Christopher Nolan: Bringing a smartphone would ruin the screenwriting process

Christopher Nolan details how technology could potentially harm his personal screenwriting process.

The writer-director of “Oppenheimer” revealed it. The Hollywood Reporter who does not have a smartphone with him and, while writing, uses a computer not connected to the Internet.

“My kids would probably say I’m a complete Luddite,” Nolan said. “I would actually resist that description. I think the technology and what it can provide is amazing. My personal choice is how I get involved.

Nolan continued, “It’s about the level of distraction. If I’m generating my own material and writing my own scripts, being on a smartphone all day would not be very helpful for me.

Nolan wrote “Oppenheimer” in the first person, a tactic he “never used before” during his career.

“I don’t know if anyone has ever done this before,” Nolan said earlier this year in a Interview with Empire magazine. “But the point is, with the color sequences, which are the bulk of the film, everything is told from Oppenheimer’s point of view: you’re literally looking through his eyes.”

The approach to writing the historical script was rooted in “the idea of ​​how we get inside someone’s head and see how they were visualizing this radical reinvention of physics. One of the things that cinema has historically struggled with is the depiction of intelligence or genius. Very often it fails to engage people.”

Nolan also noticed Wired who is “optimistic” about the role of artificial intelligence in cinema, but warned against viewing the technology as more than a “tool” of assistance.

“If we accord AI human status, as we legally did with companies at one point, then yes, we will have huge problems,” said the director of “Tenet”. “The problem with artificial intelligence, for me, is very simple. It’s like the term “algorithm”. We observe companies using algorithms, and now artificial intelligence, as a means to evade accountability for their actions. If we support the idea that AI is omnipotent, we are supporting the idea that it can relieve people of responsibility for their actions – militarily, socioeconomically, whatever. The greatest danger of artificial intelligence is that we attribute these godlike characteristics to it and thus let ourselves off the hook.

For all the details on “Oppenheimer,” which opens July 21 from Universal, click here.