John Nolan has always taken the back seat as his older brother Chris has steamrolled his way into becoming one of the most bankable directors of recent cinema history. He is best known for co-writing several scripts with his brother (The Prestige, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises) and penning the short story 'Memento Mori' which would eventually provide the initial concept for Chris' sophmore feature 'Memento'. But now he is stepping out of his brother's shadow with his orginal TV show 'Person of Interst'. Nolan co-wrote the show's screenplay with TV superstar JJ Abrams, a huge talking point for show.
The show focuses on former-CIA agent Reese (Jim Caviezel), who teams up with a mysterious billionaire named Finch (Michael Emerson),who uses a specialised technology in order to prevent violent crimes from occuring. Whilst this sounds a little bit Minority-Reportish, the difference and crux of the show revolves around the techology's ability to identify individuals about to be involved in violent crimes but it is unable to determine whether the crime will happen to them or be committed by them. The show will have an over-arching story that will carry throughout the series (presumably about the origins of the technology and the past of Reese) but in-essence it will be a case of the week crime show.
CBS Preview Trailer with interviews with Nolan and JJ
To read the entire interview head to http://collider.com/jonathan-nolan-person-of-interest-interview/107990/
Here are a few interesting exerts of what Nolan had to say.
On the case of the week structure:
"We really started with the idea, and the idea seemed to suggest a case-of-the-week structure. I’ve always loved shows that combine both approaches — that have a mythology and a set of characters, whose stories develop and change, and where the relationships evolve and fracture."
On the notion of national security and surveillance
"I was a kid in England, in the 1970’s, and cameras started going up everywhere. In fact, at that point, there were already a lot of cameras up in London. It was during the Troubles and the IRA attacks in and around the UK and Ireland, so the response was to put up cameras everywhere. And then, when I moved to the States, when I was 11 or 12 years old in Chicago, there weren’t cameras everywhere, but 20 years later, they started popping up. After 9/11, you started seeing cameras everywhere. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of a surveillance state. Who’s watching? What are they doing with that information? I felt like it was a really rich story to tap."
On the working with JJ Abrams (Lost, Fringe, Star Trek)
"One of the things that I love about J.J. is that he’s not precious. He creates material. He likes to work. He likes to put kick-ass shows out there. The nature of the TV format is that it’s a big risk. This is my first time doing it. It’s not like a movie where you put it out there and people judge it on its merits. Sometimes it finds an audience later, but it’s a one-shot gig. TV is, as I’m discovering now, a marathon. You have to keep going and going and going. Personally, I think J.J.’s track record in film and TV is unsurpassed."
The idea of two of my favourite writers coming together and collaborting on what seems like a very intersting idea for a crime/case of the week show has got me super exciated for Person of Interest.
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