Happy Sad Confused - Christopher Nolan, Vol. II

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

He very well may be the most important filmmaker working today, delivering challenging spectacles and awe-inspiring entertainments meant for the biggest screen possible. Christopher Nolan returns to the podcast this week as his film, "Tenet", finally becomes available for everyone in their comfort of their homes. In this chat, Christopher chats about the influence of Michael Mann and James Bond films on his work, the ambition of "Tenet", the bold performances of Heath Ledger and Tom Hardy in the Batman films, and much more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. Please play responsibly. Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins now. Today on Happy, Sad, Confused, the filmmaker of our times, Christopher Nolan returns. Hey, guys, I'm Josh Harwood. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused.

Can you tell I'm excited? I'm excited. Christopher Nolan is back on the podcast today. And the fact that I can even say he's back on the podcast just pleases me to no end. It's official. For Nolan is a regular. He is a two-time guest on happy, sad, and confused, and as I teased him in this in this conversation, that means he's in it for the long haul from here on out. Christopher Nolan morally and contractually obligated always to come on the show. At least that's my hope.

This was a fantastic chat with a brilliant filmmaker who I truly love and respect so much of his work. Going back to following a momento through the Batman trilogy, Inception, the prestige, interstellar, Dunkirk. Now Tenet, this guy makes the kind of movies that I love. He swings for the fences, he goes for it, and by and large, he delivers. Tenet is, as you've heard, a very ambitious, complex piece of work. It is playing with time. It is playing with our notions of how to even absorb plot and action in big

ways and it is thankfully finally available as of I believe it's December 15th checking my notes yes December 15th will arrive on 4K and Blu-ray and DVD and digital so you all can finally see Tenet safely if you haven't been able to on a big screen it crushed me that earlier in the year I live here in New York movie theaters have not been open and it crushed me when a Christopher Nolan movie came out and it was not available where I was. So it's thrilling that finally I've got a chance to see the film and absorb the film. And as with all of Christopher Nolan's works, they require, they demand your attention. And yes, repeated viewings. There is a lot to take in in this one. And yeah, this will be a film

talked about for months and years to come. As with all his work. Christopher is always very frank and open and really thoughtful. This is a conversation that talks a lot about Tenet. I should say there are no spoilers in this conversation. We really don't get into any plot specifics. It is more about the themes of the film, the ambition of the film. So if you're worried about having Tenet spoiled, don't worry. This is kind of a broader discussion. We also, of course, talk about a bunch of stuff throughout his career. Have to talk about the Batman trilogy. We talk about my love and reverence and his love and reverence for what Heath did and what Tom Hardy did in depicting these iconic villains. We talk about, towards the end of the conversation, yes, about where we're at

in terms of film exhibition. As you may have heard in other conversations, Christopher has been very, very open about his disappointment with Warner Brothers' decision to put out the plan, at least, as I speak today, is to put out all of their major theatrical releases on HBO Max, simultaneous to their theatrical release, at least for 2021. You know, as you've heard, this is not sitting well with a lot of filmmakers, including Christopher Nolan, and we got a chance to talk a little bit about that at the end. He clearly had a lot on his mind about where film exhibition is headed, whether film exhibition can come back in the way that it did exist.

And where the onus lies on, how do we get out of this? How do we bounce back? He's clearly put a lot of time and thought into it, and he had a lot to say about it. So stick around for that portion of the conversation that's at the very end of this chat today. So, yeah, there's a lot in this conversation. I mean, to get 40 minutes of one of the greats of our time who doesn't frankly talk much at length in interviews, at least in podcast form. was a real treat. And like I said, I'm truly thrilled and honored that he's chosen to be on the podcast, not once, but twice. I should mention also, if you're a no-in obsessive like I am,

check out the new book, The Noon Variations, which is something that, I believe the author is Tom Schoen, if I'm remembering that correctly, did in conjunction with Christopher. So it's based on tons of conversations they've had. And if you really want like a deep dive into his, brain that is well worth your time, and I've enjoyed that in recent weeks. Anyway, okay, let's get on to the main event. As always, remember to review, rate and subscribe to Happy, Sad, Confused. If you're new to the podcast, because you just wanted to check out what Christopher Nolan had to say, welcome aboard.

If you go back into our archives, you'll see a lot of amazing filmmakers in recent weeks. Aaron Sorkin's been on the show, and to tease it out in the next couple weeks, at least two, I know it's at least two because I've already talked them. Two fantastic filmmakers that I've long wanted to have on the show have appeared on Happy Second Views, and that's coming up in your feed before the end of the year. So there's your tease of today. In the meanwhile, enjoy this conversation with Christopher Nolan. Check out Tenet everywhere on digital, on DVD, on Blu-ray, etc., December 15th. And yeah, I hope you get as much enjoyment out of this chat as I did. Here's me and Chris Nolan.

Christopher Nolan, welcome back to the podcast. You're officially a regular, sir. Well, it's great to be back. Thank you. I have to say, your films, your work is often on my mind. About a year ago, you were especially on my mind. I had a series where I was taking filmmakers back to locations where they shot iconic scenes. And there I was on South Flower Street with Michael Mann for the shootout.

Oh, wow. And all I could think of was the only person that might appreciate this more than me is Mr. Christopher Rowland. I think I might have. That sounds very, very special. I don't know if you ever saw, because I'm pretty sure they put it on YouTube, but I had the honor of doing an anniversary panel with Michael Mann and the cast of Heat a few years back. It's such a great film. He's such a great filmmaker.

And I was so honored to be part of that. I have to say, the moment that that geeked me out the most is when he took out his schematic. and it just said World War III at the top. That's what he titled that sequence. Wow. Wow. I always, a huge admirer of the sound of that sequence. If you listen to the sound of the machine guns,

it echoes around the buildings in a way that, you know, movie guns never do. Some really live recordings that are really special. What's it like for you to go from a fan of someone's work to a friend and collaborator? Obviously, you've talked at length about the dark night and being inspired by a lot of what Michael did, especially in that film. That must be just an amazing, unexpected perk of a career to find someone like Michael

Man to call up here now. It's incredible. I mean, the first time I met Michael went to a fancy Beverly Hills restaurant and there was this incredible Ferrari parked outside and I pulled up in my 87 Honda Civic and went at lunch with Michael and realized in the course of the conversation that the amazing I think he was a Ferrari actually outside was his and just had a tremendous meeting of minds immediately I mean he's such an idol of mine

but such an incredible guy to talk to and we've had a lot of great great encounters over the years but it's you know every time I see him it's like yeah it's Michael Mann and he's just one of my heroes crazy and this will not be an entire Michael Mann podcast I insist but I do but I'm curious did you ever show him Dark Night before it came out Like, did you want to, you must have been endlessly curious of what he thought of. No, to just sort of give you the name-dropping story, as it were, is I was walking across the

Warner Bros. Lock and ran into him. And he came up to me, the first thing he said, he said, how did you get a PG-13 on that movie? And I said, well, you know, a lot of, a lot of tiny little cuts back and forth in the MPA, but no, it was, he was, he was, he was, he was, he was, implemented by the merciless pillaging of his movies. I think he, like all filmmakers, and now that I've been working longer, I'm sort of on the receiving and as well as,

you know, as long as somebody acknowledges the theft, then, you know, then it becomes homage. Exactly, homage, not stealing. As with Tenet, just to bring it to Tenet and why we're here talking or whatever. It's like, you know,

I've talked a lot about the Bond films and how it's been stealing from them because I think as long as you acknowledge the, fact, it's kind of, well, congratulations on Tenet. This is, I'm glad we're finally getting a chance to dig into what's an impressive piece of work and then obviously an audacious piece of filmmaking as it always is for you. I mean, I remember, you know, the last time we sat down and chatted, we talked about Dunkirk and I remember we were talking about, you know, stripping away backstory for an audience and kind of testing the limits of sort of what, you know, pushing the audience

into realms they're not used to. All I can think of is in the back of your mind, you must have been thinking you ain't seen nothing yet because I have tenet on my brain. Well, it was sort of slow growing, but you carry on one set of questions from one film into the next or one set of ideas. And that idea that the audience accepts the world

that you present to them from the first frame to the last, and you can dictate those terms to a degree. And people may analyze, you know, critics or whoever may analyze it on and say, why is he done this? Why isn't the protagonist of the name or all the rest of why do you know anything about it? But I think if you really dive into the terms of the story, the way the audience does, as opposed to people being paid to analyze it, film does tend to, film itself tends to dictate that the terms of the story are what you're seeing there on screen. And those kind of expectations, they're of the moment. They're about other films that people have seen right before they've seen that film.

But when you sit in the theater and the lights go down and images start to come up on that screen, your brain builds that world as it's shown to you by the filmmaker. And so the films can be enormous, they can be small, they can have all kinds of off off screen backstories that then get talked about, you know, or they could not have that. And that's kind of the fun of being able to set your own terms. And once you start analyzing those things, you start looking back at different eras. in film, you start to see different levels of reverence or importance assigned to things that we view as absolute needs in a film right now. And that to me is fascinating, because we're so in prison in the grammar of films that we grow up in and that we're working in.

And so it's a conversation I have a lot about acting because I love silent film. and people are always making fun of the acting in silent film and I try to explain to them that it's a set of conventions of expression that they were using that and we have all of our acting conventions are just as stylized in mannered

we just can't quite see it right so you know I was pointing out to my kids the other day we were watching television and somebody coughed and I said oh they're going to die because our acting is so stylized and somebody can't even call you cough in a movie a regular movie you're going to die That character's gone, you know, gone.

It doesn't matter if it's a tiny little cough, big cough, you know, whatever. If they pull that handkerchief with a little blood, you know. Well, then that's the whole other level. But it's literally a call, you know, you can't even do something as human as having a cough. It has to mean something. And that's because, and that's not a criticism of, you know, I'm not talking about cliche or anything like that. I'm talking about the way, the stylization of the presentation of information and narrative is so stripped down that anything that's different. Anything that might appear to be wasted is meaningful, has to have narrative component.

Unless the terms of the film right from the first frame, you're in, for example, a Ken Loach film or something where naturalism is there. And so all of the, you know, interesting little diversions of people and the way they move through a scene or gesture at things, you know, if those are immediately part of the tone and the language of the film, then it's a different matter. And then you can cough and you might not die. But, you know, And the rest of it, it's, it's, everything is so stylized that everything has narrative meaning, although, you know, the old story, but, you know, if you pull a gun out in the first act, it's got to go off in the third.

It's very, very true of our films today, just as it was true of the silent era. It's also interesting to note, I mean, as I'm watching this and I'm reading all the, the discussion about it, you know, the notion of plot and how important the particulars of a plot are the first blush, because here's, here's, here's my argument. I think back to James Bond movies I don't actually remember the particulars the specifics of a plot I remember the feel the the the journey I was on

I can't I don't know if I could tell you what the McGuffin was what they were after in this particular film now you have all that in there and it really rewards itself I've seen it twice already to sustain viewings and to really parse it out but frankly the first time around it's more experiential it's less about like could I tell somebody exactly what happened in every aspect?

Maybe not, but I felt the journey of those characters. I felt the story. Is that something you're conscious of? I mean, or do we make almost too much about the particulars of plot? And maybe it is more about feeling it, as one of your characters say in this film. Well,

I think that one of the things that happens in film, in Hollywood film, sometimes is the confusion between plot and premise. And so when plot and premise of, confused, you get something kind of strong. When they're separated too much and say, okay, the premise of the film, you know, uh, time traveling, secret agent, you know, whatever is the premise has nothing to with the plot and those things are separated.

Right. There's an inherent weakness and quite often, there was a period when I first done up in Hollywood in the early 2000s where you were seeing movies that felt like the sequel to a movie you'd never seen. So it was almost as if the premise was in the trailer and then they then construct a plot that function independent of the premise in the movie. And I think what you're really always trying to do is construct a premise, where premise and plot were the same,

and the story and the concept are fused. Now, the particulars of the story, I mean, it tends to strike people, any film that tends to strike people in different ways. And this goes back to, you know, Raymond Charnland's novels and so forth,

it's like how much you want to engage on the level of the specifics. Or what are the broad strokes that you're getting that are telling you where they are, one of the great misconceptions of the Bond films, not to dispute you, but if you look at the earliest ones, they had some of the most incredible plots. So if you look at Thunderball and you look at the plot behind that film, which is maybe why it was the subject

of litigation for so many years, because the original screenplay that was the treatment that was put together between Fleming and Kevin McClory, then eventually the rights, you know, became an issue because Fleming wrote it as a novel, which is where Never Say Never Again comes from. However, they came up with that plot, that's one of the great plots in movies and in books. And I think that with something like the Bond franchise, at a certain point, it was driven plot-wise in the early days.

And then there's so much investment from the audience in the character, the situation, the episodic idea of it, that, yeah, you get yourself a lot of freedom in terms of plot. But those, the classic bonds, the early bonds, particularly the plots were amazing, really, really tight. really original what's your favorite bond uh actor and what's your favorite bond film the favorite bond film is on her majesty secret service as anyone who's seen inception can probably figure out uh my favorite bond actor is timothy dalton and i think living daylights i think is one of the living daylights is very very good very very good a little bit let down by the climax a bit in technical terms i think but it's a it's very very good a lot of the way through And he's fantastic.

And even the license to kill, which is aging better than I expected in some ways. But I think he's closest to the character in the book. You know, and it would have been interesting to see him do more. Yeah. Did you get all of your bond ideas out of your system on this one? I mean, I remember when we last spoke, you said, when the time is right, who knows? Like if they need me, maybe that's the right time. Well, Christopher, they need a new bond.

maybe it's time for for you I think it would be it would be strange to follow up turn out with the bond film not really did I get out of my system I mean yes and no I thought I had after inception

but I think whenever you think about big action in movies your brain is always going back to the things you grew up with so for me that's Star Wars that's Bond that's Raiders of the Lost Ark you know which in some ways

it's bombed with a hat and the whip you know um but i think you inevitably drawn back to the things that that took you into different realms you know as a kid and uh yeah so for me there'll always be the bond films i i've seen a healthy amount of of action films in my day and i don't know about you but um i don't know about 10 15 years ago i started to just it started not to work on me whether it was the i'd seen too much or they were getting lazy in terms of the filmmaking i mean outside of keanu reeves inventively killing people. I could watch that all day long and I think they do hell the job in those films. It's few and far between, frankly, to see innovative and emotional and powerful

action. Clearly, you are pushing it in this. Is that one of the reasons, one of the exciting aspects of this is like, I am going to try to find a new way into action and present it to you in a unique way that you've never seen before. Very much. I mean, Tenet, the driving force of Tenet, is to reimagine or represent some of those action tropes, the car chase, the plane crash, fist fight. We're trying to turn them on their heads and look at it in a very unique way. And it's partly because, yeah, you become, you become immune to that drug. You sort of become, it's like, okay, how do I get that same fix of adrenaline that I used to

get when I was younger watching something I hadn't seen before? And I think filmmakers really, they have to find ways. you're referring to john wick and of course the breakthrough there was in the particular approach to fight choreography and the integration of handguns into the particular violence and the way that was done which it built on what had come before but it also had a new it had a new wrinkle to it had a new thing to it um in the case of tenet the science fiction uh component of the story of the premise uh one of my uh interest in that and excitement about that is that you can then take a car chase And you can look at it forwards, you can look at it backwards, you can have it running both directions at the same time.

And suddenly, using a lot of the same filmmaking techniques have been developing over years, but you're looking at it differently. It's having a different impact, and you're looking at it in a different way. And that was really the fun of making this film. And hopefully it'll be the fun of watching the film for people. Your films are dissected, as you will know, as few other filmmakers' works are. Is it fruitful for you? Is it exciting for you? it interesting for you at all to go down that rabbit hole to go on the Reddit thread to read the

different articles is is that so or is that is that is that the way we're up madness wise for you Christopher that's very much the way madness lies I mean if you work as I did for 10 years you start working on something as beloved as Batman it's something people feel so protective on proprietary you know you very rapidly learn you can never look online you know you're not going be happy with what you see so you have to just you have to trust that if you make a sincere attempt to to make things the best way you can and really put your heart into it that that people will respect that even if they don't like it you know they don't like your interpretation of Batman or what have you and so so no you can't really you can't really

dabble with the the the online world too much with with the work you put out there or you'd get, you'd just get too self-conscious in, right, true. You've got to feel free to do things. You can't be, you don't want to be reactive in your filmmaking. And then the truth is, when you put out large-scale films and they go out to the

entire world one way or another, you can't even insulate yourself from people's reactions anyway. You certainly don't need to go looking for them. A couple of things I will bring up in case you haven't stumbled across them. And I don't want to get into spoiler stuff, but I'll just mention there's a theory about Rob's character in this?

Are you aware of that, at least, of who that person might be? And do you want to talk about that at all? I, you know, I don't delve into the world of interpretations of my movies. I love that people, you know, think it's worth putting the time and attention into.

I think if I were looking at any particular interpretation of something I had done, the only thing I would caution I would ask people to look at is, is it indicated in the text, you know, because the truth is a lot of the things that people at casual glance view as ambiguities in my work are not ambiguities. They are actually things that are pretty specified if you drill down and if you look at what the text is, what the film, what's actually in the movie.

And to me, those are always going to be the most valid interpretations. Things beyond that, that's for the audience to decide, you know. It's been said, it's been cited, that at least two of your characters, including Rob's character in this film and Leonardo's character in Inception, somewhat resemble you, Christopher, in style, in look. Is this just a grand coincidence? Are they looking at their director and saying, hmm, maybe there's a model for me there? Is this something that you're aware of? I, you know, I've big tease about it in the past. Funnily enough, I think there are, you know, whether you're looking at, you know, Carl McLaughlin with David Lynch Blue Velvet, what he does is you know, collar up order. I think there is a slightly mischievous tendency on the part of actors

to see in the filmmaker, see where as a writer, particularly with writer directors where they put a bit of themselves into something and then build on that. I mean, Tom Hardy maintains that Bain is somehow based on me. I've never seen that one at.

But in top of his mind, Wow, that's a wrap. I was going to say, in Tom's mind, there's some very complex interweaving of impulses and influences that somehow I have a voice in. But I think it's certainly not conscious on my part. And I think Rob with Neil, we talked a lot about a lot of different influences on that character, none of which were me. So we'll see.

Rob, as you well know, was cast as Batman right when you started shooting, I believe. Since then, we've seen a glimpse of it. I assume you've seen the trailer from Matt Reeves. What do you make of it? What do you, I mean, are you, I mean, now you're a spectator. Is it fascinating to see someone else's slightly different take? Do you see similarities, differences? What excites you about what they're doing with their Batman?

I mean, first of all, my couple of things, really exciting. I mean, Matt Reeves, a great filmmaker, that right there. But Rob, I mean, having worked with Rob, I mean, this guy, you can do anything. He's just one of the greats. And so for him putting his talent to that, I think that's something fans should really be looking forward to. Yeah, I mean, the first conversation I ever had with Paul Levitt, who's the head of DC Comics at the time, you know, we flew out to New York and we knew we were going to do Batman, myself and David Goya. And we sat with them and, you know, talk about what were the parameters.

What could we do? What couldn't we do? You know, we were sort of feeling it out with him. And one of the things he said is he said, Batman, of all. of the characters, more so than Superman. Batman is the one who really benefits from different interpretations and different interpretations that change over time, both in the comics and indeed then in the movies. And I think the success of our movies, the previous, the prior success of Tim Burton's movies, I mean, I think you see that very, very clearly and then moving

on to Zach Snyder's interpretation. And now there'll be, you know, Rob's version. And it's, I think it's really true that Batman is, you know, owned and interpreted different by different generations. And to one of the things that's kept that character alive and vital over the years, and I think we'll continue to do. You've had a great track record

of eliciting some fantastic villainous performances in your career. And Kenneth Brown continues that tradition. This is a character that almost could have belonged in a Bond film in a way. I'm curious, I mean, I was sorry, a Batman film.

I meant a Bond film as well. I think more a Batman film than a Bond film. Yeah, perhaps, right? So, well, he's so thuggish. And it was something I talked with Ken a lot about. It's not, there's a difference with the Bond villains. And I'm very familiar with the Bond villains and the attraction of that. But they tend to be philosophers.

They tend to be eloquent in a way that it didn't want Sater to be. I wanted him to be this kind of, you know, the kind of extreme kind of, you know, white middle-aged entitled thuggery and uh ken is such a lovely human being uh i think for him he kept finding trying to find the poetry in a little bit before we started shooting and i kept really just saying to him no this is just as heath in the dark night was it was a force of sheer chaos with no more thought behind it than than chaos and he tapped into that it's a primal thing for ken it was a similarly primal thing you had to be a thug, just had to be, you know, a monstrous thug. And that's very difficult for somebody

like him to play. But he really found it. I think he's terrifying in the film. I've told you before my obsession with Tom Hardy's depiction of Bain. I'm not alone in this. I know. What he did in that, what Heath obviously did is Joker. I think it's also fascinating because these are audacious kind of choices these gentlemen made. I mean, this is, there's no safety met for any of these guys. And Tom, you mentioned Tom Hardy, we talked about a minute ago. I mean, what he did with that character has yet to be fully appreciated. It's an extraordinary performance. And truly, you know, I mean, the voice, the relationship between the just seeing the eyes and the brow, you know, all these discussions about the mask and what it would reveal, what it wouldn't reveal.

And he, you know, one of the things I remember him saying to me is he sort of put his finger up to his temple, his eyebrow, said, can you give me this to play with? Let me let people see this. And sure enough, you see during the film, there's this kind of brando-esque sort of brow, expressing all kinds of just monstrous things. I mean, it's really quite a performance. Do you remember a moment when,

for Keith and or Tom, you saw them early on that gave you confidence that the choices they were making were going to pay off? In both cases, it was the same. And probably when I came to Darkened Rises, I was remembering that and pushed awards. It was the hair and makeup test. And for the dark night, you know, had Wally Fister just get a handheld camera, 35

mill, put a light up on the stage. Heath would come in with one particular type of wardrobe, one particular type of makeup, move around, no sound recording. So not self-conscious, just moving, trying different weapons, different pairs of shoes. And we all got to watch this sort of magical kind of transformation. and watch him find, not that he was finding it in that moment, but he was just gradually unveiling the things he'd been working on for months and months and months.

And then he'd throw in a line or two, even though there was no dialogue. But you just hear him letting it out, letting the laugh out into the room to echo around and just experimenting with it. And yeah, the tests were incredible looking. And when we came to do Dark Night Rises, I think probably with that in the back of my mind, I kind of waited until we really had the mask, figured out, had endless discussions with Tom. He'd done all this kind of work in advance,

but then to see him kind of walk into the harsh top-like kind of walk out there and, you know, assume that character. And I think in both cases, interestingly, the key stills of those characters, the one of Heath is a very big close-up of Heath with just his eyes and his mouth visible. It was very defining. It was the first image we put out.

That was taken during the hair and makeup test, not during the principle. similarly with Tom there's a great shot of him sort of from behind looking across his back with his head to turn to the left that we put out right at the beginning that was also from his hair and makeup test

so yeah it's kind of kind of been the way those things have come together but that's the interesting thing with this generation of actors of which he's obviously a phenomenal leader in that and Tom you know just just one of the finest of his generation

they fuse the sort of psychological realism, the internal method-based acting of the 70s onwards, well, 50s onwards, really. But they also combine it with this older, more external, you know, call it Olivier Charles Lawton, you know, that prior generation of, you know, sort of give me the hat and the walking stick and let me sort of find that and see how the walk informs the character. They're coming out from both ends. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're seeing such fantastic work, you know, from actors like that, who they stand on the shoulders of prior generations who've gone this way or that way. Everything's been external or everything's been internal. And these actors,

they're approaching it from both places. One of the things I truly always appreciate about your films is the way you know how to estick a landing. You know how to end a film. And that's obviously, as you well know, very important. That's the first thing people are going to be talking about when they leave the theater. Did they, did this filmmaker disappoint me or leave me wondering about further stories. I mean, to a man, almost all of your films ask questions of the audience that are great to talk to with whoever you've just seen the movie with. Do you often start with the ending of a film? This film obviously is so symmetrical. It has to, it all probably comes at once in a way. It has to work the ending. Well, somewhat, but you have the storyline, you have

the chronology of the events, and then you have the story as the audience is going to see it. I don't necessarily start with the ending, but I would never. I would never go too far with a project without knowing the ending. I would not sit down to write the script without knowing the ending. The ending is everything and it's absurd. You're going to have a three-hour film

and two hours and 45 minutes of it can be terrific and if the ending doesn't work, it doesn't matter. The other way around can just about work but the ending is everything which it sounds absurd but at the same time in a way, you know, it's like if somebody tells a long anecdote that's, you know, if it doesn't have a punchline, it's not, it's just a trail off. You're like, we've all had that experience.

But it's a, it's a fascinating, it's a fascinating thing. It's the relationship between time and narrative because you can hear the longest story. And if it has a great ending, you don't feel you've wasted your time. If the ending doesn't work, you immediately retroactively are bored and you retroactively have a bad time listening to that story. And, uh, you know, that's very much what movies are. You know, you need the ending. You need to know where it's going and it, it, it has to land somehow. So you've got to have that to, to my mind, you've got to have that before you get too far with the project. One of the things I appreciate about you that maybe some people don't realize is

um, you, uh, you enjoy all manner of filmmaking. I remember when you came by my office, we were chitch chatting about our mutual love of dirty rod and scoundrels. Uh, you love 2,001, but you also apparently love Kingpin and the Fast and the Furious movies, I've heard. Are you a Tokyo Drift guy, a Fast 5 guy? What do you like about Fast and Furious? I'm sort of an original recipe. I mean, the Fast and Frickin, original.

But I've got a very soft spot for Tokyo Drift, actually. And then the skill, as, you know, Justin Lin's iterations, you know, as they got crazier and bigger and crazier and bigger, they became something else, but something else kind of fun. the fun thing about those movies is even as they've gotten bigger and bigger and bigger as sequels have to do everyone always complains the sequels get bigger but we are the

people making sequels get bigger we do want them bigger you don't want them smaller it's the alien three lesson that the venture letters like you know you can do it but it's not going to make anybody happy even though personally i love that film a lot more than he does i think we could talk about i love alien three as well and he refuses you mentioned that to him and it sent him to a dark place. I've never dared mention it to him. I think, you know, he's very aware of the floors and he's very aware of the appalling experience he had making it, you know, and how put upon he was. And I can only imagine, I mean, I truly can only imagine, but his talent shines through in that movie. I came out of that film and had a conversation with Guy was working

right away. I said, I've just seen the new Ridley Scott. I know who the new Ridley Scott is and it's David Fincher. And I wasn't wrong. It's there in the movie, whether he, whether he knows is there or not. Right. But his talent is absolutely there. Were you, prior to Batman, were you in the mix, were you talking about franchises? Were you looking for another, for a kind of an opportunity to flex your muscles in that way in kind of a franchise?

Were there? No, not at all. No, my agent actually just sort of called out of the blue with this thing of, well, Warner Brothers, they want to do something with Batman, but they don't really know what. They have a couple ideas, but not really. It's sort of in limbo They hadn't made a film in seven years People hadn't liked the last one

And so they really kind of didn't know what to do And this really was in the days before These sort of crown jewel properties Were kind of put on a ticking clock schedule Where it's like we gotta find somebody to do something with this Every asset must be exploited that kind of thing They hadn't really quite got into that rhythm yet And so it was really this incredible opportunity

To just go in and pitch You know really what I wanted to do and, you know, freely. But no, I had actually spent that year writing a script about Howard Hughes, an adaptation that I labored over for a very long time and, you know, couldn't crack it and couldn't crack it. And I finally cracked it just as they went into production on the aviators. But, you know, that's Hollywood, right?

Look, it's been a few years now, obviously since that. And now it's been a few years since Warren Beaties. Are you, have you looked at that script in the last year or two? Are you ready to consider going back to that one? I haven't dusted that one off lately. I tend to go back to it every few years and have a read, but it's tricky because, you know, a passionate about the reinterpretation of the character,

but, you know, having had, you know, a significant movie like, you know, Scorsese and DiCaprio's interpretation, you know, you'll, it's a tricky proposition. Right. I'll probably take a look at it again sometime soon and see if it still speaks to me. But I was very happy with the script when I wrote it. It was kind of the most fun, not the most fun,

but the best writing experience I think I've had. Do you have other screenplays in the drawer that you would or could go back to? Is that the only one that really jumps out as something that's in a state where you could seriously consider going back to? That's the only finished one that, you know, I was ready to go kind of thing. And then I have a few that I won up. using for other things. So when I took over interstellar from, Spielberg was originally meant to do it, my brother had been writing the script along with Kip Thorne and Linda Oakes. They developed the film

for Spielberg. And when he decided he didn't want to do it, I went to Jonah and I said, can I take this and put it together with a couple other ideas, a couple other scripts I'd written that hadn't quite come together for me, but I had, you know, big, big chunks of things. I want to take those things and integrate them into what you're doing. And, you know, fortunately, he signed off on that and said, yeah, go, go for it. And so, so yeah, I managed to make that into something that I was extremely invested in in terms of, you know, ideas about time and loss and so forth that have been trying to explore in other ways.

And his amazing script, you know, that he had written, it just gave me this vehicle to kind channel these things into. I'm curious. I want to end a couple quick things. Like one I'm interested in is the necessity being the mother of invention. When you look back at following and memento, you know, there are limited budget resources that spawn creativity, I'm sure. Now you're working on this ginormous canvas where you have a large budget and you're able to do a hell of a lot. Are there still limits when you endeavor on something like tenant? Are there things that you can't accomplish for whatever reason, budget, time, whatever it is. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the limits are never not there. You never have enough time. You never have enough money if you're doing your job, right, because your job is to try and get the most on screen possible. So as the film's gotten bigger, as the budgets get bigger, you try and keep the films a little bit bigger than the budgets have got, if you know what I mean. So you try and give value for money.

And certainly, Tennett, you know, I'm very proud of the things we managed to get on screen with the resources with the resources we had even though the resources were the envy of you know any filmmaker but that's the responsibility you feel we were in a position where we could command a large budget from a studio so we felt a huge responsibility to get as much as possible on screen for that that money so you're interestingly you're sort of back where you started with not enough time not enough money even though you're traveling the world and you got all these people and you've got you know you're buying a seven four seven and crashing into a building and all that stuff but you're still bumping up against limitations and the limitations, as you say,

necessity is the mother of invention. That's when some of your more interesting ideas come before. Where is your head at today as we speak about the future of theatrical? I mean, no one has been more at the forefront about advocating for this. We are facing an existential threat thanks to some insane circumstances this past year. Do you still have optimism that we're going to be back to where we were? is there is that can we put the genie back in the bottle after audiences are used to seeing dune at home and these large scale films at home what what's your what's your thought well dune hasn't

happened yet it's a long way off and i think there are a lot of lot of there'll be a lot of water under the bridge before we can look at that as a faith accompli um i think the short answer is of course people are going to go back to to movies when they can um with tenor we were fortunate to be able to release the film the studio was able to release the film in 65 different countries around the world where they had a, you know, a good approach to managing the virus. They were able to safely reopen their theaters with limited capacity. And the movie did great all of those places. All of those places we saw appetite to come back to the movies. The US, we didn't really get to release the film because we couldn't do

LA and New York and San Francisco and Detroit and so forth. And, you know, we did what we could where it was safe to do so. But we were unable to. but where it was possible, the appetite was back there immediately. What everybody forgets when they look at this issue is that, you know, Wall Street, whoever it is, there's a narrative that is constantly being put out there that cinema attendance is declining. And it's not, 2019 was the biggest year for movies in box office terms. It was a very healthy year for attendance.

You know, they always trot out there. So the average ticket price is pushed up and that offsets declines. It's not true. ticket price of a movie in 2019 was $8.40 in 1977, it was $9.10. It's just these things aren't true. Right. The very, very healthy movie-going culture in the world and in America in particular, but it's dependent on the movies.

So when, like in 2019, when you have some really anticipated movies coming out that are absolutely huge and overperform, then you see growth and it all looks great, when you have a year when maybe the movies, you know, aren't quite as rewarding for people, then it goes down. Like, you know, I mean, that's the nature of the business. So long term, I mean, I think everybody in the business understands that long term people are going to want to go back to movie theaters. The question is how you get there, you know, all I hear these days is, you know, can

exhibition survive these awful circumstances? And I'm beginning to feel like the question isn't, can exhibition survive? It's can the studio survive? because it really is about trying to manage corporate expectations and Wall Street expectations of how you move into the future without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And I'm not seeing a huge amount of leadership or skill in terms of parsing that out. And I'm speaking as somebody who has earned most of the money that have ever earned in my career has been in home video and being with respect to streaming DVD, Blu-ray, back to VHS.

And, you know, I've spent years of my life in intense discussions with the people who manage home video on how to best do that and how to best make that work in concert with the theatrical release, how to draft off, you know, always hearing that the wide window, for example, between the theatrical campaign and the home video release is a problem. we've always fought for the widest possible window, not because we were doing that as any kind of favor to exhibition, but because our home video made more money that way. And that's, you know, I have the kids going through college to prove it.

That's, you know, that's the way we made our money. And we looked at it's straight economics. You know, you have to create a sense of anticipation. As with every other industry, you control the supply, you control supply and demand. you don't throw everything out to everybody at once and say you wanted it here you've got it every other industry every other marketing department in the world they understand that it's all about supply and demand and controlling that not that everybody has to be as you know ruthless about it as de beers with diamonds for example but whether it's car companies with a new model every

or whatever it is people do control the release of it you put out the hard back addition and then you wait before you put out the paperback edition etc etc it's basic economics and the only thing that's really stopped that being apparent to Hollywood is that the theatres wouldn't necessarily let them do it now that the theaters don't have the leverage because they've had to close for the pandemic as so many other businesses are suffering I'm not proud that my industry is then holding a gun to their heads and saying you know now we'll take what we want but that equation you know that the gun that's to exhibitions head is going to be put back in the drawer sometime next year, and then everything will change again.

I like ending on it, and at least somewhat hopeful note, you'll be happy to know your cohort and friend Steven Soderberg. I was on with today and had similar thoughts. So yes, here's to a hopeful future for exhibition and back into movie theaters. Christopher, thanks again, as always, for the time. I'm so pleased you came back on the podcast. You know, now two down, you're in this for the long call. I'm afraid you're always going to have to be on the podcast now.

So you've done this yourself. Glad to come back at some point. So thanks. Thanks for us for it. And so ends another edition of happy, sad, confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pressured to do this by Josh.

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