The 80 best quotes from Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan is a famous British filmmaker, born in the London neighborhood of Westminster during the year 1970.

Although he has never won an Oscar award, this director has been nominated up to five times, a curious fact that tells us about his great relevance in the world of cinema. In his films Nolan has worked with many great actors such as Leonardo Dicaprio, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman or Matt Damon, because as we see the cast of his films is a vitally important factor for this filmmaker.

Famous quotes from Christopher Nolan

Some of his most famous films are: “Batman Begins”, “Interstellar”, “The Prestige” or “Dunkirk”, some fantastic films with which he has undoubtedly managed to create a whole legion of true admirers.

Below we show you a compilation of the 80 best phrases of Christopher Nolan, an interesting filmmaker who will surely surprise us with many great films in the future.

1. A camera is a camera, a shot is a shot, how to tell the story is the main thing.

Every great director must know how to tell stories, because at the end of the day being a filmmaker is exactly about that.

2. You will never learn something as deeply as when it is pure curiosity.

Curiosity has been totally necessary for human beings to have been able to develop current civilization, because without it we would never have been able to reach the technological point at which we are today. we find.

3. Each film must have its own world, a logic and feeling that expands beyond the exact image the audience is seeing.

The details are undoubtedly very important, as filmmakers we must all know that without them we will never be able to infuse a certain truthfulness into our films.

4. For me, Batman is the one who can most clearly be taken seriously. It is not from another planet, nor is it full of radioactive garbage. I mean, Superman is essentially a god, but Batman is more like Hercules: he's a human being, very flawed, and he bridges the gap.

Batman is undoubtedly a much more ordinary man in his stories than Superman, as Nolan tells us in this quote, Superman is much more like some kind of semi-God.

5. Why do we fall? So we can learn to recover.

Only from our mistakes do we learn, our defeats can actually be those most valuable lessons that life offers.

6. I like movies that keep turning your head in all kinds of different directions after you've seen them.

Nolan has always sought to surprise the public with his films, something that he has undoubtedly achieved on many occasions.

7. Movies are subjective: what you like, what you don't like. But what for me is absolutely unifying is the idea that every time I go to the movies and pay my money and sit down and watch a movie in screen, I want to feel that the people who made that movie think it's the best movie in the world, that they poured everything into it and really liked it. loves. Whether or not I agree with what they've done, I want that effort there, I want that sincerity. And when you don't feel it, that's the only time I feel like I'm wasting my time at the movies.

This is indeed a very revealing quote about this famous director, as we see under his point of view. seen only those filmmakers who are truly passionate about his work, deserve all his respect and consideration.

8. I think audiences feel too comfortable and familiar in today's movies. They believe everything they hear and see. I like to shake that.

As a filmmaker, Nolan is a director who likes to confuse audiences, in his films viewers never have to know what will happen next.

9. You shouldn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, honey.

Only those people who dream big will reap great rewards in the future. Well, if we don't believe in ourselves, we will never achieve our goals.

10. Every great story deserves a great ending.

Great stories deserve to have an ending that matches them. As a director, Nolan is passionate about great endings, for him they are a truly transcendental part of any film.

11. When it comes to the world of dreams, the psyche and the potential of a human mind, there have to be emotional risks. You have to deal with memory and desire problems.

The human mind is a very mysterious place, even today, many aspects of its internal functioning are still completely unknown to us.

12. At some point, when you start thinking too much about what an audience is going to think, when you're too aware of it, you make mistakes.

As a filmmaker this director knows very well that he should make films for himself, not for a certain target audience.

13. There are points where you worry that you may be putting too much into it and alienating the audience. But interestingly, some of those fears are not correct.

This director never knows how certain fragments of his films will work with the public, since people's immediate reactions are sometimes totally unpredictable.

14. Superheroes fill a void in the pop culture psyche, similar to the role of Greek mythology. There's really nothing else that does the job in modern terms. For me, Batman is the one who can most clearly be taken seriously.

Superheroes are really interesting characters, thanks to them people can fantasize about what would happen if we had super powers.

15. I've always believed that if you really want to try and make a great movie, not a good movie, but a great movie, you have to take a lot of risks.

Making a great film is not an easy task, because as this well-known director tells us, only by taking certain risks will we be able to create it.

16. One of the things you do as a writer and as a filmmaker is capture resonant symbols and images without necessarily fully understanding them.

Filmmakers must be deeply sensitive people, since it is thanks to their sensitivity that they can create films that are very related to a large number of people.

17. It's not that often that you have a huge commercial success and then have something you want to do that can excite people.

In life the luck factor is very important, because if it does not accompany us, we will never succeed in whatever our profession is.

18. I've been fascinated by dreams my whole life, since I was a child, and I think the relationship between movies and dreams is something that's always interested me.

This quote tells us about the famous movie “Inception,” starring Oscar winner Leonardo Di Caprio. An exceptional film, which with the passage of time is becoming a classic by this famous filmmaker.

19. What you don't understand is that people are not basically good. We are basically selfish. We push, scream, and cry for worship, and we beat everyone else to get it. Life is a competition of chattering peacocks enraptured in mating rituals. But despite our moderation and our importance, we are all slaves to what we fear most. You have a lot to learn. Here. Let me show you.

Human beings do not always harbor good intentions; evil, unfortunately, is something that usually abounds in people's hearts.

20. I studied English literature. He wasn't a very good student, but one thing I got from him, while making films at the same time with the university film society, was that I started thinking about the narrative freedoms that authors had enjoyed for centuries, and it seemed to me that filmmakers should enjoy those freedoms. also.

Filmmakers should always be free to express themselves freely through their films, cinema is a truly wonderful art which should never have barriers of any kind.

21. The term “gender” eventually becomes pejorative because you are referring to something so codified and ritualized that it no longer has the power and meaning it had when it began.

It is true that genres largely pigeonhole films, a way of classifying that as we see is not at all attractive in Nolan's opinion.

22. As far as dreams go, I would really just point out that there are times in my life where I experienced lucid dreaming, which is a great feature of “Inception”: the The idea of ​​realizing that you are in a dream and therefore trying to change or manipulate it in some way is a very surprising experience for people who experience it. have.

Not everyone has had the experience of having a lucid dream, but there are some techniques that can help us provoke them. The dream world can certainly be a very interesting place in which we can all immerse ourselves.

23. My approach with actors is to try to give them what they need from me. Leadership for me is about listening and responding and realizing how much they need to know from me and how much they have discovered for themselves, really.

If the actor/director relationship is good, the film that emerges from it will undoubtedly be good too.

24. I like movies that don't have that unanimity of response; that do not have consensus in the audience. What it is essentially for me is that if you go back and watch the movie a second time, do you feel like you've been played fair? Are all the clues in place? In fact, sometimes these things are even exaggerated. Specifically, for that reason.

The best movies are those that you cannot discover all of their details with just one viewing. As a director, he always strives to ensure that viewers of his films can see them on more than one occasion.

25. I never like to feel in a position to demand that an actor trust me to do something worthwhile. I feel a responsibility to articulate what I'm going to do. Either I show them a full script or I sit down with them and describe my ideas in detail. As a film director, it's a very healthy burden for me to be able to articulate what I want to do, to inspire actors, instead of just saying, to trust that I'll be able to do something worthwhile.

The actors must also do their best, because without their much-needed collaboration, great films could obviously never be made.

26. I'll miss Batman. I like to think he'll miss me, but he's never been particularly sentimental.

After having filmed several films about this famous character, as we see, Nolan already feels a great connection with him. Something that would surely also happen to any of us.

27. I actually don't tend to do much research when I write. I know this because I think a lot of what I think you want to do with research is just confirm the things you want to do. If the research contradicts what you want to do, you tend to go ahead and do it anyway.

Certain investigations can only complicate our work more, because if we want to be too meticulous in creating a film, it may never be released in the end.

28. The real truth of that is that even though you want to believe you're on top of everything, you're actually massively trusting the people around you.

Delegating can be a good option, but certain important tasks will most likely always be better off done ourselves.

29. You must always be acutely aware that the public is extremely ruthless in its demand for novelty, newness and freshness.

The public is always thirsty for new experiences, something that is undoubtedly very difficult for filmmakers to achieve again and again.

30. For me, any type of filming that is reactive is not going to be as good as something more inventive and original.

As a director, he has always had his own way of working, something that over time has allowed him to greatly differentiate himself from other directors.

31. We all wake up in the morning wanting to live our lives as we know we should. But we generally don't, in small ways. That's what makes a character like Batman so fascinating. He plays out our conflicts on a much larger scale.

Just like Batman does in his adventures, we all face our problems daily. Perhaps some of us are much more like this superhero than we think.

32. Writing, for me, is a combination of objective and subjective approach. Sometimes you take an objective approach to help you get through things, and you take a subjective approach at other times, and that allows you to find an emotional experience for the audience.

Writing can be a very positive activity for anyone, thanks to it we will be able to organize our thoughts in a much more efficient way.

33. I would never say that someone else's movie isn't a real movie. The quote is inaccurate.

As a filmmaker he prefers not to talk about the work of others, because one never knows how difficult the development of a certain film may have been.

34. What I try to do is write from the inside out. I really try to jump into the world of the movie and the characters, I try to imagine myself in that world instead of imagining it as a movie that I'm watching on the screen. Sometimes that means I'm figuring things out the way the audience will, with the character and the story.

As we see in this quote, Nolan immerses himself very deeply in the creation of all the films he makes, always trying to find the point of view that the viewer must later possess.

35. My most fun movie-going experiences have always been going to the movie theater, sitting there and the lights go off and a girl appears. movie on the screen that you don't know everything about, and you don't know every plot twist and every character move that's going to happen. happen.

The cinema is a magical place for many people. Spectators often sit in one of its rooms, not knowing what wonderful adventure will surprise them that day.

36. The best actors instinctively sense what other actors need, and simply accommodate it.

There are many good actors, but there are some who always manage to stand out above all the others. Not all interpreters manage to achieve excellence with their work.

37. What I react against in other people's work, as a viewer, is when I see something in a movie that I feel is supposed to make me feel emotional, but I don't think the filmmaker shares that emotion. They just think the audience will do it. And I think you can feel that separation. So whenever I find myself writing something that I don't really respond to, but I'm like, 'Oh yeah, but the audience is going to like this,' then I know I'm on the wrong path.

When this filmmaker creates his works, he also wants to feel the same emotion that the audience will later feel. If the emotion is not perceived by him, Nolan as director will most likely be forced to scrap said scene.

38. I remember the initial genesis quite clearly. My interest in dreams comes from this notion of realizing that when you dream you create the world that you are perceiving, and I thought the feedback loop was pretty amazing.

Thanks to dreams we can all navigate our subconscious, the fact that we find ourselves in that dreamlike place may surprise more than one of us.

39. In particular, the actors, for having analyzed the script in great detail from the point of view of their specific character. So they can know exactly where the character is in the timeline of things. In that sense, the actors become their own best control over the logic of the piece and the way everything fits together. They become essential collaborators. The main thing is that you have to work with very intelligent actors.

Having the right cast for a film is undoubtedly a fundamental factor for it to later achieve success.

40. What drew me to Batman in the first place was the story of Bruce Wayne, and that he is a real character whose story begins in childhood. He's not a fully formed character like James Bond, so what we're doing is following the journey of this guy from a child who goes through this horrible experience of becoming this extraordinary character. That, for me, became a three-part story. And, obviously, the third part becomes the end of the boy's story.

Something that we can see in his particular version of Batman is where said character comes from. Well, as we can imagine, Batman could never have become who he is, without first having gone through great vicissitudes throughout his entire life.

41. A hero can be anyone. Even a man who does something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat over a child's shoulders to let him know that the world has not ended.

Heroes in reality are completely normal people, they are all those men and women who, in the most difficult moments, will altruistically extend their hand to you to try to help you.

42. People want to see something that shows them that you can do what you say. That's the trick.

A good director always seeks to surprise his audience, and in this specific case Nolan is no exception.

43. For me, the most interesting approach to film noir is subjective. The genre is really about not knowing what's going on around you and that fear of the unknown. The only way to do this effectively is to actually enter the maze, rather than looking at the maze from above, so that's where I find it.

For him, film noir is a very interesting genre, something that he has given us a glimpse of in many of his works. Winks to this type of cinema are usually very common in most of his films.

44. I've been interested in dreams, really since I was a child. I have always been fascinated by the idea that your mind, when you are asleep, can create a world in a dream and you are perceiving it as if it really existed.

Dreams may seem as real as life itself, but it is also true that when we dream, we find ourselves immersed in a world in which virtually anything can be possible.

45. Heist movies tend to be a bit superficial, glamorous and fun. They don't tend to be emotionally attractive.

Heist movies are unfortunately usually very stereotyped, in his film “Batman Begins”, Nolan wanted to break all those beliefs that until that moment were held about this type of films.

46. Film is the best way to capture an image and project that image. It simply is, without a doubt.

Films can portray a certain scene very completely, something that, for example, with painting would be practically impossible to achieve.

47. I never considered myself a lucky person. I am the most extraordinary pessimist. I really am.

Even having achieved great success, this director, as we see, does not consider himself a lucky man. His success for him has really only been the logical consequence of his hard work.

48. I think the films “Insomnia” and “Memento” share all kinds of thematic concerns, such as the relationship between motivation and action, and the difficulty of reconciling his view of history with the supposedly objective view of that history.

Some of his films have really complex plots, contrary to what some think, the special effects have never been, from his point of view, the most relevant part of any of his plays.

49. When he was 10 or 11 years old, he knew that he wanted to make movies.

As we see, he had always wanted to be a filmmaker, a dream that thanks to his hard work and total dedication he was able to make come true. This fact shows us that if we are persistent, we can all achieve our goals.

50. The only job I've ever been interested in besides filmmaking is architecture.

Surely Nolan would have also been a brilliant architect, since meticulous planning in both one job and the other is evidently equally essential.

51. I want to be surprised and entertained by a movie, so that's what we're trying to do for the audience. Obviously, we also have to sell the film.

Achieving success with a film is not an easy task, because no matter how hard we try, there will always be a part of the public who sadly will not like our work.

52. It's hard to keep something fresh for an audience these days. Technology being what it is, people seem to know everything there is to know about a movie before you've made it.

Today's technology can greatly limit a film's chances of success, a fact this director is certainly familiar with.

53. Period films for me are often alienating to the audience. There is often a formality. An unconditional quality for them that comes from the misenscene. It also comes from the actors' performances, because they act in a Victorian way, which really It means that they are only acting the way they have seen previous actors act. Victorian.

The cinema that was made before is undoubtedly very different from the current one, what is known as the seventh art has evolved a lot over the years.

54. I love photographing things and putting them together to tell a story.

Photography can be a good approach to the world of cinema, a door to the cinematographic world that is much more accessible to the vast majority of people.

55. I believe movies are one of America's greatest art forms, and the shared experience of watching a story unfold on the screen is an important and joyful pastime. Cinema is my home, and the thought of someone violating that innocent, hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating to me.

Cinema has been a medium by which American society has been portrayed throughout the 20th century and for this famous director, said art has more than earned the maximum respect from all its possible artists. spectators.

56. If you're going to make a startup, you need imagination. You need the simplest version of the idea, the one that will grow naturally in the subject's mind. Subtle art.

Every great film is always born from a simple idea, that brilliant main idea will be the central core around which its entire convoluted plot will later revolve.

57. When you start to really think about the potential of the human mind and its ability to create a whole world while you sleep, I walk away feeling that science doesn't remotely understand our minds.

The human mind still harbors many unknowns for science; we hope that in the coming years we will have more useful data about its mysterious functioning.

58. George Lazenby is no one's favorite James Bond, but for me the anonymity at the center of this lavish production only serves to reveal the Bond machine running on all cylinders: excellent editing and cinematography, incredible score, great set pieces. He is the most romantic of the series, and actually has, of all things, a tragic ending.

George Lazenby is undoubtedly one of the most unknown James Bonds in history, a famous Australian actor born in 1939.

59. The most stressful and difficult part of directing a big movie is taking on the responsibility of communicating with a very wide audience. You can never hide behind the notion of 'It's okay, they just don't get it' or 'Certain people just don't get it.' You must take into account the size of your audience, and you must communicate in a way that allows them in.

A director must always be inclusive with his films, because the more people can enjoy them, the better work he will have undoubtedly done.

60. The movie that really caught my attention was “Blade Runner” by Ridley Scott. That was a movie I watched many, many times and found endlessly fascinating in its density. I think the density of that film is mainly visual, atmospheric density, sound density, rather than narrative density.

“Blade Runner” is perhaps one of the best films in the history of cinema and as we see in this quote, Nolan is full of praise for its director, the well-known Ridley Scott.

61. For me, as a movie fan, I like nothing more than sitting in the theater, turning off the lights and not knowing what I'm about to see or display on the screen. Every time we go to make a movie, we do everything we can to try to systematize things to that we can make the film in private, so that when it is finished, the audience must do what they want. want.

As a director, he will never release a film that he has not previously been able to see, because only if a film convinces him one hundred percent, will he be able to obtain its approval to later come to light.

62. I think there's a vague feeling that movies are becoming more and more unreal. I know I've felt it.

With the use of special effects, current films sometimes seem much more unrealistic, a certain way of working on which some directors should perhaps try reconsider.

63. Yeah, it's strange when you look back on your own work. Some filmmakers don't look back at their work at all. I look at my work a lot, actually. I feel like I learned something by looking at things that I did in terms of what I'm going to do in the future, the mistakes that I've made and the things at work or what I have to do.

As a director, Nolan has evolved a lot over time, something very logical if we take into account that he has never wanted to stay stuck in a certain way of working.

64. What I love about IMAX is its extraordinary resolution and color reproduction, it is a very rich image with incredible details.

The IMAX format is truly incredible, its fantastic image quality is certainly unmatched today.

65. When you play a video game, you can be a completely different person than you are in the real world, certain aspects of the way your brain works can be harnessed for something you could never do in the world real.

Video games allow us to momentarily visit other worlds, an entertaining activity that can be much more enriching than many of us usually think.

66. I am a very lucky person. I can choose the movies I want to make. I have a lot of friends in this industry who can't do that. I grew up in Los Angeles. A lot of my friends are actors, so I realize every day how lucky I am to have this opportunity, so as long as I'm here, I'm going to try to do exactly what I want.

Having already achieved success, this director can now dedicate himself to filming only those films that he is truly passionate about. A way of working that only those totally dedicated directors can afford.

67. I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. Think about film noir and if you imagine the story as a maze, you don't want to be hanging over the maze watching the characters make the wrong decisions because it's frustrating. You really want to be in the maze with them, doing turns alongside them, that keeps it more exciting... I really like being in that maze.

His films are so exciting that many of us can get lost in them, complex plots and a fantastic setting are at all times his hallmark.

68. As soon as television became the only secondary way in which movies were viewed, movies had to adhere to a fairly linear system, whereby you could fall asleep for ten minutes and go and answer the phone and not really lose your place.

Television is a very different medium from cinema, as many of us know, unfortunately advertising reigns supreme in its programming.

69. Memory can change the shape of a room; You can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They are just an interpretation, they are not a record, and they are irrelevant if you have the facts.

This is a famous phrase from Christopher Nolan's famous film, “Memento”. A suspense film released in 2000, with which this director quickly achieved great notoriety.

70. Film logistics never allow you to do anything other than shoot the way the budget dictates.

Funds largely determine how a film will be produced, no major blockbuster can be carried out without having a large budget.

71. I'm not a big dreamer. I've never been. The one thing I've obviously taken away from dream research is that I don't think there's a specific science that you can apply to the psychology of dreams.

Dreams belong to a part of the mind that is still very unknown today, we hope that over time we can all enjoy more scientific research dedicated to this interesting field.

72. Say you have a headline like Mountain Bike Stolen, and then you read the story, read another story the next day, and then the next week, and then the next year. News is a process of expanding, filling in details and making narrative connections, not based on chronology, but on the characteristics of the story. There are narrative connections made between props, between characters, between situations, etc.

A good movie never comes from one day to the next; coming up with a good plot can even take years.

73. I have to believe that when my eyes are closed, the world is still there.

You never know what the future will bring, maybe tomorrow the world as we know it will cease to exist.

74. He made “Batman” like I made all the other films, and I made it for my own satisfaction, because the film, in truth, is exactly how I wanted it to be.

As a director he always creates films to his liking, because there will always be a part of the public that, regardless of his work, will not like the film.

75. I try to be as efficient as possible because in my process, I think that really helps the work. I like having the pressure of time and money and really trying to meet the parameters we've been given.

As we see, this filmmaker is a tireless worker, he always wants to shoot all of his films in the most efficient way possible.

76. Revenge is a particularly interesting concept, especially the notion of whether or not it exists outside of an abstract idea.

Revenge can be a very negative emotion for any of us; if we let ourselves be carried away by it, human beings can carry out the most abominable acts in history.

77. To be honest, I don't really enjoy watching movies when I'm working. They tend to fall apart on me a little.

In this quote we discover an interesting anecdote about the way he works; in times of hard work he never watches films by other filmmakers.

78. It's always a fun collaboration with my brother. I am very lucky to be able to work with him. There is an honesty to collaboration. There is a lack of gender or ego in our conversations. And then you can really throw anything away.

Jonathan Nolan, his brother, is also a well-known filmmaker, between the two of them they have written the scripts for many interesting films.

79. If I could steal someone's dream myself, I'd have to go for one by Orson Welles.

The creator of the “War of the Worlds” is a great inspiration for any filmmaker today. A great well of wisdom from which this director has always drawn when he needed it most.

80. I've been interested in dreams since I was a child and have wanted to make a film about them for a long time.

In the end Nolan was able to make his dream come true, a fact that shows us that perseverance always pays off over time.