The seminal influence of Christopher Nolan’s career: “My first sense of what a director does”
Of all the great directors of the 21st century, few have managed to balance artistic individuality with commercial success quite like Christopher Nolan. Who else could have turned a three-hour epic about a nuclear physicist into a billion-dollar movie? The same guy who just so happened to make the most popular big-screen version of Batman right after doing a film about squabbling magicians. Nolan’s filmography makes no sense, but you can’t argue with the results.
Every great director has to start somewhere. Nolan’s father worked as a creative director for an advertising agency, and his son would borrow his Super 8 camera to make his first childhood movies. In terms of influences, one fellow Brit stands above all the rest in terms of influencing the young maestro’s mind – Sir Ridley Scott.
“At some point, after seeing Blade Runner, I had somehow connected it with Alien – different actors, different story. Everything’s completely different, but there’s the same feeling,” Nolan told Playboy. “That was my first sense of what a director does. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen Blade Runner. I know everything about it. I was absolutely obsessive about it, and at a time when there weren’t many people interested in it outside of a small group. I remember talking to my dad about Ridley Scott and him revealing that he’d actually worked with and knew him a tiny bit because of where he produced some of his commercials. Ridley Scott was my hero.”
This isn’t the only time Nolan has referred to Scott as an early influence. He has stated that he’s seen Blade Runner more than any other movie and its impact on his own work is clear to see. The desolate, hopeless wasteland of Blade Runner’s interpretation of Los Angeles laid the groundwork for many future movie settings, including Nolan’s version of Gotham in the ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy. There’s also more than a shred of Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard in Guy Pearce’s character from Memento; a lone man searching for increasingly elusive answers in a world he doesn’t understand.
Considering he had a direct link to his idol through his father, you’d have thought Nolan would have arranged a meeting as soon as possible. “I used to think about doing that a lot. I’m just too shy, too self-conscious,” he revealed. “I didn’t ever do that, and part of me now wishes I had. I was at a party once, and Sydney Pollack was across the room, not really talking to anybody. I had spoken to him on the phone once but had never met him in person. I thought, I should go talk to him. I didn’t. But I really wish I had. He passed away fairly soon after.”
Luckily, the two have since had the opportunity to converse, as Nolan interviewed Scott during the press tour for Gladiator II. Considering his long-standing appreciation for the man, Nolan kept remarkably cool during this interaction. Well, on camera anyway. Who knows how much fanboying went on behind the scenes.
Even though his own career has reached similar heights, Nolan has never stopped praising the man who got him into filmmaking. Even though Scott is still alive and well, making movies by the bucketload, Nolan’s admiration serves as an important reminder of just how important he was during his heyday.
