Let’s watch Christopher Nolan geek out about Nathan Fielder and The Curse
In a just-released interview, the Oppenheimer director grills Fielder and Benny Safdie about their mind-bending Showtime show
Aux News Christopher Nolan
It’s kind of hard to imagine Christopher Nolan watching television; as the most consistently prestigious of Hollywood’s big-budget genre directors, there’s an intellectualism to both Nolan’s work, and his public persona, that sort of defies the mental image of him sitting down on the couch, remote in hand. Which is part of what makes it especially interesting to hear the man completely geek out about good TV, as he did in an interview posted by Showtime earlier this week, where the Oppenheimer director interviewed, with geeky glee, Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie about their recent comedy/horror/home renovation show The Curse.
Which Nolan totally loved, it’s clear: In the half-hour interview, filmed at a For Your Consideration event for the show back in early January, he calls the series “incredible,” and compares it to shows like Twin Peaks in terms of its masterful use of tone. Interestingly, he also singles out Fielder’s earlier show, The Rehearsal, as a point of interest for him—which actually makes a kind of sense, in hindsight: Although Nolan’s films tend to shie away from comedy, he and Fielder share an artistic obsession with nested layers of reality and big, practically achieved spectacle.
Even beyond the novelty of seeing Mr. Tenet play TV nerd, though, it’s a pretty good interview for fans of the series: Filmed before the airing of the show’s last two episodes, it sees Nolan, Fielder, and Safdie (who first worked with the director last year, when he was cast in Oppenheimer) get into the minutiae of the show’s setting, production, and design. (Our favorite detail: The crew realizing that they had to start covering the show’s mirrored “passive home” exteriors in tarps when they weren’t filming, because the reflection of the New Mexico sun off of the giant shiny false fronts was burning brown lines in the grass of the homes they were renting; a pretty apt metaphor for Asher and Whitney Siegel’s obliviously destructive path through Española.)
Anyway, now we’re excited by two different ideas at the same time: On the one hand, the thought of Safdie, Nolan, and Fielder cooking up some kind of collaboration with each other is incredibly intriguing. (It’d be fascinating to see the Curse guys push Nolan out of his more stolid comfort zone, and to see him apply his precision to their big, weird ideas.) And, on the other, the thought of Christopher Nolan going back and watching that episode of Nathan For You where they try to stop people from buying cheap TVs with an alligator. Either option, really, would be fine by us.
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People forget that Nolan has openly praised the Fast & Furious films. Some of his haters love to paint this highbrow caricature of him (that he absolutely plays into by refusing to own a phone or computer), but people that actually know him have described him as a chill dude with some lowbrow tastes and a wry sense of humor. I’m not surprised he’s a fan of Fielder’s work, but I’m thrilled that this interview exists.I want the three of them to collaborate on a project ASAP. Perhaps Nolan’s first venture into television?
I actually love his wry sense of humor. That back and forth between Cooper and TARS in Interstellar was great.
Nolan is a huge MacGruber fan, up to the point he quotes the film to his cast when he’s in a good mood.Anne Hathaway: “I was so intimidated. But you spend some time on set, and you learn to like read how the days go. Because he’s not a very demonstrative person, so if you get a hug, it’s amazing. And if he’s being quiet, you know it’s probably not a great day. And if he starts making jokes, you’re like ‘Oh my god, this day is so good.’ And if he starts quoting MacGruber, you’re just like ‘This film will win an Oscar.’”
on the other hand I’d hardly describe Fielder’s work as lowbrow
There was some lowbrow stuff on Nathan for You, but you’re right, I wouldn’t describe his work as a whole that way. I was reacting to Nolan’s public persona in general, specifically the idea that he’s a cinematic purist who scoffs at the sight of a television in his peripheral vision. But like Dwigt pointed out, he quotes fuckin’ MacGruber (which admittedly isn’t a TV show like Fielder’s work, but is pretty lowbrow).I wonder how hard he works to maintain that image. I wouldn’t think someone who purportedly doesn’t own a phone or a computer would even have a reason to care what his public persona is, but he’s clearly not a recluse and is generally aware of pop culture happening around him. So to pair him with someone like Fielder, whose work largely revolves around how everyone maintains their public image, would be fucking fascinating to me.Sorry, I know that was a tangent.
He said something like he doesn’t use a phone or computer because he knows he would get way too distracted. Now, wearing a suit every day on set is probably to project an image.
He owns a computer. Maybe not a phone, but a computer for sure. If he claims he doesn’t, he’s 100% lying.
I never got to the point I was trying to make. I would argue that Nolan’s public persona is that he considers the medium of television itself “lowbrow” because he’s so obsessed with “cinema” and the theatrical experience. Maybe he does consider television lowbrow, but he’s not above lowbrow tastes, as evidenced by some of the other things he’s been reported to be a fan of. That’s how I got to, “Well it’s not surprising that if anything on TV caught his eye, it would be Fielder’s work.”
People are really, really struggling to ignore Christopher Nolan praising Watchmen and saying Zack Snyder is a visionary filmmaker.The dude likes what he likes. He also has terrible sound design in his movies and is incredibly pretentious. This doesn’t get in the way of him being incredibly talented at what he does and admiring when other people do things he’d never thought of in ways that excite him.Good evidence that one should never get so obsessed with the concept of taste that you forget your own has value.
It’s kind of hard to imagine Christopher Nolan watching television; as the most consistently prestigious of Hollywood’s big-budget genre directors, there’s an intellectualism to both Nolan’s work, and his public persona, that sort of defies the mental image of him sitting down on the couch, remote in hand.Nolan is a blockbuster director (as high concept as they may be); it’s not like he makes the most inaccessible arthouse / obscure movies. I’d argue that “the Curse” is a lot less accessible than your average Nolan movie and leans a lot more toward “Auteur cinema” than most Nolan’s movies. I mean I’m pretty sure the late Godard, Tarkovski or Kieslowski were not avid reality tv watchers (lol) but Nolan’s work does not belong to that category. Nothing wrong with that; and he’s a lovely chap.
btw I red one of Godard’s last interview in a french journal before he offed himself (medically assisted); and the guy had already left our mortal plane for a while; most surreal interview I ever red.
(edit: well I threw those name at random on the comment above but I’m reading Godard’s interview again and he was apparently absolutely binging tv, as much as he hated it)
Nolan is the dudebro’s intellectual. He’s just visceral enough to remind them of car crashes and bomb explosions and just cerebral enough to make them think there are twenty layers to the things he makes when there are probably two or three.Also, he’s a bit of a cryptofascist at times, so SAWCSMs looking for a visionary can point to the way he makes them feel about guns and violence and masculinity and go, “YES!!!!!! TRULY AN UNMATCHED GENIUS!!!!”I only say this to temper the mood around Nolan and remind people he’s an earthly figure when it comes to artistry. He’s good at what he does, his movies are effective, and he usually means well.
I’m not disagreeing with you – maybe just the opposite end of the same spectrum – but I’ve thought of him as the neckbeard’s artiste. He’s a guy that makes dull, sterile, “high-concept” science fiction (read: dry exposition, little regard for human characters who only exist to make science-y stuff happen on screen – hence his thing about dialogue being irrelevant) for dweebs who self-identify as Very Smart….but more importantly, Nolan gets praise from the mainstream, which is what these guys crave. Finally, they have a director they can talk about in polite society!
Honestly this whole lense of looking at directors is so tiresome. If you try to make mainstream movies that are remotely challenging then detractors have to jump in to say, “It’s not as smart as its fans think it is.” Maybe not, but audiences are STARVED for mainstream movies that ask you to think even a little. And nobody says they’re that intellectual. It’s not adding anything useful to the discourse.
Bergman wouldn’t miss an episode of Dallas, according to his diaries (RW Fassbinder was also a huge fan). Terrence Malick is a Zoolander super fan up to the point that Sean Penn had Ben Stiller record a video message in character for Malick’s birthday. Kubrick loved The Jerk and White Men Can’t Jump, among others. Robert Bresson raised a few eyebrows when L’Argent screened at Cannes, because he couldn’t help himself praising For Your Eyes Only to reporters and his assistants. Tarkovsky was very impressed with The Terminator. Godard has a blast with Ace Ventura in Africa. Donald Trump owns 35mm copies of every film directed by Bela Tarr and watches them every year.Only one of these affirmations is false.
Agree. The guy obviously loves physics; he can Tetris and Rubrik his way into and around a narrative; it’s genius. But The Prestige and The Batman Trilogy are his films that really delve into matters of the heart (with its particular moral dilemmas and decisions). Seems to me as long as he aspires to Blockbusting he’ll continue to limit himself (in ways that matter to this viewer, anyway).
Those two jamokes are giving off Ernie and Bert vibes.
I know The Curse was shot to reflect the feeling of reality camera crews, but more than anything the entire show gave me the creepy surveillance vibe of Robert Altman’s The Player. 90% of that movie is shot in a way that feels like you’re spying from afar.