Christopher Nolan disagrees with Odyssey star Matt Damon about his new movie being Hollywood’s last big movie.
Damon has repeatedly said during the film’s press tour that he felt filming The Odyssey was his “last chance” to make a classic Hollywood blockbuster, given Nolan’s commitment to practical large-format filmmaking and location shooting.
“This movie was a really weird movie in the sense that, personally, I felt nostalgic the whole time I was making it, because it felt like the movies I was making when I started, and I know that’s going to go away,” Damon said in an interview with GQ earlier this year. “I knew this was my last chance to have to do something like this…I don’t think it’s going to be long before people have the resources to shoot a movie this way.”
In a recent interview with the Telegraph, Nolan said he understands where Damon is coming from, but doesn’t agree with him.
“I think I know what[Damon]was going for, because it feels like it’s been a long time since we’ve done a movie like this in this way, traveling the world and assembling a cast of thousands of people,” Nolan said. “But there’s a defeatist side to that view, and I don’t agree with it. I think film is essential, essential, and continues to reinvent itself. We have wonderful young voices in film who are making this medium their own and moving it forward.”
Nolan cited two of this summer’s surprise hits, Backrooms and Obsession, as proof that he still can’t forget movies, explaining, “Young audiences’ attention spans are too short to enjoy a three-hour Greek epic.” I never bought into the argument that these movies are so mysterious and ruminative. I mean, parts of Backrooms are like the least-known David Lynch, and yet young people can’t get enough of it. ”
Oscar-winner Nolan is also encouraged by the way younger audiences seem to be rejecting “AI slop” in favor of homemade films like “Backroom.”
“Never in my life have I seen something that seemed like a fundamental advance in technology be rejected so quickly and completely,” Nolan said of AI. “A lot of energy has been spent on introducing AI, but when you look at the reaction of that generation, they completely reject it.”
Nolan said his children’s “judgment on AI failure was immediate and harsh. They recognized it for what it was very quickly, and it was much easier to identify it because it came from an online world they were familiar with. “That doesn’t mean every aspect of Theology is useless or meaningless, but it’s just the wrong time in filmmaking. After years of moving toward highly virtual environments, we’re seeing a renewed interest in more tactile, more realistic forms.” of storytelling. ”
In a separate interview with AFP (via the Guardian), Nolan doubled down on his criticism of AI, saying, “The interesting thing about AI is that I’ve never seen a technology that has been so successfully adopted by Wall Street, by investors, by tech companies, and rejected so thoroughly by the public. It’s kind of strange, especially young people, who coined this term ‘AI slop.'” There’s a certain disdain for AI…the idea that AI will completely replace humans and human creativity is nonsense to me. ”
“Odyssey” will be released nationwide on July 17th.
