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163: Tenet (with Corey Atad) (Patreon)

Published:
2024-03-26 20:51:00
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

The writer Corey Atad joins me from Phuket, Thailand for a sequel to our early Junk Filter episode about Bane that turned into a discussion about Tenet, and we return to the topic because of the recent cultural reconsideration of his 2020 time-bending thriller, which was released during the pandemic and has taken some time to find an audience.

Tenet got a one-week re-release in 70mm and IMAX 70mm in the leadup to this year’s Academy Awards, and Corey and I discuss the film as Nolan’s temporal pincer movement; it turns out he released the sequel to Oppenheimer 4 years ago, and we are only realizing it now. Unlike his latest, Tenet is about “the bomb that didn’t go off”, and is a film that perhaps needs to be seen a few times to be best appreciated, especially after seeing Oppy.

We talk about Nolan’s methodology, including the evolution of his creative team (his new cinematographer, editor and composer are bringing out the best in him), his award-season victory lap, and we go over the complex structure of Tenet, including the things that happen that maybe we don’t even understand after seeing it a few times but are clearer when seen theatrically… but do we even need to understand everything we enjoy?

Plus: Bane jokes!

Follow Corey Atad on Twitter and visit coreyatad.com

Final trailer for Tenet (Nolan, 2020)

“I Can’t Stop Watching Tenet, And I Finally Know Why” by Corey Atad or Defector, January 9, 2024

“Look What We Do Now” - Corey’s essay about The Zone of Interest and Oscar season controversy, for the Welcome To Hell World newsletter, March 11, 2024

Files

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Comments

Jesper Ohlsson

..."Batman fly-tipping a nuke" is really hard to top, as bozo-scenes go.

Axel

Tenet was great. But this impression that Nolan is "underrated" or downplayed is generational. Most millennial & genZ are ultimate Nolan fan boy. The man can barely write a female character with a comprehensive narrative arc. No wonder he wants to set a new james bond in the 60's (allegedly).

Jesper Ohlsson

...I think my most bigoted movie-opinion I've ever had was with Tenet. When it was first released, I clearly remember thinking "ugh, I don't want to see a mind-bending movie about landlording right now", having confused both "tenet" with "tenant", but at the same time being very aware that this wasn't exactly Ken Loach dropping a new one, and how improbable it would be for a movie that was "about that" getting such a wide release, and splashy poster. I really don't know what was happening in my brain (other than that it came early in the pandemic, when landlord/rent-stuff was unavoidable US discourse online). I'll save it for a future flu-day; it sounds like it's that kind of "eh, don't be too concerned" movie.

Jesper Ohlsson
>>133499889

...I get the sense that he primarily writes "dames" (and not necessarily women). Though, to be fair, he's not exactly good about observing men either. There's another director - who I can't remember the name of - that characterized actors as "obstacles to overcome for the story to be told" and that's sorta his vibe. //(or maybe that was one of his critics) Nolan's characters sometimes smile, cry or look longingly at someone inbetween doing "well, as you know"-type exposition dumps about the mechanics of the plot, and that's about it. It's not necessairly bad, it's just a framework you have to approach the movie with, and a level of "low expectations" to engage the work with. I think it's fine if you approach it on that level. (..and it's not on the actual pervert-level of playing-with-empty-dolls on-screen that is Wes Anderson. That's right, I'm brave enough to say it; have at it).

Axel
>>133499889

"... observing men either." Yes, facts. That's why Inception couple arc of wanting to stay in their version of paradise did not come across at all. How is this paradise ? it's a crumbling city and a row of weird houses, kill me now. Good assessment for Wes Anderson.

Jesper Ohlsson
>>133499889

..there's definitely a little bit of Ed Wood about him (specifically from the movie "Ed Wood"; don't know about the actual person), where the focus is "on the bigger picture! Nobody will notice that the door-frame wobbled or the gravestones being cardboard!" I think when Nolan was the new cool guy in Hollywood with the batman-movies, there was an enormous amount of slack - and assumed genius - given to him, because those movies were so successful and well-liked. It would take quite some time before people started noticing, and maybe not automatically dismiss it as "he obviously knows all that, and yes it's intentional, and why are you such a hater anyway?". There's several youtube-dissections about the absolutely bonkers camera, scene and actor placement/relation-to-each-other in a lot of those batman-action scenes, for example. I guess it's really up to how charitable you want to be, whether it's "intentionally like that, to convey a sense of confusion and chaos", or if you just want to Ockham's razor it, and (probably correctly) clock it as "well, action scenes are hard, and maybe he's not super-great at it. That's why the actors keep teleporting around, and why we go from bright noon to dusky evening in the span of what feels like 5 minutes, after the bank-heist in the Bane-batman movie." I think maybe some of the assumptions about how self-seriously he takes it might just come down to affectations like wearing a full-piece suit on set, or weird backstage-gossip about banning chairs because "sitting is unproductive to filmmaking, so everyone has to stand, at all times" or whatever. ...I think just accepting that he's just a dude, and sometimes does really bozo stuff, and gets kinda sloppy with a lot of the details, is probably the most balanced way of looking at it (and not just automatically assume that there's genius in every brush-stroke, and it's your job to go digging for it, to mix methaphors).