TENET - when Christopher Nolan makes a cult classic

The Impact of Favorite Movies

In this section, the speaker talks about how favorite movies can impact our lives and create lasting memories.

Fond Memories and Pure Emotions

• Our favorite movies are often tied to fond memories, such as going to the cinema with parents or bonding with friends over shared interests.

• These movies evoke pure emotions in us and leave us in a state of wonderment, making us believe that anything is possible.

Christopher Nolan's Love for Movies

In this section, the speaker discusses Christopher Nolan's love for movies and how it drives his creativity.

A Fan of Movies

• Christopher Nolan is not only a filmmaker but also a fan of movies.

• His journey as a storyteller, filmmaker, and innovator has been driven by his desire to deliver impressionable movie-going experiences to audiences.

Tenet: A Passion Project

In this section, the speaker talks about how Tenet was a passion project for Christopher Nolan.

Pursuing Passions

• With Tenet, Christopher Nolan leaned into his passions, loves, interests, and explorations as a film fan and storyteller.

• He wanted to share his experience with a global audience and shape their experiences watching the film.

The Ideal Christopher Nolan Movie

In this section, the speaker discusses how Tenet represents Christopher Nolan's ideal movie.

Spontaneity and Excitement

• The spontaneity and excitement that drove Christopher Nolan's creativity trickled down into the experiences of both characters and audiences watching Tenet.

• This made it an ideal representation of what he wants in a movie.

Spy Genre Influence on Christopher Nolan

In this section, the speaker talks about how the spy genre has influenced Christopher Nolan's filmmaking.

James Bond and Escapism

• The spy genre has had a significant impact on Christopher Nolan's filmmaking sensibilities.

• Watching James Bond films, especially The Spy Who Loved Me, left him with a remarkable sense of wonder, scale, and escapism that still felt tangible.

Sponsor: ExpressVPN

In this section, the speaker promotes ExpressVPN as a sponsor of the video.

Protect Your Data and Watch Movies

• ExpressVPN protects your data from government intelligence agencies and big brother companies on the web.

• It also allows you to watch movies unavailable on your streaming services.

Christopher Nolan's Filmmaking Journey

In this section, the speaker discusses how Christopher Nolan's experiences watching movies shaped his own filmmaking journey.

Feeling of Possibility

• From a young age, Christopher Nolan was inspired by the feeling of possibility he got from watching movies like James Bond.

• This feeling would go on to inspire his own filmmaking journey and become an important element in his filmography.

Achieving True Inspiration in Filmmaking

In this section, Christopher Nolan's approach to achieving true inspiration in filmmaking is discussed. The importance of boiling down a genre to its purest form and conveying raw emotion is highlighted.

Boiling Down a Genre

• Nolan believes that when approaching a genre, it should be boiled down to its purest form.

• This simplified and singular concept or idea conveys raw unbridled emotion.

• Nolan studies everything until he gets to the core so he can reinvent it.

Emotional Approach in Tenet

• With Tenet, Nolan took an emotional approach rather than an intellectual one.

• He wanted to work from memory and feeling of the spy genre rather than specific details.

• Nolan did not want to simply recreate James Bond but create a film that embodied the excitement and grand scale entertainment he felt from those movies as a kid.

True Inspiration in Filmmaking

In this section, the rarity of true inspiration in filmmaking is discussed. The challenge of achieving it and how Christopher Nolan addresses it are highlighted.

Achieving True Inspiration

• True inspiration is incredibly rare these days.

• The subject's mind can always trace the genesis of an idea inspired by outside sources.

• When you boil something down, it becomes flavorless which is bland to some but precisely where Nolan likes it so he can inject it with his own personal flavor.

Addressing True Inspiration in Inception

• In Inception, Cobb and Arthur explain the concept of inception to Sato.

• The team deduces that in order for an idea to stick, they have to boil it down to its purest form - heavy personal relationship with Fisher's father.

• Nolan's approach to storytelling is calculated and intellectual.

Emotional Approach in Tenet

In this section, Christopher Nolan's emotional approach in creating Tenet is discussed. His decision not to screen any films before making Tenet is highlighted.

Emotional Approach

• With Tenet, Nolan took an emotional approach rather than an intellectual one.

• He wanted to work from memory and feeling of the spy genre rather than specific details.

• Memories shape us, change us, evolve over time and become compartmentalized.

No Screenings for Tenet

• Nolan did not screen any films before making Tenet.

• He didn't want to simply recreate James Bond but create a film that embodied the excitement and grand scale entertainment he felt from those movies as a kid.

Sergio Leone's Influence on Christopher Nolan's Tenet

In this section, Christopher Nolan discusses how his love for the spy genre and movies in general influenced the making of Tenet. He draws inspiration from various genres and stylistic choices to create a distinct new fashion.

Sergio Leone's Influence

• Sergio Leone's films express his love for the western genre.

• There is a slight feeling that he did not watch any westerns while making his films.

• This idea inspired Nolan to let his crew dive into Tenet in a unique way without being influenced by things consciously.

• The crew was allowed to let their love for the genre and movies feed into the way they expressed things.

Genre Mixing

• Tenet is a spy movie concoction with elements of various genres mixed together.

• It has the exotic globe-trotting and romance of a Bond movie, exhilarating set pieces of North by Northwest, grit of cold war neo-noir films felt through fight sequences and climactic set pieces.

• These elements have been tampered with by Nolan's mind and memory to present them in a distinct new fashion.

Experiential Cinema

• Nolan's directorial style has always pointed towards visceral immersive experiential cinema.

• With each subsequent film, he experimented with IMAX technology pushing his work further into experiential cinema territory.

• Dunkirk was proof of concept for potential experiential cinema while Tenet was nolan taking mastery and effortlessly freestyling it.

Personal Approach

• For Tenet, Nolan focused on constructing moments he experienced personally on an emotional level rather than meticulously planning every detail.

• He allowed himself to go off-script surrendering to the moment which gave him freedom to pivot and pluck from different genres and stylistic choices.

• Nolan drew inspiration from simple concepts, ideas, memories, and moments that resurfaced during the making of Tenet.

Real World Inspiration

• Nolan filed away real-world happenings and concepts in his head that he found to be cinematic in nature.

• The idea of free ports was based on a 2013 article he read in the economist.

• He understood that we live in an age where the magic of cinema is not limited to the 1940s or 1950s anymore.

The Connection Between Nolan and Hitchcock

In this section, the speaker discusses how Christopher Nolan's methodology is similar to that of Alfred Hitchcock. Both directors understand that sometimes the best films need to consider the point of view of the storytelling. They use characters as a tool to convey the immediacy of the story to the audience.

Nolan's Methodology is Hitchcockian

• Tom Shone explains how Nolan's fascination and love for true cinematic sensory experience is similar to Hitchcock.

• Nolan has grown more intrigued by abstract potential composition and music structure in his films.

• Characters are forged through actions in a film, which is a lesson implemented in Dunkirk and fine-tuned even more intent.

• Empathy can be created through characters just by virtue of their situation.

Aligning Audience with Character Point of View

• To elicit empathy out of your characters, you simply need to align the audience closely with the point of view of the character and follow them with a camera.

• Sometimes, telling a truly gripping story requires considering the point of view of storytelling.

Don't Try to Understand It, Feel It

• Clemens Posey's line "Don't try to understand it; feel it" is an invitation for how audiences should experience Tenet.

• The most dangerous verb in a Christopher Nolan movie is "to know."

• As seen in Memento, Leonard tirelessly searches for answers but doesn't like what he finds out.

Understanding the Narrative of Tenet

In this section, the speaker discusses how knowledge is critical to the overall experience of the film. The protagonist in most spy movies is in pursuit of knowledge, but in Tenet, it's the inverse. The less you know, the better your experience will be.

Knowledge as a Disadvantage

• Knowledge is critical to the overall experience of a film.

• In most spy movies, the protagonist is in pursuit of knowledge. In Tenet, it's the inverse.

• The less you know about Tenet, the better your experience will be.

• Nolan removes all knowledge that wasn't memory or instinct from the table to reinvent the spy movie.

A New Experience with Each Viewing

• Tenet operates differently on repeat viewings for both audience and characters.

• The first time through, we experience the film through John David Washington's eyes.

• On second viewing, we see things through Neil's perspective and get an entirely different experience.

• Armed with more knowledge on subsequent viewings allows us to participate more fully.

Christopher Nolan's Filmmaking Ethos

This section explores Christopher Nolan's filmmaking ethos and how he balances making sense at every moment while breaking small realisms for storytelling purposes.

Making Sense at Every Moment

• Nolan believes that films should make sense at every moment.

• He balances this by being willing to break small realisms for storytelling purposes.

• Nolan's films interact with their viewers, daring them to think and ask questions.

• While certain plot elements of his films can be open to interpretation or ambiguity, he has never made a film that leaves a bunch of questions unanswered or which tells an incoherent story.

The Audience Dialogue

• When making a film like Tenet, Nolan is in a weird dialogue with the culture as well as the audience sitting in the seats.

• He needs to decide whether he is making the film for the theatrical audience or for somebody who's going to obsessively look at it once they've seen it three times.

Christopher Nolan's Filmmaking Philosophy

In this section, Christopher Nolan discusses his approach to filmmaking and how he balances meeting audience expectations with staying true to his own creative instincts.

Balancing Expectations and Creativity

• Nolan understands what audiences expect from his films.

• He acknowledges that there are elements in Tenet that repeat things he has done in the past, but he believes the sincerity is in not taking them out.

• When writing the script for Tenet, Nolan went rogue for a long time on his own without anyone knowing what he was doing. He asked his brother if it was him repeating himself, but his brother said it was more like the apotheosis of a set of ideas.

• Nolan is aware that knowledge of repetition can be dangerous, but he is trying to be true to the impulses that have defined him.

The Importance of Cinematic Experience

• Audiences have to feel a movie is worth their time and money to venture outside of their homes. Streaming services are easily accessible, but they cannot replicate the experience of watching a film in a crowded theater as a group of strangers gets swept up in the magic of cinema.

• A film must offer audiences a one-of-a-kind larger-than-life experience they can't get on their televisions or devices. It must engage viewers as active participants and invite them to live in and surrender to the moment with their senses, feelings, and emotions.

• Nolan's entire career has been in pursuit of achieving that same feeling he had when watching Bond films at a young age. He wants to pass down that feeling to future generations through his films.

Staying True to Your Passion

• Nolan accomplished his goal of becoming his own adjective by relying on instinct, memory, and personal experiences to create an experience that spreads to the world of the characters and audiences.

• He believes that the approach to filmmaking has to be sincere. When he goes to see somebody's film and doesn't think the filmmaker loved the film, he feels like he wasted his time.

Subscription and Social Media Promotion

In this section, the speaker encourages viewers to subscribe to the channel and follow him on Twitter.

• The video continues after the credits.

• Viewers are encouraged to subscribe to the channel to be a part of future conversations.

• The speaker invites viewers to follow him on Twitter at griffshiller.

Video Sharing

In this section, the speaker asks viewers to share the video if they enjoyed it.

• The speaker expresses pride in the video.

• Viewers are asked to share the video with others.

• Sharing is described as "amazing."

Conclusion

In this section, the speaker concludes the video.

• The speaker thanks viewers for watching.

• Viewers are wished well.