David Cronenberg names his favourite Christopher Nolan film: “That is an interesting movie”
Even though it would have done wonders for his bank balance and standing within the industry, David Cronenberg has never been a director willing to take the money and run, even if several of those offers have been sent his way.
The filmmaker famously turned down the chance to step into George Lucas and Irvin Kershner’s shoes to helm Return of the Jedi, the blockbuster third instalment in the original Star Wars trilogy. He wasn’t interested in stories he hadn’t created, so he went off and made Videodrome instead.
Several years later, Cronenberg could have been the man who catapulted Tom Cruise to A-list superstardom, but he much preferred The Fly over Top Gun as his 1986 release. He was even offered Flashdance, which is so bizarre it would have been worth him doing just to see what emerged on the other side.
Huge budgets, massive crews, visual effects, and crowd-pleasing escapism have never been where Cronenberg saw himself, which handily explains why he hates the superhero genre so much. Of course, he’s not the first veteran auteur to say so, which inevitably meant that Batman Begins, The Dark Knight or The Dark Knight Rises stood no chance of being named as his favourite Christopher Nolan movie.
The trilogy is undoubtedly a high point for the comic book adaptation, but Cronenberg couldn’t care less. “I don’t think any of the Batman movies are as interesting as Memento,” he said to Film Comment, which is fair enough. “I just said that the Batman movies were adolescent to their core, and that’s their appeal, but I never said they were bad. And I said I thought Memento was his best movie.”
That he certainly did, even if Cronenberg was hardly fawning over Nolan’s labyrinthine breakthrough. He was, in fact, incredibly literal about it, with the filmmaker’s exact words being, “Christopher Nolan’s best movie is Memento, and that is an interesting movie.” No more, no less, but enshrined as the pick of the bunch nonetheless.
There are plenty of folks out there who’d agree with his position, even after Nolan spent the next two decades becoming a brand unto himself. He’s busted blocks with Inception, ventured to the furthest reaches of space in Interstellar, plunged viewers into the horrors of war with Dunkirk, and scooped ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’ trophies at the Academy Awards for Oppenheimer, but what Memento lacks in scope and scale it more than makes up for in ambition and ingenuity.
It was a jaw-dropping calling card for a director making only their second feature, and it was the last film Nolan crafted that felt genuinely intimate. Cronenberg couldn’t give two shits about Bruce Wayne, but he’ll happily take Leonard Shelby any day of the week.
