David Camp: I like Christopher Nolan because he’s one of the few directors with a distinctive style and clout working in mainstream cinema. One of the only guys standing up for dark, challenging blockbusters in a sea of flashy mediocrity. He wants to entertain on a grand scale but he doesn’t want to compromise which is why I respect him. He makes these big, intellectually demanding films befitting of the destructive and dangerous characters he creates to inhabit them. People have accused him of being cold and clinical, but the stories he’s telling demand exactly that. You can’t reinterpret Batman and pack it full of fart jokes and neon lights – especially after what the series became in the nineties. He’s made very adult, very earnest pieces of grand scale pop-art. The guy nails the tone like a pro. That’s why people flock to see his movies.
Luke Allen: I’d agree with everything there. He’s a director that has consistently refused to conform. Compare him to one of the other directors making these big, epic blockbusters, he sticks very rigidly to his guns. He may have made Batman movies, but they certainly don’t feel like the Batman of old. You know a Christopher Nolan movie when you’re seeing it. To say he’s ‘cold and clinical’ would, I think, it’s a very narrow minded way of looking at things. It may be ‘cold and clinical’ but he delves more into the psychology and the depths of his characters than a million Michael Bay’s. He’s consistently interesting. He makes these epic, dark films and they may be, you know, twelve rated since Batman, but that certainly doesn’t mean they’re aimed at kids. They’re aimed at intelligent adult audiences. He doesn’t take the piss.
DC: He doesn’t trick you. Yeah, I think it’s probably the ‘cold and clinical’ thing winds me up too, you know, people suggesting he has no sense of fun. People said the same about Kubrick and it’s been part of the reason the two have been compared. I don’t think it’s a fair comparison to either of them, it’s an odd comparison, I don’t think they’re particularly similar filmmakers. Just because they avoid sickly Hollywood sentiment and their manipulation of the audiences emotions is almost invisible, doesn’t mean they’re somehow distant. The emotion is there, it’s woven into the fabric of the films. It’s how we connect with the characters on the most basic level. Just because the actors and actresses don’t burst into cliché tears every five minutes. His latest movie, ‘Inception’, that just opened a couple of weeks ago and we’re going to talk about later, the emotion is at the heart of what the film is, it’s integral to the journey of the main character and our relationship to him.
LA: Angier in ‘The Prestige’, look at what happened with him after the death of his wife, to say it’s ‘cold and clinical’, this is a man who has been completely torn apart because of the death of his wife. To say it’s ‘cold and clinical’ is a load of rubbish.
DC: These characters are capable of love and they’re capable of feeling. Just because it isn’t treacly, smeared all over the screen in this vile Hollywood way we’re far too accustomed to in these big American films, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. As I said, his skill as a director is so great that the manipulation is invisible. You don’t see the strings being pulled. That’s a gift.
LA: Not just in terms of emotion, in terms of narrative, you can say he’s become known for his playing with narrative, but he also plays with time. His most famous work before ‘Batman’ was ‘Memento’ which definitely did play with narrative, the manipulation of the audience. Even in his linear works, the way he plays with narrative, it’s consistently trying to keep you on your toes and make you keep up. Even in ‘The Dark Knight’, which functions on the idea the antagonist is totally unpredictable, despite being a cartoon blockbuster; you don’t know where it’s going. It’s the same with ‘Inception’. They set up the rules, but even though they’ve set up the rules, I mean, there’s that level of fear in terms of the way the plot line goes and the misdirection he throws out. It’s consistent with all of his work and it helps, with the non-linear stuff that he turns the head-screws in even more.
DC: And you don’t realise as you’re watching it! That’s the great thing. When people talk about directors they try to lay down their defining characteristics as an auteur. With Nolan, the big ones that stick out are the unconventional narrative structures, the jumbled up chronologies that even slip into the ‘Batman’ films to an extent, the demand for interpretive readings by the audience and the refusal to spell it out to you in quite the way you expect. The troubled and morally ambiguous male protagonists, I wouldn’t go as far as to say they’re anti-heroes but they’re half way there. There’s this control over reality. The control over reality is in all of them. The Scarecrows mind gas in ‘Batman Begins’, Leonard Shelby’s amnesia in ‘Memento’, the dreamscapes in ‘Inception’, the magic tricks in ‘The Prestige’. Control seems to be at the heart of his interests and it’s reflected in the narrative themselves.
LA: The chaos in ‘The Dark Knight’ as well, in terms of control, that’s kind of the complete antithesis in terms of the whole film being about the loss of control. Even in that respect it’s there. The interesting thing though, if you look at all of the major characters, as you say, they’re all flawed to the point where if you look at ‘The Prestige’, even though Angier becomes the more bitter and evil of the characters, neither of them are particularly nice people. The way Borden is so fixed on his art that it costs him his marriage; it costs him his brother at the end of the day. You spend time with these characters but they are morally and psychologically ambiguous as well. There are no full stops, so to speak, the characterisation is very complicated.
DC: I’m hesitant to use the ‘anti-hero’ line but I think obsession drives these characters. There’s a mission. They’re all driven by something from the start. These are troubled, difficult, not necessarily particularly nice people that have an aim. They’ll do anything and hurt anyone to achieve it. I can understand how that can turn off a lot of people maybe, I don’t know if you’d call it a flaw, but he deals with these character traits repeatedly. To evolve from a great into the great, or one of the greats, I’d like to see some range there by throwing himself out of his comfort zone.
LA: The funny thing is as well, when you say driven, I know you haven’t seen ‘Following’, but in terms of protagonist type and motivation, ‘Following’ is actually one of the more uncertain. To give you a bit of back-story, the main character is on the dole, trying to be a writer and he starts following people. He bumps into this guy who’s also called Cobb. Cobb’s a thief and starts showing him…
DC: *interrupts* I guess Nolan loves the name ‘Cobb’?
LA: Yeah.
DC: What’s he so fucking obsessed with the name ‘Cobb’ for?
LA: If he was called ‘Dom Cobb’ I would have had a problem.
DC: It’s not a bad name but it seems odd to use the same name in two different movies. He sits there at night going ‘I love the name Cobb I LOVE COBB. He loves corn on the cob.
LA: They both play thieves as well.
DC: Do you think he eats corn on the cob while he’s writing?
LA: *laughter*
DC: I love cob.
LA: He shows the main character how to be a thief, and the main character starts to model himself on Cobb. In typical Nolan fashion it delves into twisty, turny territory. In terms of character motivations though, it’s quite ambiguous as to why the main guy is doing what he does. He admires Cobb, Cobb’s charismatic and wears a suit, has slick hair, it’s basically Christopher Nolan in thief-form. Trying to avoid giving a minor review, I think ‘Following’ is good, I know people say ‘Insomnia’ is his weakest work, but I think ‘Following’ probably is because it was effectively made by amateurs. In Nolan fashion its written very, very well, it does the non-linear narrative very well, but it’s Nolan trying to make a professional movie without professional actors. The dialogue is well written but it doesn’t have the same presence as it would if it was being read by a professional actor.
DC: I haven’t seen ‘Following’; I’m not yet a Nolan completist, but it seems unfair to hold up what is essentially an independent, very, very low budget early film.
LA: It was done on the weekends as well.
DC: It’s not fair on Nolan to hold it up in his filmography alongside ‘Memento’ and everything that followed. It’s a calling card by an amateur young filmmaker in his twenties prior to getting the funds to make something a little bit more polished.
LA: It’s like Aronofsky going from ‘Pi’, this quirky little studenty movie onto ‘Requiem for a Dream’, which contains some of the same sensibilities but is far more complete and recognised, so to speak. Would you agree?
DC: Yeah, I mean, Paul Thomas Anderson as well with ‘The Dirk Diggler story’ in his teens. They’re just experimenting before the big break. Even ‘Hard Eight’ to an extent, a good film in its own right, but the filmography really kicks off for me with ‘Boogie Nights’. All very interesting if you’re a completist and a fan, but for most people you’d say Nolan’s mainstream career begins with ‘Memento’ and follows through from there. At some point I’d like to watch ‘Following’ and see how it fits with the jigsaw puzzle, watching out for the traits and trends as they pop up in that earlier film.
LA: The funny thing as well with ‘Following’, it’s an interesting film as you say if you’re a completist, and I am a very, very big Christopher Nolan fan, but the other thing you realise after you watch it is that it really doesn’t look like a Christopher Nolan movie. He has quite a good working relationship with Wally Pfister, his DP, and this is the only one his movies not done by Wally Pfister. It doesn’t feel like the rest of his work. There’s a consistency of style in everything from ‘Memento’ to ‘Inception’ that’s lacking from ‘Following’. You kind of feel that because Wally Pfister wasn’t involved in any way, it ultimately doesn’t feel at all like a Christopher Nolan movie. It’s just Nolan filming his friends on the weekend.
DC: I really like these occasions where a DP teams up with a director almost exclusively. I’m not really aware of what else Pfister’s really done. He almost seems like a one-man show for the most part.
LA: It’s funny actually, I’m a fan of Mark Kermode the critic, and he makes the point every time he reviews a Christopher Nolan film that Wally Pfister started off directing straight-to-video erotic thrillers until he met Christopher Nolan.
DC: No way, no way! Is Pfister a pseudonym?
LA: I have no idea.
DC: A guy with the name Pfister doing porno movies? For real?
LA: *laughter*
DC: Are you sure it isn’t one of these things like Roderick Jaynes the Coen Bros fictional editor? It’s a pseudonym and Nolan actually photographs his own films. I can imagine Nolan with a raised eyebrow craftily creating a former porn-star DOP while he does the whole thing himself.
LA: I’m looking at his IMDB page. He’s real. He did a movie called ‘The Granny’ before ‘Memento’, pretty much everything else is erotic thriller. Now he’s one of the best cinematographers working in big budget filmmaking. Barry Sonnenfeld as well, he did porno movies before.
DC: Verhoeven too. It’s funny really, it’s a criticism that’s been levelled at Nolan that he seemingly has no interest in sexuality or sexual behaviour – so it’s funny that he’d work so closely with a guy that spent the first half of his career photographing pornography. The desexualised Nolan world and he picks a guy who’s best at filming come-shots. We’ve done the sexualised Batman anyway.
LA: All the work that isn’t ‘Inception’ and his ‘Batman’ movies do feel very similar. ‘Inception’ has this wonderful thing where it feels like a Christopher Nolan movie but it also feels different from everything else as well. In terms of mood, ‘Memento’ and ‘The Prestige’ are probably more closely alike any two Nolan movies, even his two ‘Batman’ films, which both feel very, very different. I genuinely don’t feel like I’m watching a comic book movie when I watch ‘The Dark Knight’, whereas with ‘Batman Begins’ you still have the villain running around with a bag on his head and Liam Neeson spewing this thespian dialogue
DC: I’m lost in this conversation. What were we talking about?
LA: Sorry, distracted. Yeah, mood, in terms of the mood of his movies, I feel ‘Memento’ and ‘The Prestige’ have a lot in common. I think the psychology of his characters in both of those movies, it’s the darkest he’s got in delving into the reasons and motivations for his characters actions. That whole unreliable narrator thing in both movies as well, if you think about it ‘Memento’ has Guy Pearce’s character unable to form new memories, anything he informs us is to be doubted, whereas in ‘The Prestige’ they spend half the time reading from each others diaries and the one-upmanship is such that you can’t trust a word they’re telling the audience. Those kind of dynamics are where Nolan works best, I think.
DC: Is this something that’s present in ‘Following’ as well?
LA: Not so much the unreliable narrator, but the main character is very naïve, you don’t mind me divulging the ending do you?
DC: By all means.
LA: Cobb, the thief, works for the mob. When he realises the main character is following him, he uses this to implicate him in something. The whole ending is one of these ‘rug out from under the feet’ kinds of things, with Cobb setting the guy up and this writer character potentially going to prison.
DC: Corn on the cob.
LA: Cobb gets away scot free.
DC: So it’s basically, much as ‘Memento’ and ‘The Prestige’ change you interpretation of the film with knockout endings, plot twists that don’t feel lazy or inorganic, but rather change your understanding of the film that preceeded them but enrich it rather than diminish it.
LA: Even on outlandish territory, I mean, the whole idea behind the ending in ‘The Prestige’ is as outlandish as he’s gotten really across his career, but still it feels convincing even when it goes to that science-fictiony place. It sticks with it. Even away from that, would the Borden brothers really continue to be one person as there family collapses around them. Because you’ve invested so much in these characters and in the narrative he’s spun though, you don’t really question any of it. They’re so well made, they’re constructed within an inch of their lives, and you just go with it.
DC: Yeah, I think the thing I love about ‘The Prestige’ is that…
LA: It’s your favourite, isn’t it?
DC: Yeah, it’s my favourite, you follow these characters that make a living out of illusion, out of tricking their friends and family, out of tricking the world, and they think they’re in control, but ultimately they’re not. Without sacrificing the internal logic of the film, they find themselves confronted by a power they can’t understand and can’t believe when the Tesla character creates something that genuinely is magical, even though it takes this turn, it never becomes fantastical.
LA: It never sacrifices its integrity.
DC: Correct. I’ve heard people say they think Nolan tricks the audience by taking this turn into the supernatural, but I think the exact opposite.
LA: It seems completely natural really. It’s a film that deals with magic and magicians, it seems a natural progression for the film to delve into something as outlandish as that. If it was anything less I would have actually been a bit disappointed. If it had all been an illusion I would have been more pissed off.
DC: You could take those characters and tie it up in a nice, thrillery, real-world kinda way, but Nolan wants you to feel the wonder that Borden and Angier’s audiences feel. You don’t get that with the twin twist alone. You need it to go somewhere you don’t expect.
LA: I agree completely. There’s a very fine line though when you’re going to go as leftfield as the film does. I have real issues with the Cameron Crowe movie ‘Vanilla Sky’. I didn’t buy into how outlandish it got. It did just seem completely ‘out there’ considering what preceeded. With all Nolan’s movies though he establishes the world so well that you really buy into everything. Tesla, as a historical character, was a nutter anyway.
DC: A friend told me Tesla used to walk around saying he had a miniaturising ray in his belt. The guy was obviously capable of amazing things, and I love the speculative, historical fiction element, taking one of the great real-world geniuses of their era and tying them in with the fictional element and the supernatural element.
LA: One of the things I also found interesting when watching the special features on the DVD a while ago is that Nolan, despite the period, treats it like a contemporary thriller. It isn’t some costume drama. He’s quite open about the fact it wasn’t about how accurate the aesthetic of turn-of-the-century London was, it’s a contemporary dramatic thriller that just happens to be set in the nineteen hundreds.
DC: I also think that, first and foremost, despite the places it goes, it’s firmly rooted in the characters. It’s ostensibly a story of obsession and rivalry. I guess the best comparison that immediately jumps to mind is the Milos Forman ‘Amadeus’ film. At first glance, it’s some sort of period biopic, but on closer inspection that’s really not what the film is at all. ‘The Prestige’, really, is a dark and often quite frightening drama about two men who come to have this great hatred and competition with each other. It’s a character study.
LA: You can almost consider it a prelude to the psychological warfare between Batman and The Joker. These two, at the end of the film, they just hate each other. It’s quite interesting seeing them start off as these bickering stagehands, onto these careers as very successful magicians, yet their relationship personally and professionally deteriorates until they hate each other to the very bone. I love the progression of it. They never have a great relationship to start with but in terms of how spiteful their relationship gets, it’s dark stuff. It’s darker than ‘The Dark Knight’. If you look at ‘The Dark Knight’, in terms of the playing off of the characters there, you know, The Joker may be charismatic but he doesn’t have any of the depth of Borden or Angier and that’s what makes ‘The Prestige’ work. The chemistry between those two characters.
DC: I love that it escalates to the point that they’re both willing to commit these acts that go beyond terrible. Their dedication to destroying the other in every way, their dedication to their career, their artform, whatever you want to call it. The Jackman character does things so terrible they’re scarcely touched upon. The classic Nolan ‘final shot’ Jesus Christ moment. Cue Thom Yorke.
LA: It’s personified in that moment. My favourite scene in ‘The Prestige’ is that moment where Angier meets Borden in prison and he’s Lord Cauldlow, and you know something sinister is happening and he says to Angier “you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty anymore”. I really, really love that moment. The rest of it is all about the rest of the loose ends, but the apex of these two characters is at that one moment where you realise just how far one has gone to ruin another. It’s one of the best character moments I’ve ever seen. I still think ‘The Prestige’ holds the most weight in terms of his characterisation.
DC: People criticise Nolan for his inability to write women but that’s a load of horseshit when you spend five minutes with the Rebecca Hall character in ‘The Prestige’. It’s the perfect use of a supporting character to illustrate a broader point about a leading character.
LA: It’s the perfect example of a supporting character fullstop. It adds extra weight to how far Borden is going with his career and carrying on with this act. It’s physically causing the woman he’s married to break down and eventually commit suicide. It does exactly what a supporting character should do. That’s my take on it.
DC: It’s a little sad that the Johansson character doesn’t quite get the same strength of material as Hall does. Hall’s probably a better actress anyway, but Johansson seems a little superfluous and underdeveloped. I’ll give the critics that one.
LA: I think ‘The Prestige’ is one of his most underrated films, and I think it’s his least critically lauded. It has under an eighty percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes which I think is very unfair. It’s every bit as good as ‘Memento’ and ‘Batman Begins’ and as I said, it’s probably the best work he’s done with characters.
DC: It’s his ‘Barry Lyndon’. A minor classic that people will give a lot greater credit to a few years down the line inside of a larger body of work. It really requires a little time and repeat viewings to truly appreciate how strong some of these elements are and how perfectly he conducts his orchestra, so to speak. One of the things I realised about it as well which is increasingly noticeable, especially with ‘Inception’, is what a strong director of actors he is. Often an overlooked quality. I don’t think you’ll find an out-and-out poor performance in any of the films he’s made over the last ten years. ‘The Prestige’ was the first time it really jumped out at me how impeccable the supporting cast are, through to the small roles. Andy Serkis’ role, Bowie as Tesla. Michael Caine may be my favourite performance in a Nolan movie. He’s the real emotional centre of the thing.
LA: He’s also, in amongst all these crooked people, one of the only truly decent people in the movie. He’s the anchor for these two men and I do find it funny how as you realise one of these leads isn’t quite as decent as you thought he would be, his loyalties start to change as the audiences do. It’s part of the deception of the film that the perception of the characters changes so radically. At the beginning Christian Bale seems cocky and arrogant but as it progresses you kind of realise that he’s really nothing on how far Angier’s willing to go.
DC: I think this may be part of the reason it wasn’t particularly critically or commercially successful. It’s very difficult for an audience to accept the lead character changing and unravelling in front of you. You spend the bulk of the screentime with Angier and it’s only afterwards, upon reflecting, that you realise what a horrible, dislikeable character he ultimately is. When you’ve followed him through his wife’s death, his desire to create these shows and discover this perfect trick, I mean it’s very difficult for most audiences to understand. Bale in the ‘Batman’ films takes Bruce Wayne to some dark places, but he’s always, I wouldn’t say morally upstanding, but he’s ultimately the hero and ultimately will, and does, do the right thing. He’s for the most part a force for good in a fucked up world. Angier on the other hand is a complicated and ultimately failed, evil man. Unfortunately he’s also the protagonist.
LA: It’s funny that you mention that, moving onto ‘Memento’…
DC: Moving back to ‘Memento’ *laughs*
LA: Moving back to ‘Memento’, Leonard is also a very difficult protagonist who’s also difficult to empathise with in some ways.
DC: You first meet him as he’s committing murder.
LA: It’s not even just that, you realise his motivations and you realise his motivation is to find the killer of his wife but because of his whole unreliable narrator and that goes back to the whole structure, the structure has been accused of gimmickry, I actually think ‘Memento’ works mainly because of its structure, in terms of portraying the fragmented nature of Leonard’s mind.
DC: It’s absolutely necessary for ‘Memento’ to be structured as it is with these parallel narratives, one of which is in reverse. The Shelby character is the beating heart of the film; we see the world and events exclusively through his eyes. Because of the nature of the characters condition, the only way we can truly understand how it is for him is for Nolan to try and replicate that confusion in the audience.
LA: The nature of his plight through structure. It just works in a very compelling fashion. You’re finding stuff out as he is. Have you seen the special feature where you can watch it chronologically?
DC: I’m aware it exists, I haven’t seen it. It seems pointless.
LA: Totally pointless.
DC: It seems as pointless as a special version of ‘Batman Begins’ or ‘The Prestige’ in chronological order. You witness events in the order Christopher Nolan intends you to witness them. Certain points about the characters or the story are revealed when they’re meant to be. To experience it any other way is a disservice to the film they’ve made. It’s as ridiculous as that cut of the Godfather for television where they put all three films in timeline order. It’s nonsensical and gimmicky. If Coppola wanted to do that originally he would have done that originally.
LA: When I say that both ‘Memento’ and ‘The Prestige’ are quite alike, in terms of the character, as we’ve just discussed with Angier eventually ending up being this repugnant person, I’m not saying Leonard becomes repugnant, but through these people we meet by the time the film ends in the middle of the story, we learn that Teddy isn’t the nasty person he’s said he is, we realise Carrie Ann Moss isn’t a very nice person and is manipulating him for her own revenge, but in terms of realising how untrustworthy Leonard is, when it comes to the end and we realise what he’s actually done in terms of giving him this purpose to solve this crime, he’s a character that you start empathising with, much as Angier, but end up sitting there thinking he’s quite crooked. There are those moments of conscience there, yet he consciously decides to have Teddy be his target. He consciously chooses in those moments of clarity to just continue on so he has purpose. He’s just as difficult a character to empathise with by the end of the movie as Angier is in ‘The Prestige’.
DC: I don’t entirely agree. It isn’t a wisecracking, jokey character here, he’s obviously dangerous, traumatised and we don’t really know a great deal about him. What we learn about the character at the end of the film changes the way we view the character on future viewings of the film, but there’s a sympathy there at the end that Shelby gains during ‘Memento’ and Angier slowly loses during ‘The Prestige’. Obviously ‘Memento’ is told in a nonlinear fashion, but that’s the point we leave the characters at and consequently our final feelings regarding them are as they are at that point. Neither of them are as unreasonable as Ledger in ‘The Dark Knight’.
LA: I wouldn’t say Leonard becomes as evil as Angier, I wouldn’t even necessarily say he becomes evil at all, but what I took from the film is how untrustworthy he’s become, especially as a protagonist. How reliable is he? The fact this protagonist has taken you through this journey immediately makes you question not just what the hell is going on but literally everything in the narrative. It’s not just Leonard. In terms of its structure, you find out all these different things about all these different characters. I mean, things that Teddy has done for his own personal gain directly effect those of Carrie Ann Moss who in turn uses Leonard to get revenge, and obviously Teddy is in the frame as this John G character. The broken brain function makes everything else unreliable in the narrative as well, not just the quest itself but everybody else. You can’t trust anybody in that movie whether they’re a nice person or not. That’s kind of what makes ‘Memento’ work and that’s kind of why you don’t have a choice but to watch it in the order it’s in. It just wouldn’t work otherwise.
DC: People thought it was a little unusual at the time, if I remember correctly, when Nolan decided to do a remake of ‘Insomnia’.
LA: It was a recent film as well.
DC: It was a recent film. It doesn’t seem particularly surprising to me, I mean, it doesn’t seem to me like a project he’s groomed. It’s a job for hire. He’s had this explosive independent debut with ‘Memento’ and well, let’s just say I don’t blame him for choosing to do a studio project. A lot of the traits present in the characters in ‘Memento’ follow through into the three leads in ‘Insomnia’. Swank, Williams and Pacino almost feel like continuations of some of the things he plays about with in the previous film. Certainly this unreliable narrator, troubled and destructive protagonist. Pacino has a great deal in common with Guy Pearce in ‘Memento’.
LA: I agree with you in terms of it seeming like a ‘hack for hire’ job, and it’s also the only one of his movies he hasn’t had a writing credit on in any way, shape or form. You do get the impression that someone at the studio saw ‘Memento’ and thought, ‘that guy would be quite good for this’, but if you think about all the motivations of everyone involved, especially how troubled Will Dormer is, it does seem custom made for someone who delves so much into the character motivations as Christopher Nolan.
DC: It’s exactly the same situation as David Fincher’s in now with his ‘Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ remake. The project is perfectly suited to his sensibilities; he’s very much the obvious choice to make it, so though there’s an argument about sacrificing your integrity in order to have a payday and get the greenlight for some projects you want to make, and so fourth, at the same time you’re not choosing to make a Transformers movie or a Twilight movie here. You’re at least picking a commercially viable project inside of the studio system that’s well suited to you as a filmmaker. Yes, on retrospect ‘Insomnia’ is Nolan’s weakest film and it’s his least personal film and least interesting film, but as a stepping stone to what followed, and as a means to integrate himself into the studio setup, I think he picked a sensible project. Excellent acting talent was handed to him on a plate and he made something worthwhile.
LA: It’s definitely his most conventional film to date. If you don’t include ‘Following’ it’s his weakest movie, but it’s like looking at Pixar’s back catalogue where, in my opinion, there weakest movie is ‘Cars’ – a film I still liked. ‘Insomnia’ is still very much worth everybody’s time. It’s his most conventional film I feel, but not through a fault of his own. In terms of filmmaking prowess he was able to make something that could have been really bog standard and generic into at least a pretty interesting movie.
DC: Because of Nolan, we’re holding the film up to higher standards than it requires. Had most other directors made that film it’d be given a great deal of credit. Because it’s racked up next to the likes of ‘Memento’, ‘The Prestige’ etc, unfortunately it’s going to look a little shabby by comparison. I don’t want to do the film a disservice, it’s very polished and professional, but I don’t think audiences had any real passion for it. There’s no cult love or fanbase there either.
LA: Yeah, there’s no major fanbase for it. People acknowledge it’s a good movie when people think about Christopher Nolan but …
DC: It doesn’t inspire much passion or real interest.
LA: I think Robin Williams and Hilary Swank are both very understated. I think Williams’ performance is one of his best. Pacino is generally great. It’s the ‘hack for hire’ job though and there just doesn’t seem the same level of passion as the rest of his work.
DC: You can’t expect an audience to be enthusiastic about something the filmmaker isn’t enthusiastic about. Audiences can feel that. The example that jumps straight to mind is ‘Spider-Man 3’. I don’t think it’s deserving of much of the criticism levelled at it, but the problems stem from Sam Raimi’s heart not being in it. You can sense it. It feels the same with ‘Insomnia’ to a lesser extent. It’s the only time where the ‘cold and clinical’ label probably does apply. He’s going through the motions. It’s an admirable drama but it never truly grips an audience.
LA: I think he did that one with Warner Bros, and obviously he’s done everything since with Warner Bros, but it kind of shows when you move onto something immediately afterwards like ‘Batman’, with a character like Bruce Wayne, Wayne seems custom made in terms of the dark, gritty stuff you find in the graphic novels like ‘Batman: Year One’ and ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’ – that sort of portrayal of Bruce Wayne seems custom made for someone who’s made films with characters like Will Dormer and Leonard Shelby.
DC: He definitely seemed more interested in the project. It’s a good match of director and material. The ‘Batman’ series had gone so far from what Batman can be and probably should be. A dark, quite frightening, vigilante superhero in a dark and dangerous city. Nolan made the protagonist exactly that. Shelby and Dormer are there and Christian Bale as Batman is there. He’s not a grinning, shark repellent, nipples Batman.
LA: *laughter*
DC: This is a dangerous man on a merciless one man mission.
LA: He’s on a path to self destruction when you meet him. He’s in a prison on the other side of the world. Nobody’s going to take the killing of their family very well, but this is something else. He’s in prison, he has no problem taking on five guys at a time. The great thing is about the way its done is he finds this mentor figure in the form of Liam Neeson that’s able to make him channel it. The thing I like about ‘Batman Begins’ is that as an origin story, it really shows how someone can channel that aggression and trauma into something that can be used for the forces of good – resulting in Batman. Going back a bit, I remember when we saw it with James. He was sceptical because it was a comic book movie, after we came out of it I asked what he thought and he just said “the movie speaks for itself”. That’s everything you need to know about ‘Batman Begins’ really. When you have a gentleman who’s sceptical about comic book movies as a whole and he digs Batman as much as we did, that speaks volumes for the film. It’s able to engage on every level. It’s not about nipple Bat suits and Arnold as Mr.Freeze; it’s about finally delving into Batman as a person and as a character.
DC: By getting a real filmmaker they’ve been able to take a potentially interesting character and treat them seriously for once. It’s not a slick, nothing, entertaining summer movie. This is a real film with real characters and real weight behind it. Just because it’s dealing with traditionally exaggerated, fantastical comicbooky ideas doesn’t mean the drama can’t have weight to it. By approaching Batman as a psychological drama as well as a gourmet popcorn movie, the film works a lot better than the last two instalments of the series ever could. It’s the interpretation of that character required at this time and it required a filmmaker as talented as Chris Nolan to make it.
LA: When you think back at it, the campy nature of Batman just doesn’t seem to fit with it. When you look back, the Burton ones are darker than the Nolan ones in some ways, in terms of how gothic they are.
DC: They’re different movies. Burton has a different approach to the darkness. It’s not as grounded in reality or character and there’s this really offbeat, sadomasochistic, fetishised edge to the character. The drama doesn’t have the same weight to it. I love the movies, especially ‘Batman Returns’, but they’re more Burton quirk projects than anything. ‘Batman Begins’ is an exploration of what would really lead a man to do the things you see on screen, and you buy into it. That’s testament to Nolan’s skill that you do.
LA: On top of that, it still knows it’s a comic book movie, more so than its sequel. Its sequel delves into being even more gritty and real than ‘Batman Begins’. Though you can sit down and believe that a man would dedicate his life to this cause, and at the end of the day he’s dressing up as a Bat and fighting crime, there’s still the comic book aesthetic. Though everything’s portrayed in a very convincing light, you still have Batman being able to use his grapple hook to fly up fifty stories. They’ve still been able to integrate a character as ridiculous as The Scarecrow and his fear toxin and make it believable. Even joking about the fact that the character of Ra’s Al Ghul is immortal.
DC: I think one of the things that really helps Nolan is the use of traditional filmmaking techniques. He has a real passion for old fashioned craftsmanship, eschewing modern special effects and CGI where possible in favour of real world locations, sets and practical techniques. That really enables you to believe that the world of Gotham City and these characters exist and to buy into it despite the fact that it’s heightened reality. The nature of the way the production design in the last two ‘Batman’ films Warner Bros put out prior to ‘Begins’ was such that you could set the bloody ‘Godfather’ in that setting and you couldn’t take it seriously. You could have Daniel Plainview in that bloody setting and you couldn’t take it seriously. Nothing in the world could ever be taken seriously in that interpretation of Gotham. I honestly think you could drop Clooney and Mr.Freeze into Nolan’s Gotham and I’d probably start thinking ‘Christ this almost works’, you know? You create such a visceral, real world that I’m willing to buy man-in-bat-suit inside of it.
LA: When there’s talk about Nolan believing The Penguin to be a difficult character to portray, you know, I’d consider The Scarecrow a more difficult character than The Penguin. It’s not impossible to have a character like that in Nolan’s world. Maybe a disfigured gangster? It’s already got you thinking in that way. If they have The Riddler in the next movie it won’t be portrayed as this jokey prankster.
DC: They get to the core of it. The Joker was a twisted, disturbed representation of chaos. A Catwoman would be another vigilante on the street; Robin would be a young nutcase replicating what Batman does, The Penguin would be an eccentric crime boss. These are all characters that Nolan can, and will, make work. He grounds these characters in reality and consequently you accept the, let’s be frank, ludicrous nature of the things you’re witnessing.
LA: It’s grounded in reality, but because it’s based on a comic book you’re allowed to have certain suspensions of belief. The Joker being able to predict what the police are going to be doing ten days ahead of time – that’s the nature of the character. Because he is this psychotic genius, and because with all of Nolan’s movies he’s invested in the world he’s set up – Gotham city being such a shithole you really could believe it would birth something like The Joker. The Joker would be a product of somewhere as horrible as Gotham City. Two-Face as well, it also seems a natural story progression for someone that is so obsessed with chaos in Gotham City to birth a super villain in the form of Two-Face. You’re invested in the characters so much that you can’t help but be drawn into this world. It’s so grounded in reality that you actually start to think Richard Branson could take up the mantle as ‘Virgin Man’. It just works. It works in both movies.
DC: George Osbourne is ‘Vat Man’.
LA: *laughter*
DC: Maybe they could use that in part three? I do agree though, but for me, moving into the second film, there’s grandeur, you know, it does what great sequels do and explores the world further and makes the events and what’s at stake much bigger. He seems to have got it under control with ‘Inception’, but going into the biggest film he’d made at the time with ‘The Dark Knight’, Nolan lets some indulgences in and it ends up a little messy structurally. The pacing is really offbase in the third section of the film. We can say that this is a comic book universe where a character like The Joker can predict what the police are doing, but I think they took his plots a scheme too far in that film. An ending too far. It starts to take you slightly, ever so slightly, out of the reality Nolan had created. It’s a minor nitpick in what is otherwise an excellent movie. It does feel somewhat, certainly moving into the next film, that I really hope he’s able to keep it as grounded as ‘Batman Begins’ and not do what traditionally most third parts of a series do by jumping too far into the ‘other-worldly’. Sometimes it seemed ‘The Dark Knight’ dipped its toes in the danger zone in that last forty five minutes.
LA: When people shower ‘The Dark Knight’ with so much praise, I mean, I did prefer it to ‘Batman Begins’, but that’s not to say that the quality between the two is as great as everyone makes out. I think ‘The Dark Knight’ is only better than ‘Begins’ very marginally. It’s like you say, ‘The Dark Knight’s a messier film and ‘Begins’ is more tightly paced and structured. If something of minor significance at the beginning of a movie becomes fairly major, in the case of ‘Batman Begins’, the little blue flower he finds ends up being pretty much the catalyst for everything else. In terms of structure, it’s much more contained and works well for it, but ‘The Dark Knight’ has this epic scale. I’m willing to put up with the chaos in it because of the sheer bravura of the thing. It’s an audacious piece of work.
DC: The actual villains plot in the final hour of ‘Batman Begins’ is fairly rudimentary even though it’s executed very well. The Joker in ‘The Dark Knight’ causing mayhem and chaos in and around the city and in and around the characters is immediately more compelling. In addition, the action sequences, even though they’ve never been of paramount importance in Christopher Nolan’s Batman world, they’re better choreographed, better cut, more enjoyable than in ‘Begins’. The increased budget and expectations of a sequel mean he had to raise the game in those areas. Hopefully he’ll raise the stakes even further next time.
LA: His entire career seemed to culminate in something as successful and critically lauded as ‘The Dark Knight’. After that you sat there and thought, where can he take it now? The thing about ‘Inception’ is, not only do I think it’s the best thing he’s done to date, everything he’s done prior to ‘The Dark Knight’ that led to ‘The Dark Knight’, all the faults he learnt from that experience he didn’t just perfect, but almost made his own with ‘Inception’. ‘Inception’ is in terms of its structure, in terms of the way it’s written, in terms of everything is so much more of a step up not just from ‘The Dark Knight’, but from everything he’s done, you kind of get the impression if everything was leading up to ‘The Dark Knight’ then everything he did there was leading up to ‘Inception’ and I honestly don’t think, unless he pulls something crazy out of the bag with ‘Batman 3’, that he can make a movie quite as successful in every way as ‘Inception’ is.
DC: It feels like the peak of everything he’s been working towards as a filmmaker this last decade. Some directors, take Peter Jackson recently, they let their flaws and indulgences get the better of them as he’s done with ‘King Kong’ to an extent and then definitely now with ‘The Lovely Bones’ – which is a disaster. Others acknowledge their flaws and problems and try to work at them and sometimes even turn them into positives. It’s a big two fingers at his critics. Anyone who criticised him for the lack of an emotional centre to his films, he grounds ‘Inception’ entirely and exclusively in that. That is what the film is about. That is what the main character is striving for. Equally deep, equally dark and disturbed and troubled character – but this time his quest is for something entirely pure.
LA: He’s not a morally bankrupt character either. It seems like he’s the first major character, well, Batman isn’t really morally bankrupt…he’s a broken man, but his intentions are ultimately pure even though he’s trying to exorcise these demons. They start off the movie and you’re in the middle of a heist. The movie just sits there and it establishes that the technology to do this exists and it sticks so rigidly to this world that, well, woe betide someone who tries to take a toilet break at any point, it throws it all at you so quickly that if you miss a beat you’re likely to get lost. It’s refreshing in that way because he’s not treating his audience like kids, at all, he’s basically saying ‘if you can’t keep up – tough luck.’
DC: With both the characters and the world. It’s one of these occasions where there are no real criticisms. Anyone who searches for any is grasping at straws. They’re nitpicking. The only one that does seem to pop up here and there though is a problem with exposition sequences and the fact that there’s the need for an audience surrogate in the Ellen Page Ariadne character. I think it’s ridiculous to suggest the film wouldn’t need that. It already demands so much of its audience it would be to the detriment of the film if it dropped you into a world without any explanations. It’s necessary to have that surrogate to help you understand some of the limitations and demands of this reality. I feel a little sorry for Ellen Page. The character’s a construct, essentially. She has a clear, singular purpose. She plays it very well though.
LA: It’s funny because I think one thing we discussed after seeing ‘The Dark Knight’ is that Christopher Nolan, you really look forward to the dialogue scenes even when he’s doing these big action movies. I think this is the first time though that you get so lost in the spectacle that even though the dialogue scenes have been and gone, there is literally nothing…you can’t say the action in this movie is sub par to the exposition, even though that’s all very well done in this film. He’s gone leaps and bounds from ‘Batman Begins’, which admittedly has some slightly messy action scenes. The heist in ‘Inception’ takes up pretty much the entire last half of the film. Compared to minor skirmishes really in the ‘Batman’ films, this single, continuous sequence dominates the entire last hour of the film. The first hour sets up these rules and sets up this technology and in terms of the logistics of putting these ideas into practise, it is completely staggering that he’s been able to orchestrate something that’s not only compelling but also doesn’t sacrifice the character development that’s already there.
DC: The final hour of ‘Inception’ is so ingenious, so completely indescribably ambitious on every level, it’s impossible to really talk about – you have to experience it.
LA: It’s not just ambitious, in terms of not just the technical achievement in the filmmaking, but in terms of the ideas behind it – I was in awe. What if that truck is going around the corner too quickly? When it’s tumbling down the hill and the gravity is switching off in the hallway. That they have to orchestrate these kicks, when they talk about the dreams within the dreams, time slows down, they know that when Yusef goes off this hill, Joseph Gordon Levitt has two minutes to get the kick ready in that dream, within the other dream they’ve got twenty minutes and within limbo they’ve got something like an hour. When you get your head around it and realise that Nolan has effectively constructed this world that’s not just complex, but when you’re finally able to understand how it works, and the functions and how infallible this idea and the logistics of this idea is, you kind of have to stand up and applaud. It’s the best way to describe it. At the end of the movie, when you stand up having fully experienced this world and having felt that gratifying effect, you’re almost high-fiving strangers on the bus on the way home. That wave of satisfaction you get from sticking with this film and trusting Nolan to take you through the process. The setup is great, but when it puts the ideas into practise it moves into an entirely different place.
DC: Watching the film, the experience afterwards, it’s comparable to the experience of having just listened to a truly great album. Sometimes you’re just baffled. You listen to ‘Dark Side of the Moon’…
LA: Sgt Peppers.
DC: Ok Computer or any of those, and you just think ‘how did they create this?’ ‘How did they do this?’ You don’t understand how human beings are capable of such things. It’s a very rare experience that you’re completely staggered by how it was possible to conceive an idea, let alone execute itself in a medium other people can experience. It’s just…
LA: Your brain feels like its melting. I think the last time I felt this good after watching a movie, this wave of gratification, was probably after I saw ‘Magnolia’, which as you know is still my favourite movie of all time. It’s odd to compare them, but in terms of the feelings I felt afterwards its, I mean, I saw ‘Inception’ by myself…
DC: Likewise.
LA: The only guy I could chat with afterwards was this guy who was also by himself. It’s an odd experience when you’re in a packed theatre and you end up communicating with a complete stranger to try and explain how great you’re feeling. There was just this knowing look between the two of us.
DC: It’s the Jurassic Park ‘you just made fucking dinosaurs’ moment. How was a guy capable of it? It sounds like such fanboy loved-upness, but I just can’t comprehend how he was able to conceive and execute the idea. One of the greatest achievements of all is that somehow he was able to smuggle this into the confines and restrictions of a big studio film. He was given 200 million dollars by a major corporation in mainstream American cinema and able to make a film that has more ingenuity, ideas and bravery then anything I’ve seen anywhere, of any budget, of any language. There’s some seriously cerebral science fiction going on here. As you said – brain melting stuff. All you can do afterwards is gasp, breathe a sigh of relief and begin the process of only thinking, only talking about ‘Inception’ for the next…Christ knows how long. That’s all I’ve done ever since. I was at this wedding on Saturday and, you know, people spent a lot of time talking about how fucking mental ‘Inception’ was.
LA: *laughter* I actually found myself getting frustrated by, I mean, it’s one of those kind of moments where…
DC: You can’t express it. You can’t express how good it is. You can’t go up to people and shake them and just say ‘you don’t understand, this isn’t just another five-star film, this isn’t just an exaggeration resulting from the excitement and euphoria of having seen a fun action movie. This film is significant. This may be one of the greatest films that has ever been made anywhere, ever, and I was there watching it in the first few days after it was gifted to the world. To realise that at the time is an amazing thing. I feel like one of the people who were there when those Beatles albums came out, and knew at the time they were listening to something people would probably be listening to in fifty years, a hundred years, they knew they’d be playing these songs to their grandchildren. You watch ‘Inception’ and you know you’re watching something our grandchildren will talk about when talking about films made in this time at this point in the world. It’s the birth of a pop culture artefact,
LA: There’s a couple of things I really like, the first is that the film is actually making a lot of money at the box office at the moment. Not the same levels of commercial success as ‘The Dark Knight’, which was inevitable, but people are seeing it and they are seeing it again.
DC: It’s got the buzz. You don’t do three weeks at number one in America when not based on any pre-existing material, when not a franchise, when not sequel fodder.
LA: Not a remake.
DC: That just doesn’t happen in the middle of summer. It’s almost unheard of. The fact it’s pulling in such high numbers is incredibly satisfying because it’s going to encourage studios to put money into more big, bold, director driven, ideas driven, distinctive and individual visions. The success of something like ‘Inception’ can only be a good thing for American cinema.
LA: When you think about the qualities of Blockbusters recently as well you could arguably say the best blockbusters of recent years are the likes of ‘Star Trek’, which is good, and ‘District 9’, which was very good – but I think one of the reasons ‘Inception’ has struck a chord is that though you get tripe like ‘Transformers’, when stacked alongside other blockbusters – stuff like ‘Star Trek’, which is admittedly an excellent movie – they just don’t compare. This isn’t just entertaining like these other movies; it literally takes narrative cinema to a level that hasn’t been seen in years – over a decade. Like I was saying, the closest comparison you can have in terms of an audacious idea is ‘The Matrix’. ‘The Matrix’, though being a very good film, is not as good as ‘Inception’ by quite a margin. It’s that whole thing of it being an original idea and I think that is why it is so gratifying. Someone has sat down and thought about the logistics of everything. The fact that the complexities of it and the ideas behind it are effectively completely infallible, there’s nothing you can fault with these ideas, is nothing short of breathtaking.
DC: Another two big fingers to the Nolan critics too – it’s absolutely fucking hilarious at points. It’s not just everything you want from a studio film but everything you want from any film. It’s sad, it’s adventurous, it’s funny, the action is fantastic, the performances are fantastic, the visuals are fantastic, the special effects are amazing. On every level it’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience and one you know you’re going to want to have periodically throughout your life for as long as your eyes hold out.
LA: Like you said after you saw it, these sorts of things are the reason we love movies. As you said, it’s the ‘dinosaurs in Jurassic Park’ moment. That’s the moment you realise you’ve fallen in love with movies. Movies like this reinvigorate your faith after so much rubbish. You forget why you bother and then every now and then you get these gems. Last year it was ‘Benjamin Button’ and ‘Let the Right One In’, the year before it was ‘There will be Blood’. Those are the movies you’d typically consider to be great and pop up every year or two, but this is a movie every bit as good as something like that but in the form of a summer blockbuster, and you never, ever see that these days. You never see a movie that’s aimed specifically at an adult audience to make big bucks for a studio that has invested so much in its ideas. He’s always been an ideas man, but I’ve never seen him do it on the same level as this. Never.
This was definitely a fun experience. The question is - who's up next?
ReplyDeleteI have a few ideas: P.T. Anderson is the big one that comes to mind. Scorsese and DiCaprio's output. Maybe even on a series of movies like the Saw's Die Hard's or Star Wars saga.
ReplyDelete