Despite The Odyssey giving up the throne to Spider-Man: Brand New Day at the box office, Christopher Nolan continues to make news, this time for a press tour interview he did in China that got deeply philosophical about art, history, storytelling, modern film criticism, and the appearance of Christian conceptions of atonement in his soon-to-be billion-dollar blockbuster.

Speaking to Chinese podcaster and political philosophy lecturer Zhong Shu in Beijing, which first appeared on China's Bilibili video platform, the British filmmaker has something of a hard break from the usual interviews he's done on The Odyssey's globe-spanning press tour. There were no games, no soft-ball or rushed questions about his favorite moments from the production or anecdotes about the actors, instead Zhong's interview was one of the rare ones where the filmmaker was probed about his personal philosophy and worldview and how that informed the making of The Odyssey.

As such, it was perhaps no surprise that the interview has gone viral as it gave us a fascinating insight into the thinking of arguably the world's most popular filmmaker at the peak of his powers. Here are some key takeaways and highlights.

 Bard of a civilization at dusk. 

Zhong began the interview, which was conducted in English, by describing Nolan as a bard of the modern age, as Homer was a bard of Ancient Greece and then describing the latter's poem as a celebration of war and victory, whereas Nolan's adaptation of The Odyssey is most certainly the oppposite, reflecting more the current day. Zhong followed up by asking the director, due to the tone of his film, whether he was a  bard of a civilization at dusk? 

 I think that's a really interesting point, a really interesting question,  Nolan said with a laugh.  I mean underlying the main part of the point is this 400-year-or-so gap between the events that Homer is describing when Homer's story was written down, or first received by readers and audiences. That's a pretty interesting gap, and for me, I don't think I'm completely at odds with the way Homer is telling the story. When you look a

#hollywoodreporter  #podcastdailynews