Christopher Nolan is a filmmaker that bucks the trend in the movie industry. He is always doing projects that he wants to pursues and has yet to take a paycheck to do one of the big superhero franchise films. Now, Nolan is speaking out about the current film trend. Nolan’s current film, Dunkirk, is receiving both critical and commercial success.
Nolan spoke to The Los Angeles Times about his concern over film studios becoming too reliant on franchise tentpoles, pre-planned cinematic universes and hitting release dates such as the current superhero model in the process avoiding offering films that are either bold or original.
“What’s interesting about that whole paradigm is, you can’t fault the studios for looking to likely hits, for looking for areas where people seem to want more of something. But Hollywood and the studios have also always understood that novelty, freshness, is one of the magical ingredients of movies. And I don’t think the studios ever want to risk losing that completely.
When they start dating films too far out, when a grand plan is unveiled for years into the future, there is a risk that that unexpected quality in movies could get lost. So I think the studios recognize that it’s very important within those tent poles that they need surprises in there.
They need things to come along that the audience isn’t expecting. Because that’s part of the excitement of why we go to the movies: What are we going to see that we haven’t seen before? It’s a balance between giving audiences things they’re familiar with but then giving them things that are new and fresh.”
Turning to television where there is much more storytelling risk, Nolan confirmed that he has no plans to direct television in the foreseeable future and is sticking to film.
“As a kid, I loved watching ‘Miami Vice,’ but the relationship of what Michael Mann did in that to what he did in ‘Heat’ – they’re just completely different things. I think there are amazing things being done on television. I would point to my brother [Jonathan] and sister-in-law [Lisa Joy]’s show [HBO’s ‘Westworld’] as being one of them. I certainly don’t want to disparage TV. I think there are amazing things being done. But it’s very different to films.
Films are a particular type of storytelling. It’s not better than TV, it’s not worse – it’s just a completely different experience. And I think because they both consist of audiovisual information, people confuse the two. Obviously there’s a shared skill set and there are people like my brother or J.J. Abrams who can go back and forth with amazing facility. But at the end of the day, they’re different.”
Dunkirk opens as hundreds of thousands of British and Allied troops are surrounded by enemy forces. Trapped on the beach with their backs to the sea they face an impossible situation as the enemy closes in. The film’s ensemble cast includes Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles, Aneurin Barnard, James D’Arcy and Barry Keoghan, with Kenneth Branagh (My Week with Marilyn, Hamlet, Henry V), Cillian Murphy (Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy), Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies, Wolf Hall) and Tom Hardy (The Revenant, Mad Max: Fury Road, Inception).
The film was written by Nolan and produced by Nolan and Emma Thomas (Interstellar, Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy), with Jake Myers (The Revenant, Interstellar, Jack Reacher) serving as executive producer. Nolan’s “Dunkirk” is now playing in cinemas worldwide.
Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures