The movie Christopher Nolan calls a “lost masterpiece”
With the release of Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan is solidifying himself as one of the most entertaining directors Hollywood has ever seen. From his war movies like Dunkirk to his latest dissection of the man behind the nuclear bomb, Nolan’s knack for exciting thrill rides is second to none in the film industry, being one of the few directors with an identifiable style separate from his peers. But of course, an artist in Nolan’s position doesn’t get there without a genuine love for cinema.
Coming from the old school of storytelling, Nolan’s approach to the medium is far more retro than what his movies lead on. Although his latest features have created spellbinding images that will stick with the viewer long after they’re gone, Nolan has opened up about being inspired by films such as Citizen Kane when looking at the scope of film.
When talking about some of his inspirations, Nolan had discussed pulling from the work of other film visionaries like Alfred Hitchcock, citing Correspondent 17 as a particular favourite because “it does all kinds of in-camera effects,” he said, before adding: “The innovation, like we did with Oppenheimer, we tried to get in-camera solutions. You have to go back to films of that era to see that kind of innovation”.
Though Nolan also waxed poetic over masterpieces like Lawrence of Arabia, he had a special place in his heart for Greed by Erich Von Stroheim. A silent film detailing a San Francisco dentist who married his best friend’s girlfriend, Nolan described the film as a “lost masterpiece”, with the caveat that Stroheim’s version of it has been lost to history.
While making the film, Stroheim went through 85 different hours of filmed material before settling on the version that included everything he intended. Since the original pass of the film was supposedly eight hours long, the studio cut everything down without consulting the director, turning it into a version that ran for two-and-a-half hours. Though the film did find an audience, Stroheim was quick to disown the condensed version of it, thinking that the head of the story, June Mathis, destroyed what he was working for.
Discussing the development of the film, Nolan regretted how Stroheim’s vision had to be cut down to a decent size, saying, “They don’t have his version of it. There are all kinds of legends about how long his version was. There’s a brilliant reconstruction one of the TV versions did where they used stills to try and recreate some of the unfinished scenes.”
While the version available to the public is the studio’s cut, only 12 people have supposedly been able to see the finished product. Even without seeing the full picture, Nolan is satisfied with what he got to see, explaining, “It’s an incredible film what one of the greatest endings of all time”.
Even though the film’s director might not care for the finished product, it’s not hard to see why a film like Greed would have inspired Nolan. Having made films that are known to take their time, Nolan has made it a habit to sculpt a film that’s as long as it’s supposed to be without regard for what the studio has to say about it. Despite having to play the game with film executives, Nolan has taken the model of how Stroheim was trying to tell a story and has continued to slowly incorporate it into modern cinema.
