Nolan: Master of Time

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Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan has directed a total of ten films and is currently in post-production on his next project, which will be released next year. Of these ten films he has written the script of all ten and even his new film. Some of the films he has gotten help from his brother Jonathan to write the scripts for. Nolan is one of the best examples of an auteur director. Some examples include that he likes to work with the same crew on every film, and that he usually uses the same composer for all of his films. He also writes his own scripts and he also has a distinguishable style in all of his films. 

Released May 25, 2001
Memento trailer

Christopher Nolan is best known for Following, Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Interstellar, and Dunkirk. All of these films have many unique characteristics that makes them identifiable as a Christopher Nolan film. One major characteristic of these films is that each film has some form of non-linear storytelling. Each of the films either has flashbacks or flash forwards throughout the film to confuse the viewer. Some examples of this is in Batman Begins, he uses flashbacks during the film to provide exposition to the audience and while this is happening, he is also continuing the main story, which takes place in modern day (cinelinx). Another example is Dunkirk, and in this film Nolan utilizes many different time jumps over the course of three days and these three days is split into three different parts. These three parts is land, air, and sea, and these three elements are also randomly mixed throughout the movie, making the audience confused on first viewing on what is the correct order of events, until you reach the end of the movie where everything comes together to allow the audience to better put together the story that they had just witnessed. But, out of all of his films he has released, Memento is the best example of non-linear storytelling. The whole movie is out of order and the reasoning behind this is to make the audience feel like the main character Leonard, who during the course of the movie has short-term memory loss and he is attempting to track down his wife’s murder. The whole movie is told out of order where the climax of the movie is the first and last scene, and the whole movie alternates throughout the film from scene one and afterwards from being in past to modern times. Each scene is like this and it happens so much that the narrative jumps one hundred thirteen times during the film. The story of the movie doesn’t begin until the middle of the movie. This movie can be viewed in chronological order, through the special edition of the movie. When a viewer first watches this movie, they will be confused by how often the narrative jumps and a viewer will understand this film better after their first viewing.

Chart showing the proper order of events in Nolan’s 2017 film Dunkirk.

Another example of Nolan being an auteur director is that he likes to work with the same cast and crew on every film. One of the best examples of this is Michael Caine. He appeared in six consecutive Nolan movies and is best known for playing Alfred in The Dark Knight trilogy. There are a few other actors that reappear in many of his films like Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Marion Cotillard, Anne Hathaway, and Kenneth Branagh. Nolan not only uses the same actors, he also uses the same composer on most of his films and he usually uses Han Zimmer on most of his films. Nolan also used the same cinematographer, Wally Pfister, up until 2012 when Wally decided to start directing his own films. 

One thing this is forgetting is time.

One thing that makes Nolan a unique director when compared to most other directors is that he adamant on filming his movies on either 70mm, 35mm, or IMAX. He does not like to film his movies with digital formats. Almost all of his films have been advertised for this three formats when they are released in theaters. He films mostly using film because he insists that both film and digital are two very different mediums offering very different shooting and viewing experiences. He also considers IMAX the best film format that was ever invented. He has also stated that “when he looks at a digitally acquired and projected image, it looks inferior against an original negative anamorphic print or an IMAX one.” (dga) This is one of the best ways to show that Nolan is an auteur director, he likes to use certain cameras for his projects because he feels that it would be ruining his vision of his film.

The first official poster released for Nolan’s next film, Tenet, releases on July 17, 2020

To end this, let’s discuss his next upcoming film, Tenet, which there is very little known about the plot of the film. The project, according to IMDB, is described as an action epic revolving around international espionage, time travel, and evolution. Already time is a major theme of the film, and two of the actors that are in the film is Micheal Caine and Kenneth Branagh, two actors that Nolan works with. The film will be released in 35mm, 75mm, and IMAX when it is released, nothing in digital. One thing that makes this film more unique compared to his other films is that the first teaser was released exclusively in front of the movie Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw and the teaser has not been released. There was leaked versions of it, only for them to eventually be taken down. Currently, the first real trailer is rumored to be releasing in December in time for the next Star Wars movie. Until then, the film world is patiently waiting to see what Nolan has up his sleeve to confuse viewers even more in his next film.

Video describing what is known about Nolan’s next film.
Video describing the first teaser trailer for Tenet.

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