“The biggest risk of all is to play it safe”
From movies told out of order to movies told through a completely different culture than the original material, Christopher Nolan has never told a simple story without taking risks.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Nolan shared the right and wrong risks to take while creating a movie, offering a stoic piece of cine-wisdom for aspiring directors and writers.
According to The Odyssey director, “If you’re really interested in movies and the history of movies, the one thing you see absolutely, is that you have to take risks to succeed. The biggest risk of all is to play it safe. The audience is looking for something new.”
During the interview, Nolan brought up his 2000 film, Memento, as a case study in how he took a risk that paid off.
He recalled the time he showed the script to his wife and producer, Emma Thomas, who ‘responded well’ but felt the movie would be too much of a risk at that point in his career.
“I was able to say to her: ‘No, I can do this.'”
He went on to add that “there are a lot of filmmakers who can do it in a more straightforward way. Actually having something new to bring to the table mitigates the risk; it gives you a way to distinguish yourself.”
With Memento being his second feature, it did exactly that.
Now, cutting to Nolan’s newest film, there’s no way of telling if the director will give us another non-chronological puzzle box that could somehow be more confusing than the book it is based on.
So far, the greatest risk Nolan has taken has been his choice of casting, set design and aesthetic choices.
Greeks and fans of the original source material, The Iliad, have slammed the director for casting Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page as Achilles, as well as including historically inaccurate ships, armour and language.
The obvious Hollywoodification of the fable, along with the further casting of Tom Holland, Matt Damon and Travis Scott, could be Christopher Nolan’s biggest risk to date.
Who knows how it will all pay off when the movie hits theatres on July 17.
