Christopher Nolan Reveals the One Question He’d Want to Ask Stanley Kubrick — Listen
Zack Sharf
If you had one chance to ask Stanley Kubrick one question, what would you ask? It’s a question with hundreds upon hundreds of potential answers given Kubrick’s involvement with such masterpieces as “The Shining,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Barry Lyndon,” and “A Clockwork Orange.” But if you were Christopher Nolan, none of those Kubrick touchstones would be of interest. No, if Nolan could meet Kubrick and ask him one thing, it would be about “Eyes Wide Shut.”
The “Dunkirk” director appeared on MTV’s Happy Sad Confused podcast with MTV’s Josh Horowitz this year to promote his WWII survival thriller, and a brief soundbite from the interview in which Nolan is asked what he would want to ask Kubrick if given the opportunity is going viral. Here’s what Nolan wants to know: “What I’d like to know is how he would’ve finished ‘Eyes Wide Shut.'”
“He died before the scoring sessions were completed,” Nolan explains. “Even though I think the studio appropriately put out the film as his version of the film, knowing where [scoring] happens in my own process, it’s a little bit early.”
Nolan admits he hasn’t always been an “Eyes Wide Shut” fan (“It hadn’t really worked for me the first time,” he says) but upon a fresh viewing he started coming around to it and realizing Kubrick’s final film is an “extraordinary achievement.” But Nolan still notices minor details that probably would’ve been fixed had Kubrick been able to finish the film himself.
“It’s a little bit hampered by very, very small and superficial, almost technical flaws that I’m pretty sure he would’ve ironed out,” Nolan explains.
The “Dunkirk” director is currently on the awards trail in hopes of landing his first Best Director nomination. “Dunkirk” will return to 50 IMAX and 70mm theaters this Friday, December 1.
