Interview with Chris Nolan of 

INSOMNIA

Prescott Hotel in San Francisco

May 6, 2002

What were some of the benefits and challenges working on a film with a bigger budget?

The difference in budget for "The Following" which was $6,000 and "Memento" which was $5 million, was a bigger jump than this last jump. (The budget for "Insomnia" was roughly $50 million). The difference between the spending your own money and somebody else's money was a huge thing. It was another expansion.

You were working with a major studio and some of the biggest names in Hollywood this time around. Was that a positive experience or intimidating?

There's a level- as you say, there's a bigger crew; there are more hoops to jump through. But there's nothing that specific that I could put my finger on to say that this is more difficult, that was more difficult. There's just an overall sense of an increased to grind. And the shoot winds up being more twice as long for example. (the shoot for " insomnia " was 54 days; the shoot for "Memento" was 25 days. ) this was twice as long as anything had done so by the end your pretty exhausted. So that was pretty different. But I mean, overall the process for me was more moving from the smallest kind of film to something bigger. But it's reassuringly similar. It's about picking out which shot you need to tell a story, and that's something I take comfort in, the interior nature. I'm enjoying that. I mean the only way I can describe that is like you get older and older but you feel the same way. You go on to do bigger films but you're really engaged in much the same way.

This was the first time you directed a script from someone else's script. How was that different for you and did you like it?

Well, how was it different? It was liberating in a lot of ways because you are able to just engage with the material as a director. You're coming into it at later stage as just the director. You're given quite an effective objective view of the material before you even dive into the engagement, which is kind of nice. On the other hand, you inherit a lot of problems from somebody else's brain. ... It was written by Hillary Seitz from the Norwegian original. And I had met with Warner Bros. right when she was commissioned, to pitch myself as a writer-and I found out that she was going to take this in very much the same direction that I was going to. So after I made "Memento" I kept my eye on the script and I read what she had done. She had done a lot of drafts but mainly for the studio without a director trying to define a particular vision for the film. We then did a couple of drafts together, which really started to nail it down to our version of the film as opposed to, the 10 other versions that might be in the studio's head. It was really a great collaboration. I very much enjoyed it.

What was your film background before you started working professionally?

My film background was simply always making my own films. I started when I was a little kid; I started when I was about seven years old. I made films with my older brother. ("The Following" was Nolan ' s first feature in 1999. ) I did shorts moving from 8 mm to 16 mm. Then "The Following" was really the first long story we put together that could hold up as a feature.

What do you think creates suspense in a movie?

I think the element of mystery is one that is often overlooked in modern films and that is something that I certainly try to point that. And point of view is something very important to me. I feel that if you can align the audience with the character's point of view, you can subject the audience to their uncertainties and their inability to step outside of the situation. The situation, to me, is obviously more suspenseful if you are is in the middle of it.

Did you feel a lot of pressure due to the studio's obsession with opening big at the box office opening weekend?

You know, the funny thing is that it takes so long to make a film that you really don't feel that pressure until right now kind of or (opening week) because it is so far off. It's like well, two years from now, and then it's a year from now and then suddenly it's like next Thursday. So I will be feeling the pressure-absolutely. Because I feel a sense of responsibility, when you spend somebody else's money. But then again ultimately they're not going to come and ask for their money back, or for my house or anything. So what's the worst that could happen? At least I got to make the film that I wanted to make. So it's sort of a weird combination of opportunism and this feeling of 'somebody's dumb enough to pay me to make a film, and we're going to get the film we want', and the responsibility of 'okay, I've been able to make the film we want and are people going to come and see it?' I think people are sort of aware of the extent to which filmmakers go to get the film that they deserve, because there is a long tradition in Hollywood movies, you know, everyone is trying to get their film together and then no one goes to see it. "Memento" was a happy exception to that. I actually have a lot of faith in audiences and that faith was well rewarded in the case of "Memento". But the same time, you are very reliant on the distribution system for getting out there. And we are releasing this film on Memorial Day weekend with all these enormous movie and the "Star Wars" sequel coming a week before. So we're hoping that the word gets to somebody who wants to see something different from those movies. It's so abundant right now.

What made you decide to shoot on location in Alaska?

Alaska was chosen for a couple of different reasons. It is very important to me in remaking the Norwegian film. My only interest in remaking it was to do something very different and something I saw that would make it very different, was making it a very American film, almost something with sort of a Western to in a weird way, and Alaska sort of is the last frontier. And it is a very uniquely American place, it's quite extraordinary to go up there. Because you are not talking about small town life anywhere else in America. You are not talking about this city guy and hick locals. What you have in Alaska is small towns filled with people from all over the country who have come for all different sorts of reasons. So it's a very oddly cosmopolitan place and a very unique environment. It allows you to take a kind of thriller material, the kind of situation that we wanted to produce in this film, that normally you would have to set in a big city, normally couldn't be in a small town environment. But you can't here because you have people from everywhere and all different types, and nobody really knows each other- they all kind of keep to themselves. And Alaska is far north enough that you can get the same northern light effect that had been specified by the original film. In terms of shooting, a portion of the film had been shot further south in British Columbia, which was a great advantage weather-wise. It was still pretty unpredictable and it was a big factor. But we left it until quite late into the shoot to move further north up into the border of Alaska with the snow had actually melted. We took a bit of a risk because we had to build a lake house and we didn't know what the level of the water would be because it is different every year. We got up there and it was a bizarre environment. Huge chunks of ice would fall every day and it creates these standing waves and then the set sinks slowly into the water. So it was kind of a race against time exacerbated by two different avalanches we had with snow falling into our lake, once again raising the water level and practically terrifying everybody. But it was that extremity of scenery and geography that the end of the film really needed to sort of come together in that kind of environment, and sort of justified the whole premise and the idea.

Regarding the role of memory in Nolan's projects:

... I am interested in characters struggling to remember things and forget things. I am always looking for something a little more real or a little different look at a familiar genre or some a little more relevant to my life. ... The psychological reality of the way you pass through life and the way you think about things and the way things affect you. ... in real life, the questions worth asking are the ones that are unanswerable. And to me it's pointless to construct a pretend, miniature model universe in which you can answer those questions because then you're not really asking the question. I am much more interested in constructing something with a little more reality as I perceive it. And there for some of these questions are left hanging because I can't answer them. (laughing) I make the film to draw attention to a question and to me that is what's most interesting. ... We're making a film that is very much concerned with the gray area between pragmatism and idealism and that is fundamentally unanswerable. And that is a continuing source of fascination. And what I wanted to do and what Al (Pacino) wanted to do, was to really delve into that. To create a movie that exists entirely in that gray area and really get dirty with it. But to put some tidy and trite conclusion to that would, to me, be something insincere.

What did you learn from your experiences so far?

I think I learned from Pacino that, well- he's the most naturally talented actor, but he works hard, harder than anyone you could imagine. And that combination is devastating. He makes it look easy and all, and (he) works incredibly hard and never rest on his laurels or takes his talent for granted. And that was a pretty remarkable thing to see. Particularly for someone at that stage of his career who has achieved so much, he is still very fresh and experimental and adventurous and hard-working.

What advice would you give to other young and/or independent filmmakers?

Well the only useful advice that I think that I have ever really been able to come up with, is to enjoy the process of making a film at whatever level you are making it. Because it's just as valid making a tiny little independent film as it is a big studio film. I don't mean in any kind of woolly airy fairy sense, I mean in your mind. In my mind, my first film is absolutely as valid a filmmaking experience as the one I just finished. There's no difference in my mind. I think it is a terrible shame if people wish it away and see it as a stepping stone to the next film as if it's not real filmmaking. ... You'll miss it when it's gone. It is partly freedom. It's a different kind of responsibility. All kinds of things. You can't really go back there, is the other thing. You know people ask me 'do you want to do another independent film' and I say 'yeah, sure', but it's never really going to be the same. You are never going to have nothing to lose in the way we did when we first got together and made our first film. We did really enjoy it when we got together to make our first film. And my only advice to people is to do the same: to really relish whatever filmmaking experience they're going through without worrying about what is going to come next. If not the least because if you take your eye of what you're doing, it is not going to be as good. It isn't going to serve you for the next game anyway. It's a little bit self-fulfilling in a way. You've got to concentrate on what your are doing.

What filmmakers have influenced you?

Well inevitably, I suppose, George Lucas because I saw "Star Wars" when I was a kid. And I think like everybody my age, I was obsessed by it for years. And then Ridley Scott. And then later on people like Kubrick.

Nolan's next project will be with Castle Rock about Howard Hughes and stars Jim Carrey.
(Did this become Scorcese's Aviator?)