KARACHI: Known for his obsession with mind-numbing concepts and out-of-the box films such as Interstellar, Memento, The Dark Knight, and more recently Tenet, Christopher Nolan is one of the most successful storytellers to have ever set foot in Hollywood.
Recently, Twinkle Khanna and Christopher Nolan sat down for a brief chat. The two discussed Nolan’s style of filming, what he looks for in his cast during an audition, and how the concept for Tenet came about.
Priya, played by Dimple Kapadia, who also happens to be Khanna’s mother, is a strong female character in the film. An arms dealer who using her husband as a front and pulls the strings herself on the backend. Such a character is reflective of how things are for genius women who are cast aside in professions dominated by men. Twinkle Khanna asked Christopher Nolan what it was like to come up with such a character.
Hollywood for years has enforced stereotypical depictions for Indians and Pakistanis, which is why Twinkle Khanna asked, “Did you do a lot of research to find an Indian who was like that? How did that come about?” To this, he replied, “I’d been to India before. Filmed in India very briefly on The Dark Knight Rises in Jodhpur. But I had the good fortune to come to Mumbai, seeing this incredible place. Cause I think the architecture of Mumbai, the scale of the place, the mixture of eras. It’s extremely inspiring.”
He went on to describe how any filmmaker would have the urge to just pick up their film camera and film India, however, the Inception director did not want to use it as a backdrop. “I wanted to really have a story connection. To have a character who is from that world. And that is what Dimple and I were able to create together.”
Nolan also told Khanna that his concept was impossible to visualize. “One of my senses of excitement around this subject is that time and the portrayal of time in this reversed way is entirely dependent on the movie camera. So this can only be a movie.” The idea is entirely dependent on its execution. As he says this, Nolan mirrors the thoughts of a number of filmmakers who often have difficulty in explaining the grandness of their concept, and it is only felt once their work is up on the big screen.
When he is asked about what he’d like to tell a younger Christopher Nolan, he responds by saying he is more in line with Robert Pattinson’s character from Tenet. “What’s happened, has happened. The policy is to suppress. The policy is to not give information from the future to the past. Because you don’t know what the consequences would have been. So some of the mistakes I have made in the past may have inadvertently led me to a better place than I would’ve wound up in had I not made those mistakes. I would be very very cautious about telling my younger self anything in fact I think I’d probably try to avoid myself.”
