#53: The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan

Yeah, I'm all in.

I really like this and I'm going to, I'll start with Christopher Nolan.

I'll start with Nolan and we can go from there.

First, I didn't realize that Nolan's half American.

His mom's American.

And his wiki says, you know, he spent summers in Evanston, Chicago.

He lives in L.A. Because I was thinking, you know, it's interesting that this British guy is so American.

But maybe that kind of explains it a little bit.

And, you know, we first really hear about Nolan with Memento.

It's 2000, and I think the Odyssey has some callbacks, you know, with Calypso and the Lotus Leaves, this thing about, like, the willful loss of memory, his struggle to find who you really are.

I think there's a lot of Memento there.

But Memento comes out in this era of, like, Fight Club, The Matrix.

You're watching it on DVD stoned at your friend's, you know, parents' basement.

You know, that's the kind of vibe of Memento, right? Yeah.

Then we get Insomnia, which is sort of Hollywood schlock, but maybe kind of preps Nolan for working with stars on some level.

A-listers, their egos chewing up the scenery, writing for that, directing for that.

Then we get the Batman trilogy, which in a way is not that dissimilar to adapting The Odyssey.

This beloved IP, fans are excited about it, but they're skeptical.

You know, if you pull it off, you're a king, but it's risky.

And, you know, Nolan basically pulls it off, right? But in the process, this is where he starts to become kind of like labeled as a fascist, you know, reactionary, because that's really the core message of those films.

It's a little dicey, right? And then there's, you know, his role in kind of legitimizing or reviving the superhero genre, which maybe you can start to be kind of ashamed of, you know? Then there's Inception and Interstellar.

And I think for me, this is where Nolan starts to get the reputation of like the favorite filmmaker, the auteur for dummies.

You know, who a dumb guy thinks is like a smart filmmaker.

There's the whole vibe of like, bro, that was fucking crazy, you know, to the films like that.

So people talk about it and think about it.