Christopher Nolan criticizes studios for not understanding the theatrical film experience

Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan continuously delivers great movies that audiences like. He creates great cinematic experiences and it looks like Oppenheimer will be one of the best he’s ever made. He’s built a good reputation and studios have given him the money and time to tell his stories properly, but not all directors have that luxury. Most filmmakers make the kinds of movies studios want them to make, which is why many movies are just plain mediocre.

During a recent interview with The Telegraph, Nolan opened up about the issues he has with the studio’s system and criticized them for not having a proper understanding of what the theater experience should be. He explained:

“Whether it’s for budgetary or control reasons, studios now look at a script as a series of events and say, ‘That’s the essence of what the film is.’ And that’s completely at odds with how cinema has developed, ever since the Lumière brothers’ train arriving at the station, as a pure audiovisual experience, but it’s a very popular fallacy – sometimes even among critics, frankly – that all that matters is the scope of the story that is told”.

Hollywood no longer cares about the quality of the films they make. Hollywood is run by accountants and movies are made to keep investors and the stock market happy. The goal is to keep movies moving regardless of whether they are good or bad.

Nolan went on to praise George Lucas and his successes with Star Wars, noting that it wasn’t just the story that elevated him above the films made at the time, but also his ambitious visual effects:

“People will tell you that the success of Star Wars had nothing to do with its visual effects, and it was all due to its great story, but, I mean, that’s clearly not the case. It really is a great story, but it’s also an incredible visual and aural experience. So this willful denial of what movies are really about began director Charlotte Wells — ‘on the big screen?’ But of course you have to. It also works wonderfully on TV, but that’s not the point.”

As you know, Nolan is a big believer in the theatrical experience and he dropped out of Warner Bros. because they changed their model to something that wasn’t right for the theatre. Nolan has a deep understanding of the cinematic experience and it’s people like him who will help change the way the studio is done. It may take him some time because Hollywood is set his way, but maybe one day a studio will rise up challenging the way things work.