A still from Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. If you have read epic poetry from ancient Greece or India, whether in translation or in the original, you’d know that the heroes in these great epic poems have their vulnerabilities. I’m not talking about physical vulnerabilities that ultimately prove fatal for them: Achilles’ heel or Duryodhana’s thighs, for example. No, but I point to the heroes’ vulnerabilities and weaknesses, understood within broader psychological, behavioura

The 1968 miniseries L’Odissea remains the definitive adaptation of Homer's epic It is profoundly dispiriting to watch timeless epics or famous fictional characters, let alone actual historical ones, rendered hollow by contemporary ideological caprice. The casting choices in current high-profile period adaptations, most glaringly seen in Christopher Nolan’s much-hyped The Odyssey, reflect an industry increasingly obsessed with modern optics over historical and narrative integr