How Christopher Nolan Made Ulysses Feel New Again

I am a huge Christopher Nolan fan. I once sat through his entire Batman trilogy back-to-back at IMAX. And no, I didn’t wear a bat suit, only because I didn’t own one.

One thing Nolan does is take an old, familiar story and make an audience feel its power again. Yesterday, I watched that happen in front of me.

I was guiding a group through the National Gallery of Victoria when we stopped in front of John William Waterhouse’s Ulysses and the Sirens. Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus, in case anyone spent high school thinking they were two different blokes.

In school, a classmate once read aloud and pronounced ‘Ulysses’ as ‘Useless.’ The whole class collapsed with laughter. What can I say, we were easily amused.

But in front of the painting yesterday, half the group snapped to attention. They were nudging each other and telling me that they had just seen Nolan’s latest film, The Odyssey.

Sailing home, Ulysses was warned about the Sirens, whose enchanting singing made sailors steer their ships straight onto the rocks. Ulysses ordered his crew to block their ears and tie him to the mast, with strict instructions to ignore whatever he yelled once the singing began.

Waterhouse paints this exact moment: the Sirens circling, the crew straining at the oars, Ulysses fighting the ropes and begging to be released while the music drives him temporarily mad.

We keep returning to old stories because they remind us of our timeless human traits. You still want the irresistible thing. You like to believe you are sensible enough to handle it.

It is every person who has ever said, ‘I’ll just check Instagram for five minutes,’ only to resurface two hours later, with deep knowledge about a stranger’s kitchen renovation.

The technology changes. What doesn’t is its siren song.

PS. Ulysses survived. The voyage home, after everything he screamed while tied to the mast, must have been awkward.