The imminent release of Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey on July 17 has ignited a vigorous and necessary debate regarding the tension between artistic license and the importance of fidelity to a classic text.  It is a question of old date.  But while every generation has felt the compulsion to interpret anew the literary monuments of the past, they have often hesitated, out of respect for the antiquity of these monuments, to tamper unduly with the words and sentiments contained within them.

I intend to see Mr. Nolan’s movie and record my own impressions.  That is for a future date.  My present goal is to offer some thoughts on the question posed in the preceding paragraph:  to what degree is a classic text fair game for revisionist interpretations?  Should a filmmaker be judged at all on his fidelity to the source material?  If so, to what degree?  Or should rules be discarded entirely, and everything become fair game in the hands of the interpreter?  These questions have both subjective and objective aspects; and perhaps the very timelessness of the Homeric epics exacerbates the problem.  The universal truths contained in the Homeric poems, with their insights into human nature and psychology, encourage constant revisitation by thoughtful people.  As Samuel Johnson said in his Preface to Shakespeare, which was published in 1765, “[t]he Pythagorean scale of numbers was at once discovered to be perfect; but the poems of Homer we yet know not to transcend the common limits of human intelligence, but by remarking, that nation after nation, and century after century, has been able to do little more than transpose his incidents, new name his characters, and paraphrase his sentiments.”

Even before the movie’s release, there has been furious controversy over Mr. Nolan’s choice of actors, their costumes, and the alleged liberties he may have taken with the text of the Odyssey.  I have not yet seen the film, so will make no comment on these topics for now.  Every artist deserves a fair hearing, conducted, if we may borrow Tacitus’s somewhat elusive phrase, sine ira et studio—”without acrimony and bias.”  But before holding this hearing, the tribunal must enunciate its legal standard.  It must declare the rule under which it operates.  To judge, one must first articulate a normative principle.

It seems that the Nolan critics have divided themselves into two philosophic camps.  One school, which we may call the textualists, incline toward the idea that a director should adhere to the original text, and all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from it.  Textualists accept the original cultural context of the work, and believe that this context must be understood and respected.  A classic says what it says—not what future generations want it to say.  The other school, best described by the term deconstructionist, believes that nearly everything in the classics is fair game for modernist reinterpretation.  Nothing is sacred, and one’s own creativity and opinions matter as much as, if not more than, the plain language of the text itself.

While both of these schools make valid points, I myself incline towards the textualists.  Of course we must allow a degree of artistic license to filmmakers, translators, theater directors, or anyone else presenting a classic to the public.  Rigid formulas have no place in the world of artistic endeavor.  A deconstructionist critic might point out that the world of practicalities has always intruded upon the world of art.  Everyone has to earn a living, and compromises need to be made.  Even the great Shakespeare wrote primarily to earn his bread; and he was not above pandering to the Tudors by inserting favorable references to them, on occasion, in his plays. He was willing to unfurl his sails to catch the prevailing winds; and yet within his commercial and social limitations, he was able to create timeless art. Like Homer, Shakespeare was that rarest of artists: a creator who knew how at once to be popular and timelessly profound.  

And if a studio gives a director $250 million dollars, it is always the case that such investment comes with certain strings attached.  Cinema is a business.  Very rare are directors like Mel Gibson or Francis Ford Coppola, who were willing to invest their own personal fortunes in a film in order to realize their artistic vision without outside meddling.  But my textualist leanings are not absolute.  As I have said, and will say again:  we must not demand a slavish adherence to an classic work, or to artificial rules imposed by the dead hand of the past. 

And yet there are limits to everything.  There are limits to artistic license.  Creativity that thumbs its nose at harness and discipline becomes self-indulgent vanity.  When an interpreter’s vision strays too far from the source material, when he makes decisions that are obviously incongruous with the classic, then the question of good faith enters the picture.  The director, or the translator, who takes on a classic must see himself as a kind of custodian, especially if he seeks to affix the name of the classic to his creation.  He must show a degree of respect, even of veneration, for the original; and if his creative decisions tend to cast doubt on that requisite respect, then his audience has ever right to question his good faith.  As in so many things in life, the issue devolves into one of sincerity.        

I was pleased to discover that Samuel Johnson held somewhat similar critical views.  These found fullest expression in his Preface to Shakespeare, an independent essay that expresses some relevant ideas on the tension between artistic license and textual fidelity.  Johnson strongly defended Shakespeare’s defiance of the classical dramatic rule of the “unities”:  that is, the idea that a play should display a unity of action, time, and place.  Johnson implies that this rule should not be seen as mandatory, and defends Shakespeare’s unorthodox blending of comic and tragic elements in his plays.  The aim of poetry is to please, Johnson reminds us, and the blending of comic and tragic elements more closely approximates real life.  Shakespeare’s refusal to follow dramatic conventions was part of his creativity and genius:  and creative license is justified, even necessary, when it acts to conveys larger truths.          

At the same time, Johnson did not worship Shakespeare.  He saw him as a fallible man of flesh and bone, a man subject to the limitations of his time, education, and environment. He could be coarse, unnecessarily verbose, and careless in his construction of plots; in other words, there were times when his creative license overreached.  As an editor of Shakespeare’s plays, Johnson’s textual philosophy is of great interest to us.  He tried to restore original readings wherever possible, by a careful collation of texts; but he refused to make excessive emendations, believing that such intrusions were inappropriate.  Fidelity to the text was paramount; too much tampering, he believed, might make him a vandal rather than a caretaker.  His goal was to find a “middle way” between “presumption and timidity.”  The following quotations are illustrative:

Conjecture, though it be sometimes unavoidable, I have not wantonly nor licentiously indulged. It has been my settled principle, that the reading of the ancient books is probably true, and therefore is not to be disturbed for the sake of elegance, perspicuity, or mere improvement of the sense. For though much credit is not due to the fidelity, nor any to the judgement of the first publishers, yet they who had the copy before their eyes were more likely to read it right, than we who only read it by imagination. But it is evident that they have often made strange mistakes by ignorance or negligence, and that therefore something may be properly attempted by criticism, keeping the middle way between presumption and timidity…

Such criticism I have attempted to practice, and where any passage appeared inextricably perplexed, have endeavoured to discover how it may be recalled to sense, with least violence…In this modest industry I have not been unsuccessful. I have rescued many lines from the violations of temerity, and secured many scenes from the inroads of correction. I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honourable to save a citizen, than to kill an enemy, and have been more careful to protect than to attack.

Johnson’s views of that balance between artistic license and fidelity clearly emerge from these passages.  He sought “the middle way between presumption and timidity.”  In carrying out his purpose, he was more careful to protect than to attack.  He respected his subject, and approached his task with seriousness and candor; he did not try to make Shakespeare say what the bard never intended to say.  He did not try to deconstruct him, to tamper with his words, or to project modern sensibilities into his verses.

Johnson’s “middle way,” I think, is a useful starting point for any filmmaker who seeks to bring a classic to the screen.  There must be a balance between presumption and timidity. Classics must be respected for what they themselves say; they are not lumps of clay that can be spun on the potter’s wheel to create any configuration we desire. The filmmaker’s role is creativity bounded and checked by good faith and fidelity.  And we must agree that, when in doubt, it is more honorable for the filmmaker to save a line or a verse, than it might be to slay an imaginary enemy. 

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Read more essays on moral, biographical, philosophical, and historical subjects in the collections Digest and Centuries.