Recognizing Nolan’s Film Style: Part 3

Every kid, at some point in English class, has written a paper about the theme of a book. But how often do we stretch that thought to films? Nolan creates his movies with specific themes in mind, and when you realize this it becomes obvious what they are. He uses his characters to explore every aspect of each theme, often playing off of whatever film came previous. 

Think about it. Memento explored memory; Insomnia, the sleep-deprived character evaluations we give ourselves. The theme of Batman Begins was fear; The Dark Knight studied chaos, and The Dark Knight Rises drew on pain. Inception delves into the subconscious and the blurred lines between dreams and reality.

In all of these, what you choose to believe is much more important, which brings ethics into the mix. By making his characters question how far they are willing to go, if they are willing to lie to themselves to be happy, and why they might give up their identities, Nolan also throws these personal and ethical questions out to the audience to ponder. Though the themes in each film vary, Nolan is consistently psychological with the motivation of his plot and characters. 

As Bruce Wayne once said:

As a man, I’m flesh and blood. I can be ignored. I can be destroyed. But as a symbol I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting.

Symbolism is ingrained in the Nolan universe. It is only in the mind and heart than any peace or logic can be found. This is the theme that Nolan returns to again and again, whether it’s in one of his smaller films or a blockbuster Batman. Only when his protagonists accept their failings and fears and decide on a reality will they find peace. Bruce uses his fear of bats to his advantage; Cobb defeats the dream sequence by finally letting go of the memory of his wife. The parallels go on.

It is the way Nolan tells his stories that show us this. In addition to character parallels, theme parallels and style parallels, he uses the same narrative and filming techniques as well. Memento boasts a backwards-narrative structure with lots of flashbacks, giving the appearance of a giant mosaic puzzle that makes no sense until the last piece is set and stepped away from. Nolan created a film with a single character: thought. 

And though his other movies are told forwards, Nolan employs flashbacks heavily in all of them, along with crosscut parallel action to raise the stakes at the climax, most obviously in the third act of Inception when the audience follows the team in four different levels of a dream at once. His films — with the exception of the Dark Knight Trilogy — also begin with a scene from the end of the film lifted out of context. This acts as a hook and instills a sense of deception in the audience that will not be lifted until the end of the film – and sometimes not even then. 

Nolan does say that however chaotic his films appear they are always based on a definitive truth. Insomnia, memory, fear, chaos, pain. The question Nolan has been asked more than any other is if the spinning top fell at the end of Inception, a signal that what Cobb was experiencing was real. But Nolan refused to answer, save one comment:

The most important emotional thing about the top spinning at the end is that Cobb is not looking at it. He doesn’t care.

 

 

Christopher Nolan Films: Budget vs. Gross

Here’s a good way to look at Christopher Nolan’s growth and success as a director–in money terms, at least. The films are in order from bottom to top. Following, Memento and Prestige have very small budgets because they were independently funded films–Nolan has his own company he runs with his wife, which will be elaborated upon later.

Nolan’s involvement with Batman has its own story for another time. For now we will just focus on the monetary aspect of it. Batman Begins was Nolan’s first foray with Warner Bros., who was rebooting a franchise that had just ended a scant five years before. Its success lead to a long-in-production sequel, a movie critics around the world agree is one of the best sequels ever made: The Dark Knight. Partly fueled by Heath Ledger’s incredible acting and untimely death, the film smashed a record, earning over $1 billion worldwide. To this day, The Dark Knight is still No. 8 on the All time Worldwide Box Office Grosses.

After Nolan’s success with The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. allowed him virtually unlimited creative freedom to produce a film that he had been working on for some ten years: Inception, which carried off the top of Nolan’s previous success. I argue it ought to stand alone, though, because that film was entirely Nolan’s brainchild, entirely original, entirely new. Not to mention it stayed No. 1 in the box office for over two months.

Now. The Dark Knight Rises had actually had a script going very early on, but Heath Ledger’s death threw a wrench in it. Rather than attempt to recast his iconic character, Nolan and his team scrapped the script and started from scratch, which was part of the reason for the four-year gap between films.

Nevertheless, The Dark Knight Rises also flourished, leaving Nolan with his most astounding accomplishment yet: not one, but TWO films that made over $1 billion worldwide.

To put that in perspective, only one other director in the world has accomplished this–James Cameron, with Titanic (No.1 worldwide) and Avatar (No. 2).

The Miracle of Memento

Christopher Nolan’s first feature length film, Following, was made with little more than Nolan’s own personal skill. He took part in a film club while at University College London, where he honed the guerilla techniques he would later use in all of his films. Having never gone to an official film school, Nolan had no choice but to become personally involved with every aspect of filmmaking.

“Being self-taught gave me a very organic approach to understanding all the different bits of the craft,” Nolan said in an interview with DGA. “I’m interested in every different bit of filmmaking because I had to do every bit of it myself—from sound recording and ADR to editing and music.”

So let’s examine Following and Memento with this knowledge. Following was filmed only on weekends for a solid year. Nolan used his friends as actors (in their own clothes as costumes), natural lighting, black and white film, and as many other budget-slimming techniques he could muster. When it showed at international film festivals to relative acclaim, Nolan used that opportunity to ask for donations for his next film.

Following had a budget of about $6,000 and grossed about $43,000.

Memento had a budget of about $9 million and grossed $25 million.

After Memento–Nolan’s second ever film–he was invited to join the Director’s Guild of America, an honor not usually bestowed upon up-and-coming filmmakers.

They felt like he earned it.