Christopher Nolan’s criticisms are mostly aimed at Hollywood, especially the studios and decision makers. But you can also transfer his words well to a modern audience, who very often just talk about the story and discuss logical gaps in movies, instead of getting carried away by what’s happening on screen.
But first things first: what did Nolan say in the interview with the British newspaper strictly speaking?
“Star Wars” as an example: It doesn’t depend on the story
The Dark Knight director criticizes the studios “looking at a screenplay as a sequence of events” and saying at the end, “That’s the essence of the movie!” “. It is a “common misconception – sometimes even with criticism – that it depends only on the story told.”
He supports his statements with the example of ‘Star Wars’, because going to the cinema during a holiday with his grandmother in the US and months before the start of ‘Episode IV’ in his home country of Great Britain has a lasting influence had on him. People would argue that the success was due to the great story. But that is clearly not the case. While “Star Wars” “does have a great story, it’s also an incredible visual and auditory experience.” Nolan’s criticism leads to a clear point:
There is a deliberate denial of what movies actually are!
That’s what he calls it in an interview with the Another example is the indie hit ‘Aftersun’. People talk about why you need to see a movie like that on the big screen. But for him there is no doubt: “Of course you have to!” Nolan alludes to the fact that even a supposedly “little” movie can provide an excellent audiovisual experience – especially when staged as beautifully as “Aftersun”.
What is Nolan trying to tell us?
Like the author of these lines, Christopher Nolan believes that film is primarily an audiovisual medium. It is the images – now combined with the sound – that make us get carried away or excited, shiver or laugh in the cinema. The story, the story behind it supports that, but it’s the images that make cinema cinema.
But the perception has changed in many ways. After an action movie, people prefer to discuss in detail whether a scene “makes sense” or whether the characters “behave sensibly” rather than concern themselves with whether or not the visual implementation was successful.
It is logical that Nolan mainly criticizes Hollywood and the decision makers there in particular. Because if they just focus on the story in the scripts when it comes to which movies get the go-ahead, and don’t let them figure out or explain how it should end up looking in the theater, it leads to more boring movies.
Christopher Nolan’s new movieOppenheimerstarts on July 20, 2023.