Here is USA TODAY’s Patrick Ryan interviewing Christopher Nolan and mentioning how, after seeing “The Odyssey,” he noticed that the film bears a striking resemblance to Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ.”
Even more so than “The Odyssey,” Scorsese’s Jesus epic massively polarized the public, led to death threats, and drew condemnation, all due to it being a biblical retelling that portrayed Jesus grappling with guilt and resentment — much like Odysseus.
It turns out that Ryan connecting “The Odyssey” to “The Last Temptation of Christ” was no mistake. Nolan screened Scorsese’s masterpiece for his cast and crew before shooting his latest film.
“We screened a few different films in preproduction, and that one in particular we got a print of,” Nolan says. “It’s a stunning movie and a shocking film. There were technical things that Scorsese was doing that were quite inspiring, but more than that, the figure of Jesus and what he does with him was very, very challenging to the audience. That was quite inspiring from the point of view of Odysseus: You want to be true to all the difficulties of the character, and that’s what ‘Temptation’ is.”
Interesting. We’ve talked about the criticisms aimed at Nolan for having his actors speak in their own native accents — something Scorsese also did in “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Willem Dafoe’s Jesus spoke in a full American accent, and in particular, Harvey Keitel’s Judas retained his distinctive New York accent.
Beyond the accents, Nolan and Scorsese both reinterpreted iconic literary and religious works. Both directors also grounded their epic stories in realism, using practical filmmaking techniques. Finally, each film explores universal themes such as sacrifice, destiny, free will, and the search for purpose — treating ancient texts as human dramas rather than distant myths.
As for the other film Nolan privately screened for his cast and crew, Tom Holland recently revealed that he called Sony chief Tom Rothman to arrange a 70mm screening of “Lawrence of Arabia” for the cast of “The Odyssey” during pre-production.