Christopher Nolan names his favourite Disney movies: “It has that phenomenal quality”
Christopher Nolan is one of the most prolific filmmakers working today, currently embarking on his next creative conquest—a screen adaptation of The Odyssey, a story that matches the grandeur of his cinematic worlds.
Over the years, he has become synonymous with a high calibre of creativity and innovation, demonstrating a masterful understanding of world-building and visual storytelling. This has elevated films like Inception, Interstellar, and Oppenheimer, transporting audiences to new realms as they immerse themselves in each universe’s unique logic. As one of the most in-demand directors in the industry, with millions of pounds invested in his ideas, Nolan often faces questions about his influences. Among them, he has listed one surprising project that he loves.
Nolan is known for his mind-bending and trippy stories, with characters who seemingly defy the laws of gravity and time itself as they bend the world to fit their high-stakes mission. From the warped rules of Tenet to the dark city of Gotham in The Dark Knight Rises, the director is not known for making light and fluffy stories; on the contrary, each one is usually a dark exploration of humanity and the shared threats we face, whether it be nuclear bombs or the decaying effect of time.
Given the nature of stories that he is drawn to, it is hard to imagine that the director would take inspiration from more light-hearted films, but he surprisingly shared his love for Disney and two specific projects from the heavyweight studio.
When discussing this, Nolan said, “Mary Poppins is great—and I showed my kids The Lion King the other day, and it has that phenomenal quality of Disney movies. When I look at Mary Poppins, what’s interesting to me technically is that it’s so well made—it’s extraordinary. Not just visual effects. You’ve got these performers singing and dancing with no cuts and, therefore, with nothing to hide it with, which is extremely extraordinary. I’ve watched Mary Poppins [with my children] several times. Particularly with DVD, they’ll watch a section for a song, and the technology really embraces that”.
The Lion King is one of the most beloved films from the studio, with a glorious and life-affirming sense of old movie magic that is only capable due to the limitless power of animation. But Mary Poppins is one of the few films that form the studio that manages to achieve a similar quality with live-action characters and settings while also blending both together in some dreamy and other-worldly sequences such as the merry-go-round scene.
Nolan expanded on the technical achievements of the films and how this relates to the current quality filmmaking, saying, “But when I look at trends in cinema, I don’t see things [in terms of] getting better or worse. In technical terms, it’s getting worse—cinema’s in big trouble and needs to be put back on course in terms of image quality. At the same time, the sound quality is getting much, much better. When you look at films from 30 years ago, you would have far fewer cuts but they’re not necessarily better because expectations and rhythm and ability to absorb have changed—and you can’t go back. You have to be realistic about the growth in complexity about each generation of films. You’re not creating film in a vacuum; you’re building on what’s come before”.
While some things are moving forward, the sense of timeless magic that was captured in the early films from the studio has somewhat disappeared, perhaps due to Nolan’s suspicion that they aren’t considering the qualities that made their previous films so special.
