While Tarantino leads with his own judgment as a film critic, Nolan isn’t so sure that he would be able to tell when he’s lost his touch.
“I’m not sure that I would trust my own sense of the absolute value of a piece of work to know whether or not it should have been brought into existence,” the five-time Oscar nominee told CinemaBlend. He continued:
“I’m a big fan, as is Quentin, of films that maybe don’t fully achieve what they try to, but there’s something in there that’s a performance, or a little structural thing, or a scene, you know, that’s wonderful. And so, yes, I understand. I think [I] wanted to keep a sort of perfect reputation of something, but also kind of don’t want to take anything off the table.”
This more open-minded approach means there could be many more Nolan movies to come in the future. The good news is that his fans have something to look forward to, but the bad news is that an otherwise great filmmaker could go on to produce some mediocre — or even terrible — work. As visual media evolves in the changing digital landscape, this threat of a failure to adapt becomes even more prescient.
Still, Scorsese’s upcoming film “Killers of the Flower Moon” received positive critical and audience reception at its Cannes premiere, and the director is now 80 years old. When asked if he plans to get behind the camera again, he said that he’s “got to,” but that it may be “too late,” per Deadline. “I want to tell stories, but there’s no more time,” he added with heartbreaking honesty.
It seems that, although he respects Tarantino’s point of view, Nolan shares Scorsese’s fervor to continue filmmaking for as long as he can — before time runs out.
