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.

‘People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy,’ said Bruce Wayne before he turned Batman. And just like his caped superhero, Christopher Nolan swooped down on Mumbai to dispel the dark clouds looming over celluloid. In an exclusive chat with Mohua Das, the filmmaker, who has been crusading to save film in the time of digital, spoke about going against industry trends and reconciling the past with the future
Mohua Das (THE TIMES OF INDIA; April 1, 2018)

Why was it important for you to make India your next destination after Los Angeles, London and Mexico in your crusade to bring back celluloid?
India has the largest film industry in the world. People care about movies here more than anywhere else. In this conversation we’ve been having to promote the use of film, India has to be a very, very important part, if this movement has to take root. And I will say that I think this is the most enthusiastic response we’ve had.

You’ve shot Dunkirk on film, and there is also Quentin Tarantino who uses analog. But India is yet to see the analog resurgence that Hollywood is witnessing. Were there certain fears or myths that surfaced from your roundtable with the Indian film fraternity?
A lot of the point of these events is to dispel myths. We’ve spent the last few years patiently explaining that film is here to stay, that it’s a wonderful medium. There’s a myth that the infrastructure to shoot on film has disappeared. But you drill down on that a bit and ask where has it gone? Did it vapourise? It was here just a few years ago. Our message is to try and give filmmakers a vocabulary and the power that if they feel they can ask to shoot on film. That it’s not inappropriate in today’s day and age. It’s an artistic choice.

Make it, go for it and insist on it if that is what you want. People like Tacita (Dean, visual artist and ally in his film campaign) who is a very established artist and myself, a very established filmmaker — we have the power to insist on what we want and we try to spread that around, and encourage other people to do that. It doesn’t seem like an irresponsible choice or a crazy thing to say. We’re asserting a basic creative right. And we try to normalise that dialogue because no one really dares to tell Tacita whether to paint in watercolour or oil and they shouldn’t be telling a filmmaker whether they should shoot on film. That should be the creative person’s choice. We have to get rid of this notion that digital is a pragmatic or responsible choice. Films aren’t about pragmatism. They’re about dreams and storytelling. We need to be free to express ourselves in whatever way is most exciting.

You’ve championed film against industry trends. How do you marry creative license with commercial constraints? Do you have to struggle to convince the studios each time or does being a brand name help?
It’s gotten easier for me over the years. But the truth is, making any film in any way is extremely difficult, particularly when you’re starting out. There are all kind of hurdles you have to overcome and so shooting on film is just a part of that. If it’s the right thing to do for a project, then it’s worth fighting for. It’s too fundamental to why you want to be a filmmaker as opposed to a TV show maker or a painter. My narrative features the moving image and the way I shoot that image is its fundamental essence. I won’t compromise on it. But the idea that, ‘oh, I have the power to do it, therefore, I can do it and that makes a special case’ is not valid.

Truth is, what I’m doing with my films is something anybody could be doing and there are very small filmmakers working on celluloid. Like Sean Baker who made The Florida Project. Very inexpensive, and working on another end of the spectrum. Film is timeless, and there to be used for storytelling.

You’ve said in the past that you like to use the best technology and look at the future. At the same time you’re passionate about the aesthetic and historical possibilities of a form past its heyday. How do you reconcile the past with the future? Is this a way of life for you?
It’s definitely a way of life, and my point is the timelessness of the medium. It’s like clay. When you sculpt from clay, it doesn’t have a heyday. It just is! It effortlessly reconciles the past with the present and future. It’s a medium that can be used in any way you want, forever. That’s what film is. It’s got 100 years of history.

(Above) Satyajit Ray wields his 35mm film camera on actor Utpal Dutt; (Right) Christopher Nolan shot his Oscar-winning Dunkirk on a 65mm film camera

Old School Film Scores Over Digital Tech In Aesthetics, Preservation & Discipline
Mohua Das (THE TIMES OF INDIA; March 25, 2018)

Ravi K Chandran seems a little wound up. The ace cinematographer is contemplating the shifting sands of the film industry — particularly the relentless feed of new digital film formats. “All this change in technology every few days has enabled new possibilities. Anyone can film anything anytime at the press of a button,” he says, “but there is a difference, the kind you can sense between home-cooked food and fast food or between a Rembrandt oil painting and its digital printout.”

K U Mohanan, who wowed cinegoers with his camerawork in Don, Talaash and Miss Lovely, reminisces about the old-fashioned reel-to-reel film he used since he picked up his first camera as a student at FTII in Pune. “There’s romance, magic and something natural in the image captured on film.”

You hear such musings quite often in Bollywood these days. For more than a century, their world was ruled by celluloid—the medium on which movies were shot, processed and projected in theatres until about a decade ago when the digital wave turned grains into pixels.

Cans and reels have since been replaced by hard drives and digital files; while classic hallmarks of cinema-grains, flicker, and drone of the projector—are rapidly becoming antique.

The Indian film industry, whose cinematic heritage of 135 years is based entirely on analogue prints, witnessed a digital revolution in the past decade with 85% of films going digital in 2012. It was the same year that Prasad Film Laboratories, the largest chain of post-production facilities in India, shut its celluloid-processing units and rebranded itself as a pioneer in digital services. Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection and Fuji stopped selling negatives and 35mm film stock. Today, India is among the first few countries to have completely broken away from its analogue past.

What changed was not only the making but also showcasing. Instead of lugging around kilos of film cans across halls, they could be transferred to a disk or wirelessly. New releases could hit hundreds of screens at a go and enter the Rs 100-crore club while independent filmmakers could afford small-budget films. Digital tools made risk-taking easier in terms of techniques and touching up scenes.

Yet, senior cinematographers are almost desperate now to bring celluloid back. Sudeep Chatterjee, the man behind the lens for films such as Padmaavat, Bajirao Mastani and Dhoom 3, is not anti-digital. But he says film—his “favourite medium”—should be an available choice. “Today there are digital interventions—graphics and visual effects—at every level. But not every movie requires it. In such cases, why shouldn’t film be available?”

“In India, we’ve never had a culture of preserving our past while leaping on to something new. Age-old cameras, scanning machines and projectors are being junked. Big companies such as Arriflex have stopped making film cameras. It’s unfair for India to discard its time-honoured format for something still in its infancy,” says Mohanan.

Chandran, known for his visual metaphors in Tamil and Hindi films such as Kandukondain Kandukondain, Yuva and Dil Chahta Hai, talks about aspects of traditional film that a digital one would not be able to recreate. “Film is a chemical process in which light enters the lens and hits the negative. The chemical reaction creates rich hues, light and shade dynamics, and dreamy textures that go missing in digitally regimented visuals.” These lensmen also believe that limited film stock breeds discipline and rigour on the sets. “The sanctity of a shot is gone when one knows they can indulge in a flurry of takes,” adds Chatterjee.

Archival durability in the time of constant upgrade cycles is another growing concern. “Something stored on your floppy disk cannot be played anywhere anymore; 1K and 2K cameras have no value now while film format cameras from the black-and-white age can still be used,” says Chandran.

Anyone who has ever suffered the heartbreak of a hard drive crash or tried to watch home videos recorded in a now obsolete device knows of the dark side to digital storage. In two reports titled The Digital Dilemma published successively in 2007 and 2012, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences raised concerns about the longevity of digital material. Although archives surveyed for the reports showed that unlike traditional motion picture film stock that can be stored at proper temperatures and humidity, long-term preservation mechanisms to maintain access to digital content for 100 years or longer had not yet been developed.

This perhaps explains why some reactionaries are gearing up to preserve celluloid in India steered by filmmaker and archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur who set up the Film Heritage Foundation in 2014 to protect India’s decaying film heritage. Dungarpur’s efforts and the cinematographers’ wish might get a shot in the arm given that Hollywood stalwart Christopher Nolan is making overtures to the country’s film fraternity.

After bringing together professionals from art, film preservation and cinema to discuss steps needed to protect the medium of film and reposition its importance in an aggressive digital market in Los Angeles, London and Mexico City, Nolan and Tacita Dean, visual artist and founder of Save Film, a movement petitioning Unesco to safeguard the medium of film will be in Mumbai next weekend to dwell on the need to preserve photochemical film and keep it available for future generations. “Getting rid of celluloid is like getting rid of the grandmother. It’s not about choosing one above another but the need to co-exist. Hopefully, Nolan and Tacita, who wrote to me wanting to come and support our film heritage will draw our industry’s attention,” says Dungarpur, just back from a rescue mission of resuscitating 30,000 film reels in Sri Lanka. “This was possible because of the stability celluloid has achieved since 1895 when the Lumiere Brothers showed the first film.”

Celluloid is staging a comeback in Hollywood; some of the nominees at this year’s Oscars—Dunkirk, Phantom Thread, The Post, I, Tonya, and Call Me By Your Name— were mainly shot on film, not digital cameras. “I’m so glad that veterans such as Nolan, Steven Spielberg and Quentin Tarantino are sticking to film. I wish we could do the same here,” says Chandran.

Filmmaker-archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur hopes to draw attention to the importance of celluloid by screening Christopher Nolan’s most recent magnum opus in 18K next week
Kunal Guha (MUMBAI MIRROR; March 23, 2018)

Christopher Nolan designed Dunkirk with IMAX in mind — capturing a large portion of the film with IMAX 15 perforation/65mm film cameras, the highest-resolution cameras in the world. And the screening of the film, presented by Nolan himself at Carnival Cinemas IMAX, Wadala, on March 31 as part of the fourth ‘Reframing the Future of Film’ hosted by Film Heritage Foundation in India, will offer the very experience he envisioned. “In India, we have come from 70mm films such as Sholay and Razia Sultan which had five perforations. But the camera which Chris (Nolan) shot with has 15 perforations. He is giving you 18K instead of 4K. It is an opportunity to watch Dunkirk in the resolution the director intended to be experienced,” explains Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Director, Film Heritage Foundation.

For this unique screening, IMAX Wadala will be outfitted with an IMAX 70mm film projection system for which the projectors are presently being refurbished. Nolan’s Interstellar will also be screened the same day at the art-deco theatre Liberty Cinemas and the film’s print is currently being shipped from Philippines by Warner Bros Pictures. “Nolan will be present for both screenings. After presenting Dunkirk at 6 pm, he will be at Liberty for the 9 pm show of Interstellar,” informs Dungarpur, excitedly showing a photograph of the 265kg delivery he recently received from Warner Bros Pictures — the film reels of the British filmmaker’s latest blockbuster. In an official statement, Nolan said, “The opportunity of showing Dunkirk on 70mm IMAX film, the way it was originally shot, gives us an exciting way to engage the Indian film industry in an exploration of the distinctive qualities of this universal medium.”

On the first day of the three-day event, visual artist Tacita Dean will speak at the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum on how celluloid film can be placed in spaces such as museums. “If you look at statistics, till 2014, we were still censoring on celluloid. Celluloid isn’t a thing of the past and several regional films continue to be shot on it,” says Dungarpur, adding that there will also be a discussion on setting criteria for best practices in film preservation on the second day.

A roundtable has been organised where Nolan and Dean will address 35 industry biggies such as Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Kamal Hassan, Mani Ratnam, along with cinema exhibiters such as Ajay Bijli of PVR Cinemas, museum heads like Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Tasneem Mehta and cinematographers like Sudeep Chatterjee and Santosh Sivan.

On the third day, a public forum will be held at NCPA in Mumbai where Dungarpur will be in conversation with Nolan and Dean about reframing the future of film. “It will be a dialogue on how celluloid can co-exist with digital, various challenges of working with celluloid films and why it is important to preserve them,” adds Dungarpur.

Speaking of the dialogue he intends to lead, Nolan added, “Tacita Dean and I are thrilled to be bringing our discussion about the future of photo-chemical film to one of the most passionate and vital centres of film production in India.”

Some of the issues to be covered at the forum include reimagining films as a medium rather than technology, strategies for the co-existence of film in the digital age, the need to invest in future photochemical research and development, strategies to encourage film projection in festivals, getting distributors to lend prints to cinemas and museums that are purely digital, among others. “We need to make good film projection a cultural and financial asset by reinventing it as an experience. This has been recently successfully achieved by the 70mm projection,” adds Dungarpur.


The film reels weighing 265 kg delivered by Warner Bros Pictures for the screening

A round table with Indian cinema’s biggies like Amitabh Bachchan and Kamal Haasan, 70mm screening of Dunkirk and a discussion on film preservation are on the cards...
Renuka Vyavahare (BOMBAY TIMES; March 21, 2018)

Christopher Nolan will be in India soon. Accompanied by his wife, film producer Emma Thomas, the Oscar-winning director-screenwriter and one of the most critically and commercially-acclaimed filmmakers of our time, known for his distinctive cinematic style (Dunkirk, Inception, Interstellar, The Dark Knight trilogy, The Prestige and Memento), will arrive in the city on March 29 and be here till April 1. On March 30, there will be a private dinner hosted in his honour. After completing his work commitments, he will head to an undisclosed destination in India to explore the country. To those unaware, Nolan had shot a key sequence of The Dark Knight Rises in Jodhpur.

PURPOSE OF THE VISIT
Nolan’s primary reason for making this much-awaited visit is his passion for shooting on film. One of the strongest voices to advocate the necessity of using film over digital technology and preserving the photochemical film in the digital age, Nolan and visual artist Tacita Dean along with the Film Heritage Foundation, founded by filmmaker Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, will present ‘Reframing The Future Of Film’, a global initiative that supports the cause of film preservation. Directors like Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson, Quentin Tarantino and many others swear by the traditional 70mm (wide high-resolution film gauge that was once used to make classics like Lawrence Of Arabia, 1962). In an earlier interview, the director had said, “I have been a long-time proponent of film – particularly the IMAX film format — as a storytelling medium. The immersive quality of the image is second to none, drawing the audience into the action in the most intense way possible.”

INDIAN ACTORS AND ARTISTES IN ATTENDANCE
Around 35 renowned Indian artistes and influencers from the world of cinema, art and preservation will meet Nolan and Tacita on March 31. Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Kamal Haasan, Mani Ratnam, Farhan Akhtar, Anurag Kashyap, Shyam Benegal and Santosh Sivan, to name a few, will have an elaborate two-hour discussion with the Dunkirk director. Shah Rukh Khan is also likely to be a part of this gathering.

NOT PURSUING NOLAN!
Interestingly, contrary to popular belief, both Nolan and Tacita were not pursued by Shivendra; it was the other way round. Nolan’s team wrote to the Indian filmmaker about how they wanted to support his cause of preserving the film in the digital era. Shivendra reveals, “It’s an honour that Christopher Nolan and Tacita chose and acknowledged the work of our foundation. This will help more people to join in and support the cause.” Sources claim that the British filmmaker hasn’t charged a penny for himself or his entourage, if any. Meanwhile, Nolan said in a statement, “India has such wonderful cinema and rich history of art that everything needs to be done not only to encourage its proper preservation for future generations, but also to reintroduce the film medium to the younger artistes and filmmakers in the country.”

SPECIAL SCREENING OF DUNKIRK
Nolan will be present to introduce the special 70 mm IMAX film screening of the Academy Award-winning film Dunkirk in Mumbai for the first time. Special arrangements have been made to refit 70 mm projectors and the screen, and to ship the print to India from the US, especially for this onetime screening.

MUMBAI MIRROR (January 13, 2018)

Filmmaker-archivist Shivendra Dungarpur, founder of the Film Heritage Foundation that recently acquired material from Shyam Benegal’s cinematic oeuvre, is now gearing up to host filmmaker Christopher Nolan and visual artist Tacita Dean in Mumbai.

The acclaimed duo will be in Mumbai on March 31 to headline ‘Reframing the Future of Film’, a two-part event that will feature a private roundtable discussion and a separate public event. Aimed at highlighting the necessity of preserving photo-chemical film in the digital age, the event had first brought Nolan and Dean together at the Getty Museum of Los Angeles in 2015 at its launch. Subsequent editions have been held at the Tate Modern in collaboration with the British Film Institute at the London Film Festival and Museo Tamayo in Mexico City.

“India has such wonderful cinema and such a rich history of art that everything needs to be done, beyond just encouraging its proper preservation for future generations but also to re-introduce the film medium to the younger artistes and filmmakers in the country,” Nolan said, while Dean reiterated, “We need to keep the medium distinct from the technology; we need to keep the choice of film available to filmmakers, artistes and audiences.”

In the course of the event, Nolan and Dean with discuss the importance and differences of shooting on film and why it is essential to keep the medium available to future generations. “Since our inception, we have been talking of film as a shooting, exhibition and archival medium. It has been a lone battle and finally have the support of two leading film exponents in the world,” Shivendra added.