A Man and His Dream: Christopher Nolan and ‘Inception’

Is Christopher Nolan a household name yet? Certainly, the movies that this 39-year-old director has made, from his breakthrough noir “Memento” to his billion-dollar Batman sequel “The Dark Knight”, have been some of the most influential and popular films of the last decade. But will his pedigree – combined, of course, with the photogenic mug of Leonardo DiCaprio – be enough to reel in moviegoers by the millions for “Inception,” his highly anticipated if enigmatic new movie?

That’s the question the motion-picture industry and its observers will be asking when “Inception” opens on July 16. Meanwhile, audiences will be trying to unravel the film’s puzzles about a team of experts – or are they con men? – who are able to enter into your dreams and protect – or steal – the secrets in your subconscious. An article in this weekend’s Arts & Leisure section (which can be found here) looks at the making of “Inception” and Mr. Nolan’s career to date. And in this interview, Mr. Nolan talks in more detail about his latest film and its ambiguous promotional campaign, and the movies that deliberately and inadvertently influenced its creation. (And of course we tried to get him to talk about the next “Batman” movie.)

These are excerpts from a conversation with Mr. Nolan at his Los Angeles home studio in May.

As you get closer to finishing your film, do you find the studio would rather having you working closer to them instead of tinkering away in your garage?

We have really nice offices on the lot. But for the pure creative stuff, they’ve always been quite happy for us to go off into a little corner. The problem with big films is they snowball very rapidly and you can never pull back. It’s a pipeline that needs to be fed. We’ve tried to find different ways to work, starting the creative process in a very intimate way. Keeping that thread running through the bigger mechanism is the trickier thing.

Are you cognizant of the curiosity that has been building about “Inception” – people looking forward to the film while still wondering what the film is?

There’s been a lot of people saying, we’re not saying what the film is about. I think we’ve actually been quite clear in a funny sort of way. It’s really, at its core, a big action heist movie, and it’s a movie that doesn’t try to bamboozle the audience continuously. Like the traditional heist movie, it really tries to draw the audience into the logic of the world and lets the audience in on the joke, if you like.

I’m sure you’re aware – and I’m as guilty of this as anyone – that there is a culture of moviegoers that wants to know the whole movie before they sit down to see it.

I understand that. I’m of that mindset myself. What I’ve realized over the years is, I want to know the movie, and then as soon as I know it, I wished I didn’t. I was interning at a film company years ago, and I read the script for “Pulp Fiction” before I saw the movie, and I always regretted it. I’m a huge “Reservoir Dogs” fan, I was really excited to see [Quentin Tarantino‘s] next film. Reading the script wasn’t the same as seeing the film. And then seeing the film, having read the script, wasn’t the same as seeing the film.

It’s like you want to open your presents before Christmas, and then if you do, you regret it. We try to hide the presents up in the top of the closet where people can’t get at it. [laughs] But it’s an unusual movie, and so it’s a lot harder to just put out a two-and-a-half minute trailer and everyone goes, “Oh, yeah, I know what that is.” An original concept – a world the audience hasn’t entered into before – for me as a filmgoer, that’s the most exciting thing. What I responded to with “Avatar,” for example, was just not really knowing what it until I sat down to watch it in the movie theater. I really enjoyed it.

But in that case, they did a fair amount – maybe even an unprecedented amount – of planting the seed with a certain kind of audience.

I think they were being incredibly ambitious on two fronts: one was, creatively, with the depth of the world they were creating. The other was the technology, the specific technology. We’re putting this out the old-fashioned way.

You’re not being ambitious at all?

Well, we’re being technically very ambitious, but in a more traditional film presentation way.

When you sign on to do a Batman film, do you make it a condition that you get to follow with a non-Batman film?

No, I’ve only ever done one film at a time. When I did “Batman Begins,” I had no thought of doing a sequel at all. This is a film I first pitched to the studio probably nine years ago, and I wasn’t really ready to finish it. I needed more experience in making a big movie.

Did they want to see that you were more capable of handling a film that size?

I wasn’t very good at pitching. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have been able to make this film until I had done the Batman films, because it’s on such a massive scale, compared to anything else I’ve done. I had tried to write it smaller, on the assumption I might not be able to secure the budget I needed. What I found is, it’s not possible to execute this concept in a small fashion. The reason is, as soon as you’re talking about dreams, the potential of the human mind is infinite. And so the scale of the film has to feel infinite. It has to feel like you could go absolutely anywhere by the end of the film. And it has to work on a massive scale.

When you make a movie that succeeds on the scale that “The Dark Knight” did, it can be paralyzing, for all of the questions it raises about how to follow it up and what to do next. How do you avoid that?

It could be paralyzing, if you chose to take credit for the success, rather than understanding that when you catch the zeitgeist in that way, that’s a very unique thing. And not possible to explain. Beyond that, it’s in the hands of the movie gods. I think we were extremely, extremely fortunate in ways that I’ll probably never understand. In that sense, I don’t worry about it.

So what did you do immediately after “Dark Knight” had its run?

I actually had a really enjoyable period, went away for a month to Florida, relaxed with the family. While we were doing “The Prestige,” we knew we were going to do “The Dark Knight.” While I was doing “Batman Begins,” I knew I was going to do “The Prestige.” That’s basically five or six years that you’re completely locked into a creative path. For the first time I was able to step back and go, O.K., what do I want to do now? I’d always wanted to do “Inception.” I took six months to finish the script, and I found I could.

Have you always had an interest in making a film about dreams?

Certainly, dreams have been a feature of films in many different ways, for years. What “Inception” deals with is a science fiction concept in which really only one simple thing has changed, which is that you and I are able to experience the same dream at the same time. Once you remove the privacy, you’ve created an infinite number of alternate universes in which people can meaningfully interact – with validity, with weigh, with dramatic consequences.

So who do you read in preparation to make a movie like this? Freud? Philip K. Dick?

Probably Borges. I’d like to think this is a movie he might enjoy. [laughs] It sounds like a highfalutin reference in some ways, but the truth is, he took these incredibly bizarre philosophical concepts – like a guy facing a firing squad who wants more time to finish a story in his head, and he’s granted more time by time slowing down, as the bullet travels between the gun and him – and makes them into very digestible short stories. “The Matrix,” to me, was another a great example. It was an incredibly palpable mainstream phenomenon that made people think, Hey, what if this isn’t real? Yes, that’s a massively complex philosophical concept in some sense. But in another sense, it’s really simple.

You’ve cited directors like Ridley Scott and Michael Mann for bringing a naturalistic approach to large-scale filmmaking. Do you think you’ve had any influence in this respect yourself?

I hope so because that’s what I enjoy in movies. To me it’s the difference between science-fiction before and after “2001” or “Star Wars.” When you look at “Star Wars,” right near the beginning, and you get on that sand crawler with the robots, and they’re all greasy and messed-up, you’d never seen anything like that before. “2001” is very sterile, but it’s incredibly believable. “Star Wars,” the first one, is just grit and dirt and messiness and texture, and so you believe in that world. You were able to really invest in it and go, Yeah, I’m there.

Have you seen any good movies lately?

Not while I’m working, unfortunately. To be honest, I don’t enjoy watching movies much when I’m working. They tend to fall apart on me a bit. I’m looking forward to finishing this and getting back to it.

I see you’ve got a gigantic pile of DVDs in one of your offices. Do you ever go diving into it?

I’ve been looking at some of the Criterion discs. I watched “Last Year at Marienbad” the other night and I’d never seen it.

You’re making a movie about dreams and you hadn’t seen it?

No, I know. Everyone was accusing me of ripping it off, but I actually never got around to seeing it. Funnily enough, I saw it and I’m like, Oh, wow. There are bits of “Inception” that people are going to think I ripped that straight out of “Last Year at Marienbad.”

What do you think that means?

Basically, what it means is, I’m ripping off the movies that ripped off “Last Year at Marienbad,” without having seen the original. It’s that much a source of ideas, really, about the relationships between dream and memory and so forth, which is very much what “Inception” deals with. But we have way more explosions.

Are the gears already turning on your next Batman movie?

I can’t – the gears are firmly jammed up with this movie.

But Warner Brothers has already announced an opening date for the film in 2012. Surely you’re going to give them something?

I wouldn’t let them put out an impractical date. Put it that way. They know me well enough to know what my process is. I do one film at a time. It’s one of my real inefficiencies. As I start to free up on this film, I’ll be thinking about what to do next. I’m also very fortunate I have a brother [Jonathan Nolan] I work with. He’s an incredible asset and has been for many years.

So Jonathan has at least finished the screenplay?

Oh, yeah. He’s been working on a script for a long time. And working very hard. So he tells me.