Episode 44 – 'The Nolan Variations' w/ Author Tom Shone - a podcast by Phi Phenonenon

After Tom Shone convinced Christopher Nolan to participate for the first time in a book about the filmmaker’s career, the writer/director warned Shone that he is “the most visible reclusive director in America.” The result of their collaboration is subtitled The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan, a book that is one part biography, filmography analysis, interview, digressive essay on influences, and, now, the definitive book on the filmmaker’s career. On today’s episode we talk:

- how the book shaped itself around an exploration of Nolan’s influences from Jorge Luis Borges or Raymond Chandler;
- Nolan’s conceptually effective musical usage of theories like the Shepard Tone;
- his experimental sound mixes;
- and their punk rock embrace and dismissal of left-brain concepts like plot-based dialogue.

Also:

- How Shone realized his book was going to encompass Nolan’s latest despite the filmmaker’s secrecy;
- the tenuousness of many studio filmmakers’ commercial/critical streak, their downfalls;
- how Nolan has maintained a consistency by proving concepts;
- and if his recent film Tenet, on that basis, is indeed the filmmaker apotheosis — or his Waterloo.

Shone is film critic for The Sunday Times and author of five books, including Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer and Martin Scorsese: A Retrospective. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, The Economist, and Vogue.

The Nolan Variations is published by Penguin Random House and is available at online and brick-and-mortar booksellers.

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