Hamilton has long been renowned as the watchmaker of Hollywood. Ever since Elvis Presley first wore an Electric 500 in Blue Hawaii, Hamilton watches have appeared in more than 500 film and TV productions. While Hamilton made their first on-screen appearance 20 years earlier in Shanghai Express, Blue Hawaii was a breakout moment for the brand and the watch is still one of the ones most closely associated with The King of Rock n Roll. In the decades since, Hamilton have appeared in films as famed and varied as 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Men in Black, as well as the James Bond series during the tenure of Roger Moore.
But there is one filmmaker who has almost become synonymous with Hamilton in recent years and it’s the biggest director in Hollywood – Christopher Nolan. The director’s relationship with the Swiss brand goes back to The Dark Knight Rises in 2012 where Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Matthew Modine are seen wearing a Khaki Field and Jazzmaster respectively. But, it was two years later with the sci-fi blockbuster Interstellar which saw the relationship transcend merely supply watches for a film.
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain, Interstellar follows a former NASA pilot tasked with discovering a new planet that would be hospitable for humans as the Earth begins to die. Early on in the film, the pilot (played by McConaughey), gives his watch to his daughter (played by Chastain when she grows up). Without getting too bogged down in quantum physics, McConaughey essentially uses morse code through the seconds hand on the watch to communicate to his daughter in a different space and time and saves the world. It’s one of the most essential watch moments in film. And that watch is a Hamilton Khaki Field Murphy, created specifically for Interstellar and through tight coordination with Nolan and his production designer, Nathan Crowley.
The watch was never intended to be available to the public but such was the fervour around the watch and its role in the climax of the story that years later, Hamilton made the decision to make it part of their range. Albeit with one small change, which is a reference to the film. In the version customers can buy in shops the seconds hand is printed with “Eureka” written in morse code, a nod to the end of the film where Chastain finally figures out the formula to save the world and shouts “eureka”. Hamilton themselves have called it their “defining moment” on film and it’s hard to disagree.
For Tenet, Nolan’s 2020 sci-fi spy adventure film, Hamilton were tasked with creating a watch unlike anything they had before, and they didn’t even know how it would be used in the film. All they knew was that Nolan needed a military-style watch featuring a digital countdown but it also had to be an analogue watch – and they had 18 months to make it. Enter a highly modified version of the Khaki Navy BelowZero.
Just like in Interstellar, Hamilton’s creation has an integral role with the plot. Worn by John David Washington’s Protagonist, the characters are Tenet engage in time manipulation and lots of confusing things happen to do with the countdown to the end of the world. Also like Interstellar, the watch was only created to be a prop in the film with Hamilton later deciding to release a watch inspired by the one seen in Tenet that was limited to just 888 pieces, which is a nod to palindromes, a prominent theme in the movie. It is much simpler than the one created for the film and doesn’t feature a movement but the aesthetic is there.
Perhaps Nolan’s most intriguing collaboration with Hamilton came with his Oscar-winning masterpiece, Oppenheimer. The first time he has used the brand for a period film, Oppenheimer, set in the 1940’s and 1950’s, didn’t need a new creation but it did need some very specific vintage pieces. The effort was extensive to achieve the looks Nolan wanted for three main characters – J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), his wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) and General Leslie Graves (Matt Damon). While the Hamilton archive is vast, the company had to source the watches used in the film from an array of private collectors.
Murphy wore three different Hamilton pieces in the role of his career – the Cushion B, Endicott and Lexington. At the time of their release, around 80 years ago, each would have been thoroughly contemporaneous and under the influence of Art Deco. Blunt wore much more luxurious pieces, primarily a Lady Hamilton A-2 in 14k gold while Damon wore a Piping Rock and an actual World War II field watch, which was a precursor to the Khaki Field.
Of course, the fact that Nolan’s latest is set in Ancient Greece, hasn’t stopped him from linking back up with Hamilton. While a watch in The Odyssey would be more than a little anachronistic, the production have joined forces with Hamilton to release a piece inspired by Nolan’s adaptation of the Homeric epic poem. Co-designed by Nolan himself, the watch takes the base of the Khaki Field Automatic and inflects it with the personality of the story along with motifs from the film including Odysseus’ helmet as well as his sword. For the Nolan hardcore, the caseback features the director’s signature, perfectly topping off a piece that is essentially more than a decade in the making.
Like this? Matt Damon rocked Rolex’s new sports watch to ‘The Odyssey’ premiere
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