The Odyssey Is Proof That Old Things Still Matter—Maybe More Than Ever
Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey became a box‑office hit, reviving interest in a 3,000‑year‑old epic. The movie’s exclusive use of IMAX cameras and practical effects underlines the continued appeal of the traditional movie‑theater experience in an era dominated by streaming. Nolan deliberately eschewed CGI and AI, relying on real locations, animatronics and makeup to create a more immersive, human‑crafted aesthetic. The article argues that the film’s success demonstrates that classic cultural forms—such as theaters and moral narratives—remain significant today.
about 2 months ago
The release of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has sparked a cultural conversation about the enduring relevance of ancient works, traditional cinematic experiences, and timeless moral concepts, illustrating how a modern blockbuster can revive interest in classic literature while prompting debate over artistic choices and ethical themes. 1
Nolan’s adaptation has become a “mega‑hit” at the box office, drawing enthusiastic applause from both critics and general audiences. 1
Attendance at theaters like AMC fell by 26 million (over 25 %) compared with 2019, a decline attributed to the rise of streaming, smartphones, and smart TVs. Despite this trend, The Odyssey is performing as one of the year’s biggest releases, partly because it was shot entirely with IMAX cameras for an experience that cannot be replicated on smaller screens. 1
Nolan avoided CGI, AI, and digital shortcuts, opting for practical effects such as a massive Cyclops puppet, animatronics, and real locations across Iceland, Greece, and Morocco. This commitment to tangible craftsmanship is presented as a “human element” that enriches the film’s immersive quality. 1
Critics are split: Emily Wilson condemned the film for deviating from Homer and called it “shallow,” while conservative commentators objected to casting choices they felt undermined authenticity. Other reviewers, like Jonathan Pageau and Tod Worner, argued that the changes are acceptable and that the film has revived public interest in the ancient poem. 1
The movie foregrounds the Greek concept of xenia (hospitality), likening it to the Golden Rule and presenting it as a universal moral law. Various vignettes illustrate temptations such as theft, lust, and gluttony, framing them as moral challenges for both individuals and societies. 1
Some analysts, citing early Christian writers like Clement of Alexandria, read Odysseus as a soul’s journey toward divine truth, even likening him to a Christ figure. The film’s depiction of deception, war, and redemption is interpreted as echoing Christian ideas of original sin and divine mercy, despite the story’s pagan origins. 1
The surge in sales of Homer’s Odyssey following the film’s release suggests that contemporary audiences are rediscovering classic literature, demonstrating that “old things still matter” in a modern context. 1*
Classic narratives continue to shape contemporary cultural values
Classic narratives continue to shape contemporary cultural values because stories do more than entertain: they provide frameworks for understanding human nature, virtue, freedom, suffering, authority, love, and the purpose of life. Their influence may be direct—through education and artistic imitation—or indirect, by supplying the concepts and symbols through which later cultures interpret themselves.
A narrative does not merely communicate isolated ideas. It presents a world in which certain actions appear admirable or shameful, certain desires noble or destructive, and certain forms of life meaningful or empty. Through characters, conflicts, and consequences, narratives teach people how to perceive reality before they formulate explicit moral theories.
Pope Francis emphasizes that literature expresses a culture’s “loftiest ideals and aspirations” as well as its “deepest sufferings, fears and passions.” Stories therefore disclose what a society loves, fears, praises, and rejects. A culture that repeatedly celebrates self-sacrifice, fidelity, and courage forms different expectations from one that consistently glorifies autonomy, wealth, revenge, or power.
Literature also helps readers enter into experiences beyond their own. It illuminates suffering and joy, work, love, death, and the ordinary realities of human existence. In this way, classic narratives shape not only abstract opinions but also emotional responses and habits of judgment.
Classical works remain influential because later cultures continue to inherit their vocabulary, archetypes, and conflicts. Narratives such as the quest, the tragic fall, the homecoming, the martyrdom, the conversion, and the struggle between pride and humility recur in modern novels, films, political rhetoric, and public debates.
John Henry Newman argued that students need formative encounters with major authors such as Homer, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and others. Without intellectual and aesthetic formation, he warned, young people may be exposed indiscriminately to the “multitudinous” voices of their age without possessing criteria for distinguishing “beauty from sin” or “truth from sophistry.”
Newman’s point is not that every classic is morally flawless. Rather, it is that serious engagement with great works equips people to recognize complexity, irony, nobility, corruption, and the consequences of human choices. A culture that abandons its classics does not become neutral; it simply becomes more vulnerable to whichever narratives are most forcefully promoted by contemporary media and institutions.
The Catholic tradition has historically recognized that classical narratives can preserve genuine insight even when they arise outside the Christian faith. St. Basil of Caesarea encouraged young Christians to study pagan authors, comparing the Christian student to a bee that gathers what is useful from flowers while leaving what is harmful. Classical literature could provide arguments useful for theology and examples relevant to moral formation.
This approach is neither uncritical acceptance nor total rejection. It is a form of discernment: receiving what is true and good while judging what conflicts with revelation and Christian morality. Pope Pius XI similarly taught that Christian educators should “prove all things” and “hold fast” to what is good, preserving valuable traditions while also recognizing what is worthwhile in modern methods.
The early Church’s engagement with classical culture helped produce a new presentation of the Gospel. Christianity did not simply replace every element of the surrounding culture; it purified, transformed, and reordered many of its philosophical and literary resources toward Christ.
This pattern remains important today. The Church’s missionary experience has repeatedly involved encounters with different cultures and literary forms. Pope Francis cautions against a narrow, self-referential approach that treats one particular cultural grammar as sufficient to express the entire richness of the Gospel. Engagement with different forms can deepen understanding of divine revelation rather than diminish it.
Human reasoning does not develop in a vacuum. Cultures organize their understanding of reality through inherited narratives—accounts of where humanity came from, what went wrong, what redemption might mean, and what kind of future is worth pursuing. These narratives shape institutions, education, law, family life, and public morality.
The discussion of Alasdair MacIntyre and the Thomist tradition describes rationality as structured within “narrative traditions.” This does not necessarily imply relativism. Rather, it means that human beings reason from within historically formed accounts of the good life. The Catholic tradition constitutes a distinctive narrative and form of rationality, while modern liberalism constitutes another.
This helps explain why contemporary disputes often involve more than competing policies. They frequently reflect opposing stories about the human person. For example:
The source from Archbishop Cordileone identifies the cultural consequences of relativism: truth is increasingly treated as something determined by the individual rather than something that can be discovered. It argues that Catholic education must recover the primacy of truth, since Christian formation depends upon obedience to truth and upon Christ as the true Light.
The relationship between Christianity and culture should not be understood merely as the Church borrowing stories from the ancient world. Christianity also introduced a profoundly new account of reality. The Christian narrative centers on creation, sin, covenant, Incarnation, Cross, Resurrection, and the final renewal of all things.
James Keating’s discussion of David Bentley Hart presents Christianity as a conceptual and moral revolution. The Christian vision of God as self-sacrificing love transformed Western conceptions of human dignity, moral responsibility, and the meaning of history.
A related discussion contrasts the moral assumptions of the classical world with those shaped by Christianity. It argues that many modern convictions—especially regarding the dignity of the weak, the sick, the disabled, and the unwanted—cannot simply be assumed to have emerged naturally from pre-Christian culture. They were significantly formed by the Christian narrative of every human being as bearing profound and irreducible dignity.
This does not mean that Christianity abolished every injustice or that Christians have always lived consistently with the Gospel. It means that the Gospel supplied a new standard by which both pagan society and Christian society could be judged. The Christian narrative continues to influence contemporary values even where its explicitly religious origin is forgotten.
Classic narratives can shape culture positively, but their influence is not automatically beneficial. Some inherited stories reinforce injustice, exclusion, domination, or distorted views of human nature. Nor is every modern narrative false simply because it is modern.
The Catholic approach therefore requires both gratitude and criticism. Pope Pius XI stresses the need to preserve the old where experience has shown it to be valuable, while also making use of what is genuinely worthwhile in modern developments. He particularly insists that education should be intellectually serious and that literature, science, and philosophy should be brought into conformity with the Catholic faith, especially because philosophy greatly influences the orientation of other disciplines.
This principle can be applied to classic narratives in three stages:
Such discernment avoids two opposite errors: romanticizing the past and dismissing it entirely.
St. Paul’s speech at the Areopagus offers a particularly important model. According to Pope Francis, Paul read pagan poetry attentively, recognized genuine religious longing among the Athenians, and used their own literary and philosophical language to announce the true God. Their culture contained “seeds” that could prepare the way for the Gospel.
This does not mean that Paul accepted every belief of the Athenians. He discerned within their culture signs of an authentic search for God and then led that search toward its fulfillment in Christ. Contemporary evangelization requires the same ability: familiarity with the stories that shape people today, respect for the human questions they express, and clarity about how Christ answers those questions.
Pope Francis describes literature as revealing the “abysses” within the human person, while revelation and theology show how Christ enters those depths and illumines them. Stories can therefore serve as points of contact between contemporary experience and the Gospel.
The continuing power of classic narratives has several implications.
Education should not reduce literature to technical analysis or ideological messaging. Students need sustained encounters with works capable of enlarging their moral imagination and teaching them to recognize truth, beauty, tragedy, and virtue. Catholic education should preserve the best of classical formation while addressing contemporary questions with intellectual seriousness.
The Church cannot communicate effectively while ignoring the stories through which people understand themselves. Pope Francis asks how Christians can reach the heart of ancient and modern cultures if they disregard their symbols, artistic expressions, and narratives.
Cultural debates are often contests between narratives. Catholic engagement should therefore address not only individual arguments but also the deeper account of human flourishing beneath them. Human beings are not exhaustively defined by their culture, and culture itself must be measured against the truth of human nature and dignity.
Catholics must embody the Christian narrative rather than merely defend it verbally. The tradition is transmitted through teaching, worship, art, history, the lives of the saints, and concrete practices of charity. Catholic culture becomes persuasive when it presents a coherent synthesis of truth, beauty, holiness, and human flourishing.
Classic narratives continue to shape contemporary cultural values because they form the imagination through which societies understand reality. They preserve inherited visions of virtue, freedom, suffering, and human destiny, even when their original religious or philosophical foundations are forgotten.
The Catholic response is neither cultural isolation nor indiscriminate acceptance. It is evangelical discernment: engaging the great stories of the past and present, gathering the “seeds” of truth within them, rejecting what contradicts human dignity and revelation, and directing every authentic human longing toward its fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Classic narratives remain culturally powerful, but the Gospel provides the fullest account of the human person and the final horizon toward which every true story ultimately points.