Joel Schumacher explains why he isn’t surprised by Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” success
“Chris Nolan is one of my favorite directors,” Schumacher told IFC while discussing his upcoming film “Trespass,” starring Nicolas Cage. “Years ago I was doing press in Paris, and I was with Eli Richbourg. We were looking for a movie that wasn’t in French . . . and we saw this British film called ‘Following.’ It’s in black and white and it’s Chris Nolan’s first film, and . . . I just thought it was the work of a brilliant young director. So I always had him in the back of my mind, thinking, ‘We’re going to hear from this guy, big time.’ Then I saw ‘Memento’ and the promise was fulfilled very fast.”
“I think Chris Nolan is brilliant and I think Heath [Ledger] was extraordinary [in ‘The Dark Knight.’],” he added. “Chris is a master and he’s so young, and god knows what’s coming from him now.”
And from the sound of things, Schumacher is just as interested as the rest of us in seeing what Nolan has planned for “The Dark Knight Rises.”
“I always look forward to what he’s going to do next,” he said. “Unlike some of my peers in the business, I am inspired by films I love, not jealous of them. When I see a film that disappoints — and I’m sure I’ve made some of them — that kind of depresses me. I don’t go to the theater to dislike a movie, and I don’t think the audience does either.”
“Actually, it’s critics that go to a movie to dislike it,” he laughed. “They don’t go as fans.”
Olivier Assayas: Do you think that blockbusters can influence smaller films and/or vice versa?
I think what’s great about some of those blockbusters is that they are as labs, with their infinite budgets, new technologies and filmmaking techniques that somehow will be recycled – used – in smaller films and will open new areas, although I think it is happening less and less now. The problem I have with the corporate blockbusters we are dealing with today, is that they are becoming less interesting. I do admire someone like Christopher Nolan who is making movies that are really unlike anything else. The way I see it, he has a really authentic voice. I am like a very open audience, but the super hero movies tend to be like carbon copies of each other and they lose a lot of the beauty, the fun and the poetry of filmmaking.
Loose comment on Nolan
Damien Chazelle was on the Variety playback podcast and was speaking about how he'll score his Neil Armstrong film.
He mentioned Interstellar's "beautiful score'' that he's been listening to.
Do you feel that society today is affecting cinema, or that cinema is having an influence on society?
That’s a difficult question, as I am no longer able to really enjoy a film by going to a theatre, and so I am experiencing cinema in a different way, but my impression – this may not be the absolute accuracy – is that society has influenced cinema, at least where I come from in America. I feel that the kinds of stories that are being made for the most part indicate that the split in cinema is very clear now: you have the audience participation in the action/adventure films, and then there are the more modern, budgeted and simpler productions which to a certain extent – even though many have been Academy Award winners – are still marginalizing a lot of the artists. Yet, you can see these films everywhere now, and even on a computer, so they’re reaching more people. The bigger theatres are meant for some wild, visual all experience super productions. Whether that’s good or bad? I come from the old days, and I make films that are big too, in a sense, so it’s not my place to speak that way. But it’s a complicated matter. The danger is that the young people who are experiencing cinema this way, believe that is what cinema is. We know that cinema is something else also – besides, along with. But now, it’s just a place where you go to see beautifully and extraordinary made films, but what are they saying? So in a sense those films create the audience, and we have missed now a generation. This is why it’s important to preserve the older films, even if it is a film that’s only five years old. So preserve them and show them anywhere you can, on a computer – anything – to make them aware that cinema is also something beyond just the visual experience of a super production. “Cabiria” was a super production, made in 1914, right? People just wanted to see it. The film I made when I was eleven, was a super production! (Laughs.) But at that time, they were co-existent, now I don’t feel that’s the case. The big productions of Chris Nolan for example, they combine both: an incredible mind and beautifully made films on a big scale, so it is possible, there is room. I am just worried about the young generation and their impression of what cinema is.
[...] I couldn't believe that thanks to Chris Nolan who really has been one of the very few people who has saved film from being made extinct. [...] Those guys have single-handedly kept film alive. [...] Digital has come a long way, digital does a lot of great things, there are things I really like about digital, but they are not the same, and there is some sort of strange myth that "oh, you can do everything now on digital". Well if that was true, why do all the great great great filmmakers still shoot on film? Is it because they know less? Is it because they're more haphazard? Is it because they can't move on to new information? No, it's because there is a certain kind of epic grandeur escapism that film gives you that you will struggle very hard to get that on video. [...]
