Director Christopher Nolan dissects secrets of ‘Tenant’
The filmmaker throws back the curtain on the effects and stunts seen in the thriller.
Like the magicians in his 2006 film “The Prestige,” Christopher Nolan is not a filmmaker who likes to explain his completed tricks. But with the pandemic wreaking havoc on 2020’s film releases, including his three-times delayed “Tenet,” the writer-director of the audaciously complex thriller is letting loose.
“There’s always a tension with not wanting to spoil things for people, wanting to let them believe in what they’re seeing,” says Nolan, who revels in the elaborate (and real) special effects in the $200 million film. “When I tell people I got to impulse-purchase a 747 and crash it into a building for real, it doesn’t diminish things. It makes it more exciting.”
As “Tenet” heads to home release (Blu-ray and digital) following a pandemic-hampered theatrical release that still brought in $361 million internationally, Nolan opens up about John David Washington’s mysterious Protagonist, self-critical Robert Pattinson’s driving skills and the future of the theatrical experience, post-pandemic.
Question: So how did you tell John David Washington and Robert Pattinson that they’d actually be bungeejumping onto a tall Mumbai building?
Christopher Nolan: I left that to George Cottle, our stunt coordinator, who came up with the idea of actually bungee jumping up the building, which was pretty spectacular, and I added it to the script. He said to them, “We want you to do the first half of this yourselves and actually launch you into the air over the street.” They trusted him to find a way to do that and I think they actually had fun at the end of the day. Q: John David Washington is so lethally cool, did he have any moments of fear during filming?
Nolan: There’s a moment where he has to jump off the balcony at the end of that (Mumbai) scene. He had to jump over the banister and onto a blackpainted platform just out of sight, which was 20 stories in the air. All the safety protocols are in place, but that platform looked pretty small to him. It was only the next day that I realized he’d actually been pretty nervous about jumping over that banister. Quite rightly, too. But he plays it so cool that I never realized in the moment. I thought the thousandyard stare had to do with different interpretations of the notes I was giving. But I think he was actually pretty daunted by what he was having to do physically. He never let on. And I think we did it seven or eight times.
Q: The crackerjack opening concert commando attack features a cast of thousands and more than one crushed string instrument. Were those stunt cellos or destroyed masterpieces?
Nolan: Stunt cellos are tricky because we bought some cheap, nasty old instruments and did them up. But the musicians were real musicians. Some of them got so frustrated with these crappy instruments that they started swapping it out for their own real instruments, some worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then we’d get to the bit where someone’s about to smash one and they’d say, ‘Hang on! This is my instrument.’ So we’d have to back up. But the awful caterwauling sound of the cheap instruments was offensive to them.
Q: Robert Pattinson is so believably self-deprecating about his driving. How was he behind the wheel, really?
Nolan: Rob was assessed by the stunt teams as a talented driver. We were able to get him do a lot of his closeups using a mounted camera. So he and John David would be in the car with cameras mounted on the side. We were also able to achieve a number of shots with different techniques in the sequence, but there are a couple of really hair-raising shots where Rob’s in the driver’s seat. What’s actually happening is there’s a stunt driver behind his head – facing the other way. And the entire shot is filmed in reverse. We’re able to get the camera right in on him as the driver, even though he’s actually the passenger, moving backwards.
Q: You clearly wrote the part of spy master Sir Michael Crosby for Sir Michael Caine, 87, in his eighth film with you. How was shooting that scene?
Nolan: I barely changed his name in the script, which was possibly a little lazy of me. But I knew Michael really wanted to do this. And after “Dunkirk,” where we got him to phone it in, literally, for a voice performance, I really missed him on the set. Michael’s actually wearing his own suit. He knew the suit to wear, and he bought his own.
It was such a thrill to see him again and to work with him again. But also to introduce him to John David, this wonderful rising star, and see the two of them work together. And to see the respect with which John David and the whole crew treated Michael, as this living legend. It was a really, really moving day.
Q:And the pointed “Goodbye, Sir Michael” at the end the scene, seemed real.
Nolan: Very much. It’s a shame he couldn’t come back later in the film, but that’s the character. But obviously, I hope to work with him again.
Q: With the pandemic, and the recent Warner Bros. decision to simultaneously release its 2021 slate on HBO Max, what’s your view on the future of the theatrical experience?
Nolan: Everyone in the business knows that long-term, people are going to want to go to movie theaters and see movies. So to look at anything going on during a pandemic ... as an acceleration of existing trends, is facile. Last year, 2019, was the biggest year financially for movie theaters ever. Attendance was massive. That’s where we left off, I’ll put it that way.
And then with “Tenet” coming out internationally, and doing more than $300 million in markets where it was able to open. Yeah, I’m very optimistic for the future of movie-going. The question isn’t whether exhibition will survive. The question is which of the movie studios will survive.