Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Filmmaker known for credible blockbusters like the Batman trilogy, Interstellar, and Dunkirk, exploring scale, existential angst, and time.
On the island
Eight records
The keepsakes
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:43Why do you choose to show audiences the unfamiliar to help them understand the familiar?
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.
Presenter asks
7:48Have you worked in your own bubble because there were elements of old Hollywood that didn't sit comfortably with you?
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.
Presenter asks
The book
Selected Fictions and Nonfictions of Borges
Jorge Luis 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.
The luxury
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.
Has the call for more strong female characters and more women in the industry given you pause about your own creative process and what you want to represent on screen?
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 … keeping your eye on the prize is about equality of opportunity. It's about getting more diverse voices making film.
Presenter asks
12:36What was it about 2001: A Space Odyssey that you connected with when you saw it as a child?
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.
Presenter asks
31:32What do you think you've learned about life and maybe about yourself from your job?
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. … 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.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I've come to believe in the concept of love at first sight, because I realize it actually happened to me.”
“I think it'd have to save [Hans] from the waves, and you can't let a friend drown, can you?”