Media interviews for Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” have been underway for a few days, including ones with the man himself discussing some of his creative choices for the film.
One choice is the film’s R rating, his fourth to date and one fitting with the original material, but still a risk for a big-budget studio blockbuster. He got an R rating for “Oppenheimer,” but that was also a lot cheaper to make than this.
In an interview with Empire, Nolan said he told Universal from the start the film had to be R-rated in order to fit the brutality and sexuality of the original text:
“I went to studio at the very beginning and had a very honest conversation with them that we wanted to make the most intense version of The Odyssey. With the weapons of the time, they are more brutal – you’re talking about swords and bows and arrows and things like that. So I concluded pretty early that it would be pretty difficult and potentially compromising to make a PG-13 version of this story.”
The rating is fitting with a story that features not just brutal battles and murders, but men being eaten, dark adult themes, and a complicated sexual element for Odysseus.
Though devoted to a wife who remains chaste for two decades awaiting his return, he engages in sex repeatedly with a sorceress and a goddess – in the latter case for several years. How the film will handle the nature of those relationships should be interesting.
“The Odyssey” will open in cinemas on July 17th.
