The Stanley Kubrick masterpiece Christopher Nolan has seen “dozens of times”
Christopher Nolan has hinged his filmmaking style on ambition. He fills his scripts with complex themes surrounding time and memory, pushing the blockbuster to be something greater. He borrows his source material from huge superhero stories and historical moments, undeterred by the expectation that accompanies them. He works with huge budgets and sets of unparalleled scale, always ensuring that his visuals are as staggering as his story.
Few directors can compete with the size and scale of his work, but Stanley Kubrick is one of them. Long before Nolan even got his hands on a camera, Kubrick was carving out his place as one of the most influential filmmakers of all time. Throughout the 1960s and 1980s, he created classic after classic, from the strange and shocking A Clockwork Orange to horror staple The Shining.
Whether he was tackling sci-fi or satire, Kubrick afforded each picture the ambition it deserved, uncompromising on the scale of his stories and sets. It’s no surprise, then, that he earned the admiration of Nolan, amongst countless others. The Interstellar director has undoubtedly taken inspiration from his predecessor, and from one film in particular.
Speaking about his love for Kubrick’s seminal sci-fi film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Nolan once told Film Comment that he had watched the movie “dozens of times”. The reason for his relentless rewatches, all of which happened within the span of a few months, was to celebrate the film’s 50th anniversary with an “unrestored” version of the film, something Nolan oversaw.
“Every time I find new things,” he said of his continuous rewatches, “and have a new respect for the film.” He suggested that this was the sign of a “great masterpiece”. Nolan certainly isn’t the only person to have heaped this level of praise on 2001: A Space Odyssey. The film is widely considered to be Kubrick’s magnum opus, as well as one of the greatest pictures of all time.
It’s easy to see how Nolan’s love for 2001: A Space Odyssey may have bled into his own work as a filmmaker. First of all, the scale of the film was unparalleled in its ambition. Kubrick was working with just over $10million and with some of the most innovative special effects in contemporary cinema. Big budgets and epic effects have become trademarks of Nolan’s work.
Beyond the more practical elements of Kubrick’s style, though, his influence can still be felt in Nolan’s work. Just like his predecessor, Nolan affords his films just as music ambition thematically as he does visually. Kubrick pushed into discussions of about humanity, evolution and technology in 2001: A Space Odyssey, asking questions about the universe that Nolan has continued to explore.
It’s easy to understand why Nolan admires Kubrick’s filmmaking so much, as he shares so many cinematic interests with the legendary director. It’s also easy to understand why he’s particularly enthusiastic about 2001: A Space Odyssey — just like a Nolan film, it’s epic in visual scale, existential in its thematic focuses, and uncompromising in its ambition.
Kubrick almost acts as the blueprint for Nolan’s filmmaking style. His influence can be felt in Interstellar’s gorgeous sci-fi visuals and questions about humanity, in the existentialism that bubbles beneath the beauty of Inception, and even in the ambition of the Dark Knight trilogy. Nolan may be one of the most ambitious directors of his time, but he owes some of that ambition to Kubrick.
