In the world of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, people from the future have figured out how to reverse the entropy of people and objects, making them “time inverted.” Effect precedes cause for inverted objects and people. Inverted bullets return from bullet holes and swirl back into the barrel of the guns that fired them, a fight between an inverted soldier and a soldier operating on regular time looks like a freak-puppet show, and reverse speech sounds like the dream speak from the Red Room in Twin Peaks. All someone has to do to swap their inversion status is enter a turnstile […]

The following interview with Christopher and Jonathan Nolan was originally published as the cover story of Filmmaker‘s Winter, 2001 issue. As French film critic Andre Bazin might have once said: “Why don’t you take a picture? It’ll last longer.” Bazin, as some of you may remember from your Cinema Studies courses, was one of the progenitors of the auteur theory, the line of thinking in which directors are considered the kings of filmdom, and the aggregation of their personal style is seen as a map of their royal terrain. Bazin also liked to talk about film, philosophy, photography and death, […]

I’d seen 2001: A Space Odyssey on 70mm twice over the years before going to see the “unrestored” print out now in limited release. Christopher Nolan premiered this new print at Cannes, and his interview from there with Eric Hynes is helpful to understanding some of the thinking behind this reissue. Still, I haven’t read anyone really breaking down what Nolan’s birthed, which is incredibly specific. Nolan’s explanation is that he’s gone back to the original camera negative to come up with a print that looks like what the very first public audience to view 2001 would have seen. This isn’t entirely accurate, […]

In his latest video essay, Kevin B. Lee places the original 1997 Insomnia (directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg) on the left and Christopher Nolan’s 2002 Hollywood remake on the right. Juxtaposing the same sequence, Lee textually annotates the many differences in tempo, shot choices, framing et al., making it easy to see how two very different sensibilities approach the same sequence. More from Lee at Fandor.

Last year, I posited that Boyhood‘s use of 35mm seemed to be a kind of special effect as much as anything: committing to film ensured an internally continuous look over 12 years of production whose uniqueness would survive despite a digital intermediate and no prints being struck for American release. This type of use of 35mm, separate from its ongoing viability as an exhibition format, was one common reason cited for its use in 39 2014 US releases originating in whole or substantial part from it. That’s a list that’s probably not complete: collating the release calendar against the technical specifications primarily quickly […]

In Interstellar‘s future, a life-ending new Dust Bowl requires astronaut Matthew McConaughey to go into space, shoot through a wormhole, scope out three planets for habitation and make it back home to assure his daughter he loves her. The film is bookended and periodically interrupted by real Dust Bowl veterans’ talking heads, their hard times testimonies taken from a Ken Burns doc on the topic. It speaks to Christopher Nolan’s admirably idiosyncratic instincts that he’d ground visualizations of near-mystical journeys through quantum physics with seemingly incompatible Burns talking heads; it speaks simultaneously to his imaginative limitations that he can think of […]

Here’s the latest trailer for Christopher Nolan’s global warming/space travel epic Interstellar, now reported to clock in at a you-better-deliver 175 minutes. Where the last trailer had Michael Caine orating Dylan Thomas to urge humanity to not go gentle into that good night, this time the exposition gives a more concrete idea of what to expect, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your tastes. There’s also lots of Matthew McConaughey urging people not to give up and what appears to be the biggest tidal wave since The Abyss‘ director’s cut.

Fresh from Comic-Con is a new trailer for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, which appears to be sitting out on the fall festival circuit. The circumstances aren’t exactly discernible from the footage, but Matthew McConaughey is summoned away from his simple Texas life and family to take to the solar system, for a long enough duration that his pre-pubescent daughter turns into Jessica Chastain while he’s away. The dialogue and thematic tendencies point towards the topical, diminishing sources of life on earth as a possible cause for his intergalactic adventure, and the visual effects look to be on point. The film is set to open from Warner Brothers […]

The Tate Gallery in London launched a great little series of videos today entitled Film meets Art, in which prominent U.K. directors discuss their appreciation for and how they were influenced by a particular British artist. Above, Christopher Nolan talks about his love of Francis Bacon’s work and how it shaped his rendition of Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight.Nolan says that Bacon was his favorite artist from a young age, which I find to be very unusual and striking idea. (What kind of a childhood did Nolan have that this was how he saw the world?) Mike Leigh […]

Last month, I travelled to San Diego to spend three days at Comic-Con, the massive annual gathering of fans of sci-fi, fantasy, horror, comics and related pop culture. It was my first time to the event and I was there to screen my new sci-fi short Digital Antiquities at the Comic-Con Independent Film Festival. I’ve been to many festivals with my films, but Comic-Con was an experience like no other. The scale of the event and passion of the fans were overwhelming, and as an indie filmmaker I found the experience both incredibly inspiring and deeply humbling. DIGITAL ANTIQUITIES In […]