“You don’t want to understand the entire story”: Christopher Nolan Has No Intentions of Dumbing Down His Movies for Audience for a Surprising Reason
Christopher Nolan is a director that doesn’t like to compromise when it comes to making his films.
From recreating the effect of detonating an atomic bomb without CGI to showing the sacred Hindu text Bhagavad Gita during a s*x scene, Nolan ignored the budget, the logistical issues, and even the prospect of offending a big section of his viewers in order to create a biographical feature on J. Robert Oppenheimer to satisfy the filmmaker and foremost viewer inside his own mind.
The same rule applies to his mind-bending scripts. Nolan only cares about producing a movie based on his vision, whether an individual in the theater comes out of it understanding the plot or not.
Christopher Nolan Doesn’t Want to Dumb Down His Movies
From his Leonardo DiCaprio starrer Inception which keeps shifting back and forth between real life and dreams to his Tenet which overwhelms the audience with its time inversion theory, Christopher Nolan has a penchant for making non-linear films that often puzzle his audience, requiring them to sit through the movie multiple times to get the grip on every scene.
And Nolan has no intention to change his ways just for the sake of making everyone understand what he’s trying to express through his movies.
“Don’t try to understand it, just feel it. I don’t see movies in terms of a balance between simplicity and complexity, I think it’s really about mystery,” he said on HugoDécrypte’s YouTube channel.
The Prestige director wants to take his audience away from the influence of television, which as per him imposes a more simple approach. Rather he insists that his aim is to make movies using non-chronological structures, akin to the silent era before the 1950s.
He further explained his point by stating: “But ultimately, the thing about the experience in a movie theater with an audience, is it should be about mystery. You don’t want to understand the entire story right from the beginning. Otherwise, there’s nothing to unfold.”
Fortunately for fans who are more keen on following the plot from the get-go rather than peeling the Orange steadily and repeatedly, Nolan’s latest work is somewhat ideal for them. Oppenheimer is a biopic of the theoretical physicist, as such the 52-year-old had little freedom to add any mystery from his side.
Oppenheimer’s Grandson Didn’t Like One Scene From Christopher Nolan’s Movie
As stated earlier, Oppenheimer cares less about what his audience and individuals feel (and understand!) about his movie and more about imparting his characters and plot on his own terms.
One of the scenes in the masterpiece shows Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) injecting an apple, suggesting he intended to poison his professor due to a conflict. The movie is heavily influenced by the 2005 book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer which also suggests the brilliant man could’ve been a murderer.
As expected, the scene wasn’t taken all too well by his family, with Oppenheimer’s grandson, Charles stating he liked the apple reference part the least from the movie. It must be noted that the book didn’t make concrete claims or stated any historical record of the incident.
Source: HugoDécrypte YouTube channel
