Mumbai: Filmmaker Christopher Nolan Saturday said he wanted to bring one of his films to India for a premiere, especially Tenet which was partly shot in Mumbai, but the COVID-19 pandemic derailed those plans.
The filmmaker has finally realised that dream with the India premiere of his latest directorial, The Odyssey, adapted from Homer’s epic poem.
Nolan, known for movies such as The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk and Oppenheimer, is in Mumbai along with the film’s two lead stars Matt Damon and Tom Holland.
The Oscar winner said Indian audiences have always shared a special connection with cinema, making the country an obvious choice for the event.
“We actually intended to come with Tenet originally, because we filmed here in Mumbai, and then because of the pandemic we weren’t able to. And so finally we’re actually able to. It’s a thrill. We wanted to do this for a year,” the director said at a press conference here.
Nolan has visited India several times, shooting portions of The Dark Knight Rises (2012) in Jodhpur and Tenet (2020) in Mumbai.
He also recalled an earlier visit when filmmaker and film archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur invited him to attend a conference on the future of film.
“I met a lot of filmmakers and really got to know a little bit about the film culture here. I’ve never been anywhere in the world with an appreciation of what movies can be and what they should be for audiences.
“To me, it seemed crazy that we wouldn’t be bringing our films here to premiere for one of my audiences. I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to do this… Mumbai feels special,” he added.
The 55-year-old filmmaker said cinema remains a universal language that transcends borders and cultures.
“I just like to think that films are a universal language. One of the things I most enjoy about working on large-scale films is you get to take them around the world and you get to connect with different cultures all across the world.
“When films really connect, when they have universal themes and timeless themes, as I hope ‘The Odyssey’ does, it’s wonderful how it kind of brings us together,” he said.
Calling the India visit “the ultimate expression” of cinema’s power to unite people, Nolan said travelling across the world to watch audiences laugh and cry together is among the most rewarding aspects of filmmaking.
“It’s pretty thrilling to come to a completely different place and find commonality, find entertainment together, find laughter and tears together in a movie. It’s what the movie is all about, so this is the ultimate kind of expression of that for us.
“It’s been really thrilling to see our films in the past connect with Indian audiences,” he added.
Nolan also drew laughter with a playful reference to Holland, who stars in both The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day, which also comes out in theatres later this month.
“I was just gonna say Far From Home. If you see only one Tom Holland film this summer…” the filmmaker quipped, prompting laughter from the audience.
While Nolan’s movie arrives in Indian theatres July 16, Spider-Man: Brand New Day is scheduled to hit cinemas two weeks later July 30.
With The Odyssey, Nolan adapts Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem, which follows the decade-long journey of Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, as he struggles to return home after the Trojan War.
Along the way, he faces the wrath of the gods, encounters mythical creatures such as the Cyclops and Sirens, and endures a series of perilous trials that test his courage, resilience and wit.
Asked if adapting one of the world’s most celebrated literary works came with added pressure, Nolan said he wasn’t “worried that Homer, whoever or whatever he was, was going to come after me”.
“Homer has plenty of representatives who feel they know exactly how to interpret him. So any time you take on a piece of literature that’s known and beloved by so many people, and this is a story that’s fascinated generation after generation for 3,000 years, a lot of different people have a lot of different ideas of what it’s going to be like.
The filmmaker said his experience adapting the iconic Batman character for The Dark Knight trilogy shaped his approach to The Odyssey.
“We were working on a beloved character named Batman, we sort of realised that you just have to make the best film you can and put a strong interpretation, your interpretation, on it.
“And I think people who love a piece of literature, in this case The Odyssey, hopefully they enjoy the respect that we’re showing to the original source by making as good a film as we got of it,” he said.
Asked if he studied English literature in college, Nolan replied, “I studied literature at university, but not very well. So I don’t really have much of a literature background. But on paper, I do.” he joked.
Produced by Universal Pictures and Syncopy, The Odyssey also stars Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron and Samantha Morton.
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