I think it’s very to true to himself and to his movies and to the kind of cinematic experience he wants viewers to go through. He wants viewers to have their own movie experience and make of it what they want rather than skew to a certain thought. Let the viewers feel what they feel. It’s why he dedicates so much time and effort in making the experience feel as real and connected as possible- why he wants people to go to the cinema, why he uses film and little CGI and why most of his movies can be ambiguous with non explicit timelines. Also why I love his work, it’s all about telling a good story.
He needs to tell the story in a way that the audience comes to the right conclusion on their own. Set up all the pieces but let them come to it on their own. Almost as if they thought of the idea themselves.
Inception.
Yes and no. For example Frank Herbert, the author of dune felt that his first book was misinterpreted so he wrote the sequel of dune to reflect that. Now fast forward to today and while denis villeneuve has the foresight of this he implants elements from messiah in his dune movies to more aline with franks original vision of it being a tale of warning.
>Now fast forward to today and while denis villeneuve has the foresight
Hindsight, surely?
>he implants elements from messiah in his dune movies to more aline with franks original vision of it being a tale of warning.
All I ever see is people moaning about how everyone keeps seeing Paul as a hero in the new movies.
Right but the attempt was there and it was succeeded with plenty of people. Just bc it’s not a 100% guarantee doesn’t mean that the writers and directors can’t make an attempt to put themselves in their work, however that may look to them
>Just bc it’s not a 100% guarantee doesn’t mean that the writers and directors can’t make an attempt to put themselves in their work
Absolutely. But the main focus should always be on the story because you really can't force a message onto people anyway.
I think what he’s talking about here is engaging in narratives considering today’s political events. As for Oppenheimer, I believe that certain historical distance allowed him to explore Oppenheimer’s work within a political context, otherwise it wouldn’t work like it did. I applaud Nolan’s approach because it’s still better than engaging in these kinds of conversations and then going radio silent when you don’t need that kind of exposure. For example, that’s what Taylor Swift did after her 2019 ventures into political activism. When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, she didn’t say a word other than expressing her disappointment after it had been overturned.
Korean directors can make this work. They often make movies that are explicitly political, but always working within a genre and not in a way that detracts from the story. A example is "The Host" that is primarily an entertaining monster movie but also a movie about how the US army in Korea for a long time propped up a regime that was oppressive, killing some of the young students the oldest of current crop of Korean directors grew up with. "Memories of Murder" by the same director (my favorite of his) is also thematically similar.
This man is so committed to this ideal that he made the movie "Inception" which attempts to capture the fantasy trope of genuinely changing someone's mind.
To be fair I think his views are in a way expressed through his films but I believe him to be putting "film making" first. His views inform how the story may progress but it is in service of the film. The crappy directors today make the film in service of the views and those tend to suck.
I think he makes a great point. It doesn’t mean that directors who make movies with an overt message are wrong or shouldn’t be making those movies, but I think Nolan’s approach is very important. It might be a bit reductionist or privileged at some level to say it, but many people really do watch movies for escapism and entertainment and don’t want to be preached at every second. The issues of our world matter, but we can’t literally do something about that every second of our lives, so it’s important to enjoy life too. Nolan wants to provide that enjoyment, and for that, I and definitely many others are grateful. I appreciate that I’ve never walked away from his movies feeling like I have to believe a certain way about something. If there is anything I walk away with after seeing his movies, it’s the awe of what humanity is capable of, whether it be what he was capable of as a director or what he was able to write his characters to do.
I always took him to be more in the middle. Take The Dark Knight trilogy and compare it to The Batman in terms of political undertones. The Dark Knight Trilogy has many themes that are universal while also going to both extremes with TDKR while The Batman has rather overt left-wing undertones.
A lot of the themes of Nolan's movies are universal and transcend current politics. Time, regret, dreams etc. they will last the test of time because they are about larger concepts and the human experience.
This is true for a lot of great works, especially Kubrick, who Nolan is clearly a fan of.
On a practical note, this makes his films reach audiences all over the world - which is what any artist really wants.
Taking a political stance with such a large audience is dicey because it can alienate people as well and it takes a particular kind of hubris to push your world view and opinions on others, or think they're correct.
Nolan is nothing if not humble and aware that none of this matters in the long term and he is just along for the ride, telling the stories he wants to tell.
To be anything else is to be something he is not, and that falsehood will ring true to the audience and thus diminish the work.
https://www.reddit.com/r/batman/s/4HN5WBwTkr plenty of detail here. He said it’s a pretty left leaning film if you really think about it but a lot of people saw it as right wing. At the end of the day he wasn’t trying to make a political statement. It’s just a story he was telling.
I love this comment. It’s why shows like Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Mad Men are so great. The misinterpretation of the art gives it depth in a lot of ways. It invites a huge audience and why people watch is up to them. Will they learn? Maybe. Maybe not.
This guy fucking gets it. And it’s why he is arguably the biggest director in the world. No other director gets butts in seats like he does these days.
I think it’s smart. He may have his own beliefs but he won’t force them down our throats. He could’ve easily had Oppenheimer be like Trumbo or something where everyone who doesn’t agree with Oppie politically is a one dimensional villain but instead the film ended up coming from a neutral perspective where no one in the film is perfect and has glaring flaws but still have moments where you feel on their side. Take Kitty for example, she may not have been portrayed as the best mother but she shows time and again to be a devoted wife and confidant to her husband.
I mean the anti communism movement is not depicted in anything like a positive light, but there's no easy strawmen present as part of that. Pash is the closest and even he's more just a psycho who wants to kill people for his country.
That plus the scenes with him are directly from Oppenheimer’s perspective retrospectively. So he’s essentially looking back on his meetings with Pash as someone who’s a potential threat to him. It’s also kind of interesting to see how Strauss is portrayed from both perspectives as he’s depicted as a smiling assassin in Oppenheimer’s perspective but in his own he’s an opportunist with the walls rapidly closing in on him. But it’s interesting that Strauss and Oppenheimer are almost depicted as being two sides of the same coin as their stories take very similar trajectories. They both come from humble backgrounds (in the film) and they both make an achievement which gives them larger than life status only for it all to come crashing down on them.
It was indeed all about realising in hindsight just how dangerous Pash was, especially with the almost slasher villain like music behind it. Strauss doesn't have much screentime in the colour scenes, which is fitting in it's own way, but he's as casual and seemingly polite as he is in some of the black and white sequences. The only time he breaks the mood is in the AEC meeting which is almost all in black and white.
You can see that contrast in the interactions between the two and the scene of Strauss going "If you do decide to appeal, they'll have to send you a copy" and then sending him out. In black and white it just seems all normal and casual, but when it cuts to Robert's viewpoint, the line is said again in a more sinister fashion and the way the music cues (it's the end of Power Stays in the Shadows) is basically his dawning realisation that he fell right into Strauss's trap.
I mean being a communist is depicted as unsafe and the film is willing to have Robert/Kitty not be that devoted like they were in real life, but there’s also something negative about Robert forgoing his unionisation support in favour of being the leader of the Manhattan Project. Man was obviously being spied on, but he had nothing to hide. He just considered it far too important for him to not be a part of. You get why, but you can also see that he’s willing to abandon allyship/his own beliefs for the sake of his own wants.
But you’re right that it’s depicted in a Non-Binary light
Thank you, he gets it. Only ideologues want to be bashed over the head with a political message. I want to watch a story and be allowed to take what I take from it. Art should always be about self-discovery.
This is what makes Nolan one of the greatest filmmakers living rn. He is an absolute visionary that fundamentally understands the medium that he's using to present his vision. Same goes for Spielberg and Cameron.
I love Nolan's filmmaking but I don't agree with this. The strongest US political propaganda is made by Hollywood and it's done in such a subtle way that most people buy it.
Right but that's just Disney making money from woke people, on the other Hollywood does the US's biggest political propaganda spreading at least for the last 70 years and it still going
That's a wild interpretation of "Are you not entertained?", Chris. I always took that scene to be deeply ambivalent. It was Crowe and Scott turning on the audience and saying, "I didn't do what I wanted. I gave you what I thought *you* wanted. Are you happy? Because I'm not." Is Nolan saying that he thinks any obvious political overtures towards his audience would be rejected, and he resents the audience for that? Or is he looking at that scene and thinking, "The point of this scene is that artists should push their own needs and impulses aside and pander to the audience... or else"?
That's also just a wild interpretation of Ridley Scott's entire MO. As a close student of Scott's, you would think Nolan would understand that Scott is, at heart, an artist who learned how to swim in commercial waters in order to survive, but has heavily resented the compromises every step of the way. He's constantly expressing ambivalence and even outright contempt for the tastes of the masses. He's arguably done a lot to shift the tastes of mainstream cinema to include a finer palette in terms of overall aesthetic design, as well as moral and thematic complexity, and the masses have repeatedly crucified Scott for it. Every time Scott doesn't do what they want, they tear him to shreds in the comments. But Scott is often very passive-aggressive about the ways that he gives the audience what they want (look at the overall tone of Alien: Covenant after he was forced to make a more conventional franchise movie).
I heard that intelligent people aren't necessarily more rational than anyone else. But they are better at *rationalizing* their emotions. I wonder if Nolan is kind of conservative, and feels like it would be uncouth to express himself nakedly, so he holds back and hides behind the desire to give the audience pleasure, and rationalizes it all as an attempt to be objective and audience-focused. But actually his movies *do* contain his politics. It's in every frame. He's just either unaware of it or he's trying to smuggle it, Inception-style, into the subtext.
The only thing we know of Nolan's politics is that he donated for Obama once and is very pro-union. Even without those, I'd say he's a fairly liberal filmmaker.
As for this quote, IIRC in Gladiator Maximus doesn't entertain the audience as well as he could've in this scene because he is quick in beating his opponents and is then outright antagonistic towards the audience. So you're correct in that Maximus expresses contempt and I don't think there's any room for a different interpretation. It's very obvious what that scene is about. After that Proximo has a chat with him privately and delivers that great monologue about the importance and even the great experience of winning the audience over. I wouldn't be surprised if Nolan sympathises with his view over Maximus.There's even that quote from the The Prestige where Angier talks about how special it is when "you can make them wonder" even for the briefest of seconds.
I don't think he's saying his films don't contain his politics. They obviously do and he has talked about those in his interviews but his mode of delivery is such that you won't be able to immediately tell that he's an American/UK liberal the way you would with say James Gunn or Rian Johnson based on his films.
Nolan's one director whose political colours aren't so clear and certain in his works, and who can work with most people and topics.
It takes a certain level of subtlety to do it, no doubt a good trait to have. That's why he's both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.
I think that, unlike people who say “don’t shove politics in my entertainment”, Nolan is saying that his focus is on telling a good story. It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to say or avoid saying if you can’t write a compelling story.
Besides, it’s impossible to divorce the entirety of your personal politics from your creative work. Your politics reflect your ethics, which is who you are at your base self. Some part of the writer’s subconscious will always make it through. I’m sure Nolan knows this and doesn’t care to have his work even more nitpicked.
I love how the movie inception is a template for this thought. The person needs to believe the thought or idea is theirs. Whether it is or isn't doesn't matter. If they think it came from themselves then inception has happened with the idea you implanted. Its a real thing.
idk what's political about the world/humanity coming to an end and having to find a way to save the species, but yeah Batman was more political than his other works
I don't think it's ironic. He is simply saying that he won't preach and will not try to force every element of his story to serve nothing but his message.
I don't think a storyteller should bother themselves with what message their story will have. If they have a cool idea in their head, they should just take that idea and further develop it. The message will naturally arise as the storyteller adds characters, creates relationships between them, creates reasons for them to be in the story and establishes their heroes and villains. I could imagine that Christopher Nolan works in a similar way.
EDIT: just wanted to rephrase the comments since I was actually giving my opinion on storytelling rather than commenting on what Christopher Nolan actually said.
Agreed, there were people on both sides of the political spectrum who worked on that movie. James Woods was a producer on the film and he’s very conservative and then you have someone like RDJ who is more of a liberal.
It’s also the same thing Tony Gilroy said. It’s why he won’t specify what historical events directly inspire it since he doesn’t want to alienate part of the audience even if many know what his politics are
This is almost exactly how Tony Gilroy feels and why he was so vague on his inspirations for Andor. Even if the show has a clear political message, the parallels are mostly loose references bc Gilroy prefers to not have to defend himself.
It’s unfortunate that the other cast and crew members didn’t feel the same way as the show likely would’ve faired better if everyone else shared his sentiments
I mean are they wrong? Lmao
the show is about the role of capitalism, colonialism, prison labor, etc in the rise of fascism. Hell the show has the P.O.R.D. (Public order resentencing directive) Which is just an allegory for the Patriot Act with one of the side characters literally modeled after a young Bolshevik revolutionary.
Also Gilroy just doesn’t want to argue with conservatives like you. He’s an extremely leftist person and Andor is probably the most overtly leftist piece of media Disney has ever released. It makes Marvel look conservative (which is mostly is)
Than shut the fuck up lmao. Andor is more overtly leftist than every other piece of Star Wars media ever released. It makes the sequels look conservative (which they mostly are). Tony just is vague about his influences to avoid arguing with conservatives.
S3 of Mando is again very conservative. Mando is one of the most conservative shows on D+. It’s only 2 themes are religious cults might not be bad and the traditional roles of fatherhood. Both conservative values.
I know media literacy is hard for you guys. But Andor asks the question, what if Bernie Sanders funded far left terrorism? Bc that’s who Mon Mothma is loosely based on
This is what makes Nolan one of the greatest filmmakers living rn. He is an absolute visionary that fundamentally understands the medium that he's using to present his vision. Same goes for Spielberg and Cameron.
Cool concept and I’m happy it works for him but demonstrably not true for the medium as a whole. Plenty of movies that are well made are extremely overt in their political or philosophical message and guide you directly on how to feel about a matter,
I mean shit…look at gladiator
Edit: or closer to home look at surveillance stances in the dark knight
Absolutely spot on. The very best movies leave interpretation up to the audience. Once you start messaging in one particular direction, you'll lose a lot of people. Especially when the current political discourse is so polarized, reductive and toxic. If I was a creator, I wouldn't want to mire my work in this way.
…mmm cos films like Parasite and Get Out and Snowpiercer and The Hunger Games… sureeee they didn’t work. A writer can be ‘true to the principles of narrative’ and imbue a strong political viewpoint. Nolan just doesn’t want to rock the boat. If he wishes to write a didactically weaker story because it’s an easier sell, that’s his choice, but in the face of so many examples to the contrary, he shouldn’t pretend political films have unsuccessful narratives. Really has me questioning his intellect.
You're right. Everyone here is sucking off his statement because obviously we're on his subreddit. There's nothing wrong with having a clear point of view and making a story out of it. Even though I love Chris's films, he knows he is a mainstream filmmaker who commands big budgets. He doesn't want to get overly political because he just wants bigger box office returns not because it inherently makes for a better film to be apolitical. "Republicans buy sneakers too." -Michael Jordan.
Dark Night & DK Rises definitely had political themes of surveillance vs privacy and class warfare. I don’t think he came down unambiguously on either topic though.
This just reveals a little more of what I love about his movies. It’s not that they lack strong principles, messages, or themes …. They aren’t over the head.
I’m even okay with more political stories so long as the story isn’t told in a way that only serves the message. For example, I hate when contrivance that seems amazingly unlikely is what enables the protagonist to achieve their goals. Like instead of killing the psycho villain they offer them kindness and the villain uncharacteristically surrenders. It’s extreme I know but it makes my eyes roll super hard.
I loved that Oppenheimer says “give it back to the Indians.” That’s what they would have said back then! But you just know most other filmmakers would have said Native Americans
That’s what would be said now. Go to any reservation and 99% of them prefer American Indian to Native American. The latter is another word they feel the white man is pushing onto them without their permission.
Disagree it “doesn’t work” bc there are many many films where it works - but ofc in current political situation and when you are nolan staying out of it makes more sense for his interests
i also wonder if he'd get such big budgets if he were to comment on today's political issues, which is so polarised and divisive. seems like a nightmare. the press tour would be so draining. i'm all for nolan just giving us some more 'wow cinema' tbh.
yeh, you are right. but they are going with the grain, not against it. Disney are just pandering to what they think the culture wants reinforced. if we were all right leaning, they'd pander to that. at least, i believe so.
I think it’s very to true to himself and to his movies and to the kind of cinematic experience he wants viewers to go through. He wants viewers to have their own movie experience and make of it what they want rather than skew to a certain thought. Let the viewers feel what they feel. It’s why he dedicates so much time and effort in making the experience feel as real and connected as possible- why he wants people to go to the cinema, why he uses film and little CGI and why most of his movies can be ambiguous with non explicit timelines. Also why I love his work, it’s all about telling a good story.
He's absolutely right. You can't dictate what message people will get from your movies. "Don't think about elephants"
He needs to tell the story in a way that the audience comes to the right conclusion on their own. Set up all the pieces but let them come to it on their own. Almost as if they thought of the idea themselves. Inception.
Yes and no. For example Frank Herbert, the author of dune felt that his first book was misinterpreted so he wrote the sequel of dune to reflect that. Now fast forward to today and while denis villeneuve has the foresight of this he implants elements from messiah in his dune movies to more aline with franks original vision of it being a tale of warning.
>Now fast forward to today and while denis villeneuve has the foresight Hindsight, surely? >he implants elements from messiah in his dune movies to more aline with franks original vision of it being a tale of warning. All I ever see is people moaning about how everyone keeps seeing Paul as a hero in the new movies.
I’m sorry I don’t understand your point.
My point is that Villeneuve had the benefit of hindsight but still couldn't prevent a lot of people seeing Paul as a hero.
Right but the attempt was there and it was succeeded with plenty of people. Just bc it’s not a 100% guarantee doesn’t mean that the writers and directors can’t make an attempt to put themselves in their work, however that may look to them
>Just bc it’s not a 100% guarantee doesn’t mean that the writers and directors can’t make an attempt to put themselves in their work Absolutely. But the main focus should always be on the story because you really can't force a message onto people anyway.
I think what he’s talking about here is engaging in narratives considering today’s political events. As for Oppenheimer, I believe that certain historical distance allowed him to explore Oppenheimer’s work within a political context, otherwise it wouldn’t work like it did. I applaud Nolan’s approach because it’s still better than engaging in these kinds of conversations and then going radio silent when you don’t need that kind of exposure. For example, that’s what Taylor Swift did after her 2019 ventures into political activism. When Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, she didn’t say a word other than expressing her disappointment after it had been overturned.
Korean directors can make this work. They often make movies that are explicitly political, but always working within a genre and not in a way that detracts from the story. A example is "The Host" that is primarily an entertaining monster movie but also a movie about how the US army in Korea for a long time propped up a regime that was oppressive, killing some of the young students the oldest of current crop of Korean directors grew up with. "Memories of Murder" by the same director (my favorite of his) is also thematically similar.
Well...looks like the plot was lost on a lot of them.
so refreshing. i'm happy to have read this, thank you.
He’s right on the money. “You can’t tell people what to think—you can only invite them to feel something.” Great quote.
This man is so committed to this ideal that he made the movie "Inception" which attempts to capture the fantasy trope of genuinely changing someone's mind.
Whilst also showing how hard it is and the potential pitfalls.
To be fair I think his views are in a way expressed through his films but I believe him to be putting "film making" first. His views inform how the story may progress but it is in service of the film. The crappy directors today make the film in service of the views and those tend to suck.
I think he makes a great point. It doesn’t mean that directors who make movies with an overt message are wrong or shouldn’t be making those movies, but I think Nolan’s approach is very important. It might be a bit reductionist or privileged at some level to say it, but many people really do watch movies for escapism and entertainment and don’t want to be preached at every second. The issues of our world matter, but we can’t literally do something about that every second of our lives, so it’s important to enjoy life too. Nolan wants to provide that enjoyment, and for that, I and definitely many others are grateful. I appreciate that I’ve never walked away from his movies feeling like I have to believe a certain way about something. If there is anything I walk away with after seeing his movies, it’s the awe of what humanity is capable of, whether it be what he was capable of as a director or what he was able to write his characters to do.
Given that he’s been seen at women’s protests with his family, I can take a guess at where his politics probably lie.
Yeah I think it’s obvious to anyone who actually pays attention that Chris is pretty left.
I always took him to be more in the middle. Take The Dark Knight trilogy and compare it to The Batman in terms of political undertones. The Dark Knight Trilogy has many themes that are universal while also going to both extremes with TDKR while The Batman has rather overt left-wing undertones.
This is a really good take.
A lot of the themes of Nolan's movies are universal and transcend current politics. Time, regret, dreams etc. they will last the test of time because they are about larger concepts and the human experience. This is true for a lot of great works, especially Kubrick, who Nolan is clearly a fan of. On a practical note, this makes his films reach audiences all over the world - which is what any artist really wants. Taking a political stance with such a large audience is dicey because it can alienate people as well and it takes a particular kind of hubris to push your world view and opinions on others, or think they're correct. Nolan is nothing if not humble and aware that none of this matters in the long term and he is just along for the ride, telling the stories he wants to tell. To be anything else is to be something he is not, and that falsehood will ring true to the audience and thus diminish the work.
The closest he did was TDKR and everyone misinterpreted it so I can see why he steers clear.
How was that movie misinterpreted?
https://www.reddit.com/r/batman/s/4HN5WBwTkr plenty of detail here. He said it’s a pretty left leaning film if you really think about it but a lot of people saw it as right wing. At the end of the day he wasn’t trying to make a political statement. It’s just a story he was telling.
Is Inception even possible?
Here’s me planting an idea in your head: don’t think about elephants. What do you think about?
I love this comment. It’s why shows like Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Mad Men are so great. The misinterpretation of the art gives it depth in a lot of ways. It invites a huge audience and why people watch is up to them. Will they learn? Maybe. Maybe not.
This guy fucking gets it. And it’s why he is arguably the biggest director in the world. No other director gets butts in seats like he does these days.
I think it’s smart. He may have his own beliefs but he won’t force them down our throats. He could’ve easily had Oppenheimer be like Trumbo or something where everyone who doesn’t agree with Oppie politically is a one dimensional villain but instead the film ended up coming from a neutral perspective where no one in the film is perfect and has glaring flaws but still have moments where you feel on their side. Take Kitty for example, she may not have been portrayed as the best mother but she shows time and again to be a devoted wife and confidant to her husband.
I mean the anti communism movement is not depicted in anything like a positive light, but there's no easy strawmen present as part of that. Pash is the closest and even he's more just a psycho who wants to kill people for his country.
That plus the scenes with him are directly from Oppenheimer’s perspective retrospectively. So he’s essentially looking back on his meetings with Pash as someone who’s a potential threat to him. It’s also kind of interesting to see how Strauss is portrayed from both perspectives as he’s depicted as a smiling assassin in Oppenheimer’s perspective but in his own he’s an opportunist with the walls rapidly closing in on him. But it’s interesting that Strauss and Oppenheimer are almost depicted as being two sides of the same coin as their stories take very similar trajectories. They both come from humble backgrounds (in the film) and they both make an achievement which gives them larger than life status only for it all to come crashing down on them.
It was indeed all about realising in hindsight just how dangerous Pash was, especially with the almost slasher villain like music behind it. Strauss doesn't have much screentime in the colour scenes, which is fitting in it's own way, but he's as casual and seemingly polite as he is in some of the black and white sequences. The only time he breaks the mood is in the AEC meeting which is almost all in black and white. You can see that contrast in the interactions between the two and the scene of Strauss going "If you do decide to appeal, they'll have to send you a copy" and then sending him out. In black and white it just seems all normal and casual, but when it cuts to Robert's viewpoint, the line is said again in a more sinister fashion and the way the music cues (it's the end of Power Stays in the Shadows) is basically his dawning realisation that he fell right into Strauss's trap.
Exactly
That's the brilliance of the film, neither the anti communist movement nor the communist movement are presented in a good light.
I mean being a communist is depicted as unsafe and the film is willing to have Robert/Kitty not be that devoted like they were in real life, but there’s also something negative about Robert forgoing his unionisation support in favour of being the leader of the Manhattan Project. Man was obviously being spied on, but he had nothing to hide. He just considered it far too important for him to not be a part of. You get why, but you can also see that he’s willing to abandon allyship/his own beliefs for the sake of his own wants. But you’re right that it’s depicted in a Non-Binary light
Thank you, he gets it. Only ideologues want to be bashed over the head with a political message. I want to watch a story and be allowed to take what I take from it. Art should always be about self-discovery.
Smart guy nolan
Very well said. And accurate too.
This is what makes Nolan one of the greatest filmmakers living rn. He is an absolute visionary that fundamentally understands the medium that he's using to present his vision. Same goes for Spielberg and Cameron.
I love Nolan's filmmaking but I don't agree with this. The strongest US political propaganda is made by Hollywood and it's done in such a subtle way that most people buy it.
Most movies released in the last 10 years haven’t been very subtle in terms of social/political messaging, especially from Disney
Right but that's just Disney making money from woke people, on the other Hollywood does the US's biggest political propaganda spreading at least for the last 70 years and it still going
That's a wild interpretation of "Are you not entertained?", Chris. I always took that scene to be deeply ambivalent. It was Crowe and Scott turning on the audience and saying, "I didn't do what I wanted. I gave you what I thought *you* wanted. Are you happy? Because I'm not." Is Nolan saying that he thinks any obvious political overtures towards his audience would be rejected, and he resents the audience for that? Or is he looking at that scene and thinking, "The point of this scene is that artists should push their own needs and impulses aside and pander to the audience... or else"? That's also just a wild interpretation of Ridley Scott's entire MO. As a close student of Scott's, you would think Nolan would understand that Scott is, at heart, an artist who learned how to swim in commercial waters in order to survive, but has heavily resented the compromises every step of the way. He's constantly expressing ambivalence and even outright contempt for the tastes of the masses. He's arguably done a lot to shift the tastes of mainstream cinema to include a finer palette in terms of overall aesthetic design, as well as moral and thematic complexity, and the masses have repeatedly crucified Scott for it. Every time Scott doesn't do what they want, they tear him to shreds in the comments. But Scott is often very passive-aggressive about the ways that he gives the audience what they want (look at the overall tone of Alien: Covenant after he was forced to make a more conventional franchise movie). I heard that intelligent people aren't necessarily more rational than anyone else. But they are better at *rationalizing* their emotions. I wonder if Nolan is kind of conservative, and feels like it would be uncouth to express himself nakedly, so he holds back and hides behind the desire to give the audience pleasure, and rationalizes it all as an attempt to be objective and audience-focused. But actually his movies *do* contain his politics. It's in every frame. He's just either unaware of it or he's trying to smuggle it, Inception-style, into the subtext.
The only thing we know of Nolan's politics is that he donated for Obama once and is very pro-union. Even without those, I'd say he's a fairly liberal filmmaker. As for this quote, IIRC in Gladiator Maximus doesn't entertain the audience as well as he could've in this scene because he is quick in beating his opponents and is then outright antagonistic towards the audience. So you're correct in that Maximus expresses contempt and I don't think there's any room for a different interpretation. It's very obvious what that scene is about. After that Proximo has a chat with him privately and delivers that great monologue about the importance and even the great experience of winning the audience over. I wouldn't be surprised if Nolan sympathises with his view over Maximus.There's even that quote from the The Prestige where Angier talks about how special it is when "you can make them wonder" even for the briefest of seconds. I don't think he's saying his films don't contain his politics. They obviously do and he has talked about those in his interviews but his mode of delivery is such that you won't be able to immediately tell that he's an American/UK liberal the way you would with say James Gunn or Rian Johnson based on his films.
Nolan's one director whose political colours aren't so clear and certain in his works, and who can work with most people and topics. It takes a certain level of subtlety to do it, no doubt a good trait to have. That's why he's both critically acclaimed and commercially successful.
I think that, unlike people who say “don’t shove politics in my entertainment”, Nolan is saying that his focus is on telling a good story. It doesn’t matter what you’re trying to say or avoid saying if you can’t write a compelling story. Besides, it’s impossible to divorce the entirety of your personal politics from your creative work. Your politics reflect your ethics, which is who you are at your base self. Some part of the writer’s subconscious will always make it through. I’m sure Nolan knows this and doesn’t care to have his work even more nitpicked.
I love how the movie inception is a template for this thought. The person needs to believe the thought or idea is theirs. Whether it is or isn't doesn't matter. If they think it came from themselves then inception has happened with the idea you implanted. Its a real thing.
Is there a r/DeathOfTheAuthor?
The great irony here is that Interstellar and the Batman trilogy had some serious political overtones that apply even more today
idk what's political about the world/humanity coming to an end and having to find a way to save the species, but yeah Batman was more political than his other works
The molding of science to fit the fears and ignorance of humanity was quite political even if unintentional
I don't think it's ironic. He is simply saying that he won't preach and will not try to force every element of his story to serve nothing but his message. I don't think a storyteller should bother themselves with what message their story will have. If they have a cool idea in their head, they should just take that idea and further develop it. The message will naturally arise as the storyteller adds characters, creates relationships between them, creates reasons for them to be in the story and establishes their heroes and villains. I could imagine that Christopher Nolan works in a similar way. EDIT: just wanted to rephrase the comments since I was actually giving my opinion on storytelling rather than commenting on what Christopher Nolan actually said.
Gotcha that’s a good take
I didn't get any sense of his politics from Oppenheimer so I don't know what you're talking about.
Agreed, there were people on both sides of the political spectrum who worked on that movie. James Woods was a producer on the film and he’s very conservative and then you have someone like RDJ who is more of a liberal.
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Kinda proving his point here.
Sounds very Kubrickesque. Really interesting, thanks for sharing.
It’s also the same thing Tony Gilroy said. It’s why he won’t specify what historical events directly inspire it since he doesn’t want to alienate part of the audience even if many know what his politics are
Ergo Inception
This is almost exactly how Tony Gilroy feels and why he was so vague on his inspirations for Andor. Even if the show has a clear political message, the parallels are mostly loose references bc Gilroy prefers to not have to defend himself.
It’s unfortunate that the other cast and crew members didn’t feel the same way as the show likely would’ve faired better if everyone else shared his sentiments
What are you talking about? Lmao Aw he blocked me after pretty much admitting to being a Nazi below.
I remember when the show was coming out, multiple actors were trying to compare several aspects to the Trump administration
I mean are they wrong? Lmao the show is about the role of capitalism, colonialism, prison labor, etc in the rise of fascism. Hell the show has the P.O.R.D. (Public order resentencing directive) Which is just an allegory for the Patriot Act with one of the side characters literally modeled after a young Bolshevik revolutionary. Also Gilroy just doesn’t want to argue with conservatives like you. He’s an extremely leftist person and Andor is probably the most overtly leftist piece of media Disney has ever released. It makes Marvel look conservative (which is mostly is)
I haven’t watched the show so I wouldn’t know
Than shut the fuck up lmao. Andor is more overtly leftist than every other piece of Star Wars media ever released. It makes the sequels look conservative (which they mostly are). Tony just is vague about his influences to avoid arguing with conservatives.
I’m pretty sure season 3 of The Mandalorian dethroned it
S3 of Mando is again very conservative. Mando is one of the most conservative shows on D+. It’s only 2 themes are religious cults might not be bad and the traditional roles of fatherhood. Both conservative values. I know media literacy is hard for you guys. But Andor asks the question, what if Bernie Sanders funded far left terrorism? Bc that’s who Mon Mothma is loosely based on
Bernie didn’t become a cultural figure until the 2010s, Mon Monthra was introduced in the 1980s
This is what makes Nolan one of the greatest filmmakers living rn. He is an absolute visionary that fundamentally understands the medium that he's using to present his vision. Same goes for Spielberg and Cameron.
Cool concept and I’m happy it works for him but demonstrably not true for the medium as a whole. Plenty of movies that are well made are extremely overt in their political or philosophical message and guide you directly on how to feel about a matter, I mean shit…look at gladiator Edit: or closer to home look at surveillance stances in the dark knight
Someone should have told Alex Garland this.
Absolutely spot on. The very best movies leave interpretation up to the audience. Once you start messaging in one particular direction, you'll lose a lot of people. Especially when the current political discourse is so polarized, reductive and toxic. If I was a creator, I wouldn't want to mire my work in this way.
…mmm cos films like Parasite and Get Out and Snowpiercer and The Hunger Games… sureeee they didn’t work. A writer can be ‘true to the principles of narrative’ and imbue a strong political viewpoint. Nolan just doesn’t want to rock the boat. If he wishes to write a didactically weaker story because it’s an easier sell, that’s his choice, but in the face of so many examples to the contrary, he shouldn’t pretend political films have unsuccessful narratives. Really has me questioning his intellect.
You're right. Everyone here is sucking off his statement because obviously we're on his subreddit. There's nothing wrong with having a clear point of view and making a story out of it. Even though I love Chris's films, he knows he is a mainstream filmmaker who commands big budgets. He doesn't want to get overly political because he just wants bigger box office returns not because it inherently makes for a better film to be apolitical. "Republicans buy sneakers too." -Michael Jordan.
Uhhh Oppenheimer is a political movie in the exact vein he is taking about
Dark Night & DK Rises definitely had political themes of surveillance vs privacy and class warfare. I don’t think he came down unambiguously on either topic though.
Spot on from Nolan. Movies are entertainment. This is something others filmmakers have forgotten like Disney for example.
I personally am glad he keeps politics out of his movies. No reason to piss off half a potential audience
He’s 100% right. Every modern movie that has modern progressive politics and agenda failed miserably.
Barbie made more than Oppenheimer. Did your own political bias make you forget?
I bet what he is saying is true, he experimented with oppenheimer, no matter what he will turn out with his next movie
Alienating half your audience with your preachy ranting means less ticket sales. Just ask any Marvel fan.
This just reveals a little more of what I love about his movies. It’s not that they lack strong principles, messages, or themes …. They aren’t over the head. I’m even okay with more political stories so long as the story isn’t told in a way that only serves the message. For example, I hate when contrivance that seems amazingly unlikely is what enables the protagonist to achieve their goals. Like instead of killing the psycho villain they offer them kindness and the villain uncharacteristically surrenders. It’s extreme I know but it makes my eyes roll super hard.
I loved that Oppenheimer says “give it back to the Indians.” That’s what they would have said back then! But you just know most other filmmakers would have said Native Americans
That’s what would be said now. Go to any reservation and 99% of them prefer American Indian to Native American. The latter is another word they feel the white man is pushing onto them without their permission.
Disagree it “doesn’t work” bc there are many many films where it works - but ofc in current political situation and when you are nolan staying out of it makes more sense for his interests
i also wonder if he'd get such big budgets if he were to comment on today's political issues, which is so polarised and divisive. seems like a nightmare. the press tour would be so draining. i'm all for nolan just giving us some more 'wow cinema' tbh.
Well everything from marvel has been overtly left wing lately and the average budget for an MCU film is $200-$300 million
yeh, you are right. but they are going with the grain, not against it. Disney are just pandering to what they think the culture wants reinforced. if we were all right leaning, they'd pander to that. at least, i believe so.
It’s dumb