Thursday, November 6, 2014

Directorial Retrospective: Christopher Nolan


It’s time for another directorial retrospective and this week, in honor of the release of his latest film, ‘Interstellar’, today we’ll be looking at the films of another one of the best directors currently working today in Hollywood: Christopher Nolan. The London-born director got off to a pretty good start early in his career with a few solidly-acclaimed movies like ‘Memento’ and ‘Insomnia’. But then in 2005, he truly made his mark in Hollywood when he took over the ‘Batman’ film franchise. Not only did he bring the character back to top form after the franchise had died out eight years prior, but also ended up giving us what is quite frankly the best superhero film trilogy to date whereas most other superhero film franchises have weaker third entries compared to the first two (like ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘X-Men’). Nolan is one of the few directors right now who, in my opinion, has yet to make a bad movie. But with that said, let me make something perfectly clear; while Nolan is one of my favorite directors, that doesn’t mean that I’m a Nolan ‘fan-boy’. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who are so huge fans of Nolan that they act like he’s the best director ever and act like jerks to anyone who doesn’t like his movies. You may recall back when ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ came out, they actually sent death threats to any critic who gave it a negative review (and given the current critical reception to ‘Interstellar’, I’m guessing they’ve already done the same thing again to those who didn’t like it). So while I am a big fan of his movies, I’m not ‘that big’ a fan. So now that I got that out of the way, here are the films of director Christopher Nolan.

FOLLOWING (1998)


While Nolan first attracted major attention with his second film, ‘Memento’, his official feature-length debut was 1998’s ‘Following’ and really, for a film made on a $6,000 budget, featuring a cast consisting of what we can assume as a bunch of Nolan’s friends (along with his uncle John, who later appeared in two of the ‘Dark Knight’ films) and with a runtime that’s just a bit over an hour long, it’s actually a pretty impressive directorial debut. It’s a very engaging/twisting crime drama that very much feels like a crime noir. Nolan makes the most of his incredibly limited budget, handling the cinematography himself and only doing about one or two takes of every scene, heavily rehearsing them beforehand, so he wouldn’t waste any film stock. This results in a film that feels incredibly focused from beginning to end due to how careful Nolan was when it came to making the film. Plus, at just 70 minutes long, it’s a breeze to get through. All in all, ‘Following’ is a film that, for its time, was the first to show-off Christopher Nolan’s talents as a director. Things would only get better for him as time went on.

Rating: 4/5

MEMENTO (2000)

 

After ‘Following’, Nolan immediately followed that up with ‘Memento’, which was based off of the short story ‘Memento Mori’ written by his brother and frequent collaborator Jonathan Nolan. This was the film that officially established him as one of the best new directors working in Hollywood at the time although you could also say that he really didn’t become a household name until he took on the ‘Dark Knight’ trilogy. ‘Memento’ is a very complicated film, primarily through the way it is structured. There are two parts to this film; a series of black-and-white sequences and a series of color sequences. The black-and-white sequences are shown in chronological order, but the color sequences are shown in reverse order. In other words, one color sequence will begin where the next color sequence will end and the film intercuts between the color and black-and-white sequences. It isn’t until the end when both sequences meet where the film finally starts moving in proper order. So like with many of Nolan’s films, you have to make sure you’re paying attention because otherwise you might get lost.

That’s why ‘Memento’ is such an effective psychological thriller. Because the film is technically ‘out of order’, we’re usually trying to figure out what’s happening due to the fact that we basically go into each scene in the middle of the action. We gradually learn more about what happens as the film goes on. It isn’t until the end, with a great twist regarding the truth behind the events of the story, when we finally understand what’s really going on. It’s all headlined by an outstanding performance by Guy Pearce in the role of Leonard, a man who has anterograde amnesia following an attack on him and his wife, which resulted in her death, by two men who now looks to find the one that escaped to enact his revenge for the death of his wife. It’s a complicated role, and Pearce fits the role of what can be classified as an ‘unreliable narrator’ perfectly. So much so that it’s sad that he didn’t get nominated for an Oscar for Best Actor that year because I feel that this is one of the best performances from any actor/actress that I’ve ever seen. ‘Memento’ is, without a doubt, one of Nolan’s best films as it is a smartly written thriller with an excellent payoff.

Rating: 5/5!

INSOMNIA (2002)


This is one of Nolan’s lesser-talked about films and I’m guessing the main reason for this is because this is the only film that he has directed where he wasn’t primarily involved with the screenplay. Instead, it was someone else who wrote this remake of a 1997 Norwegian film of the same name, though apparently Nolan did write the final draft of the screenplay. Despite this, the fact that Nolan wasn’t in charge of the screenplay does kind of show, as the film isn’t as twisted as Nolan’s other works. It’s a much more straight-forward story. Still, Nolan’s direction shines through in this film, which centers on a pair of detectives who travel to a small Alaskan town in order to help solve the case of the murder of a teen girl. However, during the investigation, the main character Will Dormer (Al Pacino) accidentally shoots his partner Hap (Martin Donovan) dead, resulting in him suffering from insomnia due to both his guilt over what had happened and also because the town he’s staying in is stuck in perpetual daylight. It’s an interesting look into the psyche of Dormer, who slowly but surely starts to lose his mind as the movie goes on. Pacino is fantastic in this, but really the main stand-out is Robin Williams in the role of the killer, crime author Walter Finch. I actually have to admit that this is the first film of Williams’ that I have seen that wasn’t a ‘comedy’ and it goes to show that with films like this, ‘Good Will Hunting’, and ‘The Fisher King’, that Williams was very much a truly great screen talent… and he will be very much missed. So in short, ‘Insomnia’ is another solid effort from Nolan, but while I do feel that it’s definitely one of his more underrated films, I can’t really say it’s his most absolute underrated. Still, ‘Insomnia’ is very much worth checking out.

Rating: 4/5

THE DARK KNIGHT TRILOGY (2005, 2008, 2012)


Due to the fact that I already talked about these films back in May when I did my retrospective on the ‘Batman’ films in honor of the 75th anniversary of the character’s first appearance, I’m not going to go into too much detail about them here. For that, just refer back to that earlier post (http://rimoviecorner.blogspot.com/2014/05/batman-film-retrospective-part-1-live.html) but I’ll still do a quick recap on what I had said there. After the ‘Batman’ film franchise hit rock bottom in 1997 with ‘Batman and Robin’, Christopher Nolan revitalized the series in 2005 with ‘Batman Begins’. That film returned the series to its darker roots and gave us a solid look into the origins of Batman, something that we hadn’t really seen before in previous films. Featuring a great cast, great writing, and some terrific visuals, ‘Batman Begins’ is a phenomenal entry in the comic book genre, even if most of the hand-to-hand combat sequences aren’t really that good due to shaky cam work and quick editing. It does something much different in that while it is a comic book movie, it’s much more grounded in reality than what one would usually expect from a film of this genre. It’s a style that has influenced many as shown in films like the Daniel Craig ‘Bond’ films and even some other superhero films like ‘Man of Steel’ and ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’.

Thankfully, that issue of weak fight sequences disappeared three years later with ‘The Dark Knight’… I don’t need to go any farther than that. You all know how phenomenal a movie it is with a well-deserved Oscar win for Heath Ledger who gave us the best on-screen portrayal yet of Batman’s iconic nemesis, the Joker. It was such a great movie that admittedly it ended up having a bit of a negative effect on the finale, ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ and sure enough there are some people out there who were extremely disappointed by it. I’m not one of them… sure it may not be as great as ‘The Dark Knight’ due to some small issues like the occasional plot-hole (even though I’m not really bothered by them compared to most people) and some rushed character development. But it’s still an excellent conclusion to this trilogy and if anything, you can’t deny it’s still a well-crafted film. In short, ‘The Dark Knight Trilogy’ is the best superhero film trilogy to date as all three films are superb. That’s because they’re more than just your typical superhero films… they’re incredibly well-written films that ignore the more fantastical elements of the comic books to go for much more grounded storylines that I feel do one of the most iconic comic book superheroes of all time justice. Simply put, this trilogy is a high mark of the superhero film genre.

BEGINS: 4.5/5

DARK KNIGHT: 5/5!

RISES: 5/5!

THE PRESTIGE (2006)


‘The Prestige’ is easily Christopher Nolan’s most underrated film, one that feels like it’s been rather forgotten about in recent years. It’s sad because ‘The Prestige’ is arguably one of Nolan’s best films. It’s an incredibly compelling story about two magicians, played by Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale, who form an intense rivalry as they each try to one-up each other in regards to creating amazing illusions of magic, often leading to dangerous and tragic results for the both of them. As you would expect from a Nolan film, ‘The Prestige’ is full of twists and turns to keep you guessing the entire film. After all, the film opens with the line ‘Are you watching closely?’ which just goes to show how twisty the film’s plot is from beginning to end. I’ve heard some people say that they didn’t like the ending, but I found it to be a pretty neat ending. Now for the sake of spoilers I won’t say anything about what actually happens during the ending. However, if I had to describe it in just one word, it would be this; Duality. If you see the film, you’ll understand what I mean by that. All in all, with great production design, great direction from Nolan (obviously), and a terrific cast including Jackman, Bale, Michael Caine, and Scarlett Johansson, ‘The Prestige’ definitely deserves more attention than it’s currently getting. Like I said back in May 2013 when I reviewed the film ‘Now You See Me’, I feel like the idea of magicians isn’t very popular anymore which I do find a little sad because the art of magic can lead to some amazing results and this film is very much proof of that.

Rating: 4.5/5

INCEPTION (2010)


In between ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, Nolan took on a dream project of his that he had been working on since 2002 about ‘dream stealers’. Originally envisioned as a horror film, it soon became what we know today as ‘Inception’. As is typical with Nolan’s films, the film is very complicated in terms of its plot. This is one of those films that very much requires constant attention throughout… otherwise you might get lost. But if you do stick with it, the payoff is quite satisfying. ‘Inception’ is an incredibly engaging and original story (although some will say it’s just ‘The Matrix’) featuring some incredible visuals that come as a result of the many dreams that the main characters infiltrate throughout the course of the film, like the fight sequence where Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) fights henchmen in a rotating hallway. It’s even more impressive knowing that Nolan, as he did with the ‘Dark Knight’ films, opted to use as much practical effects as possible. The cast is terrific from top to bottom, highlighted by Leonardo DiCaprio in the lead role of Dom, a ‘dream thief’ who takes on one last job in order to get back home to his kids following the death of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), who now haunts his memories due to him feeling guilty for letting it happen. The pulse-pounding score by Hans Zimmer, which as many of you know has been copied quite a lot in many other films since this film came out, is also excellent. My only complaint about the film is that the pacing is rather too slow. When I saw this film in the theaters, I swear that it felt like I was watching a four-hour movie when it was really only two and a half hours. Despite that, ‘Inception’ is just an awesome sci-fi heist film and another great entry in Nolan’s prestigious resume.


Rating: 4.5/5   

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