The Big Picture - Top Five Christopher Nolan Movies and a ‘Tenet’ Review From Canada

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

'Tenet' is here! But not everywhere. With Christopher Nolan's latest unavailable to California and New York residents, Sean and Amanda call on Ringer contributor and Canadian citizen Adam Nayman to share a spoiler-free review of the filmmaker's latest journey into bended time and space. Plus: Sean, Amanda, and Adam share their favorite Nolan works and discuss how his films will be remembered. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Adam Nayman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode is brought to you by Heineken. Figuring out how to beat the heat for Labor Day weekend this year? Try an ice-cold Heineken. Heineken Original Lager is made with natural ingredients with pure malt and their famous egg yeast, which makes Heineken an all-season, all-the-time kind of beer. Pick up a pack or have it delivered this Labor Day weekend and drink responsibly. I'm Sean Fennessy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about Tenet. Finally, kinda. This is a no-spoilers conversation about the most anticipated film of 2020, the often-del much speculated about, frequently desired Tenet.

Writer, director Christopher Nolan's 11th feature film. Joining us today to discuss Tenet is the only man in the world I know who has seen Tenet. It's ringer, contributor and film critic Adam Naiman. Hi, Adam. Hey, Sean. Thank you for joining us. So we're going to have an ad hoc conversation here. We're going to do something a little bit different. I think Amanda and I will probably be back on this show at some

point, maybe in the next five years, talking about Tenet. I don't know when we're going to get a chance to see it because we live in the state of California. Adam, you're a Canadian citizen. Before we get into the details slash non-details of whether Tenet is any good and people should see it, let's just have a Nolan conversation. Listeners of the show and the rewatchables know that I am sometimes fairly negative about Christopher Nolan's movies, but that doesn't mean that I'm not a fan. For you guys, when you think of Nolan, what do you think of? Adam, I'll start with you. I think the best piece of film criticism about Christopher Nolan was that story in Vulture that after his kids saw Phantom Thread, they called him Reynolds Woodcock for six months, which is not film criticism, but it is, right? Because there's something kind of fastidious and kind of ridiculous about him, right? A guy who directs in a suit and tie, he spends $250 million on movies.

He blows up real... Didn't he have to crash a real plane for Dunkirk? I believe so. These are really kind of ostentatious things. But if you subscribe to the idea that these indie geniuses kind of buy their way into Hollywood and earn that kind of power, he's made a lot of hits and worked at a fairly high artistic level. And while I often find myself wanting to make fun of him, I'm also inclined to defend him as a guy who has a vision and has the skills to execute it and who bats not a thousand, but he bats about

300. And that's the hall of fame, right? If you bat 300, you make the hall of fame. Amanda, what about you? I know that you're mostly a fan, right? Yeah, it's interesting. And the way you phrased the question is interesting. So when I think of Christopher Nolan, I think of like a very well-crafted, big top blockbuster, and then I stop thinking. Like, that's it.

I go to the movies and I had a great time. And I personally do not feel the need to re-examine the experience or what it meant in any way, shape or form. It was enough for me to go to the movies, be like, for two hours and then carry on with my life. And that in a lot of ways to me is like the ideal blockbuster experience. But I do understand that that is not the typical Christopher Nolan movie consumption experience because there has developed this culture around the movies after the fact and what they mean and being a part of that community that I think has both like added to his appeal

and also sometimes weighs down the experience a little bit. And I don't think that you can ultimately hold Christopher Nolan entirely responsible for that. So I think about the Reddit of it all when I hear Christopher Nolan, but I also think about all the times I can remember each Christopher Nolan movie I've seen and where I saw it and the circumstances and being like, huh, I wonder what that was about. And then, and having a great time and that type of experience at the movies is increasingly rare. Yeah. Adam, what do you think about the general analysis of the Nolan film? I noticed in your review of tenant that you said that there are some people who will look closely at the philosophical themes that he's pursuing in

his movies and maybe that's not always the best idea. Well, I mean, the work doesn't necessarily always hold up to scrutiny for anybody, right? And I just have a thing as a critic. I've written about it sometimes on The Ringer for some of those other kind of millennial filmmakers where you have this incredible talent that you see when people are working on a small canvas and the ideas feel big because the movies are small. And then when the movies become inflated, you'd like to think that the ideas would inflate along with them, but they don't necessarily. So Memento is a movie that feels gigantic to me

because it's such a precise self-contained little work. And when I start, for me, getting into stuff like Inception and Interstellar, I kind of roll my eyes because I just see the inflated production scale and the ideas kind of feel pretty small. But, I mean, you've got film critics or theorists like David Bordwell who have written about him very seriously, not in a dorm room poster way or a red letter media way or a film bro way, but in like a really interesting analytical way about the way he composes, the way he edits, the way he tells stories. I think he's an absolutely worthy subject for analysis. I just don't always feel like doing it, much like Amanda says with his movies, because sometimes I'm just like, well, that's over. I mean, I've not thought about The Dark Knight Rises once since sitting through it, except to think about how they're all competing to be the most inaudible, as Steve Coogan says in The Trip. But I want to talk about sound design later. It's very important to me that we talk about this, but we'll get there later.

We should do it when we discuss Tenet. I shame on you for not thinking about The Dark Knight Rises because you're missing out on all this great Bane content. There's an extraordinary amount, mostly created by Chris Ryan, and it's all good. All of it is worth it. So, his movies, I think, are one of the things that makes him, I think, worthy of analysis of conversation is he has a definitive style, and I think arguably a point of view. You could make the case that his point of view is fairly patrician, fairly upper class in a way, certainly very white. And this kind of interesting hybrid of English and American experience shot through the lens of some probably mostly Kubrickian influence. He seems like the filmmaker that he is most obsessed with, most interested in kind of addressing with the kinds of stories that he wants to tell. I definitely agree with you, Adam, that Interstellar and Inception are the kinds of

films, the kinds of ambitious, big, somewhat philosophical Nolan movies that don't do a lot for me, that don't register much with me. And I tend to think, weirdly, science fiction is an area that he doesn't quite know how to wrap his arms around. And I think when he stays slightly more grounded and looks at... If he's trying to essentially break noir apart, for example, or a detective story apart, for example, I think he's actually really good at that. But the bigger his ambition gets, the more confused, frankly, I get by his movies. I don't know, Amanda, what do you think? Do you like the bigger Nolan films, the smaller Nolan films? What's your Nolan type?

Definitely bigger. And I think I'm going to be the only person when we exchange top fives, which I believe we're going to do later in the podcast. Spoiler alert, I'm probably the only person that's going to be speaking about Inception with any level of affection. And it's interesting that you identified that he doesn't really, that sci-fi is maybe not his strong area because I'm not a person who enjoys really deep sci-fi. And once you get into the details and the, here is how the science over here and whatever mechanism that has made us age 50 years, but also it's 300 years ago works. I'm just like, I'm out. I don't care about this.

And so there is like a vagueness to his sci-fi and a philosophical or like metaphysical aspect to Inception that's just like the right level for me because I'm not going to interrogate it. And so I watch Inception and I'm like, well, I like Leo. I like Edith Piaf. Like sure, the walls are kind of crumbling in on each other in a very visually memorable way.

And there's just kind of one central really half-baked idea that I don't, will never really be solvable. But that's okay with me because I don't really enter this as like Hercule Poirot trying to solve a mystery. And I think also Inception illustrates something that he is really good at, which is kind of like the pocket philosophical idea. I was reading a novel last night. It's called Last Hang Standing by Lauren Ho. And it's like, honestly, like Bridget Jones updated and Incepted is used as a verb in the novel, just like as meaning like someone put something in your head and then it like became true in your own mind. And you never even knew that it was like someone else's origin, which like that came from inception. You know, like that idea of of seeding someone and something in someone's mind. And now it's just being used as like a regular part of our language. I don't know.

I thought that was pretty interesting. To me, that's evidence of some sort of achievement. He definitely has influence. I wonder, Adam, do you think he's the kind of filmmaker that is going to last? Do you think he's someone that 50, 75 years from now will look at him as important as a loaded word? But you know how the sort of reputations of filmmakers over time, sometimes the most popular filmmakers don't necessarily persist. And sometimes those that are overlooked become more meaningful. Just if you had to speculate, where do you think he'll stand 50 or 75 years from now? I mean, he absolutely benefits from the kind of filmmaker he is in a lot of ways, which is glossy, high-budget, pretty masculine, white genre connected.

Which are also things that I think within the canon and within criticism are being viewed increasingly and productively with a kind of skepticism, like maybe on the affectionate end of the scale, affectionate skepticism, and on the other end of the scale, like, do we really need to elevate more filmmakers like this? He's in already. He's in whatever that millennial canon is going to be. I think that if the early 21st century is defined by superhero movies, he certainly made a few that had a giant influence. If the early 21st century is going to be defined by the integration of CGI and special effects, he's kind of in there the way that a Spielberg or a James Cameron would be. There's a lot to suggest he's not necessarily going to go away, but I'm also not sure that the affection for him is going to go away, but I'm also not

sure that the affection for him is going to deepen. And that's partially because we live in a culture where people analyze, reclaim, and backlash movies instantly instead of over time. The best thing that ever happened to Kubrick was time passing, you know? And the lack of massive reception of his movies at their inception point when they came out. There's only like a few important reviews of Kubrick every time he made a movie. With Nolan, I think he's been so chewed over and so discussed and video essayed and spoilered and explained and whatever else. I don't know what's going to be left in 75 years to do with these movies, honestly. Yeah, that question sort of dovetails with something that Amanda and I are always talking

about and obviously is the forefront of people's minds around the release of Tenet, which is Nolan has been deeply committed to the idea of the movie going experience, the theatrical experience. He cares about this as much as anyone who makes films. He's very vocal about it. He's written op-eds in national newspapers. He speaks about it all the time. Obviously, he cares about Tenet in particular, opening in a movie theater and just the general constant chattering and anxiety around the release of this movie has stoked continued conversation around this idea. And it's because he makes movies for the big screen, right? I mean, most filmmakers make movies for the big screen, but he in particular seems obsessed, consumed by this concept.

And in 50 years, we're probably not watching movies on the big screen. And I don't know if that will hurt or help his reputation. Maybe it doesn't ultimately matter because it hasn't really mattered for Stanley Kubrick, who also was making grand scale entertainment and philosophical exegeses on big ideas. But I do think that if you didn't see Inception on a big screen the way that all three of us did, if you just saw it at home on HBO Max, would it still occupy the same place in the minds of so many people who love it so much? I honestly don't know. I think it's like an interesting concept to discuss. What do you think, Amanda? Well, a couple things. Number one,

the Inception memes are fantastic. So like just Leo looking confused and why couldn't Michael Caine just bring the kids to France? Great questions. Let's investigate it. But, you know, I bring that up for a couple of reasons, which is that Inception already exists outside of itself as a movie. And I think Christopher Nolan is really representative of a trend that we talk about a lot of. There's the movie itself as text, and then there is the culture around the movie. And everything from the message boards to the memes to how people consume it and talk about it, which has become really essential, certainly to having your movie seen, but also to, quote, where it is in the culture right now. Now, does that last in 50 years? I don't think so. You do lose a lot of that context. But I do also think if we're, again,

speaking outside the movies, it's important to point out that Christopher Nolan at this point has kind of been at the center of several important movie industry flashpoints in the past decade. Obviously, Tenet, which is a historical movie now, even though I may never see it because I can't, but just because of where we are in the pandemic and how the pandemic is affecting movie theaters and vice versa. And then you also got to remember the Dark Knight and the Dark Knight not being nominated for an Oscar. And the Oscar is essentially changing their entire big picture system in response to the Dark Knight not being nominated, which is about the Academy, but is also about taking superhero movies seriously. And I still think in terms of superhero movies are serious in that we're all glum and we

miss our parents' origin story phase. That's at Christopher Nolan's feet. But also this continuing movement for Hollywood to actually respect this type of storytelling, he'll always be the leader of that movement and that school of thought. So he's certainly an important historical figure in the movies. Again, is that something people care about in 50 years? I have no idea. I wonder if the filmmaker that he has the most in common with is Hitchcock in that respect, in that he's considered a great entertainer. His movies are serious and he is a high level craftsman, but he's not necessarily, if not respected, recognized by the kind of film academy hoi polloi. I'm not sure if he's in the same way that Hitchcock didn't never won a best director Oscar. Christopher Nolan

might not win one, even though he has made what many people would say are sort of the signature films of 2005 through 2020. What do you think, Adam? Well, I want to try and yoke what you just said to what Amanda said. I mean, what Amanda said about him being at these flashpoints in contemporary film history is super interesting and super true. And I think that not just The Dark Knight in terms of best picture, but The Dark Knight in terms of best picture but the dark knight in terms of critics kind of being almost bullied and in some cases literally because i was there on the ground when that happened like literally bullied into acclaiming this thing as art and that one

stop shop of like isn't it a nice coincidence that what's playing in 4 000 theaters is also the best american movie since the godfather part two. Boy, that really takes away having to do legwork seeing literally anything else, which drove me nuts. But I think that the thing that he lacks, that Kubrick had in abundance, and that Hitchcock had in abundance, and that he has almost none of, is humor. And it's funny that he is such a memed filmmaker, because memes are often at the expense of the movies that they are memeing. is why when you mentioned leo looking confused i'm like that shit's very funny because i don't take conception seriously at all so laughing at it's great i think that nolan's movies lend themselves almost to that if not slavish devotion where you're like i am on this

wavelength and this is a great piece of art which fair enough people feel that way about interstellar all power to them. You know, if you're not feeling that, you're kind of laughing at them. You cannot laugh at Stanley Kubrick because he's laughing already. You can try. And you know what? The people who've laughed at Kubrick have not had the last laugh. And the same with Alfred Hitchcock.

He's very funny. You know, I think that Nolan, I rewatch Memento towards the beginning of the pandemic just for fun. I'm like, you know why this is probably his best movie? It's funny on purpose. When Guy Pearce is like, am I chasing this guy? Is he chasing me? That's simultaneously about as thoughtful as Nolan gets. And that's funny.

I think that the humor has bled out of the movies or the humor has kind of disappeared from the work i don't know how many movies truly hold up in genre cinema or formalist cinema circles without some sense of humor i think that that's his big achilles heel and that's why for me he's not kubrick or hitchcock even though you could argue that in terms of the industrial space he occupies that's certainly what studios think of him now. He's the closest thing we have to Kubrick in that sense of like, I can spend a gigantic amount of studio money doing anything I want and no one is going to say no. Let's try to have a fairly truncated conversation about our favorites of his films. Because while the case that you made, Adam, for the Dark Knight maybe not being all that and a bag of donuts is compelling, I still find myself thinking it's the best thing he's done. preconcepted by the film media at the time into believing that perhaps I was spending too much

time on IMDb message boards because I too had been waiting for a serious and gritty look at Batman that captured the anger and frustration and fear of the Joker character and all that other bullshit. But I still, when I watch that movie, flaws and all, it does give me the kind of electrifying feeling that I like in a mainstream movie. And it's still my favorite of his movies, even though I think Memento is more clever and definitely funnier. Shout out to Joey Pants. That's the other reason it's so good is because he's got a character like that guy in that movie. And I have way more admiration for Dunkirk than I did when I first saw it. And I do quite like the prestige. And even Interstellar, I think, has some things that I find really, really strong and interesting.

The Dark Knight is the one that I always come back to. That's my number one. That's the one I've seen the most. That's the one that gives me chills at times. Amanda, what about you? What are your favorite Nolan films? Yeah, so I agree with you about Dark Knight. And I rewatched it last night.

Honestly, for the first time probably in five years. Believe it or not, I'm not in the habit of just watching Batman movies on my downtime. And it was an interesting experience because the first 90 minutes of this movie were me just saying aloud, holy shit, this movie is so good. I'm like, oh, I forgot about this part. And every single set piece, and the first 90 minutes are so ingeniously crafted because you just get like a bonkers set piece

and then you get Heath Ledger and then another set piece and it's just going and it's amazing. And then the last hour I was like, how is this movie still going? Like, honestly, how is this movie still happening? So I don't think that it's amazing. And then the last hour I was like, how is this movie still going? Like, honestly, how is this movie still happening? So I don't think that it's perfect, but I think that it's, you know, it's really the only time where the kind of this solemn, possibly too self-serious nature that Adam has been

referencing and that I agree with kind of meets its subject matter and walks the line and honestly has the Heath Ledger chaos to kind of, which isn't, it's not quite funny, though. Actually, I do think Heath Ledger's performance is very funny at certain points in that movie, but it's taking the edge off in the way that Adam identified, combined with just really screwed up, exhilarating action. And like, I am not a person who always responds to giant action pieces, but there is just, there is a psychological element to all of them. You're just like, oh my God, I can't believe this happening. Like, oh no, he's doing this. And they're engaging and they're visually so impressive. And also this might just be a little quarantine talking, but the scale of them,

they're just like outside in so many places with so many people. You know, the funeral scene in particular is extremely upsetting and also so hard to imagine right now. So I think it brings together all of his skills and maybe even corrects for his weaknesses the most of any of the movies. I, again, I just, I like Inception. I have only seen it twice and I don't honestly know what

happens in it. And it's, but it is a very useful concept. Inception as a concept, I've used a lot of my life. I really, I remember the trailer and I think that's movie as event. Um, and that is the, the one that I was most, uh, a part of as like, Oh, this movie's coming out and Oh, it's exciting. And Oh, I saw it and I don't know what it means. Um, helps also that I was a like day-to-day movie blogger at that time. So was really a part of it. Um, I too enjoy memento. Um, and I, I i i'll let you guys talk about it more it's just it's another thing where it's like a pocketful you know reference for me like and it's maybe because my husband has such a bad memory but like trying to remember things by tattooing like the

guy memento is just something that we talk about in our home a fair amount and i wish zach would do more of it so um it's only gonna get more resonant the older we get that's the thing about memento it's really it's it's tough so you know those are mine and I have I put Dunkirk on my list as well where I kind of think that's the the um the solemn we're taking this serious aspect of Nolan um executed at its best and its most moving. And I do find it very moving. Yeah. The one thing I just wanted to say about what you said about Dark Knight is, I've said this in the past, I find the stretch from the sort of chase sequence throughout Gotham where the Joker is driving the truck all the way through the sequence when the Joker escapes and is having his head is dangling outside of the cop car.

That's like, that is kind of like the pinnacle of just the general entertainment machine that is Chris Nolan. And I wish that the movie would have just ended right there. And then he never made another Batman movie. I wish if he had just stopped and just said, this is actually just a movie about chaos. This is a movie about

the imperceptible nature and unpredictable nature of life. That would have been such a radical and fascinating, brave, and almost impossible choice. But everything that happens after that and everything that happens in The Dark Knight Rises, as Adam alluded to, kind of undoes a lot of what I think makes The Dark Knight so great, unfortunately. Adam, what about you? What are your favorites of the Nolan filmography? I have softened a bit on The Dark Knight because it's on TV a lot. And when you have a movie that has that kind of hotwired performance that Ledger gives, which I think was above reproach, even when Nolan sometimes I think gives actors too much tether or doesn't

control them, I think Ledger's quite brilliant. I mean, I thought so at the time and I think so now. It's moving to watch him. It can't help but be. And yet, whoever it was who blogged or tweeted or told me at the time that the movie was like a PG-13 Michael Mann movie or an airline edit of a Michael Mann movie will just never get out of my head. There's something about it that is like, what if heat, but silly. And I've just never been able to get over that. My favorite movie of his by a lot, and it's one that I got to write about for you guys when there was some Nolan symposium around when Dunkirk came out is The Prestige. Because I think in a way, it's his most personal movie. And I say that a bit sarcastically, because it's about a couple of try-hards, you know, desperately trying to entertain people by any means necessary and essentially destroying themselves and each other

in the process. It's a really fatalistic movie about entertainment. Who better to praise a movie like that than a couple of podcast hosts? I mean, geez. Yeah. I think that it's a movie that demonstrates not not so much all his strengths and none of his weaknesses but where they're just really compellingly held in tandem like he is so good the one thing i was thinking about this during you know tenet which is not a spoiler but just thinking about the thing that he has he is so good at making you feel like something is coming. He has a feeling of imminence in his work or incipience, not inception, but incipience, like something's coming.

And maybe it's the next crosscut that's going to bring it. Or if it's not the next crosscut, it's the next crosscut. It's like something's coming. And the prestige has that building steam anticipation sense. It just drives it like a train. And every time I watch it, I am caught up in it and thrilled by it. I think it is so enjoyable, even if in the light of day, that is a deeply silly movie and like ground zero of his kind of dead wife problem too, which we can get into later.

That's a fun movie. And I think Memento is a slightly fleeter, less heavy, less ponderous version of the same thing. Those are the two movies of his that have the greatest sense of forward drive, but also like what is around the corner. That's something he does better than almost anybody. And that's why I like those two movies a lot. Today's episode is brought to you by Heineken. Figuring out how to beat the heat for Labor Day weekend this year? Whether you're headed outside safely or staying indoors, be sure to enjoy the always seasonal

Heineken Original Lager. Heineken Original Lager is made with natural ingredients with pure malt and their famous egg yeast, which makes Heineken an all-season, all-the-time kind of beer. Savor the last days of summer with an ice-cold, crisp Heineken.

The perfect way to cap the last moments of summer. Pick up a pack or have it delivered this Labor Day weekend and drink responsibly. Today's episode is brought to you by Masterclass. With Masterclass, you can learn from the world's best minds anytime, anywhere, and at your own pace. You can learn how to skateboard from Tony Hawk or improve your gardening skills with Ron Finley. With over 85 classes from a range of world-class instructors, that thing you've always wanted to do is closer than you think. Maybe like me, you want to learn about effective and authentic communication

from the broadcast journalist and Good Morning America host, Robin Roberts. Or maybe you're interested in learning about interior design from Kelly Wiersler. MasterClass is accessible on your phone, web, or smart TV. Classes are broken out into individual video lessons, usually around 10 minutes long. Each class is supported by downloadable materials, lessons, recipes, or more, and you can explore at your own pace. An annual membership is just $180 per year. I highly recommend you check it out.

Get unlimited access to every Master Class. And as a Big Picture listener, you get 15% off an annual membership. Go to masterclass.com slash big picture. That's masterclass.com slash big picture for 15% off Masterclass. So we all have three movies on our list. We share three of these. We share The Dark Knight, we share Dunkirk, and we share Memento. And I think that those are not necessarily the consensus best Nolan movies. I think the consensus best Nolan movies are certainly the Dark Knight, but Inception and maybe Interstellar, I think even amongst critics and fans, I feel like those are the two that people will point to. Maybe Dunkirk is, maybe I'm overlooking that. I don't know. And maybe it doesn't really matter.

And maybe I'm just asking a question that doesn't have an answer, but I'm trying to wrap my head around kind of maybe why we diverge a little bit from the conventional wisdom about him and what it is specifically about him that makes me want to... I seriously consider putting Insomnia on my list, for example. Because even though Insomnia does not necessarily have that wow, whirling, dervish energy that so many of his other movies do. And actually, I think that movie might be his only film that doesn't have that sense of imminence that you're describing, Adam. I think that there's something in the craft and the idea of that movie that I find really compelling. But I think if I put it on my list, people would be like, you're such a take lord.

That's such a weird, whack, attention-drawing move to put that movie on there over Batman Begins or certainly Inception. But I don't know. I'm just, I'm drawn more to the slightly more unlikely aspects of his work. And I don't know why that is. Well, that's his appeal, right? Which is that he's working in genre and blockbuster, but he's giving more than we have been trained to expect from a genre and a blockbuster. There is more, you know, composition and technique. And even we can debate like how much the philosophy or the ideas like actually play out, but he's trying to do more with a blockbuster than

say like your average franchise or like, you know, transformers dark of the moon or whatever, though, I guess dark of the moon is actually trying to do a lot, which we don't really need to get into that. And so if,

if that is what draws you to Christopher Nolan, then you're gonna, it makes sense that we're drawn to like the margins a bit more because that he is managing to work a bit more in the margins than most blockbuster directors. That's what I would say. I can hear an anonymous Twitter egg saying, why didn't you guys talk about Batman Begins?

I can hear that voice. It resonates deeply for me. And I don't know. I don't think I don't really care about Batman Begins all that much, which is strange because it's the first film in a trilogy. And that's usually the one that draws the most attention. It's so unusual that that's an overlooked movie. None of us have it on our list. I don't think it would have come up in conversation if I did not think of that Twitter egg. Adam, what do you think of Batman Begins?

I think Batman Begins is an interesting movie historically because it's at that early point of this very now 2010s and beyond concept of world building you know the Raimi Spider-Man movies and the singer X-Men movies had kind of gotten there first it's not the first time that someone made a movie thinking there was going to be sequels you know it's enthralled to the Star Wars universe in that sense but it really was this idea of world building and table setting and getting you used to actors and being like, you know what, no matter what happens, unless this is the biggest flop ever, there will be more. So I'm going to play the long game in terms of storytelling. And that's the way that Nolan and his superhero movies kind of make it hard to judge

him because I think we're in a moment of like interlocking content and peripheral storytelling. And that's what drives me crazy about Marvel is the idea that very few of these things have standalone qualities. Nolan was piloting that before Marvel even got started, and yet I think he insists to a certain extent on standalone spectacularness to the movies. As opposed to just, well, you've got to watch it all, and you've got to watch to watch the Netflix series and you got to read the comic and whatever else. So when I think of Batman Begins, I'm like, it's okay. Dark Knight was better, but of course the Dark Knight was better because there was more of the world to explore. By the time of The Dark Knight Rises, which I kind of want to make fun of, but I know we're short on time and I could go on for a long time about that movie's politics among other things uh you know it's just overstuffed uh you know it's like a three-hour movie with multiple main characters

and just an insane amount of problems happening every 10 minutes that's the escalation of the world building and I think taking it to a limit point and beyond it but I mean no Batman Begins is as good as anything else he's made. There's nothing wrong with it. Bane invented Occupy Wall Street, Adam. Did you know that? Don't even get me started. I'm sure we'll have more Nolan conversations in the future. So we'll table the history of Nolan for now. And let's talk about the big ticket.

Let's talk about Tenet. So Adam, you've seen this movie and you have a very challenging opportunity in front of you, which is to talk about this movie in a way that won't make people mad at you. And I don't envy your position. And frankly, I don't want the movie spoiled for me, although I know that it's probably unspoilable because it doesn't make sense is that fair is that accurate yeah I mean the biggest spoiler is that it takes place over a labor day weekend a single mother and her son are charmed by a convict played by Josh Dolan no I mean it I think that um wow been sold a wrong bill of goods on that one good I bill of goods. I mean, look, having the opportunity to write about it for you guys, being based in Toronto, simultaneously kind of fun. And we did something fun with the review by redacting parts of it, although you can read the unredacted version. There's the larger context around it is not really funny. I mean, of why people aren't seeing it and what is at stake in people going to see it. So it's like, how do you talk about this in the right way? And then how do you not spoil it?

I think that that review, even the unredacted version, is pretty good at not giving the game away. Like, you didn't yell at me before this, being like, you said too much. So that's okay. I think you did great. You know, so that part's okay. But yeah, I mean, you got to be careful

because for some people, if you literally say anything, like the title's a palindrome, people are like, stop right there. You've said too much. The title is the same backwards and forwards. You've told me too much. How could you spoil the whole movie like that? So yeah, I mean, I don't know how you want me to proceed, but I'll proceed with caution. Well, let's use, well, let me start with this.

Did you, Adam Naiman, human man, like Tenet? Did you like, did you find it to be an entertaining, worthwhile, interesting, compelling, powerful, deep movie? That's a lot of adjectives and a lot of different standards to put on any movie. Adam's very smart. I trust him to answer that question as i wrote there is a line in the movie which i don't think is a spoiler where someone says to someone don't try and understand it just feel it that is a line in tenet that is good advice for anything it is especially good advice for this idea of inverted time or time inversion uh and it was a good way for me to test how i felt about the movie,

which is, did I understand it? Not really. And I don't think that that's because I'm stupid. Did I feel it? Not really, but I didn't have to try that hard to have a good time. I had a very good time for the first hour, much like Amanda's discussion of watching The Dark Night. Good time for the first hour, less of a good time in the last 90 minutes, not without merit throughout, and kind of as much a test case for the good and bad parts of Christopher Nolan as anything else he's ever made.

I think that that's what you guys may end up talking about when you see it, is it's like in a very Tenet-esque way of the future and the past, you'll be like, we had this conversation already. We had this conversation about all those other movies, and it's the same conversation about Tenet-esque way of the future and the past, you'll be like, we had this conversation already. We had this conversation about all those other movies, and it's the same conversation about Tenet. It is of a piece with the rest of the work. Do you think that it's an active troll job on his

part to defy his critics by leaning even more deeply into this kind of storytelling? Okay. Well, you're going to have to let me, when you use the word trolling and Nolan, you have to let me say something here. If you have to bleep me or cut me off, that's fine. The troll part of this movie is the sound mixing. I need someone to explain to me if he hears things differently than other human beings, like dogs with whistles. This is a $250 million movie that is absolutely pristine on the level of cutting and color correction. You know, I think more people help to make this movie than run governments. And 30% of the dialogue is straight up inaudible.

And I was asking people after the screening, I'm like, is it me? And they're like, no. Like, what did that person say in that scene? They say, I don't know. Why does everyone talk through masks and over walkie-talkies and over explosions? We have no idea. What did that person say? I don't know. I'm not trying to be dumb. Like I'm not performing here. I'm just like, this is an unbelievably interesting part of this movie. It's the same with the dark night rises, right? You remember the studio asked him to rerecord some of Bane's dialogue because people are like, what? So that's

the part of me that's like, if he's trolling, it's pretty funny because it's a $250 million movie that sounds like it's underwater. What do you want to ask Adam about his tenant experience? What was it like being in a movie, in a movie theater? You know, I'll be honest with you guys. I teared up a bit sitting down in the movie theater. Oh, yeah. That's great. I've been seeing movies my whole life, and I love doing it.

I went to a drive-in of Crash a couple of weeks ago. I did not tear up at that. But sitting in an actual movie theater was pretty moving. Wait, wait, wait. Was it Paul Haggis' Crash or David Cronenberg's Crash? No, David Cronenberg's Crash. Even I knew that. Come on.

That's a whole other podcast. That was good. No, I mean, it was very moving to be there. And it was also nerve wracking, Amanda. Like, you know, you're sitting far away from everyone else. You're breathing through a mask, which given some of the mask industry and imagery in the movie is weirdly experiential in 3D.

You know, there's a lot of masks in this movie. You got one on your face while watching it. And the whole time in the back of my mind, I was sort of thinking, it's nice to be here, but should I really be here? I didn't feel unsafe. And the studio and the distributor, all the precautions were fine. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying. It was unsafe. But it felt weird. I think when you guys

see your first movie in the theater after all this, whatever it is, you might have some version of the same feeling. I think most people have. You pointed out in your piece that there's some mask imagery that is oddly paralleling this experience that we're having. You want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah. I mean, again, I don't want to spoil the movie, but you know, the masks in this are not like Batman masks and they're not even those like inception masks where it's like, because I'm in a dream, I'm going to take my face off and I'm really someone else, you know, the mission impossible thing that he did. I think masks are an interesting way to talk about Nolan because for people who see his work as somehow impersonal or veiled or holding something in. Masks are a pretty interesting motif, you know, all the way back to Kubrick and the killing with the clown masks. I am sure

Christopher Nolan likes the killing because he's now remade it twice as Inception and as Tenet, you know, that's the Kubrick movie that he seems really into. But yeah, the mask imagery is weird. And unless he wrote the script in the future, he could not have known that it was going to come out at a time where masks are just kind of part of the texture of everyday life. But there's potency to that, I think. Even if it's not artistic intention, it's there. Did it pull you out of the experience of watching the movie? I mean, were you constantly thinking about because you were wearing a mask, because there are these visual signifiers in the film, did you find that there was a kind of unnerving quality about watching this movie? No. I mean, the unnerving part for

me was sort of just the general sense of being unnerved. I think a lot of us are having, I don't know how successfully you guys have put that away while watching things at home, right? And I'm not super paranoid person either. I mean, I'm in Toronto. Things are kind of okay here. I mean, it was part of it. The weird part was coming out of a movie afterwards and speaking to another person about it in person, not texting someone or tweeting something or turning to my wife or kid because I have watched stuff with them. I keep saying to my kid, like, that was a good Peppa Pig. I mean, we do talk about that. But just like being in a room with other critics and having the conversation that we've all had a million times in our lives, but haven't had for six months.

So what'd you think? How are you doing? What'd you think? And then the whole conversation was, could you make out any of the dialogue? And then that was. Yeah. from the perspective of you have now seen this movie and can be part of a conversation, but the conversation around the movie is very different than the, the conversation around any movie is.

And I'm, and I'm not talking about the having access to tenant and theaters of it all, but just kind of like, I saw a movie now. What, what is it like being on the inside of being on the inside of that conversation? Yeah.

Of having seen it and, and, and are there people to talk to you and, and watching it all play out? The people to talk to are the people who live in, again, I'm not being glib when I say this, like the people who don't live in the United States who I'm friends with,

you know, people I know in London have seen it. In fact, I knew people in London who'd seen it before I did, and they were being super coy. They were like, we saw this a week ago. I'm like, well, good for you. I mean, it's interesting to be on the inside of it, but it's also, I mean, I'm not going to say lonely because that's overdoing it, but like, I kind of want a lot of my friends in the States and colleagues to see it.

I'm super interested to know what you guys think of it and how it'll be covered on The Ringer. Because in a moment where there's not that much else to talk about movie wise, this is whatever I think of it, like in terms of how many stars I would give it or something. It's a big capacious movie. There's a lot of angles on it, you know? And I also weirdly don't think it's going to be a spoiler landmark movie by

which I mean, you know, there's those movies like the usual suspects or the six or The Sixth Sense or Labor Day, where if you give... Two in one episode! Two in one episode, Adam! If you give the movie up, people get mad. Or The Crying Game, right?

I would even say there's some Nolan movies like that. Kind of Memento is one of those movies where you really are like, don't ruin this movie for me. I don't think Tenet can be ruined in that sense. I actually don't. I don't. Something tells me that someone's going to tell you that you've already ruined it, just for the record.

I've said literally nothing. I haven't even said what anyone's name is. Do you guys know what the protagonist's name is? Can I say that? I do, having read your piece. I only read your redacted version of the piece adam just so you know i mean you can tell me i don't really care should i not say what the protagonist's name is the protagonist i think you should yeah the protagonist's name is

protagonist oh okay i mean cool yeah cool exactly this is what i mean i mean you know that's the kind of stuff that you kind of want to not laugh at, but you kind of want to say like, wow, that's what happens in Tenet. But in terms of like a plot or being an action movie, the only other thing I'll say, which was in the review and I don't think was redacted, but is maybe just something to think about is he's always said he wanted to make a Bond movie. And that's kind of the vibe he's on here. Often in good ways. So I wanted to ask you about that specifically. When you say that, and I have seen a few other critics cite this specifically, that this is the most Bond-esque film that he has made and it has some of the hallmarks. What do you mean by that? I mean that it is a globe-trotting, multiple-location thriller where there are constant things that, how vague can I be?

There are constant things that need to be done and they need to be done mostly by a really handsome, strong guy, a protagonist, if you will, who looks incredible. And most of the people who he hangs out with also look incredible. And enough of them people who he hangs out with also look incredible. And enough of them speak in British accents in the early part of the movie, telling him what he has to do that you're like, oh, these are the stations of the cross of a Bond movie. You know? Sounds awesome. Well, and you know what? What's your favorite kind of movie? I was just like, there's every single thing you said, I was like, check, check, check on my ideal movie list. Continue. And so, you know,

when you have an attractive guy in suits kind of solving problems with the help of highly skilled professionals, you are sort of in Bond land and not in an oblivious way, I think in a very self-conscious way. And I just found that part of it interesting. I mean, that's why I put in the review that superficially it resembles Inception the most. In the sense of let's put a team together kind of movie. And again, I don't want to say more because I don't want someone to hate you and Sean. Because I'm not the host of this, so I can just run away back to Toronto. But I don't want them to get mad at you for being like, why did you have that idiot on to spoil Tenet?

Rest assured that we can draw the ire of our audience all by ourselves, Adam. Don't worry. I know. But I don't want them to get mad at you for being like, why did you have that idiot on to spoil Tenet? Rest assured that we can draw the ire of our audience all by ourselves, Adam. Don't worry. I know. Let's talk about one other thing in the Nolan experience. Yeah. Which is, why does Christopher Nolan keep writing and creating characters that look exactly like Christopher Nolan? What the fuck is going on there? Yeah.

So, that was the other thing that I hope is not, I hope it is not a spoiler to say, cause he's in the credits that Robert Pattinson is in this movie. It is definitely not a spoiler to say that Robert Pattinson is a terrific actor, not just because he's hot. He is just really good. He has not been bad now in a long time,

if ever. Agree. And he's, he's real added value for this movie because he is kind of on the edges of this movie he is a main character though not protagonist he is a main character and he looks great and he is absolutely playing christopher nolan just like straight up playing him you know floppy hair nice suit telling people kind of how to do stuff. And that's what I thought that, that's what I thought DiCaprio was in Inception. Yeah.

Except that in Inception, Nolan was the protagonist. And here Pattinson is slightly to the side of that, which I also think is interesting. But, you know, he certainly likes a certain haircut and a certain suit. And he makes jokes in this movie. Yes, he does make jokes about suits so whether that's personal or satirical or trolling or unconscious it's interesting because that's how he comes through i think in this movie and again i'm just now using adjectives to describe a performance pattinson's just a lot fun. And that is also one of the things about the movie that I did like.

Yeah, I have been thinking about this. You know, Amanda, you and I, we've talked about Christopher Nolan maybe having a dead wife problem. You know, we've talked about some of the hallmarks of his storytelling. He's not the strongest writer of female characters historically. But when you see Dom Cobb in Inception, it seems like an unconscious manifestation of his aspiration of what he would want to be. I would like to look like Leonardo DiCaprio with all of Christopher Nolan's accoutrement. And you identified most of his movies as humorless here, which I mostly agree with. I think he does not seem as if he has a strong sense of humor.

But the Pattinson thing in this movie, and this movie also bearing some of the hallmarks of Inception, makes me think that the machine has become sentient. That maybe he is now embarking on some sort of super self-conscious journey into storytelling that can only be told by one man. And I don't know if that's the mark of insanity or the mark of brilliance. I haven't even seen the movie, but I've already got theories coursing through my body. Am I onto something at all?

Me? Yeah, Adam. Yeah. Oh yeah, that's right. Cause I'm the one who saw it. Yeah.

Amanda, yes or no? Amanda, yes or no? Uh, yeah. Amanda, yes or no? Amanda, yes or no? Yeah, I mean, one thing that I don't know how often, I mean, I've actually heard it come up a little bit on this podcast and in general. Like, just this idea of auteurism, like, is auteurism the default in criticism? Are we practicing it the way we're supposed to? Does the fact that auteurism has changed from what it originally meant, which is, can you perceive the signature of a filmmaker who's doing a job? Not can you perceive the signature of a filmmaker who has every resource in the world to make his or her vision, and the movie is only being made because of his or her vision. This was supposed to be about studio filmmakers and things that critics discern, not things that people are pulling out of their heads and putting on the screen. Like, of course, a Charlie Kaufman movie is an auteur movie.

You know, of course, Paul Thomas Anderson is. So with Nolan, like, if we want to look at the movies that way, I think you're right. I don't know how much of the ticket buying audience that is going to need to spend X number of hundreds of millions of dollars for this thing to break even in the middle of a pandemic will care that much. And I think that my point is he doesn't hit it so hard that those people are going to be alienated, right? If he is a personal filmmaker, it is not to the extent of alienating an audience. He has found a midpoint between people will think I'm smart and also it doesn't matter. And Dunkirk was a really good example of that because he's nowhere in that movie, right?

You know, he's just subordinate to the history and the spectacle and the, and the staging. What I just want to know, and this is, you guys talk about industry and box office on the show and we don't know is I really actually for once care how this movie is going to make money. What would be a success in this case?

What does success look like in, in this case what does success look like in in the case in a moment like this like where is it going to make its money how much money is it going to make and even if it doesn't break even or turn a profit is there still a way that its distributor and studio are going to be happy that they put it out or should they have just waited for a lot of reasons as a closing thought I'm curious what you think about that question. Do you think that we're just a few days away from this movie being released in the United States? I think it's going to do very well internationally,

but in the States, we just don't know because the two biggest markets are still closed. Do you think that this movie will be a stateside success? God, I have no idea in part because to Adam's point, how you define success is really going to be person to person. I think the theaters are going to have a very different definition of success than Warner Brothers, then critics. And do I think that it is probably going to make more

money than any other movie that's released this year? Yes, I do. But we have so many logistical questions still up in the air. Like, I mean, Sean, you and I literally don't know how we're going to see this movie. And we are the exception in the U.S. And because in most states, theaters are open at this point. But the how and the social distancing and the reduced numbers, you know, I think Warner Brothers will try to spin it as we were able to release in theaters. And, you know, we remain committed to the theatrical vision and Christopher Nolan's vision.

So they will say it's a success no matter what. Is everyone in the U.S. who can going to go see this? I truly don't know. Well, I sent you guys a cam rip in the U.S. who can going to go see this? I truly don't know. Well, I sent you guys a cam rip in the Zoom chat. Don't even joke about that. That's a great way to get removed from Spotify instantaneously. Yeah, no, I'm kidding, obviously. But, I mean, yeah, to Amanda's point, I don't know if there's, I think it's going to be this weird mix of like people are desperate to see this and maybe would go see it faster than usual.

And people are going to stay away. I wonder what the happy medium there is. We'll have to wait to find out. We may have to wait several years to find out. Honestly, we'll see. Adam, as usual, thanks for coming through and providing great insight and not spoiling anything. Yeah. No spoilers.

Thanks guys. Amanda. Thank you. Uh, we'll see you later this week on the big picture. you