Many filmmakers face the grim reality: while they would love to have all audiences watch their movies in theaters, the pandemic is further acclimatizing people to watching their movies at home, and on small devices like iPhones. Directors like David Fincher and Nicolas Winding Refn have admitted they’re aware that audiences watch their films on iPhones, and they can’t really fight it—as long as people are watching, they’re watching. Christopher Nolan, a big vocal champion about the big-screen experience, is one of the filmmakers most people assume would be appalled to learn that audiences are watching his film on a non-optimal tiny screen.
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But apparently, that’s just one of the many myths that revolve around the sometimes-mysterious Nolan. In Tom Shone’s new book “The Nolan Variations,”{via Anton Volkov, via IndieWire), the director disabuses people from the notion you can’t watch a Christopher Nolan movie on a smaller screen.
In the book, Nolan notes people have asked him this before and recalls the anecdote, “’Well, do you have a problem with people seeing ‘Dunkirk’ on my phone or whatever?’”
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“No, I don’t,” he answered. “But the reason I don’t is because it’s put into these big theaters as its primary form, or its initial distribution. And the experience trickles down, to the extent where, if you have an iPad and you’re watching a movie, you carry with you the knowledge and your understanding of what that cinematic experience would be, and you extrapolate that. So, when you watch a TV show on your iPad, your brain is in a completely different mindset.”
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Nolan referenced an old M. Night Shyamalan interview where the “Signs” director admitted that films make most of their money on ancillary dollars—aka, home video, rentals, VOD, etc., etc.,—but that the theatrical event is where the film is launched and is teed up for all those ancillaries. “That’s what movies are,” Nolan said. “We live and work in an analogue world. We need bums on seats. We need people to come to the cinema, engage with the film.”
So, file this under another Nolan myth that’s been overturned, along with no chairs allowed on set. Truthfully, another myth that hasn’t been disproven, but seems like a fable is Christopher Nolan doesn’t own or use a smartphone. One’s gotta assume that’s a tall tale, and who knows, maybe the legend will be dismantled soon enough as these things tend to happen in threes.