Apex Mountain on The Rewatchables
48:46 – 51:34… it's, I think, the concept of Chris Nolan's virtuosity. Mm-hmm. You know, it's like this, to me, I can understand if you guys think that Dark Knight is his apex mountain. To me, this is his apex mountain because this is where he really dealed himself in, aside from Gotham City, and aside from science fiction, and aside from the San Diego Comic-Con crowd, all right, to being a great filmmaker and dealing with a big subject and brought Warner Brothers along with him in the exact way Stanley Kubrick would have done, bringing Warner Brothers along with him. You know, it's like, you know, and they backed him a …
The whole segment, as transcribed
What else is age the best? Well, frankly, I would say it's, I think, the concept of Chris Nolan's virtuosity. Mm-hmm. You know, it's like this, to me, I can understand if you guys think that Dark Knight is his apex mountain. To me, this is his apex mountain because this is where he really dealed himself in, aside from Gotham City, and aside from science fiction, and aside from the San Diego Comic-Con crowd, all right, to being a great filmmaker and dealing with a big subject and brought Warner Brothers along with him in the exact way Stanley Kubrick would have done, bringing Warner Brothers along with him. You know, it's like, you know, and they backed him a hundred percent. And yeah, if you look at Interstellar, this film, and then Tenet, which is his movie coming out next year, you've got three wholly original stories from big studios with big budgets that people are excited about and were eager to see. They were eager to see Interstellar, they were very eager to see Dunkirk, which is kind of impressive, the amount of people he got to see this, and then Tenet, we'll see what we get. Chris, what else has aged the best? I mean, I agree with him. It's hard to imagine this movie being imitated or topped. It does feel like it could only have been made by him and it could only have been told in the way that he told it. If you try to rearrange the movie in your head and say, okay, what would happen if you would cut it in a more linear fashion? It actually doesn't hold together as a gripping story the way it does, you know, the way he tells it. So you wind up really having something that's, it's a special kind of storytelling. It only could have been done by him. As far as other stuff that I feel like aged is the best, I thought that we've had a lot of fun at the expense of no-name characters here, but really, really, really good job with the faces. Yeah. The faces feel like guys in photographs of British soldiers in 1940, you know, and you just, you buy it. Do they all look like Harry Styles? No, Harry Styles is covered in oil, you know what I mean? And yelling at guys to bring him a paper, you know? Before we started this podcast, we were talking with our producer about why Harry Styles is in the movie, and we're going to talk about him a little bit more. Which one is he in the movie? He's the one who's a prick towards the end. He's just like, oh, we're going to be spit on on the street. Oh, he's the one who's calling out the French guy. He's most aggressive to the French guy, exactly. And he's good. He just so happens to be one of the five biggest pop stars in the world, but nevertheless, what's age the worst? I don't, you know, this is a tough one. We just spent 40 minutes praising this movie. Here's what I wrote down. The time-shifting gimmick in general, is this just something that is going to be in every Christopher Nolan
75:15 – 82:10… somebody? No it's Killian Murphy. He's the only one that has like a really dramatic moment. I mean most of the other time it's just sheer terror and survival. Apex Mountain. Now Quentin already stepped on this a little bit but I think it's a really good and deep conversation. So it's Harry Styles. We're agreed? Apex Mountain. No is it Nolan? So this is the first time Nolan was nominated for Best Director and that seems strange actually. Yeah. When you think about it that way given his life's work but this was a big hit not as big a hit as some of the movies that came before it. It's an amazing achievement. It's …
The whole segment, as transcribed
I don't know. Killian Murphy? Yeah. Yeah. If anyone's going to get it. Yeah. He's right. He's really. Yeah. You got somebody? No it's Killian Murphy. He's the only one that has like a really dramatic moment. I mean most of the other time it's just sheer terror and survival. Apex Mountain. Now Quentin already stepped on this a little bit but I think it's a really good and deep conversation. So it's Harry Styles. We're agreed? Apex Mountain. No is it Nolan? So this is the first time Nolan was nominated for Best Director and that seems strange actually. Yeah. When you think about it that way given his life's work but this was a big hit not as big a hit as some of the movies that came before it. It's an amazing achievement. It's an achievement movie I think in a lot of ways. There are certain directors who go through their filmography and you say oh this is a movie I liked watching and then you look at other films and you think you know Titanic in some ways is an achievement for Cameron even though we might like Aliens more. So is this for Nolan Apex Mountain because of what it achieves because of what it did for him as a filmmaker because of what it allowed for him to happen in the future? I would say yes for me for all those reasons. Okay. You know if you're going for an Apex Mountain heat check I think it would either be Dark Knight or Inception. But he still hadn't revealed as bad of an ass as he was he still hadn't shown how bad of an ass he could be. Right. And I think that when he did Dunkirk he put himself up with the greatest in the world. And I think he was already there. Even if you like this one and you don't care for that one and there's a few that I feel that way about. Sure. But it brought him to the mountain as far as I'm concerned. So I think that to get specific about it the difficulty with giving this Apex Mountain is that we haven't seen the film he's done since then. Right. So we haven't gotten the next movie since Dunkirk yet. So yeah. And I would probably say for me it's Inception if also because. This is insane to me. That I'm saying Inception. We keep going. because that's the one where he gets away from from Batman. So that and that's the one where it shows like you can make a movie like this that is an original story that people don't have this pre-existing relationship to these characters or these or any of these ideas and you can make it as big as Batman was. You can make it as big as Dark Knight was. And it showed that he was able to make his own versions of these movies without having to rely on on on DC essentially. I think that's a lot of promotion. I think it was there was no movie was sold. You think you feel like it's so you feel like it's I'm reacting more to marketing than I am. I really do. I think that movie was sold. It was a it was it was a product that was sold. They learned how to eventize the Nolan brand in a way that was effective that ultimately pays off. Oh I should also say I fucking love Inception. Yeah. No I know. Yeah. I mean I'm a little more lukewarm. Yeah. But here's the thing. I'm more lukewarm. Okay. But I'm not trying to hold that against. Yeah. So the tricky part of the case that you're making Quentin to me is that and this might bum you out but I think it's true. I think that the Dark Knight is the most important movie of the century. I don't think it's the best movie. I don't even think it's one of the 100 best movies. But I think it's the movie that reset the brain chemistry of the industry the Academy and common moviegoers. And it's really hard to make a movie that can do that. I mean now we can hold against it the fact that it's DC and that it's a comic book movie but its impact not just its box office not just its awards but its impact on people is huge. It's so vast in a way that a movie like Dunkirk might not ever be. Okay. But okay so I go along with that but does that make it Batman's apex and not Nolan? That's a good question. Yeah. I mean I would guess that it will be. Yeah absolutely is Batman's apex. Well we haven't seen Matt Reeves as the Batman. No no but also we're shit canning Neil Adams too. True. By giving that to a movie. Yes. Or Frank Miller or any number of people. Outside the apex mountain discussion do you guys think that Dunkirk is Nolan's best movie? Is it your favorite Nolan movie? I think yes and yes. It definitely is my favorite. It's definitely the one I respond to the most. Yeah it is. Okay. I have a very warm feeling towards Memento. Now I realize the circumstances of making a movie like Memento and Dunkirk are totally different but there's a level of invention happening in that movie that I'm still interested in. Also kind of similarly rewatchable. Things work better or don't work better when you revisit. I would put a Dunkirk 1. I would put Batman Begins 2. and I would have to give it to Dark Knight 3 but I actually enjoy the prestige more. Yeah that's an unspoken movie on this show so far which is interesting. I'm on Inception Island here. Well listeners of this show know how I feel about Inception unfortunately. But we're truly by ourselves. Yes I know. No I know. I know. I know. I know. I know. What can you do? All right so it is Christopher Nolan's Apex Mountain. We'll agree on that for now. I defer. Did I sell that? Yeah. No you did. You did. Well it's because he has what comes for him in the future is kind of anything he wants it seems like. Yeah. And that's maybe that's really the clearest definition of Apex Mountain. Yeah I would you know yeah I would actually say that to some degree he could do whatever he wanted at Warner Brothers before Dunkirk but I would I I think Dunkirk is his 2001. Mm-hmm. You know and so it's like after that yeah and he truly is their Kubrick. Yes. In a world where David Fincher already exists. Mm-hmm. But he's Warner's so being Warner's and then He's Warner's Kubrick. Yeah. Picking knits. A couple of small things here. You'd imagine that trying to remake a 1940 war movie is almost impossible to be perfectly period accurate. The Luftwaffe did not start painting fighter aircraft nose cones yellow until later in 1940. Do better Chris. However Christopher Nolan. That's not your Nikki Pitt. No no no. That's just that's just the problematic issue in the movie. There's a whole bunch of these like during the scenes shot in Weymouth on a couple of occasions the top of the Weymouth Sea Life Tower is visible which was built circa 2012. I don't have a lot of knits to pick about the way that the story is structured. No I mean if you can get over the actual structure of the story it's hard to be like why didn't you just swim back for him. You know I mean. Yeah yeah but maybe we should pick some knits about the British strategy
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