
Christopher Nolan: The power of people and why 2001 should be preschool viewing - walterbell
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/la-en-mn-christopher-nolan-20180104-htmlstory.html
======
vanderZwan
> _It’s become very fashionable in the last couple of decades to forget what
> good government can do, what good union organizing can do. The idea that
> benevolent capitalists will just take care of us and the people on top will
> magically distribute wealth and happiness and security to us little people …
> no. It’s time we wised up. Strength comes from community in all things.
> Dunkirk is one of those stories._

This reminds me of something that Hany Abu-Assad, a Dutch-Palestinian film
director[0], once said in an interview. He was asked how it is possible that
from countries like Iran, with its oppressive regime, we get such amazing
directors as Abbas Kiarostami, who created beautiful humanising movies. After
a brief moment of contemplation, Abu-Assad answered "society is stronger than
the system."

> _Would you say “Dunkirk” is your most hopeful film?_

> _Well … yeah. “Interstellar” is pretty hopeful. But then again, the whole
> world has ended. There is that. [Laughs]_

Funny how one can interpret that both as "doesn't sound very hopeful to me",
and "the more impossible the odds are that were overcome, the more hopeful the
message inherently is".

WARNING: INTERSTELLAR ENDING SPOILER BELOW

What makes Interstellar especially tricky here is that on the one hand, saving
humanity (and presumably as much other life as possible) from extinction _when
the entire planet is dying_ is about as big a challenge as it gets, and
therefore makes the film feel very hopeful, but on the other hand the ending
also implies that the universe is predeterministic, and that can be viewed as
the _opposite_ of hopeful.

[0]
[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009463/?ref_=tt_ov_dr](http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0009463/?ref_=tt_ov_dr)

~~~
amasad
How does the ending imply that the universe is predetermined? I might've
missed that.

(It's also not surprising if it did because it's modern scientific dogma that
the world is deterministic. Even if you take into account quantum uncertainty,
as Hawking points out, it is determined probabilities. ).

~~~
Cthulhu_
(moar Interstellar spoilers)

Well in the end of the movie it turns out that the future humans built the
tesseract (I believe it's called) and the wormhole, leading the humans to
survive and in the future built the tesseract and the wormhole, leading the
humans to survive and in the future built the tesseract and the wormhole...
you get the idea.

It's a time travel movie, and the whole thing becomes a paradox - if the
humans didn't survive they wouldn't have developed to be able to make
wormholes and time travel magic, but they did survive because of time travel
magic.

So which came first? It's a paradox. One explanation is that there was nothing
that actually came first but everything just happened as it should and there
was no other way it could've happened, thus, predetermination.

But yeah, time travel paradoxes, fun stuff.

~~~
throwaway7312
Cooper actually says "a people built this", not necessarily insisting it was
humans or descendants of humans (though that was my impression too the first
couple watch throughs).

The other thing to keep in mind is he does not actually have any way to know
who (or what) built the tesseract.

Just like how Brand earlier states the spacetime curvature hand she shakes
hands with is "the first handshake" (implying first contact with an
extraterrestrial), but it actually just turns out to be Cooper. The characters
are confident of things they think are right, without actually being totally
reliable narrators.

~~~
cgriswald
Well, that's... incorrect. Cooper actually says, "They're not 'beings.'
They're us," and later says, in response to TARS saying that people couldn't
build the tesseract, "No, not yet, but one day. Not you and me, but people." I
really don't see any wiggle room in the actual events for claiming Cooper
believes they are anything but human; or at least _beyond_ human. But he sees
them as an extension of humanity.

Whether Cooper is right may be an open question, but the film heavily implies
it. That 'first contact' turning out to be Cooper may be evidence of
wrongness, but we don't necessarily need that since we know the characters are
not omniscient, and in the context of the film it implies that there aren't
any aliens. There are also no signs of any other life, despite several
habitable planets. Frankly, the film doesn't even make sense if "aliens did
it"; any message of hopefulness about human spirit would fall apart.

------
RobertRoberts
I loved movies as a kid and I felt 2001 was such a classic I made my family
watch 2001 last year. (every kid should know what "Dave" refers to in a calm
computer voice) Here's the comment's I got.

"There sure is a lot of music"

"This looks like a computer game"

"Those are aliens!" (a blip of crystals in the sky during the transition for
Dave, little genius)

"They were happy about making tons of colors instead of a movie"

"They sure like red and green"

"Creepiest movie we've ever seen. It was boring, boring, boring, then scary."

"I should have known as soon as the monkeys, stupid, stupid." (from patient
wife)

(I wrote all these down right after the movie)

~~~
brazzledazzle
Whenever I get this reaction from my kids about something classic I feel
indignant but most of all I feel old. Changing tastes in pop, trends and
fashion can do that but the rejection of highly regarded things hurts the
most.

~~~
crispyambulance
2001 and most of Kubrick's other films are definitely part of "the canon" of
films that everyone who appreciates film as art should see. Unfortunately, you
can't just do a surprise screening of these films for your family or other
audiences and expect them to be receptive.

They will need to "discover" these things on their own. The best thing you can
do is to make sure they have opportunities to see this stuff and to talk it up
when possible.

One of the best pleasures of being a teen is discovering, on your own, how
rewarding a great film can be and developing "a taste" for films, music and
other aesthetic experiences. You simply can't force this stuff.

~~~
RobertRoberts
It wasn't a surprise screening. I had been talking about watching it as a
family for a few years. And my family enjoys movies that most simply do not.
One of my kid's friends all said interstellar was boring, and he loved it.
2001, I think, is just a bit long in the tooth. If it's redone (properly, shot
for shot, in the right spirit) with updated effects and sound, I think it
would be way more impactful for modern audiences. (the monkey suits really
require forced suspension of disbelief today, where in the past they did not)

I even explained the theory behind the movie, Dave ending up in an environment
he couldn't understand, like an animal in a zoo. We discussed this movie, it
wasn't a throwaway experience.

And to be blunt about Kubrik, he and the film makers were self indulgent in a
few places. Where it wasn't art, it was conceit.

~~~
jerf
"If it's redone (properly, shot for shot, in the right spirit) with updated
effects and sound, I think it would be way more impactful for modern
audiences."

Yeah, as much as some people would like to jump on us for being "uncultured"
if we say so, there have been certain unavoidable changes in the world that
fundamentally change how a modern person can't _help_ but see the movies. 2001
wants to send a message that this is a very high-tech world, and went to a lot
of effort to do so, and I'd say is certainly an integral part of the
foundation of that part of the movie. But how is my nine-year-old supposed to
get that on a _gut level_ when he turns off 2001, and picks up Mario Odyssey,
something that is in some sense literally millions of times more advanced than
the technology shown in the movie, and is real-time interactive to boot? The
context has fundamentally shifted.

Even I, growing up in a time and seeing it for the first time when at least
the difference was less glaringly obvious, can't help but now see a weird and
thoroughly unintentional disharmony between what the film is trying to portray
the world as, and what the images actually say to me now. It doesn't "ruin"
it, but it would be silly to claim that it is doesn't affect the movie
experience at all, either, when so many other similarly-sized details are
routinely understood to be important.

~~~
valuearb
2001 can never be remade. It’s a singular vision, and it’s photography is
still extraordinary, and it’s special effects still fine.

The weakest part was the hominid/monkey costumes. But in those scenes was also
the amazing shot of the leopard. A modern director gets you more realistic
hominids, burt you lose the amazing framing, coloring, and composition of the
leopard scene and a hundred others.

And the story is definitive. It says exactly what Kubrick and Clarke wanted it
to, no more, no less. There is no perspective a millennial can add to it
without utterly ruining it.

~~~
fjsolwmv
You are partly missing the point. 2001 was made for an audience that doesn't
exist anymore. If Kubrick somehow made the movie today, it would not look the
same,and possibly could be made to all. Not because "reeeeeee millennials",but
because it was a work of art made for a very specific time and place in
history.

~~~
mcguire
I dunno. Transhumanism and the singularity are a thing, and the AI that is
good and not trying to take over but nonetheless has poor consequences is
something they will be coming to newspaper headlines soon.

The only part that seems dated is that the future of humanity is outward
looking instead of innards. (Meant "inwards", but that one's pretty good,
Android.)

~~~
emodendroket
I mean the stewardesses on the space ship feel very much of the era the movie
was made, if I'm remembering it right.

------
nabla9
The inability of adults to get totally absorbed into experiencing a movie (or
a book) is a clear obstacle of enjoying the experience. Allowing the
experience to wash over you without analyzing it while experiencing gets
harder. Getting 3d or perfect reality virtual reality hardware is not going to
fix that.

If you can do it as an adult, 2001 is great and Inland Empire from David Lynch
is amazing. Inland Empire speaks directly to the unconsciousness and goes past
of any explanation. You walk out from the theater wondering what happened.
It's like you have been injected with something. The experience that lingers
has no explanation.

~~~
tootie
I've seen 2001 at least 10 times in my life and I love it to death, but I got
to see it in the theater once and it was like I'd never really experienced it
at all before. You can't appreciate the incredible sound design until it's
absolutely filling the air around you. Not just the music, but the klaxons and
the moments of dead silence.

~~~
icebraining
Yeap. Never had the chance to see 2001 in a theater, but I've watched
_Apocalypse Now_ after having seen it on a TV, and it was a whole new
experience. The helicopters scene was overwhelming.

~~~
arethuza
I saw Apocalypse Now in our high school film club when I was 16 in 1981/82 -
was completely blown away by the introduction.

------
padobson
_It’s about the idea of community, what we can achieve together, as opposed to
this cult of individuality that we live in right now. Whether you’re talking
about Silicon Valley billionaires or politicians, I think we’re living in an
era that over-prizes individuality at the expense of community._

This seems terribly relevant. And it's interesting coming from a director -
the leader of creative communities behind the camera while commercial success
often depends on the individual standing in front of it.

~~~
npsimons
> And it's interesting coming from a director

It's incredibly interesting to me, coming from _this_ director, as I class him
as one of the best, up there with Kubrick, and I also will discriminate on
movies based on directors and screenwriters more than any other factor,
because that's how I have found quality.

~~~
Helmet
This I disagree with. There is a sort of Nolan cult, which I think is
undeserved. He is a fine film-maker, but his dialogue is often stilted, the
scores overstated and the characters under-developed - and while he is a
decent cinematographer, his pictures aren't something that he will be
remembered for.

His films are good and incredibly entertaining, but Kubrick is on a completely
different plane.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
I suppose I'm in the cult. About the only complaint I can lodge against Nolan
is that the exposition is heavy handed in a few of his films, which he spoke
to in the article, and I agree he was forced into that position with the
intense story he's often trying to communicate in a film's runtime. He's also
not a cinematographer, and has generally worked with Wally Pfister or Hoyte
van Hoytema.

I would disagree if you're saying the cinematography won't be remembered; van
Hoytema's work on _Interstellar_ and _Dunkirk_ is something I remember quite
positively even while typing this comment. I would also disagree on character
development, as Nolan directed Robin Williams into one hell of an antagonist
in _Insomnia_ , a spectacularly underrated film.

~~~
aaron-lebo
His stories are often lazy, too. The notion of a magic machine that lets
everyone wifi and have dreams inside dreams inside dreams together is fun but
absurd. The same with the end of _Interstellar_. Too conveniently we've got a
magic wormhole which saves him and drops him a few feet away from a ship
around the ring of Saturn. The first half of TDK is incredible, the second is
very anti-climatic (maybe not his fault).

Check out anything by Roger Deakins for world class cinematography. Nolan is
just good. If you are looking for a director who people might one day consider
in the realm of Kubrick, Paul Thomas Anderson might fit it, but he's got a lot
of "weird" movies (even his masterpieces) which don't give him the same wide
appeal. [0]

Williams was great in just about anything he was ever in, I wouldn't attribute
that to Nolan. The greatest directors elevate their actors (see the crazy
stories about Kubrick and The Shining). Nolan works with great talent, but the
performances often leave a lot to be desired, this is uncontested even by
fans.

Nolan makes movies with interesting themes and he never really does anything
bad. But for him to be even be discussed in the same thread as Kubrick shows
how overrated he is. I say this owning _Interstellar_ (the teaser gives me
chills) and I thought Dunkirk was great simply because he toned it down and
worked within something realistic. Given 20 years and a _Jurassic Park_ , we
might see Nolan the same way we do Spielberg today, but Kubrick? Forget about
it!

[https://www.theringer.com/movies/2017/12/22/16809404/there-w...](https://www.theringer.com/movies/2017/12/22/16809404/there-
will-be-blood-paul-thomas-anderson-10-years-daniel-day-lewis)

~~~
jsmthrowaway
> Williams was great in just about anything he was ever in, I wouldn't
> attribute that to Nolan.

I don't know, I might. You don't even see Finch for half the film, only hear
him, and the villain left an impression on me not unlike Kiefer Sutherland's
villain in _Phone Booth_ (an otherwise unremarkable film). I can't think of
another villain role that Robin Williams performed, probably because nobody
was brave enough to take that kind of risk with a heavyweight positive actor
-- _Insomnia_ came out a few years after _Good Will Hunting_ and _Dead Poets
Society_ , which helped establish his mastery of drama, but nobody wanted to
make him the bad guy. Nolan did, and it was very satisfying to watch.

(I take that back, _One Hour Photo_ was great, too. I knew I was forgetting
one.)

~~~
aaron-lebo
Check out _One Hour Photo_ for villainous and creepy Williams. Mostly it's
impressive how many weird roles he was willing to put himself in.

I don't recall seeing _Insomnia_. I'll have to, thanks!

------
gallerdude
I think Christopher Nolan is the best all-around modern director. His movies
are huge critical hits: most of them are in the IMDb Top 250 (most directors
would be happy to have one film up there). His films are also huge box-office
hits, which means that the audience, not just movie nerds, like his movies.

I think the distribution for films is bimodal, one huge peak for box-
office/mass-appeal hits, and another smaller peak for critical hits/film-nerd-
appeal hits.

Nolan would be right in the center between these two distributions: he pushes
cinema forward while keeping it accessible to all.

~~~
icebraining
IMDB isn't really a good meter of critical opinion, its score is based on the
opinion of its users. Rotten Tomatoes is the one that aggregates opinions of
the critics. That said, his movies usually get 80%+, which is pretty good.

~~~
nasredin
RT has some questionable ratings.

On some new movies the rating is very high, but it goes down sharply.

IIRC one of the Fast and the Furious "movies" had a stupidly high rating,
which is now more sane.

[https://www.rottentomatoes.com/franchise/the_fast_and_the_fu...](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/franchise/the_fast_and_the_furious/)

IMDB seems to suffer from this less.

The only useful thing on RT is their one line blurb.

~~~
icebraining
Are you seeing the main rating (the Tomatometer) or the average? The
Tomatometer is just the ratio of ratings over 50%, not an average of the
ratings.

If you see Furious 7, for example, it has a Tomatometer rating of 80%, but the
average is just 6.6/10.

(Note: you have to open the movie page to see the average rating)

------
teh_klev
I love Nolan's films, the first one I saw was Memento when it came out. I was
quite blown away.

Interstellar is (by a country mile) the film that really does it for me, and
is the one I'll watch two or three times a year. The strange thing about
Interstellar is that after having watched it the first couple of times, every
subsequent viewing gets me fairly emotional. I never ever shed tears when
watching films, and I've seen a lot of movies in my 51 or so years on this
planet, but this is the one that gets me welling up inside and a bit teary
eyed. So well done Mr Nolan you've managed to crack a fairly hard (film) nut.

~~~
eduren
INTERSTELLAR SPOILERS

The scene where Cooper comes back from the time-dilated planet and has years
of messages to catch up on really makes me emotional. McConaughey really kills
it in this movie.

~~~
teh_klev
Jeez that scene is truly heart wrenching. I wasn't awfully keen on McConaughey
films previously, but you're right, there's something about this role where he
knocks it out of the park. I then watched Dallas Buyers club, he nails that as
well.

~~~
eduren
Watch True Detective Season 1 if you haven't already. McConaughey and Woody
Harrelson both put on amazing performances.

~~~
teh_klev
Yeah, I forgot to mention I watched that as well; really, really top notch
viewing.

------
indubitable
> _That’s outstanding. And that’s the thing. It’s become very fashionable in
> the last couple of decades to forget what good government can do, what good
> union organizing can do._

In my opinion this is missing the problem. Government, in a democracy, is
decided by the masses. I think people, as individuals, are generally quite
intelligent. But I also think people, as groups, are quite stupid. Mob
mentality is very much a real phenomena and it's something we've not come even
remotely close to growing out of. Similarly for tribalism.

In the instance he's referring to ( _film critics associations boycotted
Disney after Disney blacklisted writers from an influential publication,
leading Disney to rescind the blacklisting_ ) you had a very small and very
well informed demographic working together. That has very little to do with
the democratic process. Most people do not know much about any given topic,
and so when you query the masses on anything the majority opinion is going to
be heavily influenced by marketing and 'propaganda.' What people do or think
is not really based on reality, but who presented their argument in the
glossiest case.

So to bring this theoretic into the practical. Imagine you ask people about a
certain hotkey issue, in most recent times perhaps it would be Trump's tax
plan. Many people would have extremely strong opinions one way or the other.
Now ask people to actually describe, without handwaving, what the plan
actually was. People, for the most part, are going to be completely ignorant.
We, collectively, form strong decisions about things we don't even know the
basic fundamentals of!

I don't know how this can change in practical terms. It's the nature of a
democracy. But that just kicks the can to another problem. If we can't come to
informed decisions on an individual policy, how are we supposed to be expected
to come to informed decisions on candidates using every resource available to
make us believe that they are who we, collectively, want in office? As tools
and technologies for directing the masses in one way or another become ever
more effective, this disconnect between reality and mass opinion is only going
to increase.

------
JohnBooty
2001 is the most polarizing movie I've ever experienced. People either
absolutely love it or hate it.

Except my wife. My wife may be the only human being on Earth to not feel one
way or the other about it.

(I absolutely love the movie, but I'm not going to argue with you if you find
it a bore. I totally get why some would feel that way)

~~~
pjc50
It's visually beautiful, ahead of its time, but the pacing makes it extremely
hard to watch today.

~~~
kbouck
I feel the pacing, particularly in the HAL scene with long pauses between
words, dramatically builds up the suspense.

~~~
mmjaa
I agree with you, but then I think the same can be said of movies such as
"Close Encounters of the Third Kind", wherein the pacing was awesome back in
the day, when you had to actually be somewhere to watch a movie, but now when
everyone can stream to their own private space, 'tis a bigger challenge. I
watch a lot of 70's movies with this slow, boring pace ..

~~~
dragonwriter
That's probably not primarily a factor of needing to be somewhere to watch a
movie as much as it's a factor of changing expectations set by other media:
the effect was frequently commented on as early as the 1980s, and widely
attributed to, among other media factors, the impact of MTV and music videos.

~~~
WorldMaker
I've also seen it commonly attributed to Star Wars. Star Wars, for better or
worse, completely and almost single-handedly changed the pacing of sci-fi
movies in the 70s. You can almost spot Star Wars as a line in the sand and
tell which sci-fi films predate it, which postdate it, and which got stuck
being released too close for comfort (the multiple editing cut fiascos of
Blade Runner and Star Trek: The Motion Picture seem to be in part due to the
pull of pre-Star Wars pacing versus changing film audience expectations).

------
arethuza
_" I understand you showed “2001” to your children when they were very young,
like 3 or 4?"_

That makes me feel better about my son seeing "Return of the King" 6 times in
the cinema when he was 5.

Mind you - he does now want to become a movie director... :-)

------
debacle
Many people can't handle the pacing of older sci-fi movies. I remember
watching the Andromeda Strain with my wife when we were teenagers. She said it
was the most boring movie she had ever seen.

~~~
ajmurmann
That is completely true and at the same time terrifying. What does that say
about how our brains have changed? Maybe it's not a problem, but if it is a
problem I'm afraid it might be a big one.

~~~
debacle
I think it's a conditioning thing. I don't like some modern movies because it
seems like every scene is meant to be a money shot. You have to build
atmosphere to tell a story.

------
pjc50
Interesting on _Dunkirk_ ; I was skeptical of why someone would make a war
film in the present day, but it sounds like his intention in expressing what
it means to people is good.

On this subject previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15004843](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15004843)
, me Britsplaining the meaning of Dunkirk.

------
TausAmmer
I would say that my childhood would be lost if it was not for the fact that I
did not had any TV. Or more correct to say is that children now do not have
childhood as people had 30 years ago.

Rarely you will see someone who know the trill of climbing 40m high tree(age
of 7). Swimming in lake while thunderstorm rages around you. Grabbing red coal
with hand. Eating baked stolen potatoes in middle of forest where you got
lost. Making an failure of bow to hunt. Starting a fire, then living the
consequences. Giving no shits about drama and other people's feelings. Slicing
up toad to see what is inside. Running from crazy animals. Crossing the
voltage wires for shits and giggles. No child died in our village from these
bullshits, just got smarter.

Movie will do that for you and tell you how to feel. They will provide you
with fake imagination and experience.

~~~
icebraining
We're awake for over 5400 hours each year. There's time to defy death and
still watch a 30m TV show after dinner.

------
kaycebasques
> It’s about the idea of community, what we can achieve together, as opposed
> to this cult of individuality that we live in right now. Whether you’re
> talking about Silicon Valley billionaires or politicians, I think we’re
> living in an era that over-prizes individuality at the expense of community.
> It’s the Silicon Valley billionaire as opposed to the union. We’ve steered
> too far in one direction. We need to be reminded of the potential of what we
> can do together.

Said the universally-acclaimed multi-millionaire Hollywood blockbuster
director in his interview for LA Times

That said though, I like the message and also respect the man and his work.
That just struck me as a little hypocritical :) although as a storyteller I
suppose he is in a position to change narratives like that

------
dboreham
I thought the headline was confusing and hard to parse, and sure enough when I
click through to tfa I see "2001" is quoted. Strictly, the film is titled
"2001: A Space Odyssey".

------
fongelias
I wonder what he hopes his children will take from it. I know he says its just
something you experience, but there is also a lot of meaning behind the movie,
and I wonder if he saw something specific in it that he believes is a valuable
lesson for his children at 3-4

~~~
waivek
he wants his kids to be astronauts and they say no because they know it annoys
him lol

------
wufufufu
My problem with Dunkirk was all the stranded and starving soldiers looked like
Versace models with fresh 2018 haircuts and Burberry topcoats.

------
pvsukale3
Christopher Nolan is the Elon Musk of hollywood except he completes his
projects in time.

~~~
brynjolf
Wow what an insult to Nolan. Why would you hate on him like that?

~~~
touristtam
How do you infer insult from this remark?

~~~
misnome
I suspect it depends on whether you view Musk as an unparalleled world-
changing genius, just a good businessman with an instinct for good fields to
invest combined with a talent for hiring the right smart people, or an
overhyped hack who got lucky (anecdotally my personal feeling is that most
people on HN seem to fall into these categories with ratio 5:1:3)

Either of the last two could conceivably be considered an insult given the
difference in jobs, and creativity and control inherent in the task of
directing.

