Plenty of film fans worship at the altar of Christopher Nolan, firm in their belief that the man can do no wrong. As it turns out, Denis Villenueve is one of them, with the Dune director recently heaping praise on his contemporary.
Villenueve even went so far as to label Tenet a masterpiece, even though a 70% score on Rotten Tomatoes makes it the worst-reviewed movie of his entire career, not to mention his lowest earner since The Prestige fifteen years ago, although the pandemic obviously had a huge say in the time-bending action thriller’s box office performance.
The love in between the two meticulous, cerebral and Academy Award-nominated talents continues, with Nolan positively gushing in his praise of Dune during an appearance on The Director’s Cut podcast.
“It’s one of the most seamless marriages of live action photography and computer generated visual effects that I’ve seen. It’s very, very compelling at every turn. His entire team did an absolute incredible job. I think this film is going to introduce a whole new generation of fans to Dune who have never read the book or encourage fans to go read the book. I think it’s an incredible piece of work. I’ve had the luxury of seeing it a couple times now, and each time I watch it I discover new things, new details to the world. The way in which it’s made is for the big screen. It’s a real pleasure and a real gift to film fans everywhere.”
Maybe the two can get together over coffee to discuss their shared love of complex narratives and ambitious world-building on a blockbuster scale while getting a few digs in at Warner Bros. in the process for sending the entire 2021 slate of releases straight to streaming.
Nolan and Villenueve are similar in a lot of thematic and stylistic ways, so it was inevitable that they’d publicly out themselves as fans of each other’s work at some stage, with Tenet and Dune proving to be the catalyst.