Even one of the most beloved filmmakers isn’t safe from their fair share of criticism at inopportune moments. Christopher Nolan recalled a story during a workout class in which his Peloton instructor had slammed one of his movies. The movie in question was not named, but while in mid-workout, the instructor said that it was “a couple hours of my life I’ll never get back again.”
Christopher Nolan’s Peloton Instructor Workout Class Story and the Message Behind It
The director won the best director award at the New York Film Critics Circle. As reported by Variety, he was talking about how social media has made everyone a film critic. While he viewed the positives of criticism, it is also “being democratized.” For him, it “shouldn’t be an instinct, but it should be a profession.” To make this point, he recalled one workout experience.
I was on my Peloton. I’m dying. And the instructor started talking about one of my films and said, ‘Did anyone see this? That’s a couple hours of my life I’ll never get back again!
Christopher Nolan at the New York Film Critics Circle
Christopher Nolan acknowledged that while recalling the story about his Peloton instructor story, he was in a room of professionals “who attempt objectivity.” He called the act of film criticism being objective a “paradox.” With that, he does call “the aspirations of objectivity is what makes criticism vital and timeless and useful to filmmakers and the filmmaking community.”
Social media has changed the landscape, but the auteur sees positivity in this despite his criticism of everyone becoming a movie critic. He talked about how “we live in a world where the person receiving the story has the right to say what it means to them.” He is happy about that, as it means “the work should speak for itself.”
No matter how film criticism changes and how a Peloton instructor hates one Christopher Nolan movie, there are few directors like him. Every one of his movies is on the positively fresh side on Rotten Tomatoes, for both audience and critic scores.