Interview with British director Christopher Nolan – Film and TV – Culture



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A lot of ink has gone to talk about Tenet: the return of director Christopher Nolan takes the essence of the popular James Bond and all the action of his film saga and subtly blends it with a level of complexity that makes this film a mental and emotional challenge. for the viewer.

Tenet was one of the most anticipated films of 2020 and due to the pandemic hardly opens in cinemas, without a doubt, its natural viewing place and the only one on which Nolan, a staunch defender of the format, has bet.

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And he was right. After seeing it on the big screen, it connects to the logic of the British director: it is a visual spectacle, pure action but not basic. Nolan has set us his philosophical and scientific traps already common in his cinema. You have to see it at least twice: the first time to enjoy it and the second time to understand it. Many rumors already define it as their masterpiece and it will finally hit theaters in Colombia on December 3.

Trying to summarize what the plot is about is not easy: John David Washington and Robert Pattinson lead the cast of this international espionage story in which the protagonist – as the main character, in charge of Washington is simply known – must find those responsible for being able to modify the time history to achieve his sinister goals. This man will go back and forth, literally speaking, not knowing who to trust, and Tenet will be his key word.

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Human beings have no option to stop or advance time, we cannot make it go slower or faster. Something concrete through the lens

“The reason I chose Tenet is because it’s a palindrome (it reads the same back and forth),” explains Christopher Nolan, who spoke to EL TIEMPO on the phone.. And that’s exactly what the story is about, where time goes in any direction. And beyond that, I thought about how to realize that idea of ​​believing in destiny. Here we do not start from knowledge, but from believing in the impossible, from having faith ”.

With five Oscar nominations and no statuettes in hand, Nolan has been a proud child of independent cinema since his startling debut in Following (1998) and the great rise of the unforgettable (paradoxically speaking) Memento, in 2000, that fairytale. complex that requires several repetitions to understand and that focuses on a man with amnesia trying to discover his wife’s killer. Nolan’s productions hypnotize the viewer and immerse him in a kind of puzzle that he is forced to finish.

When we analyze the filmography of the filmmaker born in London in 1970, there is no comparison between seeing on a small screen or in a cinema.it’s like El origen (Inception, 2010) —to appreciate those human movements that are impossible in real life—; Interstellar (2014), homage to the spectacular 2001: a space odyssey; Dunkirk (2017), a heroic episode of the Allies during WWII, shot in the classic 70mm, or the trilogy of DC Comics’ most famous superhero: Batman Begins (2005), Batman: the Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). All produced with a majesty and visual and sound effects perfect for the giant format. Tenet follows the same path.

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In his speech with this newspaper, among other details, Nolan recalled what was the most complex scene to make in Tenet, a film in which the level of realism includes the crash of a plane and the execution of a military assault. with more than a hundred actors and extras running between explosions in a field.

There are really crazy action sequences on Tenet. Speaking of special effects and shooting, what was the biggest challenge?

By trying to achieve as many effects on the camera as possible, we wanted a photograph to be as close to reality as possible and over the years the cinematographers have worked to achieve this safely. In Tenet the most important point is emotion. The camera has to visualize time, something very complex and abstract. So we looked for a way to make it feel in the sequences. Special Effects Supervisor Andrew Jackson put a lot of thought into figuring out how to film everything on set, capture everything on camera, and not use effects in post-production. In this sense, the most complex thing was filming the scene of the persecution on the highway – in which the protagonist has to save a briefcase and to make it, several trucks and cars surround the car of values ​​that carries it. They are all on the move. We had several cameras moving with the action, the stunt crew and actors driving the cars and John David Washington fighting and getting out of a car to jump into the truck. Crazy. But that was the idea: to do most of the scenes with the camera.

Scene from the film Tenet

Scene from the film “Tenet” which opens on December 3rd.

It is admirable how time turns into an emotion in a film that addresses scientific concepts. It has already done this on Interstellar and now it does it on Tenet.

How we apply science is completely questionable. We look for different angles and shapes to suggest a growing emotional universe, then we experience periods of time. When I was working on Interstellar, my brother (Jonathan Nolan, his co-writer) told me to find a way to experiment with Einstein’s laws (the theory of spatial relativity), so we tried to find a way to explain those ideas to people. .

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In Tenet it was different, here we talk about going back or moving forward in time. I think it’s very interesting to find that midway point between that questionable world of science, which tries to explain time in terms of going faster or slower than we perceive, and the feelings – happiness or sadness – that living generates in us.

What is the difference between the way we experience everyday time and the way it can be treated in the cinema?

Time is a dimension, a process that we have to face, for me it is very exciting, we cannot see it, it is abstract, we cannot savor it or see it. It causes us anguish. And the camera had to record those feelings in different ways. Human beings have no option to stop or advance time, we cannot make it go slower or faster. Something concrete through the lens. So I conclude that time is one of the objects that can be translated into an emotion in cinema.

Why does the main character have no name?

I wanted to save that tradition of iconic spy stories where their characters are defined by their job and role, and not what they were called. That’s why it has no name and we don’t know about its past. John David Washington had to create his story and give it some details we talked about a lot before introducing it to the public. Here the really important thing about the character is his function, his work and interests, something that the spy stories of the television shows of the 60s and even somehow westerns, whose protagonists had no name.

What do you think about Tenet being the savior of the industry in this pandemic?

I think the responsibility could have fallen on any film. We are facing a new reality and the best way to deal with it is for people to see my movie on the big screen whenever possible. Those who can do it will be perfect for me and will support the tremendous work that has been done.

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When you see your finished films, how do you feel? Are you very perfectionist?

I would say that I am a pragmatist rather than a perfectionist. Because being a perfectionist would be obsessively involved in all processes and I strongly believe in the commitment of the people who work with me; I believe in the decisions they make on the material. We finish a film as best we can, so when I look at a film in perspective, my opinion is based on what I thought was the right thing to do at the time and what I believed in, the decisions I made at that time. When you finish a film, the technical contributions matter, but above all what people hear, what they say counts. I am proud of the result on screen and the team that worked to achieve it.

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Sofía Gómez G.
Culture editing
On Twitter: @ s0f1c1ta

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