Quotes by Christopher Nolan
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Superheroes fill a gap in the pop culture psyche, similar to the role of Greek mythology. There isn't really anything else that does the job in modern terms. For me, Batman is the one that can most clearly be taken seriously.
By the time I was 10 or 11, I knew I wanted to make films.
As soon as television became the only secondary way in which films were watched, films had to adhere to a pretty linear system, whereby you can drift off for ten minutes and go and answer the phone and not really lose your place.
For me, Batman is the one that can most clearly be taken seriously. He's not from another planet, or filled with radioactive gunk. I mean, Superman is essentially a god, but Batman is more like Hercules: he's a human being, very flawed, and bridges the divide.
I sometimes think how strange it is that I've got to do exactly what I want, and that is difficult to cope with. You have to remind yourself every few weeks: I'm making this film and this is exactly what I want to do. And suddenly you're happy again.
I never considered myself a lucky person. I'm the most extraordinary pessimist. I truly am.
I think there has been this increasing misperception that kids will not respond to something because it's also for adults. I think that often that tends to get underestimated.
For the last 10 years, I've felt increasing pressure to stop shooting film and start shooting video, but I've never understood why. It's cheaper to work on film, it's far better looking, it's the technology that's been known and understood for a hundred years, and it's extremely reliable.
The problem with big films is they snowball very rapidly and you can never pull back. It's a pipeline that needs to be fed.
I'm taking a bit of a wait-and-see attitude towards 3D.
To be honest, I don't enjoy watching movies much when I'm working. They tend to fall apart on me a bit.
The best actors instinctively feel out what the other actors need, and they just accommodate it.
I have always been a huge fan of Ridley Scott and certainly when I was a kid. 'Alien,' 'Blade Runner' just blew me away because they created these extraordinary worlds that were just completely immersive. I was also an enormous Stanley Kubrick fan for similar reasons.
I've never read Joseph Campbell, and I don't know all that much about story archetypes.
Revenge is a particularly interesting concept, especially the notion of whether or not it exists outside of just an abstract idea.
I try not to have actors in mind when I write because the tendency then is to be influenced by either their last performance or your favourite of their performances.
One of the things you do as a writer and as a filmmaker is grasp for resonant symbols and imagery without necessarily fully understanding it yourself.
I have been interested in dreams, really since I was a kid. I have always been fascinated by the idea that your mind, when you are asleep, can create a world in a dream and you are perceiving it as though it really existed.
I've always been a movie guy, movies have been my thing. I love movies, all kinds of movies.
Batman and Superman are very different characters but they're both iconic and elemental. Finding the right story for them both is the key.
I've been interested in dreams since I as a kid and I've wanted to do a film about them for a long time.
But 'Memento' was so successful, such a huge cult hit, almost on the scale of a large film. If that had happened, with all the acclaim, before the next job, I'd have found it very difficult to figure out what to do next.
My approach with actors is to try and give them whatever it is they need from me. Direction to me is about listening and responding and realizing how much they need to know from me and how much they have figured out for themselves, really.
I'm very happy where 3-D is going, which is that it's becoming a choice - and thankfully, most people are still choosing 2-D.
I think there are advantages to different scales of filmmaking. You wouldn't want to do just one thing.
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