The Odyssey director Christopher Nolan believes the works of Curry Barker and Kane Parsons show that young filmmakers are “utterly rejecting” AI.
While the likes of Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan think it good to flirt with AI with little to no regard for what that means for the generations of filmmakers behind them, Nolan has a different perspective.
A long-serving supporter of practical effects, Nolan has been buoyed by the work of Barker and Parsons, directors of Obsession and Backrooms, respectively.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Nolan hailed their films as “mysterious and ruminative,” adding, “And yet young people can’t get enough of them.”
Both Barker and Parsons have an anti-AI stance, and Nolan isn’t surprised.
“I’ve never seen a more rapid wholesale dismissal of a supposedly foundational jump in technology in my lifetime,” he said.
“So much energy has been expended on bringing in AI, but if you look at that generation’s reaction, they’re utterly rejecting it.
“[My children’s] judgment of AI slop has been immediate and harsh.
“They see it for what it is very quickly – and it’s much easier for them to identify it, because it grew out of an online world they know really well. And while that doesn’t mean that every aspect of the technology is useless or meaningless, in filmmaking it’s hitting at exactly the wrong time.
“After years of driving towards heavily virtual environments, we’re seeing a renewed interest in more tactile, more real forms of storytelling.”
Is Christopher Nolan going to make a horror film?
Nolan’s citing of Barker and Parsons is curious and timely.
It’s no question that horror, the genre that both Obsession and Backrooms play in, is where unique perspectives and emerging filmmakers are given faith.
But Nolan, who is rightly regarded as one of the most prominent filmmakers in the world, wouldn’t mind trying his hand at horror.
This revelation was made during a conversation with film critic Fred Asquith, an online cinephile and horror lover.
It turns out that Nolan has a similar affection.
“I’d love to do a horror movie, but it’s all about the idea,” Nolan told Asquith.
“It’s all about, is there a story that really compels you, and I’ve never found that for me other than in other ways. There’s a sense in which Oppenheimer is a horror movie.
“It certainly was very dark material to engage with for that long. And there are very significant elements of horror baked into The Odyssey in the original text.
“So, I’ve tried to fully embrace those because I think it’s a genre that’s really essentially cinematic. It’s a visceral genre.
“It’s one where you’re really trying to give the audience a feeling of what the characters are experiencing. And that’s the type of filmmaking I really enjoy.”
There were certainly elements of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy that were infused with the macabre and horror in a gothic sense.
It will be exciting to see those elements come to life in The Odyssey, and, perhaps, a fully fledged horror film from Nolan in the future.
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