Robert Pattinson and John David Washington in Tenet.
Melinda Sue Gordon
Christopher Nolan has somehow surpassed Christopher Nolaned, revealing one Principles Easter egg in one of his films from two decades ago. The opening scene of his 2000 psychological Memento neo-noir contains a fundamental concept of the sci-fi spy thriller: a bullet that seems to have been grabbed by a weapon.
“I had this idea that only one bullet would suck from the wall and enter the barrel of a gun,” Nolan said in an interview with Complex (via Collider). “It’s an image I had in Memento to demonstrate the structure of this film, but I always had this ambition to make a film where the characters had to deal with the physical reality of it. Somehow, an idea comes to light when it’s the right time for it, and it’s a difficult process to quantify, so I was doing all these other things. ”
It took Nolan five years to write Tenet’s screenplay, but as he says, he deliberated his core ideas for more than a decade. Tenet follows a secret agent who manipulates the flow of time, with scenes filmed both backwards and forwards. Memento follows a man with short-term memory loss, with scenes from his past displayed in reverse order, as he tries to figure out what happened to him.
Here is the opening scene:
For multiple views to study all the time-consuming madness, you can buy Tenet now on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, and Google Play streaming platforms.
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