Christopher Nolan On His Science Fiction Influences
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When Christopher Nolan announced his new film would return to the science fiction genre, many of his fans were happy to see Nolan tackle something that wasn’t comic-book related. His new film is called Interstellar, and while there isn’t much known about the project yet, the film is said to “depict a heroic interstellar voyage to the farthest borders of our scientific understanding.”
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the mind-bending director — also joined by director Edgar Wright — reflected on the work of Stanley Kubrick and how it has influenced his movies. Here’s Nolan on his admiration for 2001: A Space Odyssey and other science fiction classics:
I think anytime you look at science fiction in movies, there are key touchstones. Metropolis. Blade Runner. 2001. Whenever you’re talking about getting off the planet, 2001 is somewhat unavoidable. But there is only one 2001. So you don’t want to get too near to that.
Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar will be “getting off the planet,” so will 2001: A Space Odyssey be a direct influence on Nolan’s newest film? Nolan’s work has been historically ambitious, so perhaps the “Kubrickian” label might be apt for Interstellar.
Nolan continues on the subject of Kubrick and 2001:
From a storytelling point of view, from a directing point of view, there is one thing I associate with what he does, which is calm. There is such an inherent calm and inherent trust of the one powerful image, that he makes me embarrassed with my own work, in terms of how many different shots, how many different sound effects, how many different things we’ll throw at an audience to make an impression. But with Kubrick, there is such a great trust of the one correct image to calmly explain something to audience. There can be some slowness to the editing. There’s nothing frenetic about it. It’s very simple. There’s a trust in simple storytelling and simple image making that actually takes massive confidence to try and emulate.
Upon its release, many critics and movie pundits compared Christopher Nolan’s Inception to the works of Stanley Kubrick. Interstellar will be Nolan’s first film to take place in outer space, so it will be interesting to see how it compares to 2001: A Space Odyssey, or eve Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, which hits theaters this October.
Actor Matthew McConaughey was recently cast in the lead role of Interstellar. He will reportedly play a character named Cooper, which is pretty much all we know about him at this point.
Interstellar is scheduled for release on November 7, 2014, in IMAX.
