Human addiction to spectacle': Jordan Peele talks Nope'Jordan Peele's Nope' is both a spectacle itself and an examination of how spectacle shapes our culture and our ideas of ourselves.
by Nokuthula Ngcobo
14-08-2022 09:30
in Entertainment
Left to right: Daniel Kaluuya and Writer/Director/Producer Jordan Peele on the set of Nope'. Image Supplied
In the wake of the success of Get Out and Us, both of which disrupted and redefined the horror genre in singular ways, Jordan Peele was eager to expand his cinematic canvas, embrace a challenge unlike any in his filmmaking career so far and tackle the granddaddy of genre movies: the summer event film.
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Nope is of a bigger scope than any story I've ever tried to tell, Jordan Peele says.
And from a filmmaking perspective, the process has been an adventure unto itself. Every single department has taken huge risks and committed full tilt. I tried to write a script for a movie that I didn't know how to pull off. And then I assembled a team to help me pull it off.
NOPE' IS A HORROR MOVIE WITH A SCIENCE FICTIONAL CONCEIT As he began to explore options, one particular subgenre of summer event films felt particularly ripe for reinvention.
I had this idea of making the Great American UFO movie - a flying saucer horror film, Peele says.
And not only a flying saucer horror film, but really, the quintessential one. It's a difficult genre and hard to pull off because it's got this huge canvas that you have to take into account - the sky. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a huge influence of mine in its scope and in its vision, but more than anything, in Steven Spielberg's ability to make us feel like we're in the presence of something from another world. That immersive experience was something I desperately wanted to chase as well. Within that genre, though, we often apply all these wonderful qualities to some advanced alien civilization. But what if the truth is a lot simpler and darker than we even could ever imagine?
Obviously, this is a horror movie, but it has a science-fictional conceit, co-producer Ian Cooper says.
It was really important for us to feel the balance and ensure that it felt more horror than science fiction. Early on, Jordan was saying, I'm hopeful that people will look at clouds after this movie the way they looked at the surface of the ocean in Jaws.' Even during filming, when we would have real clouds in the sky, you could imagine how unnerving it would be to have that phobia.
THE BIG QUESTION ABOUT HUMAN ADDICTION TO SPECTACLE As with all Peele films, Nope delves into deeper themes and ideas as it thrills, terrifies and entertains. The film is both a spectacle itself, and an examination of how spectacle shapes our culture and our ideas of ourselves.
When the film's central characters encounter this unexplained phenomenon in the skies around Haywood Ranch, each of them, for different reasons and different ways, is drawn to the pursuit of documenting this anomaly.
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The DNA of the movie has this big question about the human addiction to spectacle, Peele says.
And what happens when money becomes involved is that there's this massive exploitation of what should be pure and what should be natural.
ALSO READ: Jordan Peele's horror flick tops Box Office with $44 million
JORDAN PEELE'S NOPE' IS AN EXPLORATION OF FIMMAKING Nope is also an exploration and critique of filmmaking and film industry itself.
I set out to design something that criticized what we do as much as it honors it, Peele says.
It reveals the lives of the skilled, behind-the-scenes artists (known as below-the-line crew in industry parlance)-the animal wranglers, cinematographers, technology experts-who create the indelible images we see on screen but who are never seen themselves. And it shines a light on the realities of discarded actors, particularly child actors, who are abandoned by the industry once they cease to be adorable bankable assets.
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Nope is a movie about the quest both to be seen and - to use that Millennial expression - Pics or it never happened', Cooper says.
It's also an unpacking of the existential crisis of being a below-the-line person in the dichotomy in Hollywood-basically being visible or not visible-yet both integral and complicit in creating the spectacle on screen.
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Human addiction to spectacle': Jordan Peele talks Nope'Jordan Peele's Nope' is both a spectacle itself and an examination of how spectacle shapes our culture and our ideas of ourselves.
