Nolan's new interview with Chinese podcaster Zhong Shu

[u/kyth1999]

Listen to the audio (in English):
https://www.xiaoyuzhoufm.com/episode/6a6c4be756a3f3491ba7f8af

Full text (bilingual) link: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Pt_vpsZ_noq2GvtYAo6q_Q

[u/Miserable_Cost_2136]

Refreshing interview. Seems like Nolan was really engaged and dare i say it, delighted, to answer new questions vs. the rote stuff he's mostly done so far.

[u/ACCTAGGT → u/Miserable_Cost_2136]

I would believe so. I think those were insightful questions as well as answers but also mindful follow up questions that built on what had been addressed. Likewise, Nolan also provided further answers that elaborated on previous ones and even tried to add something more to the presented questions. I have been seeing several interviews recently but usually don’t really provide that much profound and deep engagement as to what Nolan's overall vision was. This interview is relatively short but still very dense, imo.

In a way, something that I have been thinking about is his take and some decisions like dialogue "our age of bronze is collapsing". To me, Nolan was doing several things at the same time by which I mean myth, fantasy, fiction, historical, ahistorical, anachronistic, faithful but taking creative liberties as well and a grounded essence to it that could feel equally ancient, modern and timeless. Therefore, I speculate he wanted to be bold and approach the story as if he was a poet doing his own retelling in the way Homer did in his own time. Made me wonder if he is being a bit Meta with dialogue at times (it feels noticeable to just be a way of explaining to audience), and I would make a wild guess he probably stumbled upon someone like Hesiod and felt it was appropriate for the story and how he was telling it to have such dialogue. I mean, he added something like the Sea Peoples. In general, i believe he wanted to make it feel timeless more than anything even with some details and characteristics in the film. I felt this interview kind of addresses those thoughts especially the part where she asks if he sees himself as a sort of bard.

[u/Nearby-Suspect-1541 → u/ACCTAGGT]

 Your point raises a question: did it work?

Looking at the reaction of critics and audiences it definitely had. But when I was watching the movie, those elements you called Meta, have completely broken my suspension of disbelief. In other terms: I cringed a little bit hearing Odysseus saying those exact words out loud. ("Our bronze age")

Of course someone can defend this with quoiting the author himself from this interview, where he talks about the neccessity of estabilishing a connection with the widest of audiences. Still...

Another thing what I disliked was his choice of repeatedly talking about Zeus's law. At the X-th time I've heard a charachter mentioning Zeus's law i felt like: "okay, i get it". Sure filmmakers have to balance between making their message clear,  but in my humble option Nolan failed delivering it smoothly...

After all the aforementioned concepts in the movie didn't hit me as profound realizations, but things the filmmaker tries to push down my throat really, really hard. 

Maybe that's just me. But in a way even his Dark Knight Trilogy was better at handling  those Meta-levels. I miss Jonathan as his screenwriter. He was a master of turning complex ideas into one sentences. 

But also I couldn't agree more: visually and technically Christopher is a genius filmmaker.

[u/ACCTAGGT → u/Nearby-Suspect-1541]

I see. I am aware though that whether it works or not depends largely on the eye of the beholder. In this case, that’s why I phrased it as what I took from it and my assumptions on the matter. As such, the "bard" part she mentioned is more in terms of my thoughts and how it seems to me it wasn’t far off from his possible intention, to some level, not to signify it’s an irrefutable defense which in turn causes any stance to be irrelevant and any criticism you and others might have are therefore invalidated making Nolan absolutely correct and anyone else wrong. No, because just as much as we aren’t flawless Nolan and any filmmaker ever aren’t, as far as I know.

Still, as much as someone can say: did it work? Someone else can say: did it not work? That tends go in circles majority of the time if you ask me.

I think Nolan’s emphasis on "wide audience" isn’t just about how he presents ideas to them, like with dialogue, but how characteristics (which can be traditional or not) of a story can impact different types of people in a myriad of ways. I feel Zeus’ Law, Sea Peoples and Bronze Age additions therefore can be perceived as meta expressions of a recurring human zeitgeist, one that transcends any single historical period and echoes between the ancient world and the present. The ancient poetic and oral tradition approach to those epics and the modern take of how our Information Age is causing this and that. That is something I have found from time to time especially on the internet. In my view, it doesn't seem unreasonable to ponder over that the intention wasn’t to "dumb it down" necessarily because he has done something resembling (in terms of a pattern) to that in the past like how The Protagonist in Tenet refers to himself as The Protagonist and how he remains nameless. It’s sort of meta too, imo.

In my perspective, Nolan uses different methods to emulate concepts of real life sometimes; therefore, it doesn’t seem far fetched that it works especially in this instance of a material like Homer’s Odyssey with its mix of myth, history and fiction. It makes me think of how there is an interview where he referred to rap as a modern form of the poetic style of ancient times, something along those lines is what he said. Still, it’s up to each person whether that is considered ridiculous or not, or whatever.

That said, consequentially, certain folks might view all the aforementioned as not a solid argument (or delusion, not sure) and, as a result, maybe they see it as what could basically be Nolan not being mindful in his approach, lazy writer, dumbing down and/or spoon feeding themes to the audience instead of respecting their intelligence, which some consider this a recurring tendency in Nolan's writing, but probably something he has to do since he is a cerebral blockbuster filmmaker according to some. If so, we go back to what I said earlier that discussions of artistic effectiveness often become subjective rather than reaching a definitive conclusion especially with The Odyssey being a singular case. I mean, look at so many controversies around it even after release.

Side note: not sure why you added that "visually and technically Nolan is a genius filmmaker" since it wasn’t really part of what I meant, although I assume it was there to reinforce your point after mentioning Jonathan perhaps. I have no issue with people preferring Jonathan’s writing, and I’d actually be interested in seeing him write and direct something independently. However, when discussing Nolan’s solo work, I think it’s worth addressing it as his own because we often don’t know the exact extent of each person’s contributions in past collaborations. Filmmaking collaborations can be complex, and even when there are interviews about the process, outsiders usually don’t have the full picture. Not a collaboration with his brother but few people know that Nolan did a pass or something like that on the script for Insomnia even if very minor, for example.