Written By Kieran Bugg • U.K. Editor
Christopher Nolan has called out studio executives for forgetting what made classic movies like Star Wars a global success in a recent interview with The Telegraph.
With his latest film Oppenheimer receiving universal acclaim from critics and general moviegoers, it looks like Christopher Nolan has a guaranteed hit on his hands. This shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given the director’s impressive filmography.
Many of his works have gone on to become some of the most beloved and iconic films in cinema history. His 2014 sci-fi epic Interstellar is often regarded as one of the greatest movies of the 21st century.
Christopher Nolan Discusses What Made Star Wars A Success
Image: Esquire
Moreover, his mind blowing drama Inception would influence various other movies in the years that followed it’s release with Doctor Strange being a prime example. In addition, he also brought us three of the greatest superhero movies of all time with The Dark Knight Trilogy.
When all’s said and done, there’s no denying that Christopher Nolan is one the most influential filmmakers of our time. Recently whilst talking to The Telegraph, he opened up on the current state of Hollywood.
He explained his feelings that executives have forgotten the essence of what makes good movies. Nolan said:
“Whether for budgetary reasons or reasons of control, studios now look at a screenplay as a series of events and say, ‘This is the essence of what the film is,’ that’s completely at odds with how cinema developed, right from the Lumière brothers’ train pulling into the station, as a pure audiovisual experience. But it’s a very popular fallacy — sometimes with critics as well, quite frankly — that all that matters is the scale of the story being told.”
Furthermore, he then used Star Wars as an example claiming that the reason the original film became a classic not just for it’s storytelling, but also it’s timeless visual experience. Nolan added:
“People will tell you that the success of Star Wars had nothing to do with its visual effects, and it was all down to its great story, but, I mean, clearly, that’s not the case. It is indeed a great story, but it’s also an incredible visual and aural experience. So this willful denial of what movies actually are has set in.”
Christopher Nolan Discusses What Made Star Wars A Success
Image: Vanity Fair
Nonetheless, Christopher Nolan has previously expressed interest in potentially helming a Star Wars movie. Hopefully this will happen so he can prove his point.