Christopher Nolan Says This Banned, Firebombed Scorsese Film Secretly Shaped ‘The Odyssey’

Christopher Nolan has spent the last several weeks doing what he rarely enjoys, talking openly about the ideas behind a movie before audiences get to see it. ‘The Odyssey’ arrives in theaters on July 17, and the press tour leading up to it has turned into one of the more revealing looks at Nolan’s creative process in years.

Much of that conversation has centered on why the director, fresh off the Oscar sweep of ‘Oppenheimer,’ chose to adapt Homer’s ancient epic next. Nolan told USA TODAY that finishing ‘Oppenheimer’ left him with what he called a mix of despair and optimism, describing the film as something close to a horror movie to live with for years while thinking about nuclear war.

That emotional hangover, it turns out, fed directly into how Nolan approached his lead character. According to a post from film account DiscussingFilm, Nolan revealed that Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ was a major inspiration for ‘The Odyssey.’ In the same post, Nolan is quoted describing the figure of Jesus and what Scorsese does with him as very, very challenging to the audience, adding that this was quite inspiring from the point of view of Odysseus.

It is a striking comparison once you consider the history behind Scorsese’s 1988 film. ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ starred Willem Dafoe as a Jesus wracked by fear, doubt and very human temptation, and the backlash was extraordinary even by religious controversy standards. Protesters shut down the Hollywood Freeway, several countries banned the film outright, and a Catholic extremist group firebombed a Paris theater during a screening.

Nolan reportedly screened the film for his cast and crew during preproduction on ‘The Odyssey,’ telling USA TODAY that beyond the technical craft on display, it was the willingness to make an iconic figure vulnerable that stuck with him. He framed that same difficulty as essential to portraying Matt Damon’s Odysseus, a war-hardened king trying to find his way home after a decade away from Ithaca and his wife Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway.

The comparison also lands amid Nolan’s own run of controversy this cycle, with critics and fans debating his choices around accents and historical authenticity in ‘The Odyssey,’ echoes of the same native-accent approach Scorsese used decades earlier. Nolan has pointed to other unlikely touchstones too, citing ‘Jaws’ and ‘Alien’ as guides for how to shoot creatures like the Cyclops and Scylla without overexposing them on screen.

With Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron and Lupita Nyong’o rounding out the ensemble, ‘The Odyssey’ is shaping up to be one of the biggest theatrical events of the summer, and Nolan’s decision to root Odysseus in the same raw, flawed humanity that made ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ so divisive gives the film an unexpected emotional backbone. Does knowing that a firebombed, banned religious epic helped shape Odysseus change how you’re walking into ‘The Odyssey’ this week?