Christopher Nolan

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 February 2018

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

Christopher Nolan is best known for reviving the Batman film franchise and for directing the blockbusters Inception and Dunkirk. His films have taken nearly $5 billion at the box office. Born in London in 1970 to an English father and an American mother, he discovered film-making at the age of seven. In what he describes as "a leap of faith", his father lent him his Super 8 camera - and he's not stopped making films since. From youthful experiments, manipulating his action figures and shooting stop motion animations, he progressed to making short films at university where he read English - although he spent more time at University College London's Bloomsbury Theatre, home to the film society, than the lecture theatre. His first feature film, Following, had enough festival exposure and critical success to secure him his first official budget of $4.5 million to make his next film, Memento. In 2005 he was hailed for reinventing the Caped Crusader in the dark and gritty Batman Begins. He regularly works with the same actors and production team including his long-time producer, his wife, Emma Thomas. The couple's latest film, Dunkirk, is nominated in the best picture category of the Oscars this year and Christopher has a nomination for Best Director. Presenter: Kirsty Young Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is the BBC.
0:30.0	Hello, I'm Christy Young.
0:32.0	Welcome to Desert Island Discs where every week I ask my guest to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.
0:43.0	For rights reasons, the music on these podcast versions is shorter than in the original broadcast.
0:49.0	You can find over 2,000 more editions to listen to and download on the Desert Island Discs website.
1:01.0	Music
1:17.0	My cast away this week is the filmmaker Christopher Nolan.
1:21.0	If it's cinematic spectacle year after he's most certain of your man, proving time and time again that there is such a thing as a credible blockbuster.
1:30.0	From his Batman trilogy to interstellar to Dunkirk, his movies revel in scale, existential angst and intricate interplays with the nature of time.
1:41.0	He made his first feature film on a shoestring budget of £3000.
1:44.0	These days that would barely cover the catering bill for the crew's lunch.
1:48.0	The Dark Knight rises, reputedly cost $250 million to make and took over a billion at the box office, mind boggling amounts that have cemented his status as a true tinsel town titan.
2:01.0	But here's the thing.
2:03.0	The way he makes those movies seems curiously cosy.
2:08.0	He bashes out a one-page synopsis on an ancient manual typewriter, often going on to write the screenplays with his brother.
2:15.0	His wife's his producer, and he has been known to personally handle the scripts to the doorsteps of movie legends.
2:21.0	Add to that the scurrilous rumor that he often finishes films ahead of time and under budget.
2:27.0	And he scarcely seems very Hollywood at all.
2:30.0	He says simply as a director, I try to show people things they've never seen before.
2:35.0	So he just did that, Christopher Nolan.
2:37.0	I wonder then about this idea of watching the unfamiliar and yet it helps us to understand more about what is familiar to us.
2:47.0	Why do you choose to do things that way around?
	...

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