The film Christopher Nolan calls “a phenomenal movie”
After spending his childhood engrossed in the cinematic worlds of directors like Stanley Kubrick and Ridley Scott, Christopher Nolan pursued a career in filmmaking in the 1990s, creating a series of short films throughout the decade. By 1998, he had secured the money to make his first feature, Following, using a cast and crew of family and friends to conserve the minuscule budget.
Luckily, the movie earned him enough praise to secure a larger-scale production, which resulted in Memento. Reflectin on this time, Nolan told The Seattle Times: “The difference between shooting Following with a group of friends wearing our own clothes and my mum making sandwiches to spending $4million of somebody else’s money on Memento and having a crew of a hundred people is, to this day, by far the biggest leap I’ve ever made.”
By 2005, Nolan had begun his Batman series, revitalising the character and giving it a new lease of life after adaptations such as Batman and Robin tarnished the superhero’s legacy. Batman Begins, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises comprised a hugely successful trilogy, with the second film widely considered one of the greatest releases of the 21st century.
Elsewhere, Nolan has gained acclaim with movies such as Inception, Interstellar and the recently released Oppenheimer. The director’s success is indebted to a line of incredible filmmakers who have inspired him over the years, from Michael Mann to David Lean. In a video for Konbini‘s ‘Video Club’ series, Nolan appeared with Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy to pick out some of their favourite movies. While the pair picked out a range of movies, with Murphy selecting La Haine as a pivotal cinematic experience, there was one film that Nolan called “phenomenal”.
This was Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, an epic war drama released in 1998. Having started his career in 1973 with Badlands, following it up with the similarly successful Days of Heaven in 1978, Malick disappeared from filmmaking for 20 years before returning with The Thin Red Line. It was highly praised, earning seven Oscar nominations.
Discussing the incredible film starring Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, George Clooney and Woody Harrelson, Nolan called it a “fantastic war movie”. He referred to Malick’s film as “absolutely poetic”, stating that on the big screen, it looks “very beautiful”, before adding, “It’s really remarkable”. Moreover, Nolan praised the score, created by the director’s frequent collaborator, Hans Zimmer.
“There’s a cue in there called ‘Journey to the Line’ that he refers to as ‘the forbidden cue’ because whenever he’s working on a film and somebody tempts with it, it’s impossible to replace because it’s so powerful in and of itself, and it’s so beautifully modulated with its time and how it builds,” Nolan explained. “It’s a pretty magical piece of film score”.
The Thin Red Line undoubtedly influenced Nolan when he made his own war film, Dunkirk, released in 2017, with a score also helmed by Zimmer.
Watch the full video below.
