| USA TODAY
‘Principle’: Christopher Nolan to buy 747 plane for the crash scene
Christopher Nolan was intrigued to discover that he could actually buy a real 747 for an exciting accident scene on “Tenet”.
USA TODAY
One of the most jaw-dropping scenes in screenwriter and director Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” is an incredibly elaborate car chase involving time travel, cars driven in reverse, real explosions and the star John David Washington crawling on a ladder. fire truck in motion.
The elaborate scenes called for the closure of one of Estonia’s main highways, closing nearly 6.5 kilometers of the Laagna Tee highway around the country’s capital, Tallinn, during filming last July.
You would think that drivers from the former Soviet republic can hold a grudge against “Tenet”.
“You can think like that,” says Nolan. “But it turns out that ‘Tenet’ is the most successful film in Estonian history. So I think they accepted that.”
“Tenet” (available on Blu-ray and streaming in the United States) broke Estonia’s box office record for international films with $ 1.2 million, with 266,000 people in the country’s small population of just 1.3 million watching the film .
Christopher Nolan in ‘Tenet’: Secrets behind the film
The highway closure was unprecedented for Nolan, who has oversaw major traffic stops for action sequences before, such as when he closed Chicago’s Lower Wacker Drive (at night) to shoot memorable scenes for “The Dark Knight” 2008.
Nolan was shocked by the effort while filming in Estonia, which was similar to closing busy Los Angeles 405.
“Going to a city and saying, ‘Look, in the middle of the day, we want to close your busiest highway for three weeks,'” says Nolan. “But they moved on. We really took advantage of that road throughout the day and did some really radical stunts where we had to clear the whole area.”
In it Paves, commissioner of the Estonian Film Institute, said by email: “It really is one of our main highways, closed during the height of the summer. But Estonians are very proud of the film, accompanied by so much excitement and media frenzy. people were interviewed in theaters saying they would watch it twice, since the first time they were distracted looking at Estonian locations and had a hard time keeping up with the real plot. “
Road scenes included Kenneth Branagh driving away from a car explosion, Robert Pattinson at the wheel of a car driven in reverse by a stunt driver in the back seat, and several trucks rolling in formation along the highway. The fire truck seen with Washington required special attention.
“There were all kinds of conversations before we shot the scene, how high is this truck, how low are the bridges (which are approaching), do we need to let the air out of the tires? But everything fits,” says Nolan. “We were able to put together a sequence that looks incredibly dangerous. It was not easy to shoot, but it was very safe.”
Nolan also praised the 3,000 local Estonian extras who acted as spectators in the opening scene of the action film, filmed in the Soviet-era Linnahall. The extras, mostly in their first Hollywood film, portrayed audience members under attack from commandos, instantly knocked out by sleeping gas.
“They did an incredible job,” says Nolan. “There is the choreography of all of them succumbing to gas and falling asleep in a big wave. Then they had to pretend they were unconscious as shots fired around them, with very loud leaks and explosions. No one moved. There were actors climbing over the top. them and the backs of the seats in stitches. But we didn’t have to edit around anyone. They were really notable extras. “
Extras endured a week of shootings, often tedious. Usually, with a scene like this, the extras are excitedly on Day 1. “And then, when they see how boring the footage can be, they don’t show up the next day,” says Nolan. “But these guys were engaged.”