Least Important Things

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Least Important Things

Nolan

June 23, 2026 • Least Important Things • Season 4 • Episode 39

0:00 | 19:39

“The cinema substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires.” - Andre Bazin

We are strapping into our theater seats and preparing our senses for the overwhelming, practical-effects-driven world of cinema's premiere modern master—Christopher Nolan.

Host Luke Ferris takes a deeply personal journey through the filmography of his generational director, tracking how a filmmaker can completely captivate a movie-obsessed teenager and follow them all the way into adulthood.

In this episode, we’ll dive into:

The Nolan Experience: Breaking down the foundational pillars of a Nolan film, from the overwhelming sensory overload of his in-camera spectacles to the intricate "cinematic chess" of his timelines.
The Tenet Reckoning: Luke opens up about his stubborn, five-and-a-half-year refusal to stream Tenet at home out of theatrical loyalty, the internet's "film bro" discourse, and the realization that a Nolan movie is always worth watching.
The Ultimate Journey: Looking ahead to Nolan’s next impossible IMAX challenge—The Odyssey—and how it mirrors Jean-Luc Godard’s 1963 French New Wave masterpiece, Contempt.
And much more…

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's 7 30 a.m. on a Friday morning in July. A mist of summer moisture hovers over the pavement as Jacob drives his Oldsmobile sedan into the grocery store parking lot. We scamper through the automatic doors and beeline for the donut display, strategically placed just to the left of the entrance, so the waft of fresh sugar-filled pastry greets the shoppers. I grab a long john filled with custard, Jake a sprinkled donut, and Justin a cherry fritter. The drink refrigerator is just past the donut cabinet. I grabbed an orange-flavored Gatorade AM, a new concept by the sports drink Juggernaut, that supposedly had more vitamin C but probably had the same sugar content as the chocolate frosting on my donut. The grocery store is all but empty besides a few bleary-eyed hourly cash register employees. In contrast, we were buzzing. We'd barely slept at all the previous night, fueled by pizza, junk food, and watching clips of the fictional Gotham News Network reports. The months-long revolutionary marketing campaign had worked. We were going to the third IMAX showing of the Dark Knight, and as we pulled into the theater, the energy was electric. Cosplayers dressed up as Batman and the Joker, entertaining the crowds, either entering or exiting the theater. It felt more like a festival atmosphere than a movie theater. And when we nestled into our chairs, the IMAC screen engulfed the senses. Then that first opening shot of the Chicago skyline and the concussive explosion of the glass shattering. The rest was history. Part one, Muse. Christopher Nolan is my generation's director. As much as Spielberger and Lucas raised me, Nolan informed my adulthood. I don't mind being a cliche. I'm a Nolan fanboy, I can't help it. I saw Inception twice on opening day. I was 17 years old. What was I supposed to do? Not dedicate my film fanhood to this creative force? So what defines a Nolan experience? Why do his films influence a 17-year-old Midwest kid who just got his driver's license and a 33-year-old Midwestern millennial who spent his weekend looking at the correct plumbing fixture at Lowe's for a plumbing project? Number one, in-camera spectacle. You know you're watching a Nolan movie when the visuals and the sound of the movie are so immersive that it's on the edge of overwhelming. From the plain heist cold open in the dark night rises, to the Atombaum test in Oppenheimer, Nolan's commitment to concussive sequences is what makes his films almost necessary to see on the big screen. But more importantly, Nolan's commitment to practical effects and the romance of the IMAX film format, the largest film format on earth, is what gives so many fans and industry colleagues an enduring respect. Nolan combines modern immersive movie making with the foundation of traditional formats to create stories that feel both fresh and eternal. Another component of the Nolan experience is cinematic chess. Nolan started his career by making independent and smaller films with complex storylines that interweave genre and drama, especially with his breakout hit Memento, a story about a detective with amnesia that uses tattoos as clues to put together a murder. This set the stage for Nolan's obsession with time and space in storytelling, which he's consistently described in viral YouTube clips that fans obsess over. But beyond the gimmicks and tricks of timelines, dream levels, and space-time continuums, Nolan's true purpose is to enthrall the audience. He's a creative force obsessed with the people watching his movies, which he says is his main job on set, to be the eyes and ears of the audience. It's what guides his work and all his dynamic artists that he works with. Then I think the thing that attracts fans like myself to Nolan and maybe detracts people from obsessing over his work is sophistication and separateness. Nolan and his producing partner and wife Emma Thompson are a very private couple and very private people. Outside of promoting their films, we don't know much about their life. This is exacerbated with Nolan's no phones and no lounging on set rule. I think this comes from Nolan's great respect of filmmakers of his youth, like Kubrick, who always walked the fine line of intense authority in artistic collaboration. Paired with Nolan's suit attire on set, I did not suit up for today's episode, his charming Anglo-American accent and underrated playfulness, he's created a public and professional persona that charms on press circuits and obviously attracts the best artist on and off the camera to work with him. But beyond the private facade of sophistication, Nolan at his heart is a movie-obsessed nerd. Just listen to his moderation of an anniversary panel on the film Heat with Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and director Michael Mann.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

So for all three of you, um, I mean, one of one of the great and memorable scenes in the film, there are there are many, but but the iconic coffee shop uh meeting that that people were so struck by when the film came out, seeing two such great actors who had not acted in the same scene together before, together. Um there was such mythology around at the time. I remember several friends of mine being convinced that you'd shot it on different days because there was no two shot. When I finally moved moved to LA and went to Cape Mandalini's where he shot at, I was pleased to see there is a two shot. It was above the door of Cape Mandalini's still from the film.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

These glimpses of nerdiness is why deep down so many of us remain loyal to Nolan because while his genius, work ethic, and vogueness are not really attainable for someone like me, in the end, he's just obsessed about movies as his core audiences. Part two Reckoning. Since I watched Batman Begins on a summer afternoon in a rustic theater in Lowell, Michigan, I had watched every Nolan movie in theaters. That is until Tenant.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Welcome to the Afterlife.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

To do what I do, I need some idea of the threat we face.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

As I understand it, we're trying to prevent World War III.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

Nolan's return to modern sci-fi action was stalled for a very real drama playing out in our world in 2020. I won't go into the ins and outs of Nolan's battle to release the film in theaters that eventually led him to jump ship from Warner Bros. to Universal, but long story short, I missed seeing it in theaters. And I had never watched it since. Why? Because I have principles. I felt loyalty to Nolan. I couldn't shame one of my creative heroes by succumbing to the digital stream of one of his films designed to be seen on the biggest of screens. Of all the things in life to maintain as an ethical principle, for some reason, this one I was stubbornly enforcing for five and a half years. But I think this loyalty and dedication are many of the ways Nolanites like myself guard an argument for his work. I remember going to Man of Steel for a midnight showing with my friend and your friend and fellow nerd and fellow Nolan head Zack Hall. We both enjoyed the Nolan produced Zack Snyder-directed, darker tone of the DC comic character that is typically portrayed as a Boy Scout. But most fans of Soup's were disgusted by it. And this criticism of Nolan's tone, its seriousness, its intensity, its lack of soul, its style over substance, is real. More critiques about Nolan's work is his lack of diverse casting as well as his inability to write female characters with true narrative arcs. And while most of us gush over his technical ability, Nolan's commitment to IMAX, which until the filming of The Odyssey was unable to do close-up acting shots because the cameras were so loud you couldn't hear anything in the audio. And that also created the memeable mumbling of Tom Hardy's portrayal of Bane and the fighter pilot in Dunkirk. Plus, Nolan films have become such cultural milestones that backlash and re-examinations are natural and healthy. The summer of 2023, with Barbenheimer fever, followed a questioning of whether Nolan's take on nuclear armament actually romanticized its creator instead of accurately critiquing it. And the Dark Knight is inexplicably tied to the terrible shootings inspired by the character of the Joker and the actor who portrayed that character in his tragic death just months after. These ebbs and flows of opinion are natural and good for artistic discourse. But per usual, the internet expands and inflames these discussions, leading to the stereotype of the Nolan fanboy or film bro acting as a keyword warrior defending their beloved straight white male director. I have a hard time when the fans of the things that you love make you not want to be a fan of the thing you love. But my loyalty logic of not watching Tenet until I saw it in theaters is just as intense. I'm sure Christopher Nolan and every filmmaker would rather have people actually watch the films than not watch them because they couldn't get to a theater during a worldwide pandemic. So two weeks ago, I finally sat down and embraced my first viewing of Tenant. Not as Nolan intended. The film didn't leap out as the best Nolan movie in his catalog, but I was frustrated with myself that I hadn't opened up to the story sooner because it's one like many Nolan films that demand a rewatch, and that's one of the beautiful aspects of the Nolan experience, and what, beyond the critiques, fair or far-fetched, supersedes the discourse. A Nolan movie is worth watching and rewatching again and again. Part 3 lore. Before I watch Tenant on an early summer, bright afternoon, I put on the 1963 French New Wave drama Contempt by acclaimed director Jean-Luc Godard. The film is set during a Roman summer, as well as the Shores of Capri, starring Michael Piccoli as a tortured playwright who's hired by a sleazy American producer, played by Jack Palance, to write punch-ups on a sputtering and over-the-budget epic movie production. The vivacious Bridget Bardot plays the writer's wife, who's constantly at odds with her husband's choice to sell out to write the film, while attempting to navigate the American producer's nefarious advances. The spectacularly staged apartment argument sequence where the two lovers debate through baths, answering phone calls, and preparing to go to dinner, and in an extended scene that's so raw and real, it makes modern relationship dramas like marriage stories seem amateur-ish. Then, the gorgeously framed cinematography of the Italian coast that seems straight from the Wes Anderson playbook is contrasted to the unsaid bitterness in our leads relationship. The film's opening credit actually breaks the fourth wall in a self-aware shot of the cinematography crew shooting the opening scene on an empty dusty street of Rome. The cinema, said André Bazin, substitutes for our gaze a world more in harmony with our desires. Contempt is a story of that world. This film ends with a crew filming this movie that our lead character is writing on. And it actually goes into the lens, almost like the audience is exiting the film through the lens. Now I won't delve into a side quest film school essay, but this French romance is layered with messaging about making movies. Obviously, there's a movie-making aspect to the story, but it even goes beyond that, where the studio pressured the director to overly sexualize Bridget Bardot, so he on turn created dialogue and messaging that went right back at the studio system. It's all about how the relationships between art, business, and story are always at tension. And ironically, the film plaguing our writer, our lead character, our co-lead character, and the story that he debates with the meaning of with the German director, and is so hesitant to tackle in the face of his unpredictable marriage. And that film that they're doing in this movie is the Odyssey. I can still save them. Not only is Nolan attempting to capture the journey of Odysseus's return from the Battle of Troy, encountering monsters, gods, mayhem, and madness, there are very few directors that would have the boldness or the budget to film entirely on IMAC cameras. Nolan's Odyssey is one of the largest productions in modern filmmaking, and Nolan is accepting the comparison between the great sandals and sword epics in cinematic history like Ben Hur, Spartacus, and Jason and the Argonauts. And he's bringing the best in the industry alongside him. Thompson, his trusted producing partner, Hoyt van Hoytma, his cinematographer, Ludwig Gordensen on the score, and his team of technical masters who helped him create his most critically acclaimed film to date, Oppenheimer. And including a cast of all your favorite movie stars. The Oscar-winning biopic about the making of the Atom Bomb was one of the boldest of Nolan's career. Not because of the spectacle, but because of the ideas that the film ponders about power and about what happens when we can't put the genie back into the bottle. I saw Oppenheimer twice, once on 70mm at the Music Box Theater in Chicago, and the other at 10am at an Indiana IMAX theater with my friend Kurt and his ex-girlfriend's dad. I had a cup of coffee at the viewing, and let me tell you, that movie or any Nolan movie does not need caffeine enhancements. With seven Oscar wins, including Best Pitcher and Director, Oppenheimer etched Nolan into the critical elite. Yet, I imagine as Nolan conducted the dog and pony show that is an Oscar's race, he was thinking of a different journey. One that may define the true mastery of his craft and abilities. Jeff Tweety, the frontman of the alternative rock group Wilco, once said that we go to see live music to watch a fellow human actually believe in themselves who took a chance to go on stage. Nolan is tackling one of the greatest of all epics in Western literature. And it might be a fool's errand. Is he flying too close to the sun? Well, I don't think it matters. We go to see Nolan movies, to see a group of artists led by Chris Nolan to pursue the impossible spectacle, to go on the Odyssey, to make something as analog as possible. Not because it's necessary, but because we know the challenge of the pursuit of art is unnecessarily difficult. And that is what attracts us. That is the story, that is the process, that is the outcome of an adventure that humans truly connect with. No matter how messy, complicated, or difficult it is, that is cinema, that is storytelling, and why we want to go see a Christopher Nolan movie. Thanks for listening and watching. Please follow us on social media, at least important things on TikTok, at Luke H Ferris on Instagram. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. We are now doing video on Apple Podcasts, but you also can check out our videos on YouTube. If you want to be in the know and get alerted when new episodes come out, extra content and special surprises, please subscribe to our Patreon, either at the free or paid level. That's at patreon.comslash least important things. And I'll talk to you next time on least important things.