Christopher Nolan is a master filmmaker, but he’s also someone with very particular sensibilities. For an industry that demands that you be reachable at all time, Nolan eschews the norms and doesn’t even have an email address. If you’re going to work on one of his movies, get ready to get off the grid because he doesn’t allow phones on set. The director demands your total attention and commitment to his work, and that also means there are some other things he wants out of the way so you’re not distracted.
“Dunkirk” stars Mark Rylance and Barry Keoghan stopped by the “Kernels” podcast, and they shared their observations about Nolan’s hyper-focused work ethic.
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“…he’s very particular about using film and everything being real in front of the camera, so there were a lot of old techniques used in this film to make it look real. The flames on the water and men swimming in them; he really wants to minimize the amount of post-production and CGI stuff,” Rylance said. “He does things like he doesn’t like having chairs on set for actors or bottles of water, he’s very particular.”
“They’re distractions — the noise of [the bottles], they’re like toys almost, playing around with toys. [The lack of chairs, meanwhile] keeps you on your toes, literally,” Keoghan added.
It seems Nolan wants everybody at the ready if they’re coming to work on his movie, and not fussing around with anything extraneous to the job at hand. He’s demanding, but if the result is something like “Dunkirk,” who can blame him? [The Independent]