Christopher Nolan has opened up about receiving a scathing review during a Peloton workout class. While accepting the award for Best Director at the New York Film Critics Circle, the Oppenheimer filmmaker expressed his appreciation for film criticism even after having one of his films slammed directly in his face while sweating his butt off.
According to Nolan, the incident went down during a virtual workout class where the instructor had no idea the famous director was in attendance. Nolan doesn’t specify which film the instructor trashed, but let’s be real, it had to be Tenet. There’s no way it wasn’t Tenet. What was that movie even about?
Via Variety:
“I was on my Peloton. I’m dying. And the instructor started talking about one of my films and said, ‘Did anyone see this? That’s a couple hours of my life I’ll never get back again!’” Nolan said. “When [film critic] Rex Reed takes a sh*t on your film he doesn’t ask you to work out!”
Nolan then used the hilarious anecdote to express why he’s so appreciative of professional film criticism. (Read: Not Peloton instructors.)
“In today’s world, where opinions are everywhere, there is a sort of idea that film criticism is being democratized,” Nolan said. “But I for one think the critical appreciation of films shouldn’t be an instinct but it should be a profession.”
“What we have here tonight is a group of professionals who attempt objectivity,” Nolan added. “Obviously writing about cinema objectively is a paradox, but the aspirations of objectivity is what makes criticism vital and timeless and useful to filmmakers and the filmmaking community.”
(Via Variety)