Essay 'Feministische vertaalster' Emily Wilson: 'Nolans Odyssey echt HEEL SLECHT geschreven'

(Vonden wij overigens ook al zonder haar zegen)

Het bovenstaande fragmentje kende u al, maar daar hield ze zich nog een beetje in om geen spoilers te geven. In haar nieuwe essay 'An Uncomplicated Man' (een verwijzing naar de opening van haar vertaling "Tell me about a complicated man") voor de London Review of Books echter, gaan de handschoenen uit. Onderstaand een aantal sleutelfrasen en even gewoon in het Engels, zoals als Emily het ooit bedoeld had (ze leeft nog).

Ten eerste, over hoe plat de personages voelen, en halfslachtig het script. 

"I gazed at the shipwrecks and bloodbaths without any agony of emotion. My eyes stayed dry, even for Argos the dog – whose adorableness as a puppy is predictably amped up to suit our animal-loving times. If only the human characters had been treated with such serious attention. (...) But the film’s vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas (...)."

Toch ook een interessante observatie vanuit Emily's eigen, meer progressieve kijk: de raciaal diverse casting doet het diversiteitsidee eigenlijk helemaal geen recht.

"The race-neutral casting of Nolan’s Odyssey was inevitably deplored in some quarters. But there is nothing progressive about it. Most of the non-white actors – Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott – play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist. Scott, as the Ithacan bard, Phemius, yells a few words and pounds a stick, but does not get to sing, tell a story or play the lyre: the most melodic note in the percussive soundtrack comes from the plucking of Odysseus’ bow (a beautiful sonic image of the archer as musician, borrowed from the poem). Nyong’o’s double part as Helen and Clytemnestra is hugely underwritten; she is given only a few minutes of screen time to perform a set of brief tableaux of female victims (the outraged bereaved mother, the abused wife, the repentant adulteress)."

Ook krijgen de vrouwelijke personages juist veel minder diepgang en dialoog dan in het origineel.

"There are more female characters than in most Nolan movies, thanks to the source material. But none of them has much to say, in contrast to the characterisations in the poem. Homer’s Calypso has a wonderfully outraged, operatic speech about divine double standards: male gods can kidnap and rape any mortal woman they desire, but when a goddess tries it, Zeus and his cronies scupper her chances. (...) Charlize Theron’s Calypso looks gorgeous, but she is never angry, never funny, not skilled in rhetoric, and never consumed by lust for her scraggly mortal victim. She’s an unpaid therapist, soothing the soul of the bedraggled, PTSD-ridden Odysseus with drugs, and graciously listening to his disjointed tale of woe.

(...) Nolan’s Penelope has no dreams. Anne Hathaway’s face is as expressive as ever, and she looks beautiful and mysterious, glimpsed mostly through the veil of a clever set design that separates the women’s quarters from the main hall. But the script gives her nothing to do except yearn for Matt Damon (...)."

Maar nu komt-ie, de grote kritiek op de grootste zwakte van de hele film, namelijk het script.

"Despite the manufactured online outrage, there is nothing inherently wrong with the movie’s attempt to approximate contemporary American speech. If you’re not going to compose a script in Homeric Greek, or even in metrical English verse, you might as well use something like conversational American English. But writing dialogue is not one of Nolan’s talents. The language is relentlessly expository, humourless and flat. Attempts at vigorous speech – ‘My dad’s coming home’ or ‘Let’s get off this fucking beach’ – sit uncomfortably next to grandiose meditations: ‘Yes, my queen. The breaking of Zeus’ law, spreading like plague. Our age of bronze is collapsing, and maybe he couldn’t bear to see the ruins of what he’d done. Anywhere. Least of all, his home.’

As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of The Odyssey into iambic pentameter. In at least one interview, he cited my version of the first line of the poem: ‘Tell me about a complicated man.’ But I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script. Sadly, Damon’s Odysseus isn’t complicated or wily or artful.

(...) Nolan’s Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible."

Afijn, het gehele onderhoudende stuk leest u dus HIER bij de London Review of Books.