John welcomes writer and director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Inception) to discuss experimentation, subjectivity and adaptation as they take an in-depth look at his screenplay, Oppenheimer.
They explore Chris’ writing process, how to make non-linear structures work, finding the story in real-life events, being kinetic on the page, the importance of embracing editing, and why theme can be a tricky thing.
In our bonus segment for premium members, Chris and John muse about the difficulties of dream sequences — and what makes them work.
Links:
- Oppenheimer – The First Three Pages
- Christopher Nolan on IMDb.
- American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin
- The Open Mind by J. Robert Oppenheimer
- The Shepard Tone
- When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut
- Infinite Mac
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Gift a Scriptnotes Subscription or treat yourself to a premium subscription!
- Craig Mazin on Threads and Instagram
- John August on Threads, Instagram and Twitter
- John on Mastodon
- Outro by Matthew Chilelli (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.
UPDATE 1-16-24: The transcript for this episode can be found here.