Christopher Nolan really felt the burn during a Peloton class.
The New York Film Critics Circle recently named the filmmaker best director for his movie “Oppenheimer,” and Nolan decided to use his acceptance speech as an opportunity to wax poetic about why he doesn’t care that an aerobics instructor hurt his feelings, according to Variety.
Nolan explained to a room full of professional film critics that he respects their opinions of his work because of their “objectivity.” But when it comes to anyone else, not so much.
To highlight this point, Nolan shared a personal anecdote.
“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!’” Nolan said. “When [film critic] Rex Reed takes a shit on your film he doesn’t ask you to work out! In today’s world, where opinions are everywhere, there is a sort of idea that film criticism is being democratized, but I for one think the critical appreciation of films shouldn’t be an instinct but it should be a profession.”
Although Nolan seemed to be joking while sharing this story, he may have been a bit irked by the flippant remark because he cranked it up again on his appreciation of film critics.
“What we have here tonight is a group of professionals who attempt objectivity,” Nolan continued. “Obviously writing about cinema objectively is a paradox, but the aspirations of objectivity is what makes criticism vital and timeless and useful to filmmakers and the filmmaking community.”
Nolan didn’t name which of his movies was hated on or the name of the hater, but Peloton has a pretty massive fanbase, and it didn’t take long for its members to dig up the evidence. According to one Reddit user, the culprit was Jenn Sherman from a 30-minute interval and arms ride from Dec. 28, 2020. The Redditor appears to be right — and 404 published video of Sherman absolutely going off on Nolan’s 2020 film, “Tenet.”
In the clip, which 404 says it found on Peloton’s official Facebook group Thursday, Sherman is working out to the song “The Plan” by Travis Scott.
“This song is from a soundtrack of a movie called ‘Tenet,’” Sherman says in the clip. “Anybody see this shit? Did anybody see this besides me? Because I need a manual. Someone’s got to explain this. Yeah, I’m not kidding. What the fuck was going on in that movie? Do you understand? Seriously, you need to be a neuroscientist to understand. And that’s two-and-a-half hours of my life I want back. I want it back.”
So, uh, maybe Nolan has a point about film critics after all — especially when he concluded his speech by saying:
“In today’s world, as filmmakers you can’t hide behind authorial intent. You can’t say, ‘This is what I intended.’ We live in a world where the person receiving the story has the right to say what it means to them. I, for one, love that. It means the work should speak for itself. It’s not about what I say it is. It’s about what you receive it to be. In that world, the role of the professional critic, or the interpreter and the person who tries to give context for the reader … it’s incredibly important.”