The Odyssey and Nolan's Adaptation

Hello, welcome back to House of ourr. I'm Jona Robinson. That's Mallory Rubin and Friend of the Pod Month continues because we have a very special guest for this tened episode. Malory, who's here with us? Oh my God We I think have been manifesting this since a hype meter L summer L summer. Yeah. when we talked about one of our most anticipated reads of that year. Not only do we get to read the book and love the book Then you got a note. I did from the author of that book, San You guys are wrong about tenant. You guys are so wrong about tenant. You could not be more wrong about tenant Rebecca is here. Rebecca's here, author of Catabysis is the book we were referring to, but also Babel, Yellowface, like just an incredible author who we so admire here to talk about ten. Welcome to the Pod. Rebecca, how are you doing? Hi guys. thanks for having me. I always love a chance to get in a fight with somebody. so happy for the opportunity to defend what I think is one of Nolan's best works Amazing. Wow. incredible. incredible This episode of House of R is presented to you by Target Call it all trainers. The Pokemon and Target colloection celebrating thirty years of Pokemon is almost here And the lineup is kind of incredible A few are sure to be fan faves, Pokemon starter jackets, mystery watertpe Pokemon bottles, Not even goodoodles It feels perfect Because Pokemon has always been about sharing the adventure And Target is bringing fans together to celebrate that spirit The first drop is in store may second, online may third, with the second drop june sixth. Explore now at target dot com This summer, Fandool is the best place to bet on goals. Including equalizers. Uhuh Vollies? Yep, headters. Every goal is worth more on fanool. So let there be goals. 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They demanded we get a tenant defender on the pod. and I think we have we have picked our champion. Yes. It is Rebecca here with us. Quick part of reminders, we are doing We have one more F of the pod mononth episode that's coming out allegedly on Fray. That's right. I don't want to jinx it, so I'm just gonna to say it's supposed to happen. We hope it happens. Yes. We will be talking about Spider Normar no matter what. We'll be talking about Sider the F of the and Fin maybe and some other things and hopefully with the F of the pod. We also have our summer hype meter, which we already recorded We did. Immediately after recording it, some dates were released. some trailers Weew it would happen. it's always the risk when you bank a pod. S meter. And then we're doing a very musical episode. Wellile Mallory's out of town, I've recruited a couple of pals to do a very musical episode of House of ours. So that's Okay, spoiler warning for Tenant, all of Nolan's films. and also when we get to the section at the end where we're talking more directly about the Odyssey spoilers for, The Odyssey. on a Scaule one to ten, how excited are you for the Odyssey We have tickets to see the Odyssey preremiere at the BFI IMX in London. so I am very, very excited. I would say twelve out of ten. I love it How quickly did those tickets go? Like how much did you guys have to like hit refresh or refresh refresh to get those tickets? or did you have a nice hook upp or how did that work out for you? Well, as it happened, when tickets just globally went on sale, my husband panicked and bought tickets to the London ones, which not we live in Boston, but that's not a disaster because we just happen to be in London a lot for work and for conferences. And he is doing a philosophy conference in reading just a couple days before. So he got lucky, but we did extend our trip a little bit just for the premiere I love that there was a panic and it's appropriate, you know? You can't risk not getting tickets for the premiere of the Odyssey. We don't have tickets. We don't. I was thinking about that last night actually. It' wass like, boy, do we fuck this up? Maybe? I think we'll figure something out. This film, like all the films we've been talking about in this series is directed by Christopher Nolan, screenplay by Chropher Nolan It came out september third, twenty twenty, pandemic time, veryy famously came out during the pandemic There was a whole tussle between Chris Nolan and his longtime studio Warner Brrosers about the release of this movie. I saw it in the drive in we can talk about. Rebecca, where did you see Tennant for the first time I saw it for the first time on our couch in the living room, so we streamed it, but we've since seen it seven more times and the second and third times were on the same couch and we were watching it with graphing paper because we thought it would be very fun to track all the forwards and backwards movements and make sense of the interrogation scene in particular. But I've also gotten to see it in iMA which I think was a much better experience and than at many people's homes since then are you just, do you like to go around and spread the good word of tenant Are you evangelized? Yeah When you see it at other people's homes, is it because you're making them watch it so that you can convince them that it's a masterpiece? So we have actually recently been to the home of a philosophy professor who's really the tenant evangelist in his department. I gather it's Justin Coo who runs the podcast C's in the Field or cows in the Field but I think we just likekes to have people over just spread the good words. So it was nice to be evangelized too by a fellow believer. Amazing. Malie, you were at home during the pandemic when you watched this, right? I was. Yes. was this was firmly in the I'm still afraid to go to the movie theaters. I will not be compelled to go to the movie theaters stretch of the pandemic for me. And so I watched it at home, which, you know mind I love to see a Nolan movie theater. This is one of the few Nolan movies that I did not see at the movie Theater and still have not seen at the movie theater. But I will say that given What I consider the Guine sound mixing of this film. I didn't mind that I was home so that I could like take the opportunity to fiddle with the blend, turn on the subtitles, et cetera. It's not necessarily how I want to watch only movie, but I do think it's for me personally required to turn on the gl captioning for this one. So I saw it at home basically as soon as it was available on demand, I think. And then I had not revisited it until this project. as I think we alluded to a couple times of the rewatch. like, you know when we were going through our early, this is maybe like the loose in motion, you know, it's a living document free to amend as we go through the rewatch rankings and I think we both, you know, kind of hinted a few times that tenant was going to be towards the bottom for us. Not in the top half, at least And then I was very eager to revisit it. And I think as we went through the Nolan reewatch, I became increasingly eager in part because we heard from Rebecca, somebody whose mind we just so admire, we heard from a lot of the bad babies, a lot of our list of listeners hit us off and' like, guys, You're wrong about Tven Let me tell you why you're wrong about Tennant? You have emails today that you're going to share. Plenty of people, I think, have notes on Tennant. It's a divisive film. It's one of Nol one's more divisive films, but I was very much looking forward to after like studying the filmography in the way that we have over the past year to revisit the movie. And we'll talk about how I found out upon Re viewing. I've watched it a couple of times in the last week.. but it's been very interesting to go back to it through this lens. I will say, to be fair to Chris Nolen I saw Th one time on accident, three times at the drive in I went twice to the drive in and then the third time, I remember it was a election night. And we were nervous to be home during the election night because we were just too nervous. So we went to the drive in to watch I think they were playing Coco Cco was just a short film and over too quickly. so we're like, let's just stay and then Tennet started playing. So we watched Tennet again. But to be fair to Chris Nolan Sound of the drive in is famously bad no matter what. So tenenant really didn't have an option. But so I think watching it at home with the closed captioning on was very helpful for me Budget two hundred five million dollars. Worwide box office, three hundred sixty five point nine million dollars, which is impressive for the pandemic, honestly. like honestly quite impressive All of that being said You're a guest of honor First and foremost What does Christ Vhererolan mean to you He's my favorite director straight up. And he's a big part of my marriage. I've never met him personally I first got into him because my boyfriend at the time who' now my husband was very into him and we started dating like ten years ago. And this was a teenage boy from the suburbs raised on the Dark Knight and Inception. So a very typical movie bro. And I was like, Yeah, I'll sharare your hobbies with you But then we had very special dates going through Nolan's whole body of work. and I think we really fell in love and bonded talking about the prestige, which might I think the prerestige is my number one in the Nolan rankings, but tendnis to close. And we've seen every Nolan film since Dunkirk and Theaters together. So we're fully a Nolan household, Nolan apologist In fact, I think there's nothing that Nolan has to apologize for. We find his alleged faults to be virtuues. We find the deadwes very charming. And I just have huge admiration for the scale and ambition at which Nolan operates. And I think even when he fails, his failures are fascinating to me Moment of truth Give us your picture we're going go in our sort of more granular way, but big picture Give us your tenant defense, notot that it needs defending according to you, but your tenant pitch. give it to it I think it needs defending. I think it takes several watches, and I think it's a film that benefits from interpretation and discussion with other people and gets richer every time. But I think there are three reasons why Tenet is uniquely awesome. And the first is that it is truly innovative in how it portrays time travel. In most time travel stories and movies, the traveling happens instantaneously And then the traveler is moving in the same direction as everybody else like physically and metabolically. So it's just like sort of portal fantasies. And I'm reading TH Whitees, the Once in Fatured King right now. And the character Merlin is fascinating because he's supposedly living backwards through time. But this seems to only really apply every time he wakes up and then he moves forward through the day, like with all the other characters. But only in tenna are they actually ily backwards. And I think the reverse entrophy stuff and how that produces such incredible and technical like hand to hand combat scenes, that is just so impressive and cool to look at. But I think the main reason why I love it on a thematic level A lot of people call Nolan cold, analytic, rational, whatever. and I've seen this said a lot of this film that it is his coldest and most analytic. I don't get that at all. I find all of Nolan's films to be deeply moving on a gut level, especially this one. and you might just have to be the type of person who can be moved to tears thinking about paradoxes of time feel like I am that type of person. I think Tenet is a deeply moving exploration on conflicts between generations and what parents owe to their children and vice versa. And I think it's not accidental that the children in Nolan's films are aging up alongside his actual children And I think that at least in three of his films, I think these three films form like a thematic trilogy, Inception, interterstellar and tenet. I think he's been working through different fantasies about how your relationships with your kids could be different if you could stretch time or dance around its rules. And I adopted this interpretive lens after reading Justin Cz, Professor mentioned, his essay How I Learn to Stop Warrying and loveove Christopher Nolan's two hundred million dollars Sudoku puzzles. And he makes the very compelling case that these are three films about parents coming to grasp with the unbreakable constraints of time and their own limits and how they can care for their kids. So Inception is about what if you could live out your life in a branch timeeline where you could remain a ess God of creation and escape your toddlers, and how guilty should you feel for having that fantasy And Innerstellar is about what if you end up younger than your children and what if saving them involves not being there for much of their lives? And tenet is about what if you and your kids could be the same age and go on adventures together? And I think that's gorgeous And then the third reason is just that everybody's moving with such confidence. like the movie has so much belief in its own conceit. Like say what you want about Nulling, but he doesn't make excuses or apologize for his worlds building. He just everybody commits fully to the bit and people just spit out lines like it's the detritus of a coming war that is so so cool So that's my big picture argument for Tlem. I love that parent and child argument makes me I mean, we are so excited to get to the end of this podcast and talk to you about the Odyssey. I'm even more excited to talk to you about Telemachus and Odysseus and all that sort of stuff like that. Dadd. Mally Rubin, Yes, ma'am. Do you wantna give us your sort of big picture tenant thoughts? Yeah I ot love Christopher Nolan's movies. He is also one of my favorite directors, as we have now chronicled on many of these podcasts. We've been doing this for a year. I just I love his movies. So It's one of those things where it's all pererhaps in a fitting metaway. It's all relative, right? in terms of like how I rank his films. I think if I saw this movie, it had been made by another director, I might have a different reaction to it. I hold so many of his other movies in such genuine esteem that it just like for me doesn't measure up to them and to how I feel about them. I think that my relationship to Tennant I love everything you said, Rebecca. And I think what's interesting about Tenet as a film to debate is that actually like disagree really with any of those contentions. I think those are all really valid pretty well supported and things that a lot of people agree with. I think it's a very much a like your mileage M vary movie in terms of not only the offering in a vacuum, but how you consider it as a part of the larger text. the inception interstellar tenant trifecta that you cited That's just the order of how successful those movies are for me. And that's really interesting because I think that Inception is in some ways the most obsessed with really outlining the laws of the universe and making sure that you understand how things work, which sometimes does not go well, but I find mesmerizing in that film. And I think that it's like thematically wonderful. I think the performances are great. I think it's very poetic and like profound. I love it Instellar is a little bit in that like middle spot for me where, you, we had a fun time potting about that movie, as we talked about at the time. It's like for a generation, their sacred text. It's beloved by so many people There are things about Interstellar that I really love and admire. and there are things about it that don't work as well for me, which is always surprising to me because the log line of that movie is so extremely my shit that I'm always like, I kind of can't believe that my reaction to it is not, this is my favorite movie ever made. R. I think that when you watch Interstellar, for me It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at the end of the day if you understand or care to understand something like time dilation, right? You understand the emotional truth of that movie understand the relationship between Coop and Murph, like no matter what, right I think that tenet doesn't do that for me. And so what I find is that when I watch it, and this has been now, I've seen it three times now, and this is increasingly true every time. So it's definitely possible that in ten years I watch this and I'm like, masterpiece. Just no notes. I think that actually is in play. that my relationship with tenant will change over time. I don't know if that will happen, but it's not impossible I watch it and I have nothing but genuine and sincere admiration for the filmmaking and the craft. The cinematography, the editing. Ag, I have notes on the sound mixing, which I think is like Act I think I've made it a bit on these pods, but I think it's like really kind of a problem. I do think the score is amazing, but the fact that the first line of dialogue uttered in this movie from the protagonist leads to our guy Tylon Lannister saying in response like, what? I couldn't hear you is a real telling on yourself stuff to me I think that the ambition of the conceit, the premise, is, to me, like as a sci fi fan, as a time travel story fan, intellectually intriguing and bold in a way that I admire. Like Nolan is always a filmmaker, I admire, and he's a storyteller, I admire I think that this movie is just too convoluted and like a little bit too Um, I don't know, I don't want to about bothides my mouth because just said I admired the ambition, but I think the movie is for me, a touch too enamored of its own ambition to like totally work for me in the way that all the other movies just kind of send me to a transcendent plane of existence as like a person who loves stories and loves this kind of genre filmmaking The action is incredible. It's visually astonishing. I think that some of the aspects of what we see and hear and how the characters function in the world really interesting I think that there's a difference between like a movie that rewarding on a rewatch and one that requires a rewatch. I just think that's a little bit different and Tenet falls into the ladder camp for me There's a lot about it that I really like enjoy. I think the patents and performance is God tier, just unbelievable U, I All of those critiques, like if they said And the movie basically ends setting up tenant two. and now obviously Nolan is left Warner brrother.'s with Universal, who knows? two I would be there on day one. I would be really interested to see him go back into the world. And I think like Rebecca to your point about Aspects of the what are we going do about time time and how we move through time and entropy and a version that's different? Like when I think about tenon as basically a cinematic version or a storytelling version of open source code, I love that. I'm interested that this could now become a concept that other creators returned to and played with and explored their version of because I do think it's interesting It is in a weird little space to me of simultaneously like Nolan has talked about, I wanted to make this movie for twenty years. I've been thinking about this since I was a kid. You could tell he's obsessed with it. he wanted to do it. First pass on this exact execution. Would it be better over time? And it's the latest installment of this continuing exploration of these ideas. And I just think sometimes you go back to the well so many times to explore the same thing in a different way. and it was better the first time or maybe the second time. So that's why I am on tenant Rebecca anything you want to say to what Mriage just said Yeah, I I like your point that some movies are rewarding on the rewatch and some demand them. I think of my relationship, I didn't like Tenet the first time I saw it. I was confused. I thought the sound mixing was bad. I didn't know what was going on. And I felt like some stirs of emotion at random points, but I was mostly left with I don't really know what happened. but I think about my relationship with Tennet, like the protagonist's relationship with Neil. like he doesn't know what's going on next time they meet. And then he only discovers later like he's at the front end for what has been for Neil a long and rewarding So I think of my relationship with that movie as like a summation of all the viewings over the years. And I think yeah, it does demand a rewatch, but the rewatches get better and better. I think every time I've seen it, I've only enjoyed it more. I understand where you're coming from, but I think it deserves all those you know the eighth to n tenth shot. For sure. And I love returning to movies and books. so I probably will get to it eight nine, ten times before we're all said and done. Maybe we'll all gather again to pod at that point. So what about you? Where are you with tenenneth these days? So yeah, I've watched it what three or four times when it first came out two times this week and alongside sort of doing my own version of what Rebecca and her husband do with the graph paper, which is just sort of like watching YouTube explainer videos and trying to make sure that I can really understand what's happening on the car chase or you know, the logic of some of these set pieces, especially like any of the temporal pincer moments, I think require a lot of unpacking for me. And there is a way in which that stimulate my puzzle loving brain and then there are ways in which it can frustrate me and make me feel like I'm stupid and I don't understand. And I think what's tremendously I would still put ten at the b Towwards the bottom of my ranking, honestly I do get emotal. I think Without that byy scing. between the protagonist and Neil Um I think this movie is much more of a failure, but that every time I've watched it, that scene has really gotten to me I think Pattinson is incredible as Neil throughout. he's like very charming and then very emotional there. I think that's John David Washington's best partart of the film is his realizations there and the emotion that he expresses there. I think Elizabeth DBicy's character Kat, her whole thing, I think is really great and interesting this movie. I love that actress so much. So like, you know, and then visually like we'll talk a little bit about the sort of like Bond the James Bond comps, but like visually this is That's the thing about Christopher Nolan that we love is that the way that he makes Corn cinema but with these big ideas and big ambitions behind them. And so for something like inception, which is just a slam dunk for so many people It's an ambitious puzzle that he's created there, but he never once loses his audience in the making of it for the most part, I would say. And so he has taken big ideas or his like hyper intellectualism because he's one of the smartest people that is out there. But then he's made three Batman movies that people really love. almost Trojan horse smuggle in these huge ideas inside of mass appeal popcorn cinema is What is so admirable about Nolan and I just think he lost bottom fell out of the popcorn bucket a little bit on this one where he just sort of like lost that sort of like general audience I can come along for this ride I want it we have like a couple of listener emails in Defensive tenenet that I wanted to read, most of them sort of sending quotes from something else. But our listener, Nick sent over this nineteen ninety nine interview, sryry the mail call sound in our ears. Nick sent over this nineteen ninety nine interview. So this was I think around following. so yeah, before before Mmento even. And no one was talking to Elvis Mitchell, who's this you know renowned UK film guy. And He was talking about He says, quote, You need a simple narrative to take the audience through the experience of the film you can have something that's quite complicated, but as long as the audience feels they've understood enough of it Men' peculiar balance between the sort of productive ambiguity or confusion and having given them a story that had a beginning, middle and end, and at the end of it, they didn't feel like they hadn't understood it So that's his sort of thesis in ' ninety nine is I want to make a memento or I want to make an interstell or I want to make an inception. I want to make a prestige, which is, you, nonlinear storytelling, which we love. But the audience never gets lost along the way. And my feeling on Tennet is that He lost a lot of the audience along the way. and if you are Rub back and her husband and are quite ambitious and rewatch and rewatch and rewatch, then you can hook into it on a deeper sort of like now fortress level of understanding and what's going on there, but like It's it's he drifted from his original intention of being this mass appeal director with these high minded ideas. Rebecca, do you have any thoughts about that? I guess I'm just I' grateful that Nolan is so successful as a director that he gets to swing and miss like this with his audience sometimes and bounce back and then make the Odyssey. because I really do have a soft spot for the when directors and writers I love just really get up in their own asses and have clearly stopped caring about the audience and are just pursuing ideas and sort of showing off with rhetorical flourishes. So I feel a similar way about Jordan Peel's Nope, which I think many people find more inaccessible and confusing than get Out, which has a really tidy hook and doesn't let the audience feel at any point like they don't really get the message. and Nope is about a lot of things. I think it's more ambitious, I think it's harder. I think it lost people, and I love it. And I think I love Tenet for the same way. I think it would just be so sad if a director never got a budget to make a huge commercially appealing film again after a miss like that. But because it's Nolan, I'm glad that he gets to make the Dark Knight trilogy and then he gets to make this and then go back to the Odyssey. Yeah agree with that. I think that's a great point. And like, One of the things I'm very conscious of as I crritiqued ten in a film that I still think is really interesting and like I'm glad exists But think is flawed. for me, I I also feel that way about it still like I'm glad it exists. I'm glad he made it. And one of the things that I find so I don't know, just like fun and interesting about being in the world when Chris Nolan is making movies is that he's always like, let me go for it in any form, no matter what genre he's playing in, whether he's on his ninth movie with Michael Kain or his first one with Dubecky and Pattinson and John Davaveid Washington, whatever the case may be, he's like, this is the story I have wanted to tell And I know exactly how I want to tell it, right? too the point where he was out there like We're going to save movies This is the movie that's going to save movies, which I think is like inextricable from the legacy of the film now, but won't be forever. I think we're still so close to that that it's like That takes me that takes me to another email we got. our listener Sam sent along a great essay by Brendan Hodges called Beside You in Time. It's a beautiful essay. It's quite long about Tenet. but it does touch on that idea of like the guuy high expectations that were on tenant when it came out during the pandemic is just sort of like of all the times for Nolan to get extra experimental and extra up his own ass if you prefer The like, it's the pandemic and no one's going to the movies hereere we'll get people to like go out to the drive in or whatever the case may be. The stakes were were just disproportionate for that. And if like inception had come out during that time or one of, you know, the first two Batmen or something like that that it would be it would be so much different. This is this is The section from that essay I want to read. So Tennet quote, Tennet was never going to be the savior of cinemas. Chris Rher Nolan's impressionistic sci fi action love story is the most abstract, challenging, frustrating, uninhibited, dissonant, dude's rock, hell yeah, movie of his career. But Tennet is also cold, cold as ice. Rebecca says no, but this person says yes. Evasive, brutal and overwhelming. I don't know if the studio or even Nolan himself knew what they had two hundred million curio somewhere between misfire and masterpiece destined to polarize and attract in uneven ratios. The worst possible framing for tenenet was as a unifying prayer for the enduring strength of the theatrical experience dropped at a time you could get sick going to see it. and confronting audiences with an art house vibes heavy blockbuster pauses to ponder metaphysics and quantum agency. Instead, Tennet should have been marketed as Christopher Nolan movie that will fuck you up that our favorite cinematic clockmaker is finally letting his hair down with a sci fi epic that will make gloriously, raptuously little to no sense. Rebecca, what do you think about that as an assessment I think that's a good way of putting it. Nan has let his hair down. I just when I admire somebody's mind so much, I really love the chance to just follow their whimsy wherever they want to take it without the constraints of studio pressure or audience pressure. I'm so happy for this glorious commercial failure. I think I love it. It's so fun I'm loving the letting the hair down uppis own ask because like Iar e upisone ask and I'm thinking, you know what let's actually go To me, the problem is not that the movie's up its own ass. Let's go further. Tell us literally if an inverted character sits on the toilet. Does this sht go up their ass? Like I wantna know more. I don't want the the floor deelt to tell me, just like like feel it. I don't know. It's a little bit betweenwixt in between in that sense. I think of the movie a little bit as So use something inside of the movie as a comp The the racing sailboats, like the high speed floating up on the water racing sailboats, like I look at them. I don't know anything about sailing, right? Much as I am not a metaphysicist or a physicist. I look at those sailbats and I'm like Thisose looked dope They look fast, they look fun, they look dangerous, they look scary. I understand without really understanding that only certain people would be able to handle them and only certain people would know how they move, right? That doesn't really compel me to want to spend my time in one of them. And I think that that's part of so it's fascinating. L I I genuine I don't like generally when we're about to pod about something to like hear what a bunch of other people had to say about something. But because of the COVID time capsule nature of this, I like went back to refresh on what some people were saying at the time. And was what I remember because I was like, am I like exaggerating in my mind how big the specter of how could you or could you not see Tenant? And what was like, like Christopher Nolan saying that, but like Tom Cruise saying about movies. I'm on the phone with the insurance company and I'm saving movies, right? This was just like a thing that is inextricable from how people are talking about tenant. So that's just not going to be the case in ten years if someone sits down and watchh his tenant for the first time and has no awareness of and is not thinking about when tenant was released and how long it was delayed and how it was positioned or any of that. But I have a hot take I don't know if I totally believe, but'm going I' going throw it out there anyway We think that like the COVID timing and thus the you, I agree with what you said, for the pandemic, especially that's actually a pretty good box office, but it's not what you would expect for a Nolan blockbuster I think there's a chance that actually tenet would be like more debated and derided if more people had seen it right away I actually think like the slow drip of people coming to it slightly muted the volume, just the heft of I don't understand what the fuck is happening in this movie and like why don't the people who made it want me to understand it? Did either of you by any chance watch the making of tenant featurette that's like on the, I don't know if it's online, it's on the four K. It's like an hour and fifteen minutes. It's fascinating. If you watch this movie and you're like, this is the most visually stunning thing I've ever seen, you should watch this.ike the editor and the cinematographer are like a lot of stuff about stunt choreraphy all of it I'm being like slightly hyperbolic here, but not really. I would say nine de none of that is about the story of tenant. All of it is about the craft of tenant, which is very notable, right? And I think that like Probably no fewer than seven hundred and forty three times does somebody in the making of tenant say, hereere's a story from the set about how I didn't understand the movie we were making Great brought up the The sailboats because I want to talk about this sort of like idea that Chrisheronolan always wanted to make a Bond film and he made this movie instead Rebecca, how much were you thinking about James Bond when you were watching this movie or any of of the hallmarks of the Bond franchise inside of this movie. I thought the boond coating was what made it really commercial and easily digestible. And that was like the candy pill in which you shoved all the metaphysics. But yeah, I mean there's definitely a lot of bond tropes going on. I think In watching Tenet in comparison to like an actual Bond film though, I'm really fascinated in what English manners and English like genteel culture are doing here. Because in a Bond film, like Bond is everything that is best about the British. he knows how to wear his suit. he's shaken out stirred But tenen of the protagonist is really not that. He's an outsider. He's a bllack American. He doesn't have the accent. but he's still more badass than everybody else. and he still knows where to get his own suit. He doesn't need a recommendation for a tailor. And there's just this there's this attitude that you bring it to everything. I think the waiter is like blah, blah blah, I presume and he's like presume away. I love that. So think all the comparisons, I think I found John David Washington even more sexy than Bond because he's just this like anonymous column of swag in each and every cultural context. And for a long time, I like, you know, because people talk about Nolan in the context of not being very good about race or not thinking about race, but I'm fascinated in how his characters operate as these like totally anonymous ciphers in either deliberate ignorance or in a deliberate flattening of cultural, ethnic, racial context, et cetera. So I think it's like a really interesting counterpiece to bond, but I do think the racial analytics probably ends there I do think, you know, he he has talked about how he wrote this role for John David Washington out of seeing black Kansmen and And that's rare for Nolan to talk about writing a role for an actor U, you know, especially this like central role And so I do wonder if You know, I don't I think this is a particularly like deep, deep, deep analysis of what it means to be a Black American and a Caucasian English by world But I do think, you know, if he absorbed any of the critiques of how white his films are or anything like that, if he was like, I'm interested in taking this compelling black actor that I saw in this film, John David Washington and building this and making him my bond, essentially. So know, I wonder if that was reactionary at all When you start to line up the comps when you have the sort of like opera House cold open mission, fancy car chases that Silver sob, especially, I would say, globe trotting locations, a fem fatal, if you want to call cat that you can, a heavily accented villain and we will talk about Bana plenty, Gadget download with a cQ of sorts, you know, the suits, the watches Malory, how much are thinking about Bond when you're watch A lot. I mean, I think and it's fun knowing how influential how seismic the hold the bond has on Nolan is, of course, that like adds an extra degree of kind of having a top of mind. But I think if you didn't know that at all, you would still feel the bond just oozing off of this. You know, you feel the Michael Mann influences. you feel a lot of Nolan's influences here, which is part of what makes it like a really interesting and ripe for analysis installment in his filmography. I think all of the locations that you mentioned, I mean, this is a gorgeous film visually in a lot of different ways. And obviously the glob trotting nature of it is a huge part of that. It's a travelalogue, the idea you believe that these characters would be able to just move about the world in this fashion, right? So that's one of the really fun things about a Bond movie That's one of the fun things about Tenant. You mentioned the suits The fash this is a great, I do think this is actually a great example of Not to my influence with a little tweak. Like everyone is besuited And then you have the polo shirt as like the specific style and specific choice under the jacket. I think that's like a great way to give the protagonist his look. you know, on the like the protagonist is a cipher is there to stand in for certain ideas, you know, in many ways, so is boond, right? Bond is one of the great like types, you know, many different Yeah come in and inhabit bond, but we understand. who James Bond is, you know, who ero zero seven is. So I think that those those comps like and influences all feel very, very present. And I like what Rebecca is saying a lot about that kind of rapper that allows then no one to explore these really heavy ideas. And even if they don't always all land in every single movie, I'm glad that he has the desire to continue to explore them because we're nerds, right? So it's really fun to have everybody go to the movies and think that they're gonna to just watch people punch each other, which they do, or rub cheese graters on each other's cheeks, which they do, or flip their cars, which they do would have a plane crash into freeport, which they do. By the way, my favorite single favorite moment in this makingu. This was iconic. Pattinson, I'm paraphrasing what's like You know, and you're wondering, like how are they going to achieve a plane crashing into this terminal? And like the way they're going to achieve it is by crashing a plane into this terminal. is funny' Robert Patson saying is very funny. And then they're going to make you think about Eropy and inversion and like, you know, you have to feel what's happened been right The free will and determinism and how these things relate to each other. I love stories that make us think about those things and ask those things. And I love that for a lot of people, this is a movie that not only gets those wheels turning in their brain, but like sends them to Reddit, where they're going to post theories on message boards and talk about those theories with each other. I think like for a lot of people, Tenet is a movie that they not only love watching and thinking about but love discussing. So I think that's awesome. I love that. Yeah Tenant is a movie that I admire more than I like And, um And in terms of the discussion that it' generated, and this is Nolan's great trick that he does, right? which is I think it was maybe from that feature that you're talking about or perhaps a different one. No, was it was the Colbert interview where Nol one was talking about how The first greeting they ever did for Memmento, he was asked in a Q and A after sort of like what the ending means. And he says Well, I want everyone in the audience to decide for themselves what it means, but this is what I think it means.. And then his brother, Jonath Nolan, my favorite Nolan, is like, you can't ever do that again. Don't ever, ever tell the audience. And he's like, oh, but I sort of caveatted with I wanted them to figure it out for themselves. And he's like, they won't pay attention to that part. They will just pay attention to what you said. So never explain The top spinning means, never explain what's really at the heart of Interstellar, never explain what the fuck is going on in Tenet at all. I think that's fascinating Um Anything you want to say more that we haven't already said about this idea of the protagonist is like a cypher, the you know Nolan has cited the prisoner a beloved sci fi television show or soally owns man with no name, or if you prefer more recent The Mandalorian like these facelifts put Grogu in tenon and then we're cooking. Yes. What what is the what is the? I mean, because I do think for a lot of people The fact that the main character in this movie is called the protagonist is one of the easiest things to roll your eyes at. But Rebecca, fond of people with their heads up their own asses, you probably love how do you feel about this Sometimes I just like when Nolan admits his weaknesses. Yeah. And he's like, I'm not interested in a backstory. I'm not interested in cultural contexts. There's just this guy and he does stuff and I'm just going to call him the protagonist. I find that lovely, but I was laughing Mallory while you were talking about how the movie is so uninterested in. explaining itself to the audience because I was thinking of the scene where they're in the shipping container and the protagonist is sitting there like begging meal to explain anything and's like tweet. I have more quests and meals just like whatever I ex sleve. I'm just s. I think that's the movie's whole attitude like Totally. We'll rest. You'll feel better in the morning. No question. I love it U this is sort of more of a visual hard to talk about on a podcast, but in case people don't know about the Sedar square There's this curio that has been found at various archaeological sites That is a square that says sort of Sater Arepo, tenet opera rotus. and it so you can read it across or you can read it down. And there are a lot of theories, none of which are full proof or airtight or solid about what this particular tablet, which has been found in many different locations in a way that historians and archaeologists cannot create a unifying theory to explain it. But it is, you know, it is never raised in this movie But obviously, Brana's character iss named Sater. There's a character named Areppo. There is Tenet is the center of this. There's the Opera House and Rotus, which is Sater's Um very very vain flip of his own name, name of his company. So it's all of those Things are here And it's that sort of like sideways, upside down, backwards, forwards sort of experience. Um When you think about that Is that the Sdoku of this all? Like what do you think about that, Rebecca when you think about the Seder Square? I think there's not a lot to unlock with the Seder Square. I think it's just cool and the words are cool. I do like that he was like, Seder areo, that's clearly Russian and Spanish. That's fine. was. We were giggling thinking about rotest we're like, oh yeah, that's the construction company that makes the turny things. and then we're like because they rotate rot us. But I think the only Easter I can read in here, which is not even partart of the square is I was thinking about why it's Goya, the artist that repo gets. Also, like when you think of a repo, do you just think of like a faceless, limless, like barely alive like I'm like, what did he do to He can't walk, he can't ride. What is he up to? But I was thinking about Goya because Goya is very famous for that painting Saturn deevouring his Young, which is not in the film, but I just I think it's got to be because of that painting, right? becausecause it's about older generations cannibalizing the future that That's the painting that Lizzie Debay is in trouble for. I love that. As for tenet itself, as not only the center of the Sedar Square and the codeename here, but this idea of faith and belief as it pertains to the protagonist There's this exchange that he and Sater have uh over the phone towards the end, when the protagonist says you don't believe in God or a new future or anything outside your own experience, And Satater says That's all any of us knows. the rest is belief and I don't have it, right? And The protagonist says, without it, you're not human, you're a mad manan. Sater says, or a god of sorts. And protagonist says, like I said, just some great accent corner work for you. Thank you. So this idea of like Sater mocking the protagonist for his faith, for his belief in the design of you know, the people who are working in the future, which is a very interstellar concept. Who are these advanced beings who have sent this idea back to us, o, it's ourselves. L that happens an inter celler and it happens here as well. The protagonist we find out is following his own plan because he's the one who created the tenant organization in the first place. But he doesn't know that and he's sort of blindly believing in this design in this plan What I think is really interesting is there's a line that comes after this exchange in the screenplay that didn't make it into the movie where Sedar says you know, God he killed his son too, like a very, very l that Nolan's like, maybe not. Maybe we don't put that in there. Rebecca, talk to me about belief and faith and determinism and how you think about it when you think about this movie. Yeah, this is the part of the film that I think is very emotionally resonant for me because I think that Nolan ends up in this like beautifully like anti pessimistic, like really humanist place place I think going back to In Stellar, No one's really interested in the question of agency and freedom within bootstrap paradox. It's like, how much do you get to take credit for if your future self has already fixed things for you? Do your choices matter at all? Do you have freedom? Do your choices have normative significance, or are you just following a predetermined script Is there anything you can do about your fate? And in Tenet, as well as Instellar, the fact that the bootstrap exists doesn't absolve you from choosing to risk your life and give it your all as if you have no knowledge of the outcome. And that's concreized in the exchange between Neil and the protagonist when Neil's like, Well, what's happened happened, which is an expression of faith in the mechanics of the world. It's not an excuse to do nothing I think that starts a very nice compromise between determinism and free will. And it's also so my husband's a philosopher, so I ask lots of questions about how people think about choice and free will. And you know if everything we do is a chain reaction of all the molecular interactions that have comprised us since we were born, then what significant st our choices have. and exactly what Neil says, like that's not an excuse to do nothing at all. Like you still have to choose to throw yourself into the black hole. You still have to choose to keep risking your life and take bullets and save the future as if you're not sure the future will be saved. So it's a choice to you can't opt out bootstrap, but you still like it still exists. You still have to be a part of it And I think that's lovely. Yeah. I really agree. L this is actually something that works really well for me in the movie and that I love. And in general, you know, if it's like a show like Dark, that I love, like I love when a movie like a rival, right? There's when a story I actually interrogatedwew something If you knew an outcome, would you do these things anyway? And then what does it mean if you do and how do carry that with you and how do you keep it from other people. The idea that like the in some cases just mere awareness. And obviously, a lot of tenant is also about that. You have these keywords and these phrases that opens some of the doors that it opens are good and some are bad, right? Like splitting up information, all of that It's just this kind of like acknowledgement that it's like a quiet like a hum in the air in the entire film that awareness of this at all inevitably radically alters something about the way you live your life. How could it not, right? And so like I love the Neil protagonist relationship and what we learn at the end, which like you feel building, but it's still very satisfying. And that exchange, Rebecca that you cited is probably my favorite moment of the movie. It's not an excuse to do nothing. think It's great in this film. it's great for those characters and it's great overall. like if you're interested in free will and destiny and how these things relate to each other, the idea of like like I like stories that make us think about compatibilism and how you can and should exert free will even if There is something fixed in time. I think the way the movie dabbles with like moments where a character very actively, not just I mean, there's choice everywhere, but like can say three or four times throughout the movie what's happens happened, but then like really in an animated fashion die forward like Neil does to stop An outcome, right? It's like that shows us the truth of that belief. Like I cannot just stand by and wait for things to play out. Maybe it's because I believe on some level I had always done that thing and so I must do it again. but maybe it's because I'm a human being and I have to take action if I see something happening in front of me. I think that's really great inside of this movie. so I love that part of it. and then you have the kind of slight Menacing a whisper in the undertone of something like Sater also saying later, you know, your faith is blind. You're a fanatic on the call and it's like Well, that's a little scary when we think about the fact that the protagonist He's the one, right? when he says to Pria on the cards It's like, I wasn't working for you. We were both working for me and it's like Right reasons Wrong outcome, right outcome. That's when the movie gets my mind racing in a way I like much more so than like, do I totally understand how everyone is moving through this scene? And ye why? and why would people choose to do this in the first place if you couldn't breathe? Like that's what I'm like But just the question about how people behave and why I really like. And I think the overall like concept around that of just the future at war with the past, this temporal war, the temporal pincer movements, the mini actions inside of the larger actions, That stuff's really compelling, I think, as like a tapestry to explore these ideas against. Even something at the end, you know Ies like I think Aaron Telller Johnson is kind of underutilized in this movie. You know how I feel about him He's a passion of mine. I wish we got more of Ives and more of him in this movie. Make Craven to happen. But you know, the moment at the end, it's like, we got to divide these. We've got it's on us. And like we're also, you know the only people who people who know about this can't like move forward, right? Maybe it's up every every man to decide on their own when that time is. You know, like even the characters who understand more than anybody else what the stakes are just have that human impulse to say ot not ready to die yet. Then you have Neil, who's like, I understand exactly the faate that awaits me and I am prepared for it. So that's all great I do think that Neil's choice at the again, that exchange between the protagonist and Neil when Neil reveals sort of like that they've known each other a long time Uh, that this is the end that he knows it's the end.es. And whether or not he figured that out right that very minute of like, I'm the only one who could open that door, or if he's known all along, this is his last mission, that remains slightly unclear to me, and I don't mind that ambiguity But the idea that the protagonist will then go forward in their relationship always knowing what the end was And, you know If he's the one who recruited Neil in the first place, it's that very much that arrival question of like, knowing that you this will ultimately lead to Neil's death and recruiting him anyway Um,, you know, the the moving in different different directions through time. relationship that I was thinking about the most and a lot of our listeners wrote in with this comp is a doctor who doctor the Doctor in River Song who initially meet the first episode where the character of River Song shows up the end of David T tenenant's run is her last day with him, but he's never met her And so that's very much where we find Neil and the protagonist here on like is Neil's last mission and the protagonist's first mission. That's like where their timeline coincides. and The protagonist carrying that knowledge without being able to tell Neil that. through the rest of their relationship is so impactful. Rebecca, you are Nodding beautifully, anything you want to add to that could anybody say T, it's an emotionally cold movie? When Neil walks off and he's like, We get up to some stuff. You're gonna love it. I wasnting's It's just it's really gorgeous. Can I ask you, okay, so've we've been discussing throughout our Nolan run about this idea of the double inside of Nolan, where we are all three huge prestige lovers. So that is obviously like a core. And we've been tracking the various doubles, the various foils throughout this. I think nowhere is it more literalized than in this movie when you have the protagonist literally fighting himself twice inside of this movie. Or you have like six different neeils kind of running all over the place. He's at the opera house. He's like all over this battle, you know, tons of neeils going around everywhere you've got most, you know, crucially Kat seeing herself jumping off the ship and being inspired by the freedom of that woman and finding out that it was her all along who jumped off that ship Um All of that stuff is here And then we've got all these like fan theories, againg, like we love the discussion around the constant Reddit threads that are being generated around this movie. There's a lot of like this character is actually this character. L Aaron Taylor Johnson showing up with that particular specific accent. I think makes a lot of people wonder if he is actually the younger version of Michael Kaye's character Sir Michael Crosby, who shows up later, a very like, that's not Aaron's accent. So he was directed to do an accent that matches Michael King's accent to a certain degree Barbara Clemon pussy, who who you call Florida Laacourt that Barbara the is the future scientist or she shows up and she's pregnant, Is she pregnant with the future scientist? Like is that a connection? But the most compelling one And the one that I feel like has to be true and especially as it feeds into what Rebecca was saying about what if you could run around and be the same age as your own kid is the Nil is actually young Max theory. So Rebecca, do you buy into anything you want to say about doubles in general or that Neil is Max theory that everyone loves to talk about I think that's right. I think I clocked that on my first viewing. I was actually surprised that it was controversial because I think it's like as much as like noome like winks hard about anything, I think there are some very strong links. And the first time I had the gut instinct was true is they're either in the shipping container or they're on the boat at that point and the protagonist is talking to and she's like, does my son survive? L is he going to die? And the protagonists like No'll he will And then he looks at Neil like very explicitly and that's the last thing you see before that shot ends. also Neil is the last for letters in Maximilian back. So I think very good. Yeah and they have this little floppy hair and Yeah. he has a Hosh English accent. I just think that's right. I've been making Pattinson dye his hair blonde for no reason other than to match that child is a very is like one of the most you know, I love And also to match Christopher Nolaner. Yes. yeah. Chris Volenter, the knotted scarves are veryry Nolan Code. He's like, what is the coolest character in this movie? it would look like me Malware you and the doubles and the max is Neil theory. The characters interacting with versions of themselves despite the words of caution from you know is here What the time to be a fan of the pit.ar great st. Yeahah. You know, you have your words of caution, but then the moments where like I like some of the subtler one, I don't know if anything's super subtle in the car J sequence, but like when the protagonist sees him oh, I was the one driving the sob, etcetera. Of course the hallway fight is the best version of it. That stuff's all just None of it, I think is really surprising. I don't think it's actually intended to be surprising. Even the string on Neil's backpack, you know, we understand right away that like that will be something we're supposed to look for and track and understand that when that character is revealed to us It will be somebody we have spent a lot of time with, right? So there are only a couple candidates. I like of those theories about who characters could be. I think it feels very likely inside of a nolan story that that maybe all of those are true and right Gess the only thing I don't like about it is that I think of Neil as a very feeling character Like a character who is actually like Oozing Uh emotional energy throughout the film. and if he's like it's I think it's like kind of asking a lot for us to accept that that's his mom who's been torn apart by an inverted round and he's like, We should let go about our business. I don't know. I'm not totally sure about that I would love that part of it. Other than that though, it does track for me. and I feel like if we got tenant two part of The roadmap of tenant two would be revealing that all of the characters in ten and two are characters we had met in some other form in tenant onene. Like that feels very probable to me. There's this line that Neil has again, in that scene, which is undoubtedly my favorite scene of the movie, when he talks about going back and weaving quote weaving another pass in the fabric of this mission, a really beautiful way to think about sort of these various u tenant members of the tenant organization just sort of like, you know weaving in and out of time on the loom of time and this idea that like Sometimes when you get these theories that all these characters are connected or you know, Aron Taylor Johnson's character is Micha Can's character. I'm like, that makes the world feel small. that's narrow. But I kind of like the idea of tightening the weave on this particular story and it's just like a very closely woven and the idea of The more characters who are talking to people they already know and pretending that they don't know them or they've just met them or something like that is just like a fun thing. Yeah. And the Doctror and River were on my mind too, for that same reason. I think it's really interesting to think about, know so much of this movie and Nolan's movies are about concepts and intellectual curiosity, but also they are about humanity and how we think about our own humanity and relate to each other's humanity And when with Neil and the protagonist, the Rriver and the doctor, the idea that like, okay, what is relationship? just at the most basic level. It is getting to know another person and allowing them to like discover who you are too. So the idea that That person who you were forming a relationship with have a different understanding of who you are than even you possess or are aware of is like so delicious to play with. and I love the idea too that we are witnessing in that very moving sequence. Also one really unique in the span of this meaningful experience together moment of total truth and transparency that like there's always somebody who's got to withhold something and then here it is and how rare that is, that's just like kindind of fascinating and cool and I think that like You know, something about the protagonist' Cypher, like we talked about is compelling, right? I think the thing that is missing. is understanding anything about who that character is or why he does the things he does. I think we'll come back to that probably in some of the categories, but like could change over time if we like had some of this, this person is revealed to be this person and this scientist is revealed to be these scientists. Ruban is just coming out as the number one makeake tenant two happen. Wh would tenant two. I would love tenant two. And again, I like want to keep thinking about the movie over time. I think like You know, the way the films are in conversation with each other, as we've already talked about, is interesting too in terms of the future and the past. and that's relevant here to what we're talking about. like You know In Instellar the future is saving is facilitating the continuation of humanity, right? which then facilitates those members of humanity being alive to Sve. humanity. So that's like a very positive view. Horrible things happen, the blight, etcetera. We have torn our world apart. Obviously, that's present here too. But the idea that the future of humanity would Not only persevere, but care enough about its own past to sustain itself is like kind of a charitable read I think there's a view of tenant where the idea that the future, obbviously everything was S are like one man who' like, if I can't have it, no one can, very grim I think totally believable, by the way, but very grim. But the idea that the future is like Grandfather paradox, we're not really worried about it. We can't allow you guys to continue fucking shit up. Its feels actually extra important then inside of that for these characters who we've grown attached to, to say Our relationship to this is going to be to try to do something good for the past, to try to keep things going because otherwise it's just all very bleak and I think that doesn't feel like actually Nolan's intention. Rebecca, any thoughts on that? Yeah, I like where all this is going. I think I would add one more interpretive layer on top of what Mallory is saying and point out that Nolan loves nuclear families. like thematically, he's really interested in a dad trying to get back to his wife, who's usually dead and a kid. and at Oenheer' interested in nukes. But I think like the bonds of the nuclear family being the person to person manifestation of these broader like social obligations, I think are another reason, I think a strong reason why Max is knil to bring that back in, because you do have this sort of like but sort of clear like for placing of the father figure where Sater has like renounced his His obligations as a father. He says, you know, the worst thing I ever did was bring a child into a world I knew was ending too bad for him basically. But if I can't have the world, nobody can. So he has stopped caring about the future, both for other generations that could come from him and his own son. And then the protagonist steps in. And as Mally points out, we don't know a lot about him. We don't know his motivations. There's really no reason why we would believe that he cares about saving the future except that he's already passed a test that he would die just to, you know obey to carry out a mission and because there's no better There's there's no other like contextual scene in which The protagonist's moral obligations are really displayed. The shortcut to that is his caring about Max and his caring about at least saving the future for this one kid and caring about cat. So you have this father figure who wants to preserve the figure for the sake of the son, and then you have a mother figure who also wants to fight for the future for the sake of the son. And then beautifully, you have a child who comes back and is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of the parents I think the nuclear family bonds like concrtize the rosiest interpretation of how everybody's thinking about their generational obligations. I love that I love that. We've talked about bootstrap paradoxes, grandfather paradoxes, all kinds of paradoxes, An other time travel concepts or That you want to bring up here, Rebecca? I will mention that I was so inspired by Tennet that I ended up writing this short story called Making Space. and I think it's just available as a digital download out there. So I really like the idea of the future taking revenge on the past. and I wanted to use that premise to investigate questions about parenthood and fertility and what it means to bring life into a world that a lot of people think is ending Soote the story where essentially this couple that hasn't had any luck with IVF, they find this creepy abandoned child in the forest and then decide to adopt him And then a series of events happens and it turns out that child has been sent back in time as a climate refugee. and he's tainted with this virus that renders all the people he touches infertile. So he's literally making space for all the other kids who are about to be sent back to be found and be cared for because all the parents in this time This generation that is so selfishly destroying the planet can't have kids anymore. So that's my contribution to Nova thematic inquiries. That's awesome. Incredible U anythingthing else we want to mention, I will just say just sort of like we've talked a lot about Well as we've gone through these Nolan movies, we've talked lot about the impact of the movie Um, u and out outside of like tened' this sort of like grand failure to a certain degree. splits Nolan in his longtime studio, Warner Brosers, but he goes to Universal and makes Oppenheimer. And when he makes Oppenheimer, he just like wins all the Oscars and it's a real it's a real fuck you Warner Brers. honestly at the end of the day. But to your point, Rebecca in this sort of blank check way, he can he can do a huge swing and a miss on tenet And they get all the resources in the world to make Oppenheimer and somehow, along with Barbie, get everyone out into the theaters to see of all things Oppenheimer and then get to make The Odyssey a movie that we could not possibly be more excited for twelve out of ten excitement levels. So incred incredible work from Nolan Anything else you want to say in a big picture way. We mentioned the sound in the Ludvig Gorinson score, which is incredibly. you know this is a swingway from Han Zimmer.. He brings in Ludvig Gorinson who is astonishing and incredible Anything else you want to say, Rebecca in a big picture way about tenant before we get to our categories Did it didid it, Mallory, you ready? Yeah I think we did it Ready. All right, let's go to our ten at top thirteen This episode is brought to you by Accenture When your advertising operations fall out of sync, campaigns slow down, insights get buried, and opportunities get missed. That's why Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result, less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most To learn more, check out accccenture d.ot com slash Spotify All newew Sundays at nine, exclusively on AMC and AMC plus. I am bum st. I'm a rock star now Anan Rice's Imortal Universe comes what Vulture calls the most momentous event in fictional rock history. Thousands of fans L. I want millions Smider This is the Fampireless Dot, All new Sundays at nine exclusively on AMC and AMC pllus, stream now This episode is brought to by Netflix. The T mobile home runun derb is right around the corner. might be one of the best showcases of pure power and off sports baseballs Biggest sluggers. along with some legendary Announcers, Puhos, Rizzo, Bonds, Sabathia. L Duncin Yeah Hunter Pence, Matt Fastkirzian, a whole bunch of people. And it's the one night where you don't swing to make contact You swing to make history. Ied is who what Bon says about this actually. Anyway, it is all live from Citizens Bank Parks. In Philly, watch the T mobile Home rununs be live on Netflix Monday, july thirteenth at eight PM Eastern five PM Pacific As is the case with all the Nolan movies, we've got categories that all have little Nolan quotes from various movies in front of them. This is an idea I had over a year ago and do I have regrets about it? Wh's to say, but here we are. So the first category is why so Sious The funniest line or moment from the film Rebecca, what do you think? otta be, I ordered my hot sauce hour. That's a great one. Yeah good. I love that one. What's yours, Mallory? Okay, mine is, you want to crash a plane? Yeah, well, not from the air. is so dramatic. And then buildilding Gord will h like a plane all Well that is a little dramatic. It's very sh. It's very don't be afraid to dream a little bit bigger darling. Very Tom Hardy and inception in that moment It not in the air to be so dramatic. Really good. There are actually I think this is a funny movie. They are good't let it get coments. Yeah, When the protagonist is taking the deep breaths to prep for the gas coming into the room and Neil looks to Clause and he's like, yoga.ike that's hysterical. You know, the stute conversation that Rebecca, you already alluded to that whole exchange between Sir Michael and the protagonist is like really amusing, save the world, thenen we'll balance the books, you know Well you British don't of a monopoly on Snobberino? Well not a monopoly more of a controlledion Yeah, that's wonderful. It's great. I also really love when Satater says But we do live in a twilight world and the protagonist says is that Whitman Awesome. Excellent. All right Speaking of you mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling, sickest set Pase, Rebecca, what do you have for this I have two, I like when the obviously the whole final fight and when the building like explodes at the top and then the bottom but reconstructs. But it took me a while to put it together, but I think the car chase heist scene and then the interrogation when Sater shoots Kat with the reverse bullet is really incredible. and that was one of the sequences that really rewards a rewatch with graph paper because you have to play it back several times and watch it with attention to how it's going from the subjective time of Seder and Cat protagonist. but it all clicks together, It really holds up Well, I have a question about that. So as I was trying to rewatch and rewatch it and dig into analysis of it Um What's what? But it's hard for me to understand about a temporal pincer movement is that you have, you know, in Sater's case he has Volkov or, you know, someone telling him everything that happens on the road so that he can go in inverse and sort of be involved in it So it's like, this is what you did. this is what you already did. So this is what you need to do It always happened So or with the temporal pincer movement of Team Blue and Team Red in the Stall sort of fight at the end U Team Blue is like, hey, this is what happened to Team Red But like, how closely Do you need to like do you just get a sort of like, hey, you showed up driving this particular car backwards on the road? And is it just sort of like you as a person are like, okay, well whatever I would do in that moment is what I'm going to do. or are his men like And then He threw you the orange case, but you glanced to the right and saw it was happening in the, you know, like how detailed And then how prescriptive are the instructions on a temporal pincer movement? That's where my brain starts to boil, especially if you go to the car chase Once Once Sater understands where The MacGuffin is, which is it's in the silver sob. He still playaxs the rest of the car chase already knowing where the piece is. So he ask to like pretend with the rest of the car chase so that the protagonist doesn't know that he knows where the piececes already? Do you know what do you know what I mean? Rebecca? Do you You you see what I'm saying there? Yeah. I mean I do see. It's hard. We were also wondering like at the end, they're just like standing there in the shipping container explaining how the inversion is going to work and how they're going to go back in time to save Kat, which means like, while the temporal pitzer movement is happening, they're just sitting there. Like they could have run out and grabbed the algorithm piece at any time. So I think the fob that doesn't really hold up either. Yeah Yeah or or go into the like the It really, it hurts my brain and it makes me feel dumb because I'm like, why not just do another pass? Like that, I mean, that's what the protagonist does allegedly in the car chases. he does the sub is his other pass to try to like fix things. And then he realizes I just actually I was always there. And I just actually made it worse because now he knows exactly where the piece is is in the back of the sub, which is parked back there. And you know, and Sater does another pass through to grab it from the sub. but I'm like What's to stop us from just weaving another pass? Why did we stop there? Why didn't weave another pass? Is it because we didn't And so we can't now And that's that's the other thing sorry, sorry guys, but like that's the other thing about Go through the turnstyle, an interesting explanation of the turnstle is you always have to check to see that you can't are coming out the other side, you know, so that you can know that you did so you don't get stuck there That boils my brain a bit, honestly Yeah. because you already did it, so you have to do it You know? I have no choice because I did it. so I have to do it Well, it's interesting too to consider, would that be like an excuse to do nothing, oniously an excuse to do nothing. But with the level of detail shared because that part of what's interesting about that sequence that you're chooing, Rebecca is that like There's the, um Uh, the the setup for that is like don't pay for it We can't let ' them know. and then it's very satisfying the idea that like, Everything you do creates a mark And then that mark is something that people can understand and use. and it opens, I think the floor for your question of like, well what level? And then, yes they send a team and they learn from that team, etceter. I think it's interesting to consider, we don't get the answer for this, but like do we to consider whether the two sides approach that differently, like whether maybe a character like Sater would seek to prescribe movement and rob the people in his team of choice because for him it is about an end goal, whereas like we see Neil not tell the protagonist things even after he has a certain moment of Like he knows who the protagonist is the whole time, as we've as we've covered. But like in the Freeport sequence, the fight. which is my pick He pulls the helmet off. he sees and he's like, o shit. And then he doesn't tellell him as the protagonist calls him out and he's like,' we were't gonna like mention that before we went and like did that all again, you know? And it's like, well, no, because You've got to do the shit that you've got to do, right? And I have to do the shit that I have to do. So I like like that could be kind of a thematically rich thing actually if decides pursued it differently. ultimately, I am attempting to rationalize something but I don't think the film answers. I think it's a pretty I think it's a fair question. I don't know. My My cicassette piece is the same as Rebecca's well, one of Rebecca's, which is the exploding bottom of like the fact that Uh, wheeler and I'ves Fonodoriff and Arion Tayler Johnson, part of the red team blue team gambit, part of this Pincer movement is to create such a spectacle that everyone will be distracted. And so agreeing to both blow up the building at the bottom and at the top and the way in which they The filmmakers made several different models of this building and blew it up the bottom and blew it up at the top and then composited together, and then made a bigger version of it so that people could run past it and it all looks you know, like inception, the most sort of like Esher esque mind bending puzzle, that's definitely my favorite sort of visual You know, I mean, the car chase is incredible. And the fact, you know, to your point about the the making of You know, all of the stunt driving that they did to accomplish that to make it look like Um somethingomet is defying physics and you know, like even small details like the way the trash sort of like reverse comes out of the wheels of the car, but you know because they told you that the car is driving reversing. so they had to like sort of either CGI add or like whole trash out of it to make, you know, like it's quite intricate. It rewards as many watches as Rebecca and her husband and all of their friends have done from their couches. and it's astounding The reason I am going with the Freeport fight Yeah Less for me about the plane crash part of it, though, obviously that When we go back and do it again, the way that that creates the opportunity to enter and stuff is a satisfying aspect of the story stitching together. that the ambulance is always there Exactly. the ambulance is. So you can see in like one of the shots that they're like, know as they're exiting, they're running and stuff that's very fun. In terms of just the craft of the movie and the commitment to the way the movie was going to be made, this is like Pantheon, Nolan stuff, I think. I believe that he has said that there is only if you map it, one shot that they reused when you rewatch the fight the second time because like they wanted to so authentically film it from each perspective that like Frab walk That guy did that. That's why I have the character move that way. This is in my stunt because like, you know, which not to get ahead, but I will just say For that reason, because I'm watching them choreograph this fight and watching them figure out how to like flip themselves backwards and all this sort of stuff like that to make it so they're not reversing the footage. is incredible. Yes. Lre we're gonna to train and study and ask not only of the stuntp performers, but the main c cast to like learn how to do this and to move this way. It was interesting to hear like John David Washington and then the cast talk about Oh well, like I don't normally wantna make a movie. I'm not like sitting down and watching my own tape, but like I had to to understand. It's just kind of fascinating and really audacious, I think. And you know, like it has a very compelling setup when we're walking in, the split room and the bullets and the glass. in a way that's actually a little bit of the opposite to my don't understand I still don't understand reverversibleets I tri. and sometimes my brain takeick it up, you have to have dropped it your hand like you've choppped it. But like they walk into that room. they see the bullet holes and it's like shit is about to go down. I love that. It makes my heart race in a great fun way. During the car chase sequence, I see I see the cracked side and I'm like annoyed that the characters don't you know? So it has a little bit of the opposite effect for me, but I think there's just something in that hallway fight that's like it's just kind of like rapturously ballletic to me in its choreography. So I love that. None of us pick the opera House Heist, which is interesting I mean, it looks very cool. Anythingaren is so confusing I Y back. like I do not understand what was happening in the opera house.. I still don't really understand what that like random guy that they were rescuing, like what his deal was. But He tried so many times. That he had the piece. Yeah. Unfortunately It is the opening to the movie. so I would pos it that that's not ideal. It just does kind of put you in almost like it's a I'll speak for myself Almost like defensive position is a viewer. whereere're like God, like this can be that hard. It looks incredibly cool. The way that everyone's passed out, like all of that, you know, you almost looks like time has stopped. Yes. first time you see the plaster start to move. Yeah, there's a hole in we see the string for the first time. It's got some fun stuff in it, but yeah U all right. ear to me. This movie is rated PG thirteen, which means it could have exactly one F bomb. Wh would you put it, Rebecca? I think when Kat shoots Seder and he's springing at her. Yeah, I think he's already trying to sayve fuck. He's like Yeah I think that's where I put the caption. Also a bunch of times when Neil is explaining things, the protagonist just makes a face like Yeah So I think one of those verbalized would be nice. I love both those. Sater does say its's true fucking nature when he's talking about the timer. So I think that like as he's pouncing pick is a fantastic one. I'm also going with Ser Let's just spend a moment talking about the fact that this is this is a scene in this movie That ass the kids say bracket complimentary This this is great We're going to take you there. I'm not going to attempt the accent because I'm not as brave as you We're going to take you cut your throat, Not ac cross in the middle like a ho Then we take your balls and we stuff them in the gut, block the windpipe. This we could have pick this for funniest moment. The biragnist replies, compleomplex, which is genuinely hysterical. It's very gratifying to watch a man you don't try to pull his own balls out of his throat before he jokes. Here's the edit We're going to take you there, cut your fucking throat Not ac cross in the fucking middle, like a fucking hole. Then we take your fucking balls and we stuff them in the cut, block the fucking' windpipe Complex. It's very gratifying to watch a man you fucking don't like try to pull his own fucking balls out of his own fucking throat before he chucks. It just would have been why not I love that. Yeah. great stuff. Also in that scene when he says, How would you like to die old? was the runner up I had for funniest moment? I thought that was really good. Mil Tyrion Lannis sur vibes there. To circle back to Rebecca's funniest moment, my pick is I fucking ordered my hot sauce an hour ago. or something like that rightight before herw and cheese graders for me forever. All right. You really feel it. Next category was basically created for this movie Yeah He doesn't speak English, if he does, it's with an accent thicker than Sauerkraut sauce, which is from Oppenheimer actually. Most baffling accent. this is where we get to talk about K Brana unless someone has a different option. I will say that when my friends and I went to go see this at the drive in, we then spent the rest of our lives occasionally saying to each other You know what I admire about the Tiger, which is just one of my favorite liine deliveries of all time. Rebecca. I want to talk about Browna and his tremendous accent in this movie No, we cook sedar a lot too, but it's about the last French fry. I can't tell it. No one. bothered by the accent at all. Like maybe I have a bad ear for accents, but I like that it's like so ham fisted and cheesy. and like it's just really classic bond. And I always like watching movies where the actors are clearly having a great time. And Candace just seems like he's having a lot of fun So I' done. I have come around on Braana in this movie. I hated it at first and now I'm sort of like with it. Where are you, Mallory? Oh. I'll save answer that for another category. Okay. I do kind of like the accent choice because it' so bad shit bonkers that it weirdly like works for me. Yeah, but it's definitely the pick. You know what I admire but'. All right, no one cared who I was until I put on the mask. Best use of a Nolan versse regular. Rebecca, we didn't define this for you, but we're defining this as anyone who's been in two Nolan movies or more. Right. There aren't a ton of options in this movie, but there is more than one. So what do you have here, Rebecca always loved Michael Kane. but something I only lear on this rewatch is that the Mater D at the restaurant when the protagonist goes to see Michael Kane is the I think the main character of Fall. Oh, yes, right, which we just we just watch So it's just nice to see him come back. It was, I agree. That was That was really fun, especially because we had just talked about that ye movie and been thinking about that as like the Nolan skeleton key. So yeah, that's a great one. And Martin Donovan also brought back from insomnia. like the kind of like figures of Nolan yesterye coming into this movie is fun. And interesting because actually we haven't talked about this, but like This is kind of like a reset moment for his You know, he, I mean, obviously we'll go back to like Killian Murphy Woman in Oscar for Oppenheimer. It's not like he's done with all of his faves, but, you know, there's this is a newer the group of performers who he's working with here in the central roles. I in a way that I think should be allowed in the sppirit of the exercise for a Christopher Nolan movie. I'm going out of order. And I am picking Robert Patinson, even though at this point he had only been in one, but he will. I've done the same thing with a different actor. He will be back.. So he has already beeness eligible. Yeah. Not only cast but starring in these trailers, generating meme after meme You're Odyssey I' amm crazed for Odysy. It's so funny to me. I just it's like crack to me. I love it. This is where I want to talk about Hamesh Patel, who I who I love and who is going to be in the Odyssey. So he counts and he shows up as Mir here who is part of the plane crash and then also shows up to drive the boat for Kat at the end of the movie. We are huge station eleven fans. We love him so much I think he's so fun and funny in this movie. The way that he calls the guy over to sort of like check on the vegan meals and he's just sort of like, I don't know like casual chloroforming of this guy. I just I think he's very dashing and perfect for a spy mission. And you know, thinking a lot about inception, when you when you watch John David Washington, Robert Patton and Hamesh Patel sort of like standing a triangle and the camera circling around them as they're sort of talking about their plan. That's very like, let's put a team together inception to me. And Hamesh Patel would like have folded in so well to an inception and I'm just like excited to see what more Nolan wants to do. Like I would love for him to be Killian Murphy like Matt Damon, one of those guys he uses in the background, the background and background until he crafts a whole movie for them. But H much Matel deserves it. So I would love to that. That's my choice. Great one. Is he cast out in the Odyssey? So Hamash Pateal is playing I believe you pronounce it Euri Lous, who is sort of who undermines Odysseus a bunch on the mission that I think is like The ring leadader of the Cersei fuck up is what I believe is his role. Does that sound right to you, Rebecca? Okay, fun. Yeah. that'll be really fun. So you like in the trailer you see him sort of in a lot of the battle flashback stuff, but then I'm curious to see sort of like you know, what what role exactly he's going to play because like how much I'm excited to talk to you about the Odyssey, but like how much off the Odyssey is is u Are we going to hit? How many of the destinations are we going to hit on the journey? Curely don't have time for them all Um, all right Why do we follow her so that we can pick ourselves back up? Best stun. I already said, mine, Rebecca, what is yours I originally picked that building being blown up in rivers I also this time, I was thinking a lot about Cat's dive. During that whole final confrontation with Sadar on the yacht, I just kept thinking the floor must be so slippery. I really hope she doesn't slip. And when she's like dragging him off the boat, I'm like, that's a lot of momentum. I hope she doesn't slip with him. So I think diving from that height and not hitting anything on the boat and like the sheer grace with which it's gott to be a stunt moman, I don't know it was a deby k dive like that, but I thought it was just such a gorgeous clean Line of motion. That's a great pick. That would be sick if D Becky was like, I did that. And that was my foot that reached across the entire length of the car to touch the steering wheel because I look I look at me. I can do it all. That would be amazing. I love how tall she is. It's very important to make rules. Mallory. Oh, boy. so we as is often the case, we hit a lot of stunt contenders in the set piece category. What haven't we talked about? Becauseuse my pick was going to be the backwards car flip in the Tallen car chase the sob But we've talked about that stretch enough. I We also talked about the cheese grater, which I do think there's something about that kitchen fight that's just like, It's just D dudes punching each other, likeike it's a very grounded fight, but it is very useful in establishing how capable the protagonist is going to be throughout the rest of the film. Okay, you know what I'll go I'm going to go with the bungee job, the entrance to Sing Tower because I think the this is like a small but clever way to really show us how all in Nolan is on the bit right? Like the idea that even that before we jump down We're going to jump up. Yeah. This isn't actually a moment where we're moving backwards or our characters are inverted. But we're playing with that even even still. My favorite part of that cool is when the protagonist jumps off and you just see Neil like he's like getting ready to jump Neil just like passing him in the background blaring. It's really good. Yeah. Bunching up. veryy cool. Ver cool. All right, Rebecca loves the dead wives. You're waiting on a train and a train that will take you far away. best dead wife lash woman moments. I loved the entire Elizabeth Devigy performance. I really love my cat Kill Seder because I It's not a dead wife moment or even a woman moment. It's like a Being truly terrible at your job and not following instructions for. And it didn't click for me until this last time I watched it. and Bennet pointed out like they told her over and over again, you were there as the backstop. Your whole job is to keep him from killing himself. And she's like, I'm just confed. So it would have been better if she wasn't there at all And like it just contributes absolutely nothing to the plan. but she's really there for the emotional vindication of getting to stand up to him one more time. and I find like like every little emotion that passes through her face in that scene in I's incredible acting. I do love the timey whimy complexity of like they're both from the future pretending to be from the past. Yes, this key andade the fourteen. Yeah that he think she's already dead. And so he is like Cherishing in a twisted fuck up way, this like final moment with this woman that he has already killed Uh, and then she's like about to die, Motherfucker and I will end her whole performance, as you say, like pretending to be enamored or the way she ducks his gaze and stuff like that. I will say our listener Leah wrote in in praise of this performance to say, Tenant allows Elizabeth D Vici to be tall. She drove that car with her foot right now. Plus the way Kat realizes that she was the anonymous woman she's been jealous of. was not her husband's mistress and actually her after killing her husband, deelightful. It's one of the better arc only arcs, Nolan has given a female character whichich I love. Rebecca, take a moment to talk to us about why you love the deead wives of Chris Vernolan I mean, I just don't think of them as inconveniently fridged. I think Nolan is a man who clearly loves his wife and children. You can tell in how he's written all his films, he thinks that the worst possible thing that could happen to somebody is losing your wife and children. So naturally, all his protagonists are like, I gott to get back to my kids and I miss my wife a lot and Does it recur with like startling frequency? Yeah. I think that's funny. But like I think it's a really easy shortcut to creating a sympathetic protagonist. and I think like it rings true. that would absolutely devastate you. I also like Maul is an amazing character in inception and I really have like so little patience for the dead wife criticism of that film, especially because he gets like Don Cob gets that whole speech at the end about how she's not his wife. Shes just as shade. She could never capture Maul and all her complexity and beauty. So I think all of his films are smarter and more sincere the missing wife and the memes make them out to be. I think it I don't mind the fact that we examine it at every turn. I think it is quite funny. I think especially like in a larger cultural context when We still struggle to center films on women, like the fact that, you, these women die over and over and over again, I think is worth remarking on. But I do think, you know, some of our listeners have pushed back on this and I do think it's a valid point to say Apparently for Chris Ver Nllan, the worst fate that you could encounter is to lose your wife. I do think that that is a compelling argument I still think it's Hilarious And not always in a way that I love that he keeps doing this. Mallory, what's your pick here? I also think that the cat character is great and very welcome. I think the Dbeki performance is fantastic. I mean, she's always great and no surprise, but she's dynamite in this movie I love the idea that we have kind of subed the dead wife for the hostage wife. you know, there's still there's There's something there still happening, but it works quite well because it actually allows her to, you know, you talked beautifully about the dive, Rebecca. Im like, I love we've hit it a couple times. Like I just love You know, and we know, like I feel like O first watch. you know that's going to be revealed to be her, but it doesn't it doesn't make any less impactful because it's not really truly about the plot reveal. it's about her coming to understand . did this thing and now can do things, right? So like the idea that you feel completely trapped in your own life and then and this is quite fitting in the larger conversation we're having about free will, right and agency, it's like Seder is to die R? This is established what what's what has happened has happened, but also like He is seeking that outcome, right? That's like a great moment she says, no, you've missed it. Like this is what he wants, right? And He says about her, if I can't, you know, have her, no one can and about the world. If I can't have it, nobody can and So she is not any point deluding herself into thinking she is ending something that he was not already ending. But it's about doing it on her terms. right? She says to him, It's very satisfying like, I'm not gonna let you think that you took us with you. And so that is, I think a good encapsulation of how the movie can say the sequence of events They said bomb that goes off went off and goes off. The death occurs, the dive occurs But we have a different understanding as does the person who is living through it now in this moment, this contemporary moment, for what drove that outcome. was truly responsible for leading us to that place, which is really, really great. And like he didn't just vanish. He got dragged through the water. su squig soaked like piece of drift wood tied to the back of a boat. Incredible I just, I don't know, she has a lot of really good powerful lines. L I like when she says to the protagonist very early in their interaction, you mean blackmail, like don't be afraid of the word. You know, she's just a bad ass. She's a cool character. I'm the vengeful bitch you see outside I will say rewatch that scene over and over again, which I did because I liked watching her shoot him. She struggles slightly with getting that button open to like have her cool moment which is not a critique. I'm just saying like You know, Kat is in her mind. She's like, I've got the gun and I'm going I've got this great line and then I'm going like whip my shirt up and show them the scar. And she's like struggling with her button a little bit. I just I really like it. I think it's very human. It's very good All right, I want to make sure we can get to the Odyssey conversation that we want to have with you. So I am going to encourage us to slightly zoom through the rest of these. He's the hero Gotham deserves but not the one we it needs right now. Who was regrettably misscast and who would you replace him with? My scorching hot take is I do think John David Washington is You calling him like a I think you call him like a column of swag. I think that's very accurate I think for something this Hm Logically complex When you think about something like Interstellar, Matthew McConughe's extremely emotional performance is something that like really drives us through. And so Bon is showing up giving us a lot of emomotion John David Washington is giving us a lot of cool. and would I would like someone who is just a bit more raw throughout this so I could at least as Barbara encourages us, donon't try to understand it, just feel it. Like I would like to feel it a little bit more u throughout. So that's that's kind of My hot take on this movie. Rebecca, what' what's your answer here? Wow, I have the opposite take on John David Washington. I really like his restraint. I like that he's like so well trained that he doesn't betray emotion. and that makes the moments where like his eyes get red when he's saying goodbye to Neil. Like I feel like that makes those emotions hit even harder My silly recast was I was going to recast Wheeler because I think Aaron Taylor Johnson is Ives, like he's like chewing up every line with such verb like need to know and you don't. And I was like, oh, it wouldd be cool if like Wheeler was also like a surprise cameo of somebody I really like. But then I recently became a pit fan and I found out that it's okay. so now'm like Wheeler is perfect No aviator nation zip up putoodies on wheeler during the I don't know what's under what under It's entirely entirely possible. Yeah, I I I think for me, it's the I think that John David Washington is, as we've talked about, very funny, very sexy, suave All of my notes on the protagonist are about how the character is written. I think it's just I talkking about kind of intentionally, Ive seen John David Washington give far more sort of emotionally raw performances. So I know he's capable of it. Yeah. I love you mentioned Black Klansman as what Nolan Sw knew he wanted to cast him really wrecked my head cananon. I loved the idea Christher Nolan was the only other person on earth who had finished all of Ballers from the show that I watched every second of a Joh David Whinging this Gen. But I actually yeah, and his performance is every time I watch it, I' because' those little moments, like, you know the there's the you must not like you really must not likek the look of me or like, well then he's going to want to meet me. He does, I think he's conveying quite a bit actually in little moments. I like the performance This my hot take is Branana. I I who I love and think is like a Titan and is great. but here's let me Makes it make the pitch Sater is and Nolan himself will say this, right? He's not like a villain who has a point. He's not supposed to be empathetic in any respect. He is Sure selfish evil. He is the worst possible endpoint of the great man that no one likes to study I personally think that Kandeth Brana is just a touch too charming to be like someone I am is supposed to be incapable of being interested in spending time with at all. I need someone just like more and maybe the accent is helping to get us there a bit. I need like a touch more cartoon evil, like I can't question at all for a second if I'm supposed to feel that way about that guy. The brand is like, you know, so do you have a ? No, no, just not Bran No. Okay. No, that's my take. I don't really have any other candidates was more why I land in Albrada. because I think actually it's like a quite well cast movie. and it is just fun to see like a different a different cast in a Nolan movie because it's fun that he returns with so many favorites, but I found it like quite refreshing to have so many new people in in his primary cast. So I didn't really have a candidate other than Branna. I don't really feel strongly about the Bana dick though You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled. most satisfying twists. There a lot of twists and turns in this, Rebecca, what is your answer here Yeah, so I like the reveal that He's known Neil for a long time as part of the bigger reveal that this whole movie has been a Temporal pizcer movement. I love it. I agree. That's a great one, though, I do think it would be pretty funny. if on this podcast, we said our favorite twist was that the wife did not in fact die. that is a One of our listeners is like, have you considered that he hasn't killed a wife in a while that like she doesn't die? I'm like, yeah, the wife doesn't die in Oppenheimer, but a lady dies in Oppenheimer. Priya is shot in the back of the head, you know. We're not all unscathed. No I so much more than just a wide ue It's true. Yeahah. my pick is just yeah, Neil having been at the center of tenant, you know, I'm calling him the cow., what? you know, all of that? and just the fact that Neil and the protagonist have known each other for some time. I guessough'sin that,ike I do think the reveal that the protagonist like founded tenant is a pretty that's a pretty big one It know if it's not as it doesn't have a grip on my heart the way that the Neil antagonist thing does. I got the Neil reveal, for sure. All right, it's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me. Nolan, not only for sexual content, but let's go ahead and try to excavate the horniest moment of this film. Rebecca, what do you have think about is how deeply unsexy the supposedly sexy moments of the film are. L I actually burst out laughing at the scene on the yacht when Kat's like trying to seduce Sater and make him feel like she loves him again. and he literally goes A moment, please, Madow. uninterested in his own wife. And she is so clearly uninterested in him. And it's just absurd watching these two people like rub sunscreen on each other. like she's like, o, it'll be fun. He's like please please. Incredible. I have a kind of related pick. It also involves their marriage. afterfter the car flip Inverted Sater says to inverted protagonist. You did get my pulse above one hundred and thirty. No one's done that before Not even my wife.. It's reallyally tough. tough, tough I say we got some emails from people. I am such a fervent you know believer in the Max is Neil theory that I have not had room for this interpretation of Tenet, but we got some emails from listeners interpret Neil saying to the protagonist We get up to some stuff Yeah as being a bit spicier than I'm the grown up version of this kid. But like let's say he's not Max. I did not He just looks like Robert Pattinson and he's like I know your diet Cke order, I know everything about you. We get up to some stuff. Why not. I would just offer that out there Um But again, I'm a believer in the Maxess Neil theory. Okay, you think darkness is your ally, but you merely adopted the Dark. I was born in it.. the main voice pain goddamnit. Most devastating moment. This is also Neil for me. Rebecca, what is your answer here? Also Neil deffinitely when he turns around and you see the charm on his backpack. I think there's something like really sweetly tragic and nostalgic about Robert Patensson's performance during the whole movie because see him wearing the expression that Michael Scott wears on his last day in the office when he knows it's his last day, but nobody else does. So he's just like being so tender to everybody. So in that scene where he's like getting the protagonist to Cke and he's like, I prefer soda water and he's like, No, you don't. L he knows his story ends here. He must know. He must know he spent his whole life building to it and And if we think he's Max and the protagonist would have raerised him, we also know that he's grown up knowing he was going to die. So there's this like knowing fondness and all the things he can't say that I think make that performance very devastating. He also if he is Max, which again, I believe in, he would have had to spend so much of his life inverted to get all the way back to the point of being Robert Pattinson's age point he would have ades inverted. And so you know, thinking about that about like how much of his life he has spent You know dedicated to the cause of Tet. and then yeah, I find that dietoic moment. It's great.s So tender. It's great. And also like what that would mean for Neil to know that this is the moment that the protagonist is meeting him for the first time. And he has there's something kind of suble in that scene where he's like, know, would you kill a woman? wouldould you kill a child? It's almost like he's testing to confirm that this is like the first interaction for the other person. I really, I really like that. and I agree, that's one of the more that is one of the more satisfying on the like human emotional level aspects of rewatching it is like all those little looks in the moments. Again, like thinking about the Doctor and River song inside of Doctor Who, when they when he meets her for the first time and she's devastated that he doesn't recognize her. And so I kind of lay that on to Neil where it's just sort of like whether or not he knows this is the first time they're meeting or not There's just that sort of like, you don't know me. Yeah You know, I'm a stranger to you. You know, and and you're never going, if this is my last Mission, my last day You're never gonna know me You know, we're only getting less and less of each other and not more and more of each other as our relationship goes. Well, and the idea too, I mean, that makes it even more rich that in a story about being able to invert yourself and move backwards through time and like The moments you share with other people are still finite, right?' like really important because it adds a sense of We talk about the other side of this that stakes don't only come in the form of death, but like the fact that someone at any moment might be out of your life. and part of what makes that end exchange so good between them is like they're both confronting something. Yeah. You know, the protagonist has seen the dead body He has seen the string on the backpack. So when Neil turns, he's like, oh, My goodness, when Neil is going back in there and saying, Yeah, I've could anyone else have gotten that door unlocked just quickly? No, it's got to be me. Well, the protagonist has to make that run that calculus of like, I know what the outcome is going to be Do I tell him? Do I say something? And then Neil is like knows in that moment. And then And then he realizes that Neil knows and Neil kind of gives him that gift of absolving himself of the guilt because that's about to be the entire ball game. likeike every moment is going to be that kind of calculus and assessment as they go through time. So the fact that Neil has like the, you know, it it's a very somber scene, but like You've known me for years. For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship. L he knows definitively that it's over. But he's giving him the gift of saying like, but for me, it's just the beginning. Yeah, for you, it's the beginning, we get up to stuff.'s just great. It's great. Last question before we get to talk to Rebecca about the Odysy, which I'm so excited about. Some of men just want to watch the world burn. What is the most known thing about this movie, Rebecca? Starting a conversation in one place and continuing it in a totally different location as if it's one conversation for sure. Oo, That's a good pick. I like that. I mean, my answer is all of it It's like the most Nolan movie. It'ss just like Nolan Squid. I just wrote Time with like ten eyes in it.. All that Okay, this is the moment I've been waiting for. We are now going to talk to Rebecca about the Odyssey but This is a no h no holes bar All spoilers are welcome, discussion of the Odysse. So if you don't want to know about this very ancient text that most of us studied in school. but if you didn't and you don't want to know, you can peace out and we'll see you soon. This brings us into the Odyssey. Our greatest accomplishments cannot behind us. What aspect of Nolan's upcoming the Odyssey are you thinking about such most hype for this month? Usually this is just a one answer but we're gonna do a little subcombo here because we've got a master storyteller here to talk to us about the Odyssey. But I will just say I watched this Colbert interview that Nolan did when he debuted the trailer on Colbert's show And he was talking about how the Odyssey is like the original nonlinear story that they all come from the Odyssey. The Odyssey is told linearly. And so like thinking about that, the song of Odysseus, he wants to start in Ithaca with the song of Odysseus and then sort of like traravel all around through time via that the idea of faith and divinity inside of The Odyssey and thinking about faith as it pertains to this movie got me really excited. But Rebecca, Why is the Tale of Odysseus and Dirt as one of like the stories of our world I think two reasons, and they're both very much wrapped up in reasons why I like Tenet as well. And first, it's a story about fate and whether you can be a master of your own future. One of the essential questions in Greek epics, Greek tragedies is how much your decisions matter when sort of the Olympians have chosen what's going to happen. Odysseus doesn't get home initially because he's angered Zeus and Poseidon She only finally returns and beats the suitors because Athena has intervened and's like it's kind of time to let Odysseus go. So from one perspective Odysseus the human and his choices don't matter at all. He's just this puppet playing out a drama for the entertainment of the gods. He's just one thread in this tapestry of time. But from his perspective, he still has to outsmort the Cyclops. he still has to sail between Sylla and Perebdis, I think Nolan is very attuned to that because one of the taglines that they've been using for the film is defy the Gaze. So I am very excited to see how he's navigating that tension between destiny and autonomy And while we're on the Greek tragedies topic, my deep cut here is that Tet can be read as a reverse Eedifus Rex Because in ipus, the characters are trying to escape their fates and unwittingly bring it about even when you know what's happened happened and it's written. And in tenenet, the characters sort of know their fates have been decided. The fact that they're there means that they must have won in the future But they still have to bring it about and they still have to play their parts. And also there's that nuclear family goofiness involved. So I think yeah, fate and destiny, whether it's because of the bootstrap of the future or whether it because of the gods intervening, I think that's like an endless question that people will always be writing stories about But the second reason why it's just so compelling universal gut level is And also the reason why the Odyssey is a very natural like fit for Nolan's artistic direction is that it's a story about defending house and home. And it's not just a story about a man who wants to get back to his wife and kids. It's about a young man a son becoming a man in the absence of his father and a wife missing her husband who has to stay true against an onslaught of suitors So all three of them have to fight in their different ways for the story to have a happy ending and bring the family back together. And again, no one's obsessed with that nuclear family and reuniting everybody. And in the Odyssey, finally, you have a chance for all of them to be alive and reunite that. God, brring on july seventeenth. Let's go. U what do you R, what do you think people get wrong about the Odyssey I think there's a lot that we could say just based on the memes swirling around. But I think just like a technical thing that I'm excited to see how Nolan approaches is the timeline aspect. and also where the action really is because people I think people haven't read The Odyssey are like, oh, it's all about the journey, It's about Odysseus beating all these monsters to get home But that's not the focus of the poem, just on the pure like percentages level. The Odyssey doesn't even start with Odysseus. It starts with Telemachus and Penelopee at home sort of dealing with all these horrible suitors who are eating all their livestock and threatening them the first four books are about Telemachus setting out from Ithaca to Sparta to seek new uses of his dad. And then we don't even get to Odysseus until book five when he's been stuck for years on Calypus' island. And then even then, most of the story of the Odyssey has already happened. and we get told about the Cyclops and Ceri and Scylla and Charyibdis as flashback told to Alcinus, who's the father of Nausica, who Odysseus is sheltering with until he moves on. And then pretty quickly after he's told that flashback, he sets s for Ithaca and then he gets home. And So that journey part, that's the flashback is only books five through thirteen, which only gets you halfway through the epic. And the majority of the poem is about Odysseus skulking around back home in Ithaca in disguise like spying all the suitors and making plans with Telemachus and seeing if anybody else recognizes him. So I think what's really interesting thematically about the Odyssey is not the journey. It's about what happens to you when you finally get home. It's how much you've changed, whether anybody recognizes you whether you're welcomed And I think it's telling that the main threat that is foreshadowed over and over again is not any of the monsters on the journey. It's not any of these mythical beasts, but it's the warnings about what happened to Agamemnon. becausecause the wife character Penelope is contrasted with Helen of Troy, the wife of Menelaus and Clydemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon. Agamemnon gets home first He and Clynestra are already on bad terms because he sacrificed their daughter, Ephgenia at Aulia so that his men could sail. So she's like at home steewing at him. And she takes a lover Agisthus. so he gets A Nenom gets home from Troy finally. And I guess this is like, oh, welcome, dude, let's throw a banquet for you. And then during this banquet, he like slaughters him and all of his men, Red wedding style. And then finally Agamemnon and Clyenestia's son Orestes gets revenge for his father. So that's the cautionary tale of exactly what could happen to Odysseus when he gets home if his wife and his son are not true. And I think that's going to be the beating heart of the movie and not the monsters along the way. What do you make of the news that we just got that Lupita Jongo is playing both Clydemnestra and Helen of Troy? She's like doing a dual role What do you think is interesting about that I had no idea. That's really cool Yeah. Yeah, I think the standard interpretation of both these women is that they're the foils of Penelope. Penelope is true. She wards off the Seiters, She believes her husband will come back. And I think both Helen and Cllyde Nestra are the examples of the bad wives who stray Although I will say that Helen of Troy cameo and the Odyssey is very funny to me because she doesn't get that many lines. So Telemachus goes to the court of Menelaus and Helen and they shelter him and give him some mus of his dad. And Helen comes down and she's just like Oh yeah like That was so crazy how the gods tricked to me and I went with Paris and I really didn't want to, but I'm hung now and everything's okay. Incredible. So Betnty Saffy is playing Agamamnon and D quite a helmet. Yeah, Don Bernhal is playing Menelaus. so that is all very hive rise. Yeah. Um, anything u, you've already sort of like on on the deead wife trope, but You sent us an email a little while ago letting us know that you got into a fight at a pub about sort of Chris Nolan, deeadwives and the Odyssey and I've never been more jealous of a conversation in my life. Like can we go find a pub and have an argument about Nolan and deeadwives and the Odyssey? So Rebecca, like what are you hearing? What's the word on the street about the Odyssey that you're like, Hey, man, that's not what we're gonna see. What do you think It was a friendly argument, but I was shouting across the table atub. because I think there was somebody who wanted to perform the classic Nolan hater line, which I think is just an easy like social identity to adopt if you're just lightly dipping your toes in the discursive waters. And he was like, oh, Nolan hates women And his odyssey is just going to have Ceri and Calypso and Athena like slinking around and being in love with him and being obsessed with him and dying for him. And I was like, first of all, that's not what Nolan women do because they're typically more busy being dead. they're also not sex objects Like desire for women is rarely ever driving the plot in the Ron film. Even in tenennet where where Kennet Dot like he's very good at ing Satater's motivations in other contexts, I think, but I think he just can't perform any horniness for Kat. And like yeah, like the women's roles in the Odyssey are going to be restricted. It's a tale about like heroic ancient Greece. I think Penelope is a fascinating character. like she has a wife waiting at home Her avenues for resistance and her axes of freedom of what she can do about it are like so socially constricted, but she survives and she is true. And she welcomes Odysseus back. And there's a fantastic Emily Wilson essay about The Women of the Odyssey, where she talks about Penelope performing that role, and also like the female goddesses who get to enact all the fantasies of freedom and power like Athena doing whatever she wants and really driving the action in a way that the human women don't. So I'm extremely excited for the women of the Odyssey Yeah, I think the the c, you know, like Charl' Theron, Samantha Morton asiri has me very excited because I love a witch, but I love Samantha Morton. So that is going to be like Really exciting for me. Charlie, I think is playing Nausica, I believe, you know, in Zendea's Athena. like, you know, if if you want to pick like a woman who is not going to, I mean, other than the timees she got thrown off a roof in Spiderm Man, but is not gonna to really appear like weak or damzed U you're gonna to pick Zendaya to play Athena. That's very exciting to me. I'm really, really thrilled Um Is there a particular visual from the story that excites you to see executed? Can I just say really quickly? I don't I need to like I haven't done my rewrit of the Odyssey so my memory is not perfect, obviously. but Um, Nolan was on when Nolan was on Colbert and Colbert was asking him about Skill and Charbus, he was like He's like Which one's this and which one's this? And N one's like, this is Sylla and this is Charbdus. And I'm like, no, it's the opposite. And I just felt I felt for the only time in my life smarter than Christ Vherer Nolan because he got one detail wrong about this massive epic that he has dedicated his life to making. That's the only time I'll ever feel smarter than Chrisher Nolan Is there a particular visual from this story, Rebecca that you're most excited to see? Yeah, I think like all the action pieces, especially the cyclops and Odysseus, like going hogwild, slaughting all the suitors and like the siege of Troy, I think we have good evidence from the trailers that will see all of this and that will be amazing But the part I'm most excited for is from book eleven of the Odyssey when he voyages on Cersces's advice to the land of Hades to seek counsel from this prophet, Teresius. And I think we've seen hints. I think we see, is it Elliot Page playing Achilles? I think we see Achilles like rising out of the ground as a spirit I'm pretty confident that would be an exam. There's it's unclear who Elliott Page is playing, but playing a lder. So I think you're right, no matter if's Achilles or someone else, a dead soldier from the war. So I think that that's right that we are going to go to the land of the dead at some point. O Althim possibly. Yeah. Yeah, I think that would be very cool. Because before Odysseus gets to the prophet, there's like this procession of spirits of of first famous women, like the wives and mothers and daughters of all these heroes. then and then there's Agamemnon, there's Achilles, there's Heracles, he's watching Sisyphus And it's like a who's who of everybody important in Greek myth. And Odysseus gets overwhelmed and it's this moment where he's confronting his own fate and mortality and wondering how he's going to stack up in the canon. And then all these ghosts like start crying out to him and he gets scared and runs away. So I think that will be such a gorgeous, surreal, like overwhelming moment if it's in the film That section with Elliot Page in the trailer is so and upsetting to me. I'm really excited to see that. Is there anything that that you want to shout out, Malory that you're I mean, I'm just excited for all of it. Yeah. I can't I mean, I can't wait. It's this is like what a time to be a Nolan fan. This is great. I am excited, reallyally excited for Pattinson. The concept of the Trojan horse being like submerged and all of the soldiers hidden there in like the water's rising and they're not sure that they're going to be able to like pull the horse out of the water before They drown, which is a concept that like Nolan came up like originally wanted to do if he was gonna to make Troy a million years ago. and so he's executing here. It's also like we talked about this when we did Dunkirk, but like he like did that in Dunkirk. Yeah Like they're even in the shot in the trailer inside of the Troy parts like someone Yeah, like that's that's it you're like wears Harry Syles. But yeah, I'm really excited about that. We did get an email today. someone was like, is the Trojan horse not a puppet? And I say, no, the Trojan horse is not a puppet. It's not articulated. I don't think it's a puppet I love a puppet. I love the Trojan horse, but I don't War horse. The stage show War horse is about Not the Trojan horse. Rebecca, anything else this is been so it's so fun to hear you talk about the Odyssey. I can't even tell you. I feel like we are so fucking lucky. Is there anything else about the Odyssey that you want to make sure that you touch upon before we go? I would like to predict a twist. or not so much a twist, so much as like a thematic shift. Tell us I think whatever the climactic fight is, it's probably going to be at home with all the suitors. I think the focus will not be on Odysseus anymore. I think Telemachus will strike the final blow and the movie will end up being about him becoming a man. becausecause I've made the case for Nolan being very interested in parenting and failace or parenting. you spend with your kids already. And I think as Nolan's kids have aged, the kids in his films are getting more agency, they're getting older James and Philippud don't do anything famously. They don't age in Dom's visions. But then Murf saves the world using data that Coop sends back to her. And then for M of Tenet, Max or Neil is the mentor of the protagonist, and then they only swap roles at the end. So he gets to be like the dad and the best friend So I really don't think it's accidental now that no one's getting older, his kids are getting older, that he's chosen a text that opens with the sun and is really like as a frame story actually about Telemachus' manhood and not Odysseus's coming home. So I think Tom Holland, like whatever happens, like it's going to be Tom Holland striking the final blow. Yeah. I like that think I mean, you never know when a movie is going into production into development, casting is beginning and you're hearing whispers, this person's gonna be the movie. You never really know like how real anything you hear is. But hard hearing you say this really does take me back to like the earliest days of stories about how Christher Nolan was going to make the Odysy was Tom Hollins leaded the movie. Not Matt Damon. That was at least how it was first put out into the world. I don't know if that'll end up actually being true, but for at least a moment in time, that was how it was positioned like this Tom Holland's going to lead Christopher Nolans the Odyssey. So I think that whether or not in terms of like total runtime and screen time, that's valid or not, I think it points toward and supports the idea that like He will be very central. and so does the trailer so far. You know, It's very very rooted in his experience. Veryty much the star of the trailer Absolutely. No question. I can't believe that we just got to like sit here and hear, Rebecca. RF Kang sat here with us on the House of our and told us about the Odyssey.ne incredible. What a treat. One last question for you and for my dear friend Mallory here. In the most recent trailer, we do get some Argos content, which is Odysseus' dog. Yeah. Are you How Are you looking forward to the Argos storyline in this movie or how do you I'm worried about you, Mern. Yeah. Do you know what happened? I do. I do. same Yeah ye. ye yeah. It was tough to see that little shot of the just on my lap pting you. I mean, as I said the other day, well, actually this pod hasn't aired yet., We've recorded it but itn't ai yet but super girl I'm incredibly nervous about Kryptos' fith in Supergirl too so I think it's going to be a summer of. of dog peril. Tough stuff for dog lovers Thank you, Rebecca, thank you so much. That' for taking the time out of your vacation to defend tenenant to us, to explain the Odyssey to us Has Rebecca changed your mind at all, Mallory I Yes, in the sense that like, I feel the way I feel about the movie, but my desire to like appreciate tenant more and form a deeper connection to it was already there, as you know. And so I think hearing you talk about it so beautifully and brilliantly and hearing what it means to you and how it has like really gripped you, not only like intellectually, but on a soul deep level is like very compelling. And so I look forward to revisiting it again and you know, continuing to watch it over time. Like I'm going to watch Nllous movies until I d I was one of my favorite filmmakers. So you know, I'm excited to, uh Basically every time he puts out a new one and his movies are big and they take a long time to make. So we'll have a few years between each movie and just go watch the entire filmography every time Tenant included. Will I be able to hear a word that any character says? Probably not. So that's okay. I will say Rebecca, some of the things that you said, it's similar to like this whole rewash project we've been doing. like every time when our colleague Van comes on or when Chris comes on or Aina comes on like and they drop a nugget of a sort of unifying theory of the Nullen verse, it's like taking another path and weaving back into the fabric of my understanding. So you making this nuclear family parents and children comp tenenant makes it a tighter weave inside of the larger Nolan project in a way, you know, that that makes it not like a curio. you can just sort of like put aside, but an essential text for their larger Nolan understanding. And so for that, I thank you among other things, Rebecca, thank you so much. I do think it all is about the nuclear family for him. Like peopleople are like, o, the Odyssey, what is a swd, what a surprise. But it's just about a guy coming home to his wife and his kid. And that's sort of what Tenon is about as well I really like that reading. I thought it was persuasive for you. I want it. All right, well, thank you to Rebecca. Thank you so much. This was an absolute blast. Thank you to our entire crew here today. Carlis Serboga is here, Jacob Cornett is here. Chris Wallers is helping us out with some audio here.y is here, Ardgina Ram Capell, Jomia Dinneron, a whole, whole crew on our ship going home. Are they our blue team or our red team? They're both. They both went forward and backwards in time in a temporal pincer movement to make this podcast