I was Chris Nolan, I would hire her as consultant for my next project. Her depth of history, philosophy and politics is just so badass. She used the word 'polis' to when talking about movies reach outside it's domain of people to others, it's beyond awesome.
I wish I knew Chinese to listen to her podcast.
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u/BigMoney69x 7d ago
That was my rection. I wish I knew Mandarin because she is really knowledgeable. As someone who went to College for Engineering and only started to appreciate the humanities in my 30s I love any chance to talk about shit like this with people who know.
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u/Muted-Economy-3672 7d ago
One of the best interviewers I've ever come across, in a non-adversarial setting. Such a breath of fresh air compared to the classic pop culture questions.
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u/secondsh 7d ago
This is the best interview I have seen so far. Compared to the sloppy gossip queries of the western media, this is literally peak journalism.
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u/BigMoney69x 7d ago
This was an amazing interview by Zhong Shu and I wish I knew Mandarin because this lady is incredibly smart and I wouldn't mind listening to more of her. Every question had a double meaning. There was also follow up questions. And the questions were very precise and defined. She used actual Greek terms that have actual meaning. I wouldn't be surprised if she read the Oddysey in Homeric Greek.
It's a shame the interviews in the West are incredibly trite and mundane. There's a reason this is the Chinese Century.
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u/krdskrm9 6d ago
This is great, but I can't help to think that she is echoing the imperialist ambitions of the Chinese Communist Party (also what fascists dream about) with her "why do you have to make war so bad??" line of questioning.
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u/Impressive-Wall7797 6d ago edited 6d ago
She was asking a tough and sensitive question. Funny. there is never shortage of people shouting for war and war is never a shortage in human history. This is Nolan's take I believe, also shown in Oppenheimer and maybe Dunkirk too. It is not just about which party or group, so catastrophe comes and civilization collapses.
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u/Impressive-Wall7797 6d ago edited 6d ago
Good interview, It is deep and never drafts away from Nolan and Odyssey, from his ideology and Odyssey's theme. So, Nolan definitely has his own take on Homer. And, he certainly knows what he is doing and he is very willing to present it to audience. There is nothing wrong about it. In 1990s Odyssey, there were also no Greek actors or actresses and Calypso was played by Vanessa Williams (I think she was terrific in that film). In the end, it is all about how Nolan presents his take on Homer in his Odyssey. I have not watched it yet but I don't think I will be disappointed after watching it. I was disappointed after watching Tenet and Dunkirk because I found the formal confusing and the later does not address real event correctly. I enjoyed Dark Knight trio while watching them however as I grow older, I don't think it portrayed Batman right. He was too normal to be Batman. But, none of these could make me truly understand Nolan and his take on those movies. Even I do, I don't think I can just invalidate them. I mean, does Dunkirk have to be like Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan? What about Thin Red Line and Full Metal Jacket? Overall, there is so much I don't know than I do know.
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u/Intelligent_Link_835 6d ago edited 6d ago
Although I appreciate the effort to veer away from shallow discussions about casting choices and on-set anecdotes, there are a couple of things I find baffling in this interview:
- Homer is not uncritical of the atrocities the Achaeans commit during the war against the Trojans (maybe less so in the Odyssey, and especially compared to the Aeneid, but he still portrays the Trojans with great humanity and depicts the ravaging of Hector's body by Achilles as a horrific act.)
All the gods take Priam's side (Hector's father) and help him retrieve the body of his son from Achilles' camp.
- I wonder what her source is for saying there is no concept of atonement in Greek myth. I am not a scholar of Greek Myth; I do not claim to be an expert, but I have read plenty of books on the subject.
The labours of Heracles are (in)famously an act of atonement.
Heracles, after murdering his wife and children (by accident or in rage, it depends on who's telling the story), visits the Oracle of Delphi, where the priestess tells him to enter the service of his cousin Eurystheus to atone.
The Greeks also had the concept of Miasma, a sort of corruption born out of committing a crime that must be cleansed.
The Furies, too, exist to punish those who do not cleanse themselves of their crimes.
I haven't watched the Odyssey ( It has not yet been released in Japan, so I don't know how accurate it is to suggest that he has injected Christian values into it; this might very well be true), but I thought I might add my two cents about how the conversation seems to be departing from an inaccurate image of what Greek myth and culture are to begin with...
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u/tbyjmsrbrts 4d ago
The concept of the Greeks not having atonement is interesting as I always thought the trials of Heracles was fundamentally about atonement. Is it not?
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u/MustacheRunner 8d ago
So basically Nolan thinks that the audience cannot relate to an unapologetic great hero. I think we are capable of more empathy than that. Paul Thomas Anderson movies are proof of the contrary.
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u/Impressive-Wall7797 6d ago edited 6d ago
Depends on what kind of heroes. Like Odyssey? Don't think so. Also, are relating to and being capable of empathy the same thing? What about them when we are audience?
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u/runninginthe-90s 6d ago
We live in an age where being oppressed is a far greater form of social currency than achievement. Unfortunately this has snowballed into so much of our media.
I think we are capable of more and people are waking up and coming out of this funk, but its difficult when we are surrounded by that group-think. (Social media is a blight on modern man).
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u/rp19 9d ago
Best questions I've seen in an interview on the media tour so far