The Quentin Tarantino movie Christopher Nolan regrets watching: “I wished I didn’t”
There are some cinephiles that, if allowed to see into a crystal ball and discover the plot of an unreleased film by their favourite filmmaker, they would take it without question. There are some directors with such intense scrutiny over their work and future projects, being hounded with questions from the media and press about what it will be about, who’s in it and how the story will end, unable to wait just weeks to discover the information themselves. It’s an issue that his begun to effect the growing career of Christopher Nolan.
Enriched by his unique storylines and twisting plots, the clamour for what the ‘Best Director’ winner would do after his Academy Award-winning biopic Oppenheimer began almost as soon as the credits rolled. But despite this being a somewhat incessant quality in some film lovers, there are many directors who share this curiosity, with Nolan sharing the time he was given a sneak peek at Quentin Tarantino’s new film and immediately regretted it.
Quentin Tarantino has a cult following that is nearly unheard of for a director, becoming nearly as famous as his films and having endless streams of fans following him around for autographs and photos. After the knockout success of Reservoir Dogs, the pressure to follow it up with an equally accomplished film was insurmountable, and after the release of Pulp Fiction, it’s safe to say that he delivered.
But there was one fellow director who was disappointed by the film, and not because he didn’t enjoy it, but because he’d ruined the surprise for himself by reading the script months earlier.
Christopher Nolan has a similar following to Tarantino. His recently announced project starring Tom Holland has sparked endless discussions and theories online about what the story could be, especially after the colossal commercial success of Oppenheimer.
However, the director started out in the industry as many of us do—reading scripts in a tiny office and making tea for executives who don’t care to remember your name. As an intern, he was given the chance to read the work of many celebrated filmmakers before they were translated onto the screen.
When asked about this, Nolan revealed that he had a similar curiosity towards unmade work, saying, “I’m of that mindset myself. What I’ve realized over the years is, I want to know the movie, and then as soon as I know it, I wished I didn’t. I was interning at a film company years ago, and I read the script for Pulp Fiction before I saw the movie, and I always regretted it. I’m a huge Reservoir Dogs fan, I was really excited to see [Quentin Tarantino‘s] next film. Reading the script wasn’t the same as seeing the film. And then seeing the film, having read the script, wasn’t the same as seeing the film”.
Reading any script before watching the final film is a strange experience and one that can shatter the power of the images on screen when you can predict them before they are shown. Perhaps Nolan learnt his lesson from this experience, or maybe he still has a similar itch to know the truth before everyone else does. Given the subject matter of his films, I can imagine that the latter is more likely.
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