Hi, this is Mark Kermode. Thanks to learning this Kermod on film podcast or indeed watching us on

YouTube. We are here upstairs at the Sun Pub in London's bustling West End. I'm joined once again by

Jack Howard. Hello there. This is part two of our ongoing discussion about Christopher Nolan.

We can't do it all in one or two. So there's going to be many parts to this, but this is this

part.

So picking up where we left off last time, we were having a discussion about whether or not there are themes of Christopher Nolan's films that always managed to rise above the mechanics.

And I was saying that for me, my favourite Christopher Nolan films are films that hit me on

an emotional level,

particularly prestige, but I understand why it is that Interstellar has worked.

You raised a very interesting point that Interstellar is partly reaction to Chris Nolan reading reviews,

people saying that he was a cold filmmaker.

And so Interstellar is a lot of things, but it's not cold.

And neither of us have seen Odyssey yet, but we're both very excited about it.

But the one thing that is clear is that Odyssey is a family drama. And your thesis is that really family is at the center of Chris Nolan's recurring themes.

Yeah, I think a lot of the time he's making movies, like he's making movies about making movies in a lot of ways. Like

Inception very famously is the, the heist team essentially all works as the way that a film

crew works. The Cobb is the director and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's character as a producer and

then you've got actors, you know, Tom Hardy's playing an actor who can impersonate people in dreams. They're all interchangeable for a film crew and they're all trying to put on a show. They're trying to put on a show for Killian Murphy's character so that he can change his mind and have an emotional experience. That's what making films is. But at the heart of it really is Dom Cobb trying to get back to his children. children. It's trying to come home, which is also I think what Christopher Nolan probably feels like when he's making stuff. And also, he goes off, makes something, but really wants to go home and see his children. But also I think it's worth pointing out that the way he works, certainly in terms of his relationship with his partner, it is a family. He does have that kind of travelling troop family thing, which is that he surrounds himself by the same people. He's worked with his brother. It is a family. He does have that kind of traveling troop family thing,

which is that he surrounds himself by the same people. He's worked with his brother. He's worked

with his partner. He's worked with actors who he sort of seems to feel a particular connection

with. I mean, in the case of the Odyssey, there is a connection right there with that and

inception just in the casting, the Elliott Page is a connection right there with that and inception just in the casting the Elliott

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