Christopher Nolan: The full interview - Newsnight

i think film's extremely important from a couple of different points of view uh for myself as a filmmaker being able to have the choice to shoot on a film to shoot on celluloid which is what i love and what i choose to do that's been under threat the last couple of years very much there's been an economic imperative to push digital technology because it's perceived as being cheaper which it isn't necessarily but there are a lot of economic interests wanting to sell new equipment wanting to you know evolve the industry and make money that way and they've had a very powerful voice and so over the last couple of years filmmakers like myself who wanted to continue shooting on film have been under increasing pressure to modernize whatever you want to call it uh but for me film uh will always have this wonderful richness the analog color it has the superior resolution uh and when film is projected uh the way it was originally intended to be seen the way you've shot the film you project the film uh there's a very unique experience for the audience that they can't get in their living rooms and i think that's something that's very very important is it a little bit nerdy i mean if you if you were we we were to take you to a blind tasting and screen several movies at you are you confident you on the whole spot the old film stock from the digital i'm extremely confident of that but that is my job that is my profession uh obviously i'm aware that we're dealing with relative subtleties but people often misunderstand just how sophisticated the human eye is and how it develops over time and so for example you know i grew up in a generation where when you switch on the television you know the 80s and 90s you could tell within a couple of shots within five or ten seconds whether you were watching a feature film being shown on television uh a news program a drama a television commercial everybody's very sensitized the differences in imaging technology they might not understand it they might not be able to say this is why this looks this way this is why that looks that way and nor should they but in terms of being sensitized to it and it having an effect on the way they perceive the story they're being shown that's inarguable that's a very powerful component of what cinema has always been and when people look at movies and say well if we do it more like television if we use video technology as opposed to film technology it won't have an impact a lot of people who were telling me that you know 10 years ago and now the people saying that younger audiences aren't as interested in films as they used to be they're more interested in television for example and so uh i think there's a very real danger with watering down the theatrical experience watering down the experience of what a film is that organic larger-than-life sort of quality that that a great film print has i grew up able to go to leicester square i'd look at you know these amazing images projected on on huge screens it was incredibly important to me as a kid and i really want my kids to have have that same experience okay so is this about um making sure that film stop continues to be used is it also about a sort of uh conservation role i mean i i don't know if there's a threat to old movies there's deteriorate don't they there's a massive threat to old movies and to the movies being made today what happened in the history of cinema is a history of of people not looking after movies and there's great work being done by the film foundation that martin scorsese set up to restore films of the past to try and find lost films uh and when we look back at the way the hollywood studios and the distributors of the the cavalier way they treated some of their films back then you would think that those lessons had been learned but the truth is today particularly with uh the confusing proliferation of digital technology in the distribution mechanism you would think that we learned the lessons of the past but the truth is there isn't any stable digital archiving media so really the only way to reliably preserve films for the foreseeable future is on film stock and that's continuously or increasingly i should say being ignored so when you talk to archivists uh the photo chemical preservation films is extremely important and it hasn't been a sexier topic to talk about as digitization so the idea that will you can raise money you know in years past to digitize your archive well that's that's wonderful as far as access goes and digital technology has been wonderful for granting increased access to older films but you can't throw away the photo chemical elements those are still the authoritative versions of the films and they need to be preserved very very carefully and that costs money that takes people with great expertise and it's very important that that not be ignored we'd all love to believe that with new technology and new digital technology a problem has been taken off the shelf you know problems being solved and we don't have to worry about it anymore it's simply not the case we're always going to have to be guarding these cultural treasures very very carefully okay do you feel the same way about digital effects i mean uh if i was a director i might yearn for the days of francis ford coppola where you could send genuine choppers in to naam and film that is it a little bit disappointing to say well we'll leave all that to the blokes in the lab uh very much i mean i on my films i try to shoot as much in camera as possible on interstellar my last film for example we didn't use any green screens so when we were shooting inside a spaceship we had views outside the windows we produced all that material and we shot it and achieved the effect in camera uh and when you're on the bit where matthew mcconaughey is tumbling through a sort of space-time continuum if that indeed is what he's doing indeed we built a set for that and we enhanced it with visual effects and visual effects technology has been wonderful for enhancing those things and and increasing the vocabulary but sometimes when you're asked to justify these things like not using green screen you have to just bring it down to well it's so much more fun to do it's fun for the actors it's fun for me there's nothing more dispiriting than when you turn up to work and there's just a green screen with a couple actors in front of it it's really the magic's not there so trying to do these things for real trying to use real locations i've always preferred real locations to sets for the same reason as there's a feeling of reality there's a feeling of being somewhere that matters so you know i avail myself of all the latest digital effects technology absolutely but we try and always achieve what we can in camera and and have as good of time as possible doing it very good good to hear uh now you're famous for somehow marrying a kind of art film sensibility with these big popcorn guzzlers how do you do that and what is the knack of bringing big audiences to cinema do you think well i wouldn't claim to have the the knack for doing that i've been very fortunate with you know the breadth of the audience we've managed to get for for some of uh some of our films um ultimately really all i could say to that was i try not to separate the two things i try not to separate my love for uh very sophisticated esoteric filmmakers people i grew up watching like nicholas rowe whose films i love i try not to separate that side of myself from the side that grew up watching star wars and james bond and loving that you try to pitch the film in the language that you think it should be made in you try and think of what's the breadth of the audience you're making the film for but i don't think that needs to involve dumbing it down or selling it out in any way because i grew up loving hollywood blockbusters and for me it's really a process of trying to recreate that that magic that sense of scale that sense of immersion in a world that you grew up with if you can bring that to filmmaking i think you have the potential to reach reach a wider audience with all the films i've made i felt that really trying to complement the audience's intelligence trying to engage the audience with something that's new or different can pay great dividends you mentioned bond mendes will be stepping down is it time perhaps this is your next thing the nolan bond where he travels back in time or wouldn't you like to grapple with that franchise well i mean it's a great franchise and i've grown up absolutely loving it but they seem to be doing fine without me that's not a no that means you know it's not a no but it's not barbara broccoli picked the phone up okay uh one of your films that i particularly enjoyed was insomnia with al pacino quite interesting to make what are your memories of that my only regret is that you didn't get a real signature mannerism out of him unlike scent of a woman with the who has going on well i mean the the interesting thing in working with al who is an amazing film actor i mean arguably i would say one of the best who's ever lived um one of the things you learned from him is he would act very specifically for the film medium and that is to say he would ask you to do a number of takes you were doing a take of a two-minute scene or something he would produce a peak of energy or something and he would shift it take to take and the reason he would do that is because sometimes he would do something that was extreme or over the top so that about 30 seconds later he would sort of hit just the right note and so you have to well just something in his process exactly to find the correct truth the correct level of of energy for the for the take but what it means is as a filmmaker you then have huge opportunities in the other suite but you've also got a tremendous responsibility to try to be true to his original intention and draw from you know if he's given you 12 takes you're taking the beginning of take two and the middle of take four and the end of take eight and that was a very careful process that i really loved doing i mean the fascinating thing with al is he's also a great theater actor so he can do it completely differently as well but he's so knowledgeable about film and film craft it was a it was a joy to work with him and i learned an enormous amount doing it so you couldn't say al that was fine the first take's great it's freezing up here let's move on to the motel scene i could try but i wouldn't get away with that no i mean the the really interesting thing for me when i look back at the the dailies on that film is that we would do a lot of takes we would do 10 12 takes of anything but i could have cut the entire film from his first take every time he was just that rare in your experience extremely rare i mean he was in almost every scene of the film he shot 53 days i think every first take was perfect absolutely perfect he then explores in all kinds of different ways in fascinating ways that really let you try different things thematically and let different elements of the story of different layers of the story kind of bubble to the surface but as far as from a technical point of view every first take perfect i mean he's so on it so prepared and you really have to raise your game when you work with them okay and batman um a huge success very dark very dystopian um obviously you know you collaborate on these films and not entirely your vision but is is there some sense of that's how you see the way we are now or is that reading too much into a movie well i think it's more a question of saying the opportunity you get with work in a particular genre like the the the action movie genre the superhero genre working with the genre it allows you affords you the opportunity to explore things you're interested in or afraid of neurosis you have worries you have about the way the world is it allows you to explore them in a very sort of exaggerated manner in a way that you can really tap into the collective fears that we have as a society and particularly in the case of batman you have the opportunity through his environment through gotham to really offer a very dark reflection of the society we live in and with my collaborators david goyer my brother jonah at the script writing stage we certainly were very careful not to be self-conscious in those aspects so we trying to just write a great story first and foremost but we also try to be open to what are we really worried about how does the world feel to us what would you what would you be most concerned about in the case of the dark knight becomes very much about chaos and anarchy and the breakdown of society and so forth that way going through that process you you hope to come with something that will resonate with the audience that will touch something in them do you miss any of the gags from the old tv series do you think you've hit the right gag quotient in those films i think you you know you put as much humor in as the tone of what you're doing will sustain and uh you know we were always very fortunate to have michael caine you know along for the ride to drop you know the odd yeah the odd gold funny line the odd little bit of heart and also morgan freeman you know we had some wonderful actors in there but but those guys particularly they lent you know a degree of warmth to something that otherwise could be too dark too cold now we're in this august library it's all about the truth of film so here and on the record who's the most difficult person you've worked with in the acting profession who's the one where you've stood outside the winnebago going come on pal because it happens you know to be honest it as a director you're really responsible for what that tone is on set and you know people will ask me what was this actor like to work with what was that acting like to work with the truth is great actors and i've been very fortunate to work with a lot of really really great actors they're all different they all have a different process um and my job as a director is to find what they need from me and and accommodate that and get the the most out of them and uh i pride myself on on being able to do that how do you do the job because there's so much to juggle isn't there there's the budget the weather the locations the prima donna who won't come out of the winnebago let's say uh the schedule the release date how do i i mean do you sleep at night when you're in the middle of these things you sleep just because you're exhausted you know for pure exhaustion i enjoy the multi-faceted nature of the challenge i enjoy having to be an expert on a lot of different things or having to pretend to be an expert on a lot of different things one of the things i love about directing is is you don't specialize you you have to be able to uh really think of all the different aspects of the film at the same time it's also important to surround yourself with collaborators who can take the pressure off certain aspects of it and casting is a huge part of that you know finding actors some of the great actors i've worked with on the dark knight trilogy for example who you know they would recognize that yes we're also having to worry about flipping this truck or blowing this building up you know whatever and so their process would be balanced against that and uh working with very generous performers was was a big part of that so i really do enjoy the the challenge of putting together a lot of different aspects of one project and being trying to be in control of that i mean it's it's a really fun thing how have you managed to get movies like momento uh inception interstellar through the studio system because one remember stories of the old days that the old guys who ran the studios would look at a film and if they didn't think it would play in milwaukee if it was too clever they would say you know go back to the drawing board so people can follow it yours have been tangled naughty films how do you get away with that well i mean ultimately i've got away with it because the audiences have have been willing to come along for the ride and anytime you make a film like make a film like momento and the audience comes even though it's challenging material for that genre and that scale um that buys you some credibility with the people who are going to finance your next film i was actually doing a talk at the national film school last night and somebody put up their hand and said well how do you pitch a project like inception how did you film my conception and i made a joke you know somewhat globally just saying well the first thing you do is you make the dark knight because it made a huge amount of money for the studio and then you come in with incentives and say okay how about this but even though i said it as a joke it was a lot of truth to it because really it was about warner brothers showing a lot of trust uh you know and saying okay you'll be able to execute on this and be able to make it comprehensible to an audience so i think i think part of what it is is being able to communicate how you're going to get this across the audience when you talk to the studio about it and not show a disregard for the audience uh when you're dealing with the studio because you have to recognize the economic realities you're dealing with you're spending a lot of money on one of these films where it has such scale and there's such big things that you want to put on screen you have to be willing to take on the responsibility that that is going to play play wider and uh i think that's been a big part of my relationship with the studios is really trying to be honest and open about what the ambitions are for the film do you ever have people come up to you and say i loved interstellar chris but what was it about can you explain what happens because i enjoyed it but i must admit you know i slightly lost the plot not the first time that's happened but do you get that i get that sort of equally with most of my films do you that is to say uh you know i'll have people ask me that about inception for example and uh i wouldn't say had been asked anymore with interstellar i mean people different sections of the audience get different things out of the films and when you try and make a film that has a certain density to it you do to a certain extent um split up your audience response um but as long as you're getting something out of it then we're doing okay uh i mean for me really the the best kind of film you can make or the most interesting kind of film you can make is one that maybe somebody's interested to look at a second time and get something different from it okay do you fancy doing something else a stripped down thing something like a rom-com or a musical if somebody came to you with that kind of pitch would you go well i've nailed these uh time traveling odysseys yeah i'm going to do singing in the rain for the new generation well i sort of never say never but i i am a big believer in being uh sincere about your passion for something and i do love all types of cinema but at the same time when i come to do a project i never want to be doing a project to just for example to show versatility i wouldn't do a project for that reason so i think all the films i've made i like to think that they're connected in certain ways but they're all so different from each other that's as best as i can put it so i'd like to continue working along those lines really with a view first and foremost to being sincere in my passion for the project because each film you take on at whatever scale it's played out at you know it's it's a couple of years of my life sometimes more uh so you really want to be passionate about what it is that you're doing okay now here's a dark and controversial thought if you look at the careers of the great directors you're nobody until you've had a flop anyone can have a hit but can you have a failure and come back better and stronger what do you think i mean you've enjoyed this golden ride so far i don't know whether you ever look over your shoulder and think i'm due one about now oh certainly i mean i i try really to take on every project individually and look at just that that one film because if you start to look at it too much in terms of a continuum thoughts like that would certainly bother you uh but it's certainly the case that we all have our ups and downs i mean that's that's inevitable if you if you stay in the game long enough so you can't worry too much about that i think the main thing is whatever the reception to a film you've put out there good or bad all you really have to hang on to is your own belief in what it is you've done that you've done the best you possibly could and that you really loved the thing that it was that you were doing i think uh really that's that's what's there at the bottom and then as far as how it goes down in the marketplace well you know none of us have any control over that um since it's in the air very much do you have any thoughts to contribute to the debate about sexism in hollywood at the moment people are saying certain leading ladies that pay scales for instance are out of line and and it's still a boys club on the whole well i i mean certainly there are all kinds of valid criticisms leveled at the film industry along those lines whether or not it's worse than other areas of life i you know i couldn't say but uh certainly scrutiny on the issue is never going to be a bad thing some people have been saying that tv is where it's at now the box set the netflix experience who's got the time to go to the movies it costs a lot of money to get take a family to the pictures what do you think about that the tv is the cutting edge as some say well it's very interesting if you look back at the history um as soon as tv comes along the 1950s people start saying movies are dead tv's taking over um it's been that way you know for generations at this point um i think they're just different and there are all kinds of wonderful things about tv but it can't take place in movies the communal experience of sitting and watching a two-hour story unfold uh with an audience around you i think that's a a very important part of our cultural life and i i think it always will be thank you very much indeed thank you

Channel: BBC Newsnight

Views: 547,729

Rating: 4.9326935 out of 5

Keywords: Newsnight, BBC, UK, politics, News, BBCNewsnight, Christopher Nolan (Film Director), nolan, film, movie, movies, films, director, BFI, BFI London Film Festival (Film Festival), Movies (Composition), Film Director (Profession), Film (Film), Action, Trailer, batman, Interstellar, Dark Knight, momento, stephen smith, funny

Id: VtH6kiPbMBw

Length: 23min 41sec (1421 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 16 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/KS_tox]

The interviewer just performed an inception on Nolan and implanted the idea right at that moment.

[u/NakkieMetFransie]

Nolan started working out Tenet 6 years ago, he probably had to keep his mouth shut lol

[u/celebrimbor2]

temporal pincher in action

[u/Jonny_man_23]

Future Nolan sent the interviewer back in time plant the idea in Nolan's mind. A temporal inception movement.