Christopher Nolan – The work and the Director

Christopher Nolan – The work and the Director

"We try to achieve it all using camera, there are no green screens" Nolan, BBC newsnight, 2016

Mr. Christopher Nolan is one of the great directors of our time. He easily stepped into the hall – of – fame of icons such as Spielberg, Scorsese, Scott and Kubrick. He have made 10 films and since Memento (which blows my mind every time I see it) till the fabulous Dunkirk, each movie has its own Nolan uniqueness and it is hard to think about any other director that could have made a better job. 

He usually work with his Brother, Jonathan Nolan on the writing before entering the director seat. Thus, he gives a special angle to the movie. First he dream, then he make it happen. There aren't many directors that can pull it off. Tarantino is the master on filming his texts and thoughts. He does that to the letter and doesn’t leave much for the actor's improvisation's techniques, but, if Tarantino writes it, you can be sure it's great. 

I love that Nolan always quest the Time issue in his movies. Memento is going backwards and forward in a matter of minutes which is brilliant. Its character loses time because of a short term memory impairment and finds all kind of ways to overcompensate this problem. You can see in Inception (one of the great movies of this decade, best performance of DiCaprio in a long time) that time is the main theme of this picture. The whole idea of a dream within a dream effect time differently and when you add another layer of a dream to it you can count the years. 

Seconds, minutes, hours, years. What a brilliant idea! 

Interstellar, wow! What a spectacle. When I first saw this movie I wept like a school girl whose been left on the sidewalk after dark. In Mathew McConaughey scene, when he watched his grown daughter (Jessica Chastain)  video after he realized he just lost 20 years over a few hours in space and just wept like any father would. No one can stay indifferent to that scene. This means that Nolan can direct actors as well and not just brilliant ideas and spectacles cinematographer's shots. Don’t forget he directed the best actor there is, Mr. Al Pacino in Insomnia. Another great movie that deals with time and what it does to you. 

Nolan loves the notion of ambiguity in his films. Every ending scene must leave you thinking. He wants to give you a gut punch while you are watching his movies but he also need you to keep on thinking about what you just saw. In one of his interviews he said that today's movies are being watched more than once. On the big screen and afterward on cable TV, hotels, plane etc. Thus he wants to make movies that you can watch for the 2nd or even a 3rd time and still find new ideas and details that you have missed in your previous screening. 

This man took Batman and reboot the story into a trilogy saga that can be posted on a mantel everywhere, proudly. He made a dark Knight movies which was dark indeed. He tackled the questions of time, good vs evil, fear and how people address it. He made it so realistic that even when you see a fight scene on the Dark Knight Rises between Batman and Bane on the footsteps with all the people around fighting as well, your mind is oblivious to the costumes. You do not pay attention that there is a man in a dark mask and a cape of a bat fighting a man with a breathing mask. It seems real. That for me is great directing. On Marvel's film you can see the green screen, you can see the CGI in all its glory. They make it fun but it is definitely not Nolan's world.  

The music in his films is breath taking. From David Julyan (the prestige, Insomnia) through James Newton Howard (Batman trilogy) and the master Hans Zimmer (inception, Batman trilogy, interstellar). Each composer gave him exactly what he needs for his movies. The scenes intertwined with the music perfectly and made itunforgettable. 

"I don’t use temp music. I sit with my composer, talk to him about my though of the film, giving him the script and he start to send me bits of music. If we like it we use it." Nolan interview 2017 

When I hear the soundtracks of his films, even at the office, it gives me the urge to stop it all and go see his film. Even though I saw them a couple of times before. 

To conclude our discussion, if you haven’t seen a Christopher Nolan movie yet, you are both lacking in knowledge but blesses as well, because I, for once, would give a great amount of money to have the experience of seeing them for the first time again. 

Following , 1998 

Memento , 2000

Insomnia, 2002

Batman Begins, 2005

Prestige, 2006

The Dark Knight, 2008 

Inception, 2010

The Dark Knight Rises, 2012

Interstaller, 2014

Dunkirk, 2017

pic from
https://batman-news.com/2018/10/07/gotham-trailer-batman-bane-season-5/
https://indiefilmhustle.com/christopher-nolan-screenplays-download/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqRZ2_w56U0
https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/hollywood/happy-birthday-christopher-nolan-heres-what-makes-the-ace-director-a-great-visionary-4773906/