Göransson's Odyssey: Texture Over Tradition
- Charlie Parkin
- Jul 18
- 7 min read
In my most recent blog post, I explored the mechanics of translating classical Homeric text into a musical language shaped by traditional Hollywood blockbuster techniques in my own depiction of The Iliad. I looked at how a sweeping, romantic orchestral palette can frame ancient conflicts with familiar cinematic grandeur.
...But now that Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is out, it's clear we're witnessing an interesting antithetical approach to the sword-and-sandal epic in a lot of ways.
Instead of leaning into the massive, brass-heavy orchestral tropes popularised since the 1950s, composer Ludwig Göransson and Christopher Nolan have deliberately stripped away the traditional symphony. The result is a visceral, texture-first score that challenges our definition of an "epic" soundtrack.
So in response to the film, this is a breakdown of how Göransson reimagined the Odyssey, and why this score marks another shift in modern cinematic storytelling - something both Göransson and Nolan continue to pioneer throughout their careers thusfar.
(Spoiler Note: I'm going to reference a few key, small sound design and musical moments in the film - but will broadly avoid plot and larger story context... if it's even possible to 'spoil' a near 3000 year old narrative as deeply embedded in our storytelling culture as the Odyssey...)
Banning the Orchestra
When we think of a Hollywood epic set in the ancient world, our minds immediately conjure soaring string lines and triumphant horn fanfares; an over-romanticised orchestral scale score. It’s a sonic template engineered to evoke classical heroism. However, as Nolan pointed out to Göransson during early production, a traditional symphonic orchestra simply didn't exist in the Bronze Age.
To subvert these deeply entrenched expectations, Göransson mostly* banned the orchestra from his palette. Instead, he initiated a process of radical experimentation and research to find and construct an authentic yet deeply alien sonic universe:
Scrap Bronze and Found Sounds: Göransson filled his studio with 35 different-sized bronze gongs, striking them to exploit the raw, ringing properties of the metal. He extended this tactile approach by recording himself bowing and striking everyday metallic surfaces - railings, walls, and air conditioning units - to capture abrasive, industrial textures.
Authentic Instrumentation: Rather than simulating antiquity through Western classical instruments, the score tries to lean heavily on genuine ancient Greek instruments like the lyre and the aulos (a double-piped reed instrument).
This focus on raw material - clunks and clangs, dissonant whirrs and fizzes, scratchy, broken and distorted rips and the actual sounds of the time of the setting - over polished symphonic arrangements creates an unsettling, immediate friction throughout the film. It moves the audience away from the passive comfort of a traditional film score and throws them directly into the harsh, gritty, elemental reality of Odysseus’ world.
(*Side note here: This way of working - 'avoiding the orchestra' - always gets the spotlight in movie marketing right now; it's a bit like the 'we didn't use CGI or VFX' narrative. In my opinion, both as a filmmaker and as a composer with a soft spot for orchestral scores: this is a feeble statement that means absolutely nothing. Firstly, because there is no doubt that hundreds of textural elements within the film come from a traditional Western symphony orchestra in some form or another - either in the form of samples or in live recordings, and the film score's credits at the end of the film can attest to this. Secondly, because the orchestra is just another tool in the composer's arsenal, and that 'sound' we associate with it is just one way of using that tool. A symphony orchestra has up to 100 individuals playing 100 unique instruments, each with their own timbre, texture and feel, who while capable of playing 'the old fashioned way' are also capable of playing any other way anyone likes... To me this is just another example of 'rockstarery' and subversion being a good hook to sell a movie on, rather than being a meaningful commentary around music in film - hell, Göransson himself wouldn't keep using the sound of the orchestra if it wasn't good for something! ...Anyway, rant over!)
Antiquity versus the 808
What makes The Odyssey score compelling is that it doesn’t settle for being a historical recreation, instead attaching its grounding in ancient history to hyper-modern production by layering the aforementioned fragile and tactile acoustic elements over heavy, synthesised sound design.
To give the mythical monsters and vast landscapes an inescapable sense of physical weight, Göransson introduces earth-shattering 808 sub-basses, deep rich textures, and heavily distorted electronic elements. This approach pushes the boundaries of cinematic heft far beyond what even a symphonic orchestra's grandeur is capable of achieving.
This specific tension, where acoustic elements are processed to sound industrial and mechanical, is a concept I am deeply passionate about in mine and others' work. For instance, when building the sonic world for the sci-fi thriller short Night Shift, I went in a similar direction: to establish an oppressive, inescapable urban weight without relying on conventional melodic tropes, I utilised thumping trap-influenced 808 sub-basses, and processed acoustic celli into distorted textures, so that the music functioned as an organic extension of the environment.
Göransson masterfully operates on this principle in The Odyssey. By underpinning an ancient instrument like the lyre with the crushing physical pressure of modern electronic sub-basses and production techniques, he creates a terrifying, subterranean depth that perfectly captures the monumental scale of the story and creatures within it.
A Dream Collaboration: Sound Baked into the Narrative
This level of cohesion is only possible because of the unique, deeply integrated collaboration between director and composer. Unlike traditional Hollywood workflows where a composer is brought in during post-production to fit music to an existing edit, Nolan approached Göransson during the earliest stages of script development - a process that is something of a trademark for Nolan since his collaborations with Hans Zimmer.
This early integration allowed them to embed specific sonic textures directly into the narrative framework before a single frame was shot. The most apparent example of this in the film is the iconic pluck of Odysseus' bow. Nolan insists on treating the acoustic snap of the bow string not merely as a sound effect, but as a central musical leitmotif. Göransson adapted this concept by translating that physical, tactile pluck into the foundational rhythmic and melodic drive of the film's music.
This illustrates Nolan’s insistence on highlighting Göransson’s "ear for sound" as a producer as much as his skill as a traditional composer. In a Nolan film, the line between sound design and musical composition is entirely erased; note his insistent use of the word "sound," not "music".
Sound as Emotion: Overwriting the Dialogue
In the architecture of a Nolan film, soundscape and score are routinely elevated above verbal exposition. Texture and emotion consistently take precedence over dialogue, forcing the audience to feel the narrative rather than intellectually process it. We see this methodology pushed to its absolute limit in the way The Odyssey mirrors the controversial, yet brilliant, sonic architecture of Nolan's previous works.
Consider the catamaran boating scene in Tenet. In that sequence, the roaring rush of wind and water blends seamlessly with Göransson’s aggressive electronic score, rendering the dialogue nearly unintelligible. Nolan purposefully prioritises visceral, physical tension over clunky exposition (...and boy is Tenet full of clunky exposition!) - forcing the viewer to ride the raw momentum of the scene rather than parsing every line of text.
This exact technique is deployed to even greater effect during one catastrophic boating scene in The Odyssey, where Odysseus and his crew battle the wrath of Zeus. Here, the soundscape is a cacophony of torture - actively near hurting the audience to listen to (by the way - watching this scene in Dolby 7.1 was a hell of an experience...!) By allowing the soundscape to totally overwrite the spoken word, the audience is subjected to the same terrifying, helpless disorientation as the crew themselves; sound functions as the primary narrative engine.
This sonic approach - 'sound as emotion' - is also evidenced by the sheer volume of 'music' that accompanies the film. Cues stretch near endlessly over the entire runtime of the film, with some album release versions (which are usually truncated to better fit an album listening environment) spanning 10+ minutes per piece, culminating in nearly two hours of music... In film scoring especially, where composers can often be paid per minute of final music, you don't make that much music by accident.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, Ludwig Göransson’s work on The Odyssey succeeds because it refuses to look backward through a romanticised, mid-century lens. By trading traditional symphonic safety for the abrasive scrape of raw bronze and the subterranean rattle of modern 808s, he has crafted a sonic landscape that feels simultaneously prehistoric and terrifyingly futuristic. It’s a texture-first masterpiece - in fact, the sonic world built here is so dense and fascinating that a theatrical runtime barely scratches the surface. Much like Hans Zimmer did with his Dune Sketchbook sessions, I hope Göransson releases a standalone companion album. It would be awesome to hear how these ideas breathe and evolve, with space to fully unpack the groundwork he’s laid down here - though it might be a difficult task to detach the music from picture when it is so carefully interwoven.
As for the film itself? It’s not without its faults. Nolan’s The Odyssey is undoubtedly flawed and overpaced at times - the sheer scope of a ten-year mythological voyage means the edit occasionally all-out sprints through encounters that deserve more room to breathe (yes, I guess I am asking for a somehow even longer version...) Yet, where it truly matters to the emotional core of the narrative, the film is beautifully measured and pulsing with life.
Within it also, is the inevitable triumph that occurs when a director and composer actively transcend the rigid, assembly-line nature of the typical studio system.
By inviting Göransson into the narrative architecture from day one, Nolan avoided just commissioning a retrofit soundtrack at the end of the process and instead allowed sound and musicality to help build the universe from its foundations. It’s a masterclass in modern filmmaking, proving once again that when you treat sound as a fundamental narrative engine rather than a post-production afterthought, cinema can force an audience to feel a story in ways dialogue never could.
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