Why Christopher Nolan is a Superstar Director

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
I'm going to begin this segment byposing a question to you after describing two
biographical films. One film is aboutan iconic rock band of the nineteen seventies
and eighties who were all superb musiciansand had hit after hit after hit,
and their lead singer was a superbshowman with an amazing voice in great stage
presence, who died tragically before hewas fifty. Now here's another biographical film.

(00:23):
It's about a theoretical physicist and academicborn in the early nineteen hundreds.
He's neurotic, egotistical. He's neurotic, egotistical, He's an intellectual. The
film has no major action sequences orsustained sexual content, and very little humor,
no fancy special effects generated by computers. It's all practical. Most of
the film takes place in the middleof nowhere, where the lead character surrounds

(00:46):
himself by a bunch of nerdy,brainy people just like him to work on
a super weapon to kill a lotof people. The second half of the
movie is incredibly talky, with alead character having an internal crisis of conscience
while he's attacked by jell enemies thatnobody's ever heard of. And it's three
hours long and has some black andwhite scenes that young moviegoers often hate.

(01:07):
Out of the two biographical movies,I just described to you, which one
would you think would sell the mosttickets in theaters and make a studio a
lot of money. Well, ifyou guess the rock and roll movie,
you'd be wrong. The one aboutthe intellectual professor was the money maker.
I'm referring, of course, toBohemian Rhapsody about Freddie Mercury and Queen,
and the other is Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer made nine hundred and sixty million

(01:33):
dollars worldwide at the box office,and Freddie Mercury in Company made fifty million
less. In what world could sucha thing happen? Answer? In Christopher
Nolan's world. Ever since Nolan madehis second feature, Memento, He's consistently
surprised audiences, critics, and thefilm industry with projects that defy conventional wisdom

(01:53):
and surpass expectations. You might sayNolan invented the intelligent blockbuster. When Warner
Brothers handed in the Kure lease tothe Batman franchise, he began to build
a reputation as a first class directorwho could make both crowd pleasing films but
could also make people think. Hisnon Batman films took on a variety of
subjects that explored old topics in freshways. In The Prestige, he examined

(02:16):
magic and illusions. In Inception,he did a deep dive into the subconscious
field of dreams, and after visitingInnerspace, he explored outer space with the
breath taking time warping experiment Interstellar.In Dunkirk, Nolan made his first war
film and his first financial failure.Tenant, a spy film with time travel

(02:36):
aspects, caused a war between himand his longtime studio Warner Brothers over the
film's distribution. Nolan also caught itfrom critics and internet fans, who said
the film was too confusing and thatthe dialogue was poorly mixed, making a
complex story even harder to understand.Now. Some directors might have been cautious
about making a movie about the creationof the atomic bomb after creating his own

(03:00):
first cinematic bomb, but not ChristopherNolan. He switched studios, and not
the least bit humbled by failure,he gave his next studio, Universal,
a long list of demands for makingOppenheimer, and they gave in to every
one of them. Oppenheimer, inmany respects, followed many of the rules

(03:20):
that Nolan is established all through hiscareer. It was shot on film,
not digital. It was partially shoton Imax. It attracted a long list
of the best actors working in filmtoday, including one of his favorite actors,
Killy and Murphy, to play Oppenheimer. There were no state of the
art digital effects. The historic firstexplosion at Los Alamos was created practically an

(03:42):
in camera, and as usual,Nolan allows note chairs on his set for
cast and crew. They're there towork and do good work. The result
was the first blockbuster movie about anintrovert academic who both changed and saved the
world and paid a price for itfor the rest of his life. It's
a measure of Nolan's amis ambition thathe would choose such an insane topic for
a one hundred million dollar Hollywood moviebased on a seven hundred and twenty one

(04:06):
page book that no one's read,and it's a measure of his talent and
imagination and taste that he pulled itoff. So what's next for Christopher Nolan?
The people that owned the James Bondfranchise have always adhered to two ironclad
rules. Bond must be played bya British actor and the film must be
directed by British directors. Since Nolanis half British, he's said to be

(04:28):
a leading candidate to take the helmof the iconic series. One thing's for
sure. If he accepts the assignment, Nolan is bound to leave Bond fans
both shaken and stirred like they've neverbeen before. And one last note about
Oppenheimer. It did okay at theOscars. It won Best Picture, Best
Director, Best Actor, and BestScore, just to name a few.

(04:49):
I'm John Wesley Downey and you're listeningto true film fan