An interaction with the filmmaker, who is revered by cinephiles across the globe. Christopher Nolan talks about cinema, celluloid and his choices in filmmaking
Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; April 2, 2018)

Chris Chris, Nolan Nolan… diehard fans chanted this slogan in unison, (an ode to his Dark Knight trilogy) at the special Mumbai screening of Dunkirk (in IMAX 70 mm) on Saturday. As the sounds echoed in the theatre, the much-acclaimed director remained calm and collected. He playfully pointed out that the screening got sold out also because ‘it is a good film’.

The British filmmaker Nolan loosely reminds you of a more casual version of Daniel Day-Lewis’ Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread — a genius singularly focused on his job, avoiding any sort of distraction. You can sense his simmering impatience underneath a Zen-like exterior. Stalwarts like Kamal Haasan, Shah Rukh Khan, A R Rahman and Rajkumar Hirani all thronged to meet the filmmaker and that just speaks volumes about his popularity in India.

Nolan’s extreme focus in times of digital clutter is noteworthy and perhaps explains why he doesn’t use a cell phone even today. Films like Inception, Interstellar, The Dark Knight trilogy and the latest Dunkirk, are just a reflection of his passion for the craft and his ability to bring an uncanny psychological depth to the stories he tells. He awed the audience during his first press interaction in India, held in Mumbai for film preservation and restoration, a common cause supported by Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, filmmaker and founder of the Film Heritage Foundation.

Nolan has been a strong advocate of celluloid along with filmmaking giants like Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson, JJ Abrams, to name a few.

While sipping on his must have (Earl Grey) tea at regular intervals, he explains why the choice of shooting on film should be made available to filmmakers. Whether they then choose analogue or digital depends on how they want to tell their story but they cannot be denied the right to choose. Excerpts from an insightful conversation...

You don’t use a cell phone or even an email. Will we see that changing since we live in a digital age and social media is big, today?
This way I don’t have to worry about my Facebook data (smiles). I am not interested in that side of life actually. We may live in a digital age, but we live in an analogue world. One of the things we all love about celluloid film is that it’s a very good analogy for, the way I see it, having a relationship with real life. Digital doesn’t have that. So analogue remains a powerful storytelling tool. I don’t have a cell phone but I don’t think that is relevant to my choice of medium, they are two different questions. One of the problems with digital semantics, which Tacita (Dean) and I talked about a lot, is that the word digital is essentially meaningless at this point in our culture. What does that even mean? It’s used to describe everything, and everything uses digital technology. My films use massive amounts of digital technology. Tacita in her presentation yesterday, talked about how she uses digital technology to make the masks that go into her camera, that then allows her to do multiple exposures on celluloid films. We all use digital in this and in that, but it doesn’t really mean anything.

Not everyone who watches movies might have the ability to tell the difference between film and digital format. How would you explain this to a common man?
Well, this question is always asked in an invalid way because you ask people to quantify something that they are not technically knowledgeable enough to quantify. The point isn’t that you can or cannot tell the difference between film print and digital. The point is what do you enjoy watching? Those of us who work in the filmmaking profession see different formats every day, most of the people I talk to fully understand it. You just enjoy watching a film print more. It’s more emotionally involving, fun to watch, immersive and nicer to look at. So trying to apply rigorous technical logic to it is beside the point. That thought is often used by people promoting digital technology, they say that people can’t really tell the difference.

Quentin Tarantino said in an interview that, “If I can’t shoot on film, I will stop making movies.” He even described the digital projection at Cannes as the ‘death of cinema’. Do you share that sentiment?
It’s more important for me to present myself as a practical filmmaker, more than what I think, Quentin cares about. But the reality is, he told me the very same thing several years ago and when I heard it, I realised that it would be very difficult for me as well, to muster any enthusiasm for getting up early in the morning and going to work if there wasn’t a real film camera on the set.

You are considered to be a traditionalist who continues to support film as an art form, while your movies are quite futuristic. How do you deal with the two contrasting thought processes?
I am not alone in this endeavour. There are various allies and tremendous filmmakers who love to shoot on film. Film is a medium. It’s a way of telling a story. You can use it for whatever you want it for. For example, in Dunkirk we tried to tell a story in an ambitious and different way using interesting structural techniques, so that’s also relevant. Traditionalist in terms of working methodology? To me that is a technical question, it’s not an artistic question.

Steven Spielberg made a political statement through his movie The Post. Do you also feel the need to do the same in the Donald Trump era, since you are also a powerful filmmaker in Hollywood?
No, I am more instinctive in my choices. I just make a story that grabs me.

How familiar are you with Indian cinema?
I have watched some Indian films, not enough though. I have enjoyed whatever I have seen. I intend to watch and discover more. This was part of the reason why I wanted to come here. I wanted to meet people from the Indian film industry, which is one of the biggest film cultures in the world and I am excited for it. We were in India before, very briefly to shoot The Dark Knight Rises and it’s exciting to be back and to be able to spend more time here.