Christopher Nolan is on his fairly gentle version of a press blitz at the moment, giving “You’re not going to ruffle me, I used to tussle with Batman fans” interviews in support of his upcoming The Odyssey. That’s included some interesting statements from Nolan’s perspective as someone who has, thanks to the relentless and hideous march of time, become a prominent elder statesman in the world of filmmaking, tossing praise toward young filmmakers like Backrooms‘ Kane Parsons and Obsession‘s Curry Barker for their embrace of ambiguity and mystery in their cinematic worlds.
Nolan namechecked both Parsons and Barker (who, possibly not coincidentally, have recently managed the Nolan trick of making personal-feeling, idiosyncratic movies that have also functioned as commercial blockbusters) in the interview: “This is why I never bought into the arguments that young audiences’ attention spans are too fried to enjoy a three-hour Greek epic,” he notes. “Those films are so mysterious and ruminative. I mean, parts of Backrooms are like David Lynch at his most obscure. And yet young people can’t get enough of them.”
While on the subject of The Youths, Nolan also expressed a general sense that the kids are pretty alright, at least when it comes to their tastes in filmmaking techniques. He specifically cited what he sees as a widespread rejection of AI, which Nolan thinks managed to land at exactly the wrong time for a generation that now seems to crave hand-crafted and practical films. “I’ve never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology in my lifetime,” Nolan says. “So much energy has been expended on bringing in AI, but if you look at that generation’s reaction, they’re utterly rejecting it.” Nolan cited his own children as an example of younger generations being at odds with the push toward virtual stars, sets, and films: “Their judgment of AI slop has been immediate and harsh. They see it for what it is very quickly—and it’s much easier for them to identify it, because it grew out of an online world they know really well. And while that doesn’t mean that every aspect of the technology is useless or meaningless, in filmmaking it’s hitting at exactly the wrong time. After years of driving towards heavily virtual environments, we’re seeing a renewed interest in more tactile, more real forms of storytelling.”
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