Christopher Nolan

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This is the BBC.

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Hello, I

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I'm Kirstie Young. Welcome to Desert Island Discs, where every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, the book and the luxury item that they'd want to take with them if they were cast away on a desert island.

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Presenter1:17

My castaway this week is the filmmaker Christopher Nolan. If it's Cinematic Spectacle you're after, he's most certainly your man, proving time and time again that there is such a thing as a credible blockbuster. From his Batman trilogy to Interstellar to Dunkirk, his movies revel in scale, existential angst, and intricate interplays with the nature of time. He made his first feature film on a shoestring budget of three thousand pounds. These days that would barely cover the catering bill for the crew's lunch. The Dark Knight Rises reputedly cost two hundred and fifty million dollars to make, and took over a billion at the box office. Mind-boggling amounts that have cemented his status as a true tinsel town titan. But here's the thing. The way he makes those movies seems curiously cozy. He bashes out a one-page synopsis on an ancient manual typewriter, often going on to write the screenplays with his brother. His wife's his producer, and he has been known to personally hand-deliver scripts to the doorsteps of movie legends. Add to that the scurrilous rumour that he often finishes films ahead of time and under budget, and he scarcely seems very Hollywood at all. He says simply, as a director, I try to show people things they've never seen before. So here's to that, Christopher Nolan. I wonder then about this idea

Christopher Nolan2:37

Well I

Presenter2:39

Of

Presenter2:40

WATCHING THE UNFAMILIAR

Presenter2:43

And yet it helps us to understand more about what is familiar to us. Why do you choose to do things that way round?

Christopher Nolan2:50

Well, I think when you're looking to create cinematic entertainment, when you're looking to transport the audience, as a filmmaker, I think you're really reaching back into your past experience of watching films when you were a kid. And the challenge is always to give the audience a fresh experience, to make them, I suppose, newly appreciate the feeling of having the screen open up and take you into another world. And I think for me, one of the weapons in your arsenal is to find a way to give a fresh spin on the familiar. Because with mainstream entertainment, there's always that tension between wanting to fulfil audience expectations, but also wanting to challenge them and show them something new.

Presenter3:31

I mentioned that you are known to have delivered film scripts to I'm thinking of Michael Kaine here, that story that you went to his front door and knocked on the door and said, I've got something I want you to read, and then you took it away. I want it to be true. Is it true?

Christopher Nolan3:42

Well, I mean, like all Michael's stories, it's it's it's sort of true and it's not. What's absolutely true is that and he was a little surprised by this, we did deliver on the script and then say, Well, can we have it back in a couple of hours?

Presenter3:52

Um

Presenter3:54

Oh, I think okay. And why did you need it back in a couple of hours?

Christopher Nolan3:58

Well, really it's just about the privacy of making the film and so we tightly control scripts. And Batman Begins was the first film where we really felt the need because there was such interest from the fan base for that character. And you don't want your work judged prematurely. So yes, I hand delivered the script, sat with Michael and talked to him about it and then asked to take away the script at the end of that. And he was very gracious about it and quite amused by the whole process, I think.

Presenter4:25

Um famously, I read that you you never sit down on set, you don't have one of those director's chairs that says Chris Nula on the back, and also you carry a little flask of tea around with you, and you have just opened up such a flask on the desk next to me. What kind of tea is it? It's all grey. It's all grey, good man. Tell me about your first track then. What are we going to hear today? Why have you chosen this?

Christopher Nolan4:35

Next to me. What kind of tea is

Christopher Nolan4:38

Uh

Christopher Nolan4:39

Yeah.

Christopher Nolan4:43

The first track we're hearing is Hans Zimmer's Journey to the Line. You know, Hans is a composer that I've worked with a lot, and this I think is one of his best bits of film score. It's from Terence Malek's film, The Thin Red Line. It's a very carefully structured, minimalist piece of composition, and it just has a wonderful ability to make whatever images it's under seem more vital. And I think for me, all the work I've done with Hans since some ways is always trying to get back to the simple power of this cue.

Presenter5:52

Hans Zimmer's Journey to the Line from the original soundtrack of The Thin Red Line. I'm Christopher Nolan, you've made a lot of movies, of course. You very often work with the same people, people like Christian Bale, Marianne Cottiard, Anne Hathaway, the cinematographer Wally Pfister, production designer Nathan Crowley, not to mention of course, as I said in the introduction, your brother, who you often co-write scripts with, and your wife, who is your long-term producer. Why do you do that?

Christopher Nolan6:16

I mean, at base level, when you work with somebody who's good at what they do and you enjoy the experience, you want to repeat it. Emma and I met on the first day of university, and I involved her in the films I was doing. She came down and helped run the Film Society at UCL. And so we've always had films as part of our lives together. I think on top of that, there's an ease of communication that develops with people that you've worked with before. And part of that communication is about surrounding yourself with people who understand and support what it is you're trying to do, but are unafraid to criticise, to call you on things that you've done that aren't going to work or inadequate. You know, you're looking for honest feedback without an agenda.

Presenter6:22

Yeah.

Christopher Nolan6:57

And

Christopher Nolan6:59

Working with the same people, and particularly working with family, is is a very important part of making sure that the only agenda there is making the best film possible.

Presenter7:07

Um you know, honesty is a very vexed issue, it seems, right now for the film industry and and post Weinstein, you know, there's a lot of not just finger pointing and finger wagging, but people wondering if there's something rotten at the heart of La La Land. Do you think it is an industry that needs a root and branch reform that some people are calling for?

Christopher Nolan7:24

Well, it certainly needs reform. I mean, that's very clear, and I think people are seizing the moment and working with that. And that's, I suppose, the silver lining. I've been very fortunate with the success of my films to be able to surround myself with people that I've known a long time, that I trust, and to a certain extent, I've been working in my own sort of bubble.

Speaker 27:40

I trust and

Christopher Nolan7:48

As these revelations come out, you made her feel slightly naive, I suppose.

Presenter7:48

As these were

Presenter7:49

Yeah.

Presenter7:51

That's what you see, I'm wondering if if one of the m maybe m many reasons that you've worked in that bubble is because there were elements of it that didn't quite sit comfortably with you, with the actual sort of structure and the mechanism of old style Hollywood, if you will, that was uncomfortable to you.

Christopher Nolan8:07

Well, I think even on a creative level, when you come to Hollywood, you've heard all of the horror stories over the years about creative interference. And so you're looking to insulate yourself to a degree as a creator. As far as the culture more generally, I mean, Hollywood is it's an international language, it's also a community of people, and it's made up of people of all different nationalities. So I think, you know, in a sense, it's representative of the wider world, actually.

Presenter8:35

Very many of your films they have these deeply flawed male protagonists. You know, we're hearing people now say that what we need to see are more strong female characters, more female writers.

Presenter8:46

More women heading up talent agencies and so on. Has it given you pause for thought about your own creative process and what you want to represent on screen?

Christopher Nolan8:54

Well, it's interesting because in the question you conflate two very different things. One is about what should be on screen, and the other is about who should be putting it on screen. I think.

Christopher Nolan9:04

You know, keeping your eye on the prize is about equality of opportunity. It's about getting more diverse voices making film.

Presenter9:12

Let's have some more music, Christopher Nolan. We're going to hear your second track of the day. Just tell me a little bit about this choice.

Christopher Nolan9:17

This track is one of my favourites of Radiohead. It came out in 1997 just as I moved to Los Angeles. You know, it was an important time in my life and I actually, when I first was looking for music to put on the end of Memento, I did the first couple of screenings using this track on the end and in the end, we couldn't secure the rights, but I think it was originally three songs that the band put together. And it's an extraordinary use of very positive seeming melodies to really address something a lot darker underneath.

Speaker 29:24

But was it a

Speaker 49:47

I guess she makes you look pretty ugly.

Speaker 49:54

Cause girl and good play

Speaker 410:11

Mm-hmm.

Presenter10:21

That was Radiohead and an unsatisfyingly short piece of paranoid Android. Sorry about that, Christopher Nolan. You once said, I don't want people to know anything about me. The more you know about somebody who makes films, the less you can just watch the movies. I wonder to what extent am I going to be pushing my shoulder against a firmly shut door today as I ask you about your life?

Christopher Nolan10:42

Well, I did agree to do the interview, so I'd like to meet you halfway.

Presenter10:43

Okay, well that's good to know. And so your brother said of you, your long term collaborator, Jonathan, he said, Everything in front of him, Christopher, is always under the microscope. Was it ever thus?

Christopher Nolan10:54

I've always been analytical. I've never wanted to take things on face value. I've always tried to to look underneath them and ask why. I mean, the way kids do. And I think that's a a healthy way of looking at the world.

Presenter11:05

Were your parents then always happy? Did they always have the time to to answer the question why?

Christopher Nolan11:10

I don't know if they always had the time. But they certainly never discouraged that. They were very encouraging to me and very encouraging to me in filmmaking. I mean, I started very, very young. I was seven years old, and my dad lent me his Super 8 camera, which when I look at that now, you know, having had kids of my own, that was an expensive piece of kit to try to get a camera. To give a seven-year-old seven-year-old.

Presenter11:26

What was it?

Speaker 411:27

Uh

Presenter11:28

She gave a seven-year-old seven-year-old.

Christopher Nolan11:30

And indeed, in my teenage years I did manage to destroy that camera by strapping it to the bottom of a car and it fell off. And I've always felt very lucky to be really the last of the Super 8 generation. The thing about Super 8 film is you have these cartridges, very simple to load, but it was two and a half minutes of film. It was silent and you can't record sound because the cameras are too noisy. So in a funny sort of way, I'm still working the same way I was when I was seven years old.

Presenter11:56

Yes, I mean you're one of very few people. You don't shoot digitally. You used to

Christopher Nolan11:58

You know,

Presenter11:59

We'll shoot.

Christopher Nolan11:59

I do. It's the way I've always worked and I have a a tremendous passion for it. And as it's come under increasing threat in recent years, it's something that myself and other filmmakers like me have had to really fight for.

Presenter12:12

You have a passion for it, just briefly why?

Christopher Nolan12:15

It's really the best imaging format that's ever been developed. So it has the best color reproduction, it has the best resolution. In terms of what's the best tool for storytelling, what's the most evocative tool? I don't think film has ever been ever been bettered.

Presenter12:32

I've read you went with I don't know if it was just your father but to see two thousand one.

Christopher Nolan12:36

Uh-huh.

Presenter12:36

And it made a very significant impression. What was it you connected with?

Christopher Nolan12:40

Star Wars had been this incredible success, and so we were all obsessed with spaceships and science fiction. And so they re-released Kubrick's masterpiece. And it's such an abstract film, but it is pure cinema. And I think I responded to it in a very pure way. And I remember that. We went to see it at the Leicester Square Theatre. The screen was absolutely enormous. And it just was this feeling of being taken away to a world beyond ours. And I was very, well, I won't say pleased because it was a bit melancholy, but Interstellar was actually the last film to play at the Leicester Square Theatre before they knocked it down. We showed a 70-mil print there, much like the one I'd gotten to watch of 2001 when I was a kid. So there was a nice symmetry to that.

Presenter13:22

And where did you sit? Somewhere similar to this thought?

Christopher Nolan13:24

No, I was in the back sweating it and I wasn't sitting in there with the audience.

Presenter13:30

Christopher Nolan, we'll hear some more of your music, then we're going to go to your third one. Tell me a little bit about this choice.

Christopher Nolan13:34

Schubert's Fantasia for Piano Beforehand, it's a duet. And my father, who was obsessed with music, he worked in marketing, but I think he'd always wanted to be a conductor. He played this with a friend of his some years ago before he died. And the thing I really remember about it is hearing two talented amateurs playing this. It has a very strong theme, and then the parts wander off into different places and then come back for the theme. And I just remember that. They would attack the theme with great gusto as these two souls kind of united again.

Presenter13:37

So you know.

Presenter15:15

She wrote'Fantasia for Piano Four Hands in F minor, played there, not by your father, but by Murray Pariah and Radhu Lupu. Um, Christopher Nolan, let's talk a little bit more about your background then. Your your father was English, your mother American. If you were casting a movie of your own life, who would play your mother?

Christopher Nolan15:34

Gosh, probably a younger Glenclose smart, strong woman.

Presenter15:40

How much creative freedom did she give you as a child? I once heard a brilliant story about Stephen Spielberg, his his mother saying that, you know, well, Stephen wanted to paint the kitchen black, so I gave him a pot of paint. You know, was it that kind of upbringing?

Christopher Nolan15:52

Yeah, very much. I think she always valued creativity in in her kids and I don't know if she particularly wanted me to be a filmmaker when I grew up. I th I think she wanted me to be an architect, as I recall. But

Presenter16:03

And you were a talented artist. You won an art scholarship to school that helped pay the fees.

Christopher Nolan16:07

I did, yes. And drawing was always my thing as a kid. But really, from a very young age, filmmaking was the thing. In fact, I think for that art scholarship I actually submitted a couple of little short films on Super8 that I'd made.

Presenter16:20

By that time your family was based in America. You were sent back to the UK to go to boarding school. And even if you're not crossing an ocean to do it, that's real sink or swim stuff when you're eleven. So how did you stay afloat? Did it suit you to be at boarding school?

Christopher Nolan16:32

It did suit me. It it is single swim. It's a very Darwinian environment and you either thrive or not. I had an older brother at school with me and I think that was a huge help. And I was big for my edge, I was good at sports. I played rugby and I was good at rugby. And I think you need something like that to give you a bit of an edge in that environment.

Presenter16:36

And you are

Presenter16:51

And those little films that you say you submitted, what what was the content of them?

Christopher Nolan16:55

Mostly little experiments in animation, pixelation, you know, you can do it with claymation sort of models or with a human being and you know I'd get a friend of mine and have them move into a different position and take a frame and then move a little more and take a frame and so you get the illusion of them you know floating down the pavement and so forth. It was things like that. I just always had a great love of of the moving image.

Presenter17:15

Let's fit in the music. Christopher Nolan, tell me about this. We're on your fourth track of the morning.

Christopher Nolan17:20

I think Van Gellis is a great composer, a great film composer and Charits of Fire was one of the first soundtracks that I ever owned. And when I was away at boarding school, you know, after lights out, you'd sort of sneak out your Walkman and hope that you had enough batteries to run the album. Those were the days, eh? Those were the days, you know, you'd put the batteries on the radiator and see if you could re-energize them a bit.

Presenter17:36

Oh, is it?

Christopher Nolan17:43

It's a remarkable piece of film score because it's done in a very futurist way, but it's a film about the past and a film about nostalgia. So in a way this is sort of nostalgia for the future, which is a an interesting concept.

Presenter18:34

Vangelis, five circles from the original soundtrack of Chariots of Fire. Christopher Nolan, you have an industry reputation for being fantastically prepared by the time you start to shoot. And as I mentioned in the introduction, I don't know if this is true, but coming in under budget. Do you sometimes come in under budget?

Christopher Nolan18:50

Usually actually, Emma and myself, we sort of pride ourselves on being as efficient as we can. If I am on budget and on schedule, nobody has any reason to scrutinize what it is I'm doing. And I don't want to give them a reason to. And that's worked very well for me in terms of my creative freedom.

Presenter19:07

Are the very, very, very high up executives, the people who run the studios, allowed onto set to come and poke their nose about? They are.

Christopher Nolan19:13

Yeah, absolutely. And I try to be as communicative with them as possible because they're just human beings and if you try to exclude them or if you try to obfuscate what you're doing or disguise it in some way, you're going to get a paranoid response, you're going to get an an aggressive response.

Presenter19:28

So you don't for a minute subscribe to the notion that creativity brings with it a degree of chaos?

Christopher Nolan19:34

I think that's down to the individual creator. It's down to what your process is. Mine is not about chaos. It never has been. It's about having a strong narrative and trying to, with my crew members, trying to create a framework on set where we can explore things. So, for example, I have a reputation for being very lucky with the weather. And it's completely untrue. I'm very unlucky with the weather. But I made a decision early on that whatever the weather is, I will shoot until it's not safe. We just shoot if it's pouring with rain or if the sun's come out or whatever. And beautiful things can come from that. I am prepared, but I'm mentally prepared. I don't do shot lists. I don't generally do storyboards. But I turn up every day with nothing in hand other than the script. And I want to be able to put the actors into the situation, see how they're going to perform it, and then film it based on that.

Presenter20:27

Tell me about this one page synopsis, then. It's true, is it? You you

Christopher Nolan20:30

Yes, it's not even so much a page, it's usually a long paragraph. When you start on a script, you generally have a very clear idea of what your final destination is, but not how you're going to get there, if you like. And it's very, very easy to get lost. And so what I do is at some point when I feel I've got a good handle on it, I just write out, okay, what is the film? What's it meant to be? And at some point, I'll just pull it out and have a look at it. I'll do it again when we're editing as well. I'll just pull it out and say, okay, have we communicated these ideas? Do we have the film that I thought I was making a year ago?

Presenter21:05

Let's have some more music, Christopher Nolan. Um it's your fifth.

Christopher Nolan21:08

This is David Bowie, Loving the Alien. Trying to choose one David Bowie song to take with you. Very, very difficult. David Bowie's personas were so different when you discovered him. It's a bit like Who Was Your Doctor Who or Who Was Your James Bond? And for me, it was the David Bowie for Let's Dance and that pop start era that I first came to him and I have the most nostalgic attachment to. And Loving the Alien comes off the album tonight, which was his follow-up to Let's Dance. This song in particular, I think, is just a tremendous piece of work.

Speaker 421:51

A wing DA

Speaker 421:56

You're praying!

Speaker 421:59

A break blue sky.

Presenter22:14

That was David Bowie and Loving the Alien. And of course, Christopher Nolan, you worked uh with David Bowie on The Prestige. How was he to work with?

Christopher Nolan22:21

Ah, tremendous. I mean, it's one of my proudest boasts that I got to work with David Bowie. If I could go back in time and tell my sixteen year old self that I would ever get to meet him, let alone work with him, I think my head would have exploded.

Presenter22:34

You have more than mentioned the importance of your partnership with Emma, your wife, Emma Thomas, who is your your producer, and that all began. Is it true it was the first day you were at UCL in London that you met her in the Hall of Residence? That's a rather Hollywood, isn't it?

Christopher Nolan22:49

It is a meet cute. But it is true. And we didn't actually speak that first day. I just remember noticing each other. And I suppose ultimately, years later, you realize that I've come to believe in the concept of love at first sight, because I realize it actually happened to me. But I think at the time I was just, you know, very nervous and, you know, new, hoping to make a a connection with people. And we've been together ever since.

Presenter23:14

And so you were reading English, but by that time you knew, did you, that I want to be a director, I want to make films.

Christopher Nolan23:18

How you used to make films? Yeah, I mean I first identified the job of a director, if you like, when I was about twelve years old. And it was really through the films of Ridley Scott. I'd seen Blade Run Up, become very obsessed with it. And then I saw Alien, even though it had come up before I saw it afterwards. And I was struck by totally different stories, totally different casts, but somehow the same mind behind them. And that's when I started to really identify the job of director as the closest thing to what I'd always been doing with my film.

Presenter23:48

And this first little movie that you shot then, o after college, was the budget was around about three grand. Your mum was making the sandwiches for the casting crew.

Christopher Nolan23:51

The budget

Christopher Nolan23:56

Yeah, I mean we were all working in the week and you know I'd been making short films on sixteen millimeter and sort of figured out that if we got together one day a week on the Saturday and I could save up enough money from my job in the week, you know, we could pay for a certain amount of film and processing every week. And so over about a year by getting together every Saturday we'd put this film together.

Presenter24:19

And your job during the week was doing corporate training videos.

Christopher Nolan24:22

Yeah, I was a cameraman and sound man. I thought it was fascinating. Did you? Yeah, it really did. I learned a lot. You know, you'd go into some CEO's office and you'd have five minutes to put up your lights and make something that made them look okay, but everyone was very impatient with what you were doing. And they would go into it with a great deal of arrogance. And I learned a lot of useful skills in terms of sound recording and lighting and so forth, because you really had to be on your toes doing it. And for me, it's always been important to believe that I can do it all myself. I mean, I can't, obviously. But I think walking onto the floor with an understanding of what everybody's job is, being a bit of a know-it-all, and sort of on some level feeling like, okay, if the sound guy has the flu, you know, I can figure out where to put the mic or whatever. That's just an important element of my confidence.

Presenter25:08

Let's have some more music.

Christopher Nolan25:09

Christopher, this is your sixth. This is a cue from a film with Nail and I called Marwood Walks. And it's just a lovely, lovely piece of score. I first saw it at UCL. These screenings we would do at the Bloomsbury Theatre. And Emma and I would put together all-night film shows, like once a year. And one year we showed with Nail and I on a 35mm print. And it's just a film that I connected with, first on the level of just it's an extremely funny film, but over the years it's sort of taken on a much more emotional, much more melancholic sort of feeling for me. And I think a lot of that is to do with this beautiful music.

Presenter26:22

Marwood Walks from the soundtrack of the film With Nell and I, composed by David Dundas and Rick Wentworth. Sir Christopher Nolan, you've spoken previously about what you have described as the mystery of what actors do, and you say that quite often you might find yourself on set not getting involved and allowing actors to do something and it is only as you are watching it being filmed that it is uncovered.

Christopher Nolan26:36

Uh

Presenter26:47

Can you describe a little bit of the sensation of that?

Christopher Nolan26:47

Yeah.

Christopher Nolan26:51

On Insomnia with Al Pacino, we were shooting a scene, and the end of the scene wasn't that tightly scripted. And I realized that after a few takes, he'd got into this groove where it's beyond acting. He's just living it. And I would always know how he was going to end the scene before it came. And I don't know how I knew, but I was picking up on whatever that mysterious alchemy that actors have. It's very, very hard to pin down. My job as a director is to be able to feel that with them and empathize with that.

Presenter27:23

Do you ever then, I wonder, get emotional when you watch your films in those moments when you see that captured?

Christopher Nolan27:31

Yes, very much. I've always screened dailies. Very few directors still do. We print the film, we watch it the next night, and we sit there and we watch every single take. And one of the reasons I've always done that is I came up to Al after one take on a scene, and I said to him, I was suggesting another layer that he might be able to put in. And he said to me, well, I'll do that again if you want me to, but I've already done what you're asking for. You just can't see it with your eye, but you'll see it in the dailies. And I looked in dailies the next day, and he was absolutely right. It was there, the thing that I'd asked for. And the camera caught it. And even though I was right next to the camera studying him, I did not catch it. And the greatest film actors, and Pacino is one of the greatest stage actors as well as one of the greatest film actors, is able to put.

Christopher Nolan28:21

I suppose you just call it energy down the lens of the camera in a way that is genuinely unique and remarkable and defies analysis. It's just something you have to feel. And this is

Christopher Nolan28:34

The thing about films is they are emotional. They're about giving the audience a particular feeling. And that's why for me the medium is endlessly fascinating. There is an empathy between audience members that creates an audience response that also defies easy explanation, but is vital to the success of a film.

Presenter28:52

Let's have some more music, Christopher Nolan. Tell me why you've chosen this.

Christopher Nolan28:58

Well, you know, I couldn't go onto a desert island without a little bit of John Barry. And you know, the Bond films have obviously been a huge source of inspiration for me. Just tremendous fun.

Presenter29:08

I'm not going to let you just go into this d because there you are aware, of course, there are huge swirling rumours that you indeed will be the man to make the next opportunity that you won't be.

Christopher Nolan29:16

I'm giving you this opportunity. You won't be. No, no, categorically. And I think every time they hire a new director, I'm sort of rumoured to be doing it. But I mean, I'd love to make a Bond film at some point. And I think that those producers, Barbara and Michael, they do a tremendous job. And Sam Menders has done a tremendous job in the last couple of films.

Presenter29:34

They don't participate

Christopher Nolan29:35

They don't particularly need me, but I've always been very inspired by the films and would love to do one someday. But I've always listened to film schools because the best film schools, they leave a little space for the imagery. So you have space to listen to them and imagine. And I think John Barry is just one of the great composers. And if you look at what he did, I can't remember how many Bond films he did, I think he did 11. And he would always come up with a unique theme, but that was compatible with the original Monty Norman theme. So each film score that he did, it has its own version. And I think on Her Majesty's Secret Service is the best of them.

Presenter30:46

That was Ski Chase from the original soundtrack of the Bond film on Her Majesty's Secret Service, composed by John Barry. Christopher Nolan, you've been recognised with many awards, not least from the Directors' Guild of America, the Writers and the Producers' Guild. No best director Oscar yet. Does it bug you even a little bit that you don't have one?

Christopher Nolan31:07

Um

Christopher Nolan31:08

Gosh.

Christopher Nolan31:10

Well, I grew up watching the Oscars, so you think it'd be that would be a tremendous honor to to win one one day, but uh it's not really why I make films. And I don't make the kind of films that are traditionally, you know, rewarded in in award season. So the fact that we've had some awards and we've had some nominations over the years, I think, you know, is I mean it's tremendous. It's not not what I expected really.

Presenter31:32

What do you think you've learned about life and maybe about yourself from your job?

Christopher Nolan31:37

Well that's a big question. It is. What have I learned? I think the thing that I've explored most in my films consistently is the subjective nature of our experience and the tension between that and our faith that there's an object of reality that we're living through. And I'm interested in that tension we have between the viewpoint and the way of looking at the world that we're trapped by and our attempts to reconcile that with other people's viewpoints. I think that's for me one of the most fundamental paradoxes of the human condition. What I try to do in the films is ask interesting questions and I don't have any answers and I haven't found any answers but I find increasingly interesting questions and that keeps me fascinated.

Presenter32:22

You are, as we know, then, not just highly successful, but very organised, where you don't seem like a panic merchant at all. How long do you think you'd survive on this island?

Presenter32:32

I think

Christopher Nolan32:33

Well, I I think I'd do all right. Let me put it this way. I think I'm more used to being off the grid than than a lot of people, so I I think I'd probably do okay.

Presenter32:41

Tell me about your final piece of music, then, Christopher Nolman.

Christopher Nolan32:44

The last piece of music is from the soundtrack to the film Kayana Scotsi, and it's a piece called Prophecies by Philip Glass. And it's the soundtrack to a film that is entirely made up of imagery. It has no conventional narrative. And there's a moment where you see the hand of an elderly patient in distress held by a nurse, set to this music. And to me, what it speaks to is the infinite possibilities of cinema. Film and cinema can be purely poetic. And it's something I feel very passionate about. And I think it's why I stay interested in exploring things cinematically.

Speaker 232:56

Yeah.

Presenter33:56

From the original soundtrack to the film Koi Anaskatsi, that was Prophecies composed by Philip Glass. So, Christopher Nolan, it's time for me to give you the books. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take a book of your own along with those two. What are you going to take?

Christopher Nolan34:11

Well, I'd like to take if I can have two volumes, I would take the selected fictions and nonfictions of Borges. He's a writer I admire tremendously, and the collections of his writings, they're labyrinthine, and in a way all stories are contained within his stories.

Presenter34:28

Could you choose just one?

Christopher Nolan34:29

Could you choose just one?

Presenter34:31

Okay, I'm gonna give you that one then.

Christopher Nolan34:33

Okay.

Presenter34:34

Your luxury.

Christopher Nolan34:35

Well, what I realize I would want more than anything is is a projector and a stack of old film prints. If you have access to movies, it makes most things more bearable. I'd like to have enough that I could, you know, screen a different one every week, you know, as the sun was setting on the island.

Presenter34:52

So we'll give you some determinate old movie vault that happens to contain whatever it contains. That would be perfect. Okay. The one track, if you had to save one from the waves, which one would it be?

Christopher Nolan34:57

That would be perfect.

Christopher Nolan35:02

Well, I think it'd have to save hands from the waves, and you can't let a friend drown, can you?

Presenter35:06

Right, that's yours then. Christopher Nolan, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Christopher Nolan35:11

Thank you.

Presenter35:23

I hope you enjoyed this edition of Desert Island Discs. You'll find over 2,000 interviews with artists, musicians, scientists, sports stars, comedians, and more at bbc.co.uk/slash desertisland discs. And I have a favour to ask: if you could rate and review the Desert Island Discs podcast wherever you download your podcasts, it'll really help other people find us. Thanks again for listening.

Christopher Nolan36:00

This is the B B C.