“The Odyssey” Meets Modern Orthodoxy
“Who here has seen ‘The Odyssey’? You should see it — it’s good.” An influential rabbi recently told an audience these very words. But more on that later.
Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” brings Homer’s poem to life. Nolan made the film accessible to a broad audience: it’s efficient, action-packed and tighter than the original. Although he gave the film a chaotic structure, he kept it easy to follow. But enough with the gloss. Eventually we must ask ourselves the critical question: What values does “The Odyssey” project, and are they ones that we endorse?
It’s worth remembering that the Rav, Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, was critical of Homer’s poem. In “Catharsis” (page 46), he criticized the “classical epics,” and he certainly had Homer and his “Odyssey” in mind. He wrote that the authors of these works had insatiable desires for pleasures, aesthetics and the vast world. It was by inventing and worshiping heroes who could be and do anything that these authors satisfied their endless vanity.
Would the Rav, by that same token, criticize Nolan’s adaptation? Is Nolan’s Odysseus filled with an endless vanity through which we, the audience, find solace? Certainly not. While Nolan’s plot mostly parallels Homer’s, their protagonists differ greatly.
Most divergent from the original text is how Nolan’s Odysseus seeks repentance for his role in the Trojan Horse and all that resulted from it. We repeatedly see Odysseus (Matt Damon) flash back to Troy, wracked with guilt over the massacre. We hear from Eurylochus (Himesh Patel) that Odysseus begins praying to Athena (Zendaya) soon afterward.
Along Odysseus’s journey home, he discovers his wrongdoing and seeks authentic change. Initially, even though he is shocked by the massacre of Troy, he lets his men plunder towns for resources and leaves his men’s bodies to rot. It is only after Circe (Samantha Morton) turns his men into pigs and admonishes him that he has an awakening. He realizes that the Trojan Horse didn’t only lead to barbarism but that it turned him and his men into barbarians. This is why Odysseus remains so steadfast in the mission Sinon gave him to offer sacrifices in the west: it is his path to repentance.
In this way, a key message of “The Odyssey” is man’s propensity for change. That with enough determination, man can overcome every setback. That man can always right his wrongs.
Reading repentance as the film’s centerpiece helps explain a difficulty in it. We know that Odysseus begins praying to Athena immediately after the sack of Troy, but, at the same time, we see Odysseus dismiss the power of the gods. Does Odysseus believe in the gods or not?
The answer lies in the following: Zendaya’s character is not the actual goddess Athena. At the end of the film, we learn that Zendaya’s character is actually a massacred Trojan woman. She is only Athena in Odysseus’s imagination. His conversations with her are the way he confronts his guilt over Troy and the breaking of Zeus’s Law. While he believes that he wronged Athena, he doesn’t believe that Athena, or any god, has the powers to intervene with human affairs. In this way, Odysseus initially views the gods more in line with what we’d call spirits.
This distinction also shows a second arc to Nolan’s Odysseus that fortifies the film’s central message of man’s ability to change. Odysseus begins with a cynical denial of divine providence and ends with absolute faith. Soon after he begins his journey to Ithaca and blinds the son of Poseidon, he tells his men that they “can’t live by omens and sacrifices.” Yet by the time he reaches home, he has complete faith in the gods. When Calypso tells him that he must “give [himself] to Poseidon” and “take [his] punishment” but that “Zeus won’t let him kill you,” he listens without question. In the end, he views gods as gods.
Over the past weeks, people have responded to my ideas with eye rolls. “Why can’t you just enjoy the movie?” they have asked. The question alone indicates a rift in the Modern Orthodox community. Some engage with modernity, and some consume it for enjoyment.
People often conflate the two. When President Rabbi Ari Berman recommended “The Odyssey” to FTOCs during UTS orientation, it was not because he found it enjoyable. He recommended it because he found it valuable. Remember — Rabbi Berman reads Dostoevsky for its religious value (see his book “The Final Exam”). Do not think he would be so quick to recommend “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” let alone from the Glueck Beit Medrash podium.
On this matter, we must individually assess where we lie and the consequences therein. If we find value in modernity, we must gauge just how much. With a limited amount of time, we must assess whether it would be worthwhile for us to read, for example, the 500-page “Autobiography of Malcolm X” or if other religiously valuable activities should take priority. If we only consume modernity for enjoyment, then we first must evaluate whether movies and television are healthy forms of leisure and how much time should be allotted to them.
On this issue, Rav Yitzchak Blau’s article “Modern Orthodox Arguments Against Television” is a must-read. Rav Blau, an outspoken Modern Orthodox rabbi, argues that television undermines core Modern Orthodox values. He ends his article sharply: “If Modern Orthodoxy wants to stand for ideals like nuanced thinking, becoming educated about the world, communal involvement, avoiding superficiality, and promoting a better outlook on women, it should discard Hollywood and abandon the television. Our most precious values should make us even more wary of this medium than are the Haredim. Of course I do not own a television. I am Modern Orthodox.”
If television is just a leisure activity, then we must reconsider the television’s prominence in our community. To my knowledge, most homes own multiple TVs. They are rather large, extra-high-resolution and the centerpiece of each room they reside in. I have even seen the question of whether one would own a TV in a shidduch resume, which signals that our community believes that owning a TV reflects one’s values. But if TV is just for fun, then what explains this obsession?
We should let “The Odyssey” serve as a litmus test for why we watch movies. If we determine that we only watch movies — even great movies like “The Odyssey” — for enjoyment but do not bother probing their depth, then we must ask ourselves: do we watch movies as a matter of choice or habit?
Photo Caption: Warren asks us to think before turning on a movie
Photo Credit: Unsplash
