Christopher Nolan took home this year's Best Director award from the New York Film Critics Circle for his blockbuster “Oppenheimer,” and he used his acceptance speech to poeticize his appreciation of film criticism. He alluded to the fact that his love for the craft has only deepened in recent years, as the rise of social media and other outlets has transformed every ordinary moviegoer into a critic with a platform to express his opinion.
“Directors have a complicated emotional relationship with critics and critics,” he told the audience during a Jan. 4 event at Tao Downtown in New York City. “The question we always ask is: Do we read reviews? Let's start with the fact that I'm British. A typical family gathering would involve relatives saying to me: 'You know what, Christopher. Maybe you shouldn't open The Guardian today.'”
Nolan summed up his appreciation for film criticism by telling a story about how he once used his Peloton in a training class just to ask the instructor to show one of his films. The Oscar nominee didn't reveal the film, but the Peloton instructor apparently had no idea Nolan was in his virtual class that day.
“I was on my Peloton. I'm dying. And the trainer started talking about one of my movies and said, 'Has anyone seen this?'” Nolan said, “This is a few hours of my life that I'll never get back again!” [film critic] Rex Reid cares about your film and doesn't ask you to exercise! In today's world, where opinions are everywhere, there is a kind of idea that film criticism has become democratized, but I personally believe that critical appreciation of films should not be an instinct but a profession.
“What we have here tonight is a group of professionals trying to be objective,” Nolan continued, addressing the professional film critics in the room. “It is clearly a paradox to write about cinema objectively, but aspirations to objectivity are what make criticism vital, timeless, and useful to filmmakers and the filmmaking community.”
Nolan has said that he knew while filming “Oppenheimer” that he “would have to make choices that would risk misunderstanding” (he did not specifically mention his decision not to show the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but such a choice generated a backlash when “Oppenheimer” Released), he said it is often up to film critics to provide context and meaning to viewers.
“In today's world, as filmmakers, you can't hide behind the author's intent,” Nolan concluded. “You can't say, 'This is what I meant.' We live in a world where the person receiving the story has the right to say what the story means to them. I like that. This means that the work should speak for itself. It's not about what I say. It's about what you receive it to be. In this world, the role of the professional critic, or the interpreter and the person who tries to give context to the reader…is very important. I have never been more grateful for careful, thoughtful, thoughtful writing about one of my films than I was for Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer received some of the best reviews of Nolan's career (93% on Rotten Tomatoes from over 400 reviews and 89 on Metacritic), and was a box office hit with $954 million. It is the highest-grossing biographical drama of all time.
“Oppenheimer” is now available to rent and own on VOD and digital platforms.
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