Taming Odysseus

There’s too little sex and violence in Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey. And it matters. There’s too little religion and supernaturalism, too. That the anodyne Epicureanism of Nolan’s Odyssey is widely construed as Nolan “Christianizing” Homer’s story is testimony to the insipidity of much of what passes today for Christianity. We’ll start with sex and violence, and then get to religion. First, though, a preliminary comment on film adaptations of books: Screen adaptations of books must necessarily alter the story. Even a three-hour movie cannot reproduce an epic poem the length of Homer’s Odyssey. But the necessity of change does not grant...