Assignment 26.1

UNIT 26: Film Studies

Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan is a British screenwriter and director born on July 30, 1970 in London, England. He made his debut in 1997 with the short film Doodlebug. Movies Following, Memento and Insomnia gave him a later resounding name in Hollywood. He began making films at age seven when he first took his father's eight-millimeter camera and was particularly influenced by the work of Ridley Scott, and the science fiction films 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Star Wars (1977). In 1989 he made the short film Tarantella and in 1996 his short film Larceny was screened at the Cambridge Film Festival. His first feature film Following, based on his screenplay, won the 1998 Best Director Award at the Newport International Film Festival, the Silver Hitchcock Award at the Dinard British Film Festival and the Black and White Award at the Slamdance International Film Festival. After this success he made other breakthrough films of his career- Memento and Insomnia. His newer famous successful movies are for example trilogy The Dark Knight, Inception, Dunkirk, The Prestige, Interstellar and his soon film Tenet in 2020.

Auteur is a French word for ‘author’ and auteur theory in terms of film and cinema it is an idea that the artist, usually film director, is the author and primary force behind the movie, this is when the director leaves his own creative signature in the movies and has more responsibility for the quality of the movie than anyone else.
Nolan can be considered as an auteur as he leaves many creative signatures in his movies and has lots of similar techniques of using trademarks. He writes and directs all of his movies that he has done which definitely makes him an auteur because Christopher Nolan has a huge impact on the finished product.
He is probably best known for his non-linear storyline, which means that the scenes are not in the chronological order. To add additional deeper explanation he uses extensive use of flashbacks and flashforwards which also bring a different perspective of the movie and links multiple story threads together. Also, in nearly all of his movies the opening scene is not in chronological order with the rest of the film. For example in Batman Begins Nolan uses lots of flashbacks of childhood in the interpretation to speed up what the audience is watching and at the same time continue the main storyline that starts from a point in the future.
In many of Nolan’s movies is not always clear if the protagonist is a hero or an antihero, the main character starts off with positive personalities that are in the end shown as evil ones. That’s where the audience gets confused and has to pay attention to the character and their development during the movie. It can be seen for example in The Prestige, here we see the protagonist Angier as a victim because his past friend Borden caused the death of his wife, in the end though we can see that the obsession for revenge makes him maybe even bigger villain than Borden.
Nolan’s stories are his forte however he is also very careful and pays close attention to shots and where he puts the camera and what it says to the audience, mainly this is true when it comes to dialogues and characters. His favourite shot is to put a camera at the eye level of the actor to allow making the perspective as if the audience is the character which is a good way to create a first-person like experience for the audience without giving up a third-person storytelling advantage. For example in Insomnia when Walter Finch is chased by Dormer the camera follows behind Dormer.
Another thing that reveals him is his use of lighting in films. He uses cold lighting in which the whole movie looks just cold. His use of contrast between light and darkness shows character growth or decay and exploration. For example in Dunkirk there are lots of bright but cold lighting to also suggest the mood and there are also some dark scenes at night.
Christopher Nolan’s biggest signature is also the hardest to spot. He uses connections in his movies that can be physical or based on ideas and themes. Some of them are easy to point out- The Batman trilogy where the movies continue on each other and some are hard to point because are found in different movies that are not related to each other. One of many examples can be when The Prestige starts off with Christian Bale’s character in prison, just like Batman Begins.
Another connection is Nolan’s use of actors in the movies that he likes to work with. Christian Bale, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe and Marion Cotillard have all had more than one role in multiple Nolan’s films.

Inception
Inception is one of his movies I personally really like and don’t mind watching it more times. Inception is one of the biggest mysteries Nolan has to offer. Each film has a fundamental genre, a simple kind of entertainment that we can anticipate when we see it. Inception is a, through and through, action film. In every single level is involved shooting scenes, from reality to Limbo and different levels for example in the first dream level, there are also lots of car battles and chasing tricks, anti-gravity hand to hand fighting within second level, in Level 3 even people have gunfights on skis. Another genre where we could definitely classify Inception is science fiction, under this word many people imagine lightsabers and similar sci-fi stuff but only because Inception is not that kind of movie doesn’t mean it is not sci-fi at all. The most basic thing is dream sharing. Inception takes place in a world where the military has created a dream sharing system that not only puts people to sleep into their dreams, but also binds their subconscious mind to experience exactly the same dream space, also they are able to build it by illustrating a very specific location. The dreams have high structure as in the dreams they can feel pain and if they die or fall in the dream they wake up in the normal real world, there is a direct connection between real time and dream time. Lastly this piece is a heist movie, originally Nolan wanted to make it fully heist but then he realised in a film about dreams has to be more emotional content. Without doubt there are still some heist elements in the movie such as making a team of trained people in which everyone has specific function, a montage of strategizing and the actual implementation of the strategy involving stealth, deception and weaponry.
Inception will take you not only to various places in the world but also to an intimate and endless world of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a professional thief, the absolute master in the dangerous art of extraction: stealing valuable secrets from the depths of the subconscious during dreaming when the mind is most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability made him a sought-after player in the insidious world of  corporate espionage, but also made him a refugee and cost him everything he ever loved. Now Cobb gets a chance to redeem himself. One last action can give him back his normal life, but only if he manages to do the impossible - the inception. Instead of perfect theft, Cobb and his team of specialists have to turn things around. Their job is not to steal the idea, but to inspire it. If they succeed, it will be a perfect crime. But even the most careful planning and practise can’t prepare them for a dangerous enemy who is likely to anticipate their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could expect.
Nolan uses lots of his favorite actors and puts them into main roles such as Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as Arthur), Tom Hardy (as Eames), Cillian Murphy (as Fisher), Marion Cotillard (as Mal)  plus other well-known and famous actors such as in the main role is Leonardo DiCaprio (as Dom Cobb). Other main characters are played by Ellen Page (as Ariadne), Ken Watanabe (as Saito) and Dileep Rao (as Yusuf).
The movie has so many settings. A warehouse, Mombasa, a train, a plane, a tonne of crazy dreams. The warehouse it’s some kind of base where the team meets and plans, trains for the actions. We also get lots of transporting scenes such as the mentioned train, plane and helicopter. The only real world can be found only in Mombasa. But it is much more like the dream worlds than anything else. In fact, Nolan comments that Mombasa was intended to be a very labyrinthine sort of place that would reflect those kinds of environment that Ariadne would create. Lastly where the movie setting takes place is in 4 dreams which are a kind of metropolitan city, a luxurious hotel, a snowy fortress and a devastating coastal city.
Point of view, there are two types used in the movie in which the audience watches the film, the first one is very obvious and nothing else than layers. As I already said there are more dreaming levels and every level is lower and lower from reality. It’s like the reality is a surface and dreams are below and deeper you go into lower levels deeper you are away from the reality. In the movie are also flashbacks of Cobb’s memories of his wife and mind travelling between dream levels. Transition is a huge part that filmmakers use for telling the narrative story. In Inception Nolan uses cuts as transitions, which means that we go directly from scene to scene without any fading effects. It's a very discreet approach to splicing up the film. For example it switches between the scenes when Cobb is in one minute in Paris and in another is getting close to a gambling Eames.
There are few symbols appearing that the audience meets a lot during watching the movie. The main one is water, it’s more like a motif than symbol because water is in Inception everywhere.We begin with water as the very first shot is rolling waves of the ocean. Another presence of water is when Cobb refuses to wake up even though the dream has collapsed around him so they throw him into the water tub. There are many scenes with water but when does it exactly represent ? It can be guilt in which Cobb is metaphorically drowning in or it can stand for the truth or a keypoint that conveys people between the real world and the dream world, and between dream levels.
Same as water, trains are shown many times in Inception. First time we see a train is in Japan on a mission to gain information from Saito and it’s a bit foreshadowing to what will happen. Trains are kind of a big deal here as Mal and Cobb kill themselves in Limbo by lying down in front of a train. Trains here can represent life as a journey for Cobb and journey as a train stops him from going insane and keeps him hoping for better days.

Looking at the movie for content analysis I would say it’s clear that the movie is kind of surrealistic because of the dreams and things we see in them such as no gravity scene in classy hotel however interesting on Inception is that Nolan really structures and rules his dream worlds, they have their special setting and are organised by architects but memorised by dreamers. Film form in Inception is used in many different ways and I will pick and explain particular scenes as we can’t say it overall. In the opening scene there are two types of using a sound which can be either diegetic- which is the one that is heard by characters same as by audience and is not added, this is right at the beginning where we see ocean and hear the sound of waves that is heard same for us and same for Cobb on the beach. Another use of sound is non-diegetic which is the one added in the background for the audience but actually not heard by the characters, this is shown later when Cobb is at the table with another man, here is used intense music in the background to add tension into the scene. Furthermore there is a quality of lighting in Inception as some particular scenes are lit up in such a warm way that it even made the film's unrealistic appearance realistic. For example in scenes there are used lots of lighting aspects and even in unreal scenes it looks real such as in the no gravity scene there are lights on the walls and ceiling. Some Nolan’s creative signatures are found in Inception such as it’s non-linear storyline as the movie begins flashforward to the end or his use of point of view when the vertigo-inducing battle sequence is filmed from behind Arthur in the spinning hotel room. Camera shots and movements there are used lots of close ups on characters to show their emotions and to show objects that the audience should pay attention, the cuts are very quick and switches, the movement is almost invisible in many scenes even when it’s slightly moving such as zooming or keeping the focus with the character so the audience mostly doesn’t even recognise and realise there is some.

The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight is another Christopher Nolan’s movie I will analyse for this task which I personally like mainly due to performance and mainly by the great Heath Ledger in the role of Joker. The basic summary is that The Dark Knight follows Batman Begins and Christian Bale here reiterated the role of Batman / Bruce Wayne in the never-ending fight against crime. Wayne in a batman costume, along with Lieutenant James Gordon (Gary Oldman) of Gotham Police go after the criminal king Joker known for the symbol - a joker playing card - he leaves behind at the crime scene. Joker (Heath Ledger) is planning to prove to Batman that the words Gotham and peace will never stand side by side in the same sentence. Sal Maroni (Eric Roberts) takes over the vacant post of the former local mafia king and takes control of most of the gangs in Gotham. There is also a new state attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who could shuffle the cards (even with the joker in the deck).
The genre of the movie is adventure as it has elements such as having a hero saving the city and city citizens or exotic locations. The Dark Knight has lots of darkness and gloomy scenes and when we add psychopathic Joker that randomly kills people and blows up the buildings the movie gets kind of scary so it’s sort of a horror genre. The movie is also shown with elements of mystery as we have a detective in the town who is trying to solve the problems that recently happens and Batman is getting involved into this as well and tries to find the culprit. But underneath all of those genres, is some kind of strange and discussion of philosophy. The Joker has his own philosophy, he doesn’t want money how people mostly do, this can be seen when he burns down a mountain of money at some point, he wants to destroy the basic notion of order and law where is the idea that we can all live together as civilized people in a society that emphasizes the common good over individual desires. Of course, Batman stands against this notion, pushing the idea that people are inherently decent if you give them hope. Ironically, he does that by breaking the law, but he is absolutely certain of his only rule, and in fact he wants to hang on to the whole thing, provided Harvey has what it takes to shut down the crowd forever. So there is a battle of warring philosophies about different ways of living. Indeed it’s not clear which side wins in the end.
Again in The Dark Knight we see lots of familiar faces from Nolan’s selection of actors. In the main role of Batman we have Christian Bale, Cillian Murphy (as The Scarecrow) and Michael Caine (as Alfred). Other main roles are taken by Heath Ledger (as The Joker), Aaron Eckhart (as Two-face/Harvey Dent), Gary Oldman (as Gordon), Maggie Gyllenhaal (as Rachel), Morgan Freeman (as Lucius Fox), Chin Han (as Mr. Lau) and Eric Roberts (as Maroni).
The setting of the movie takes place in Gotham city. As it has been the place where the entire Batman’s career is set Nolan’s didn’t want to change it however he wanted to make the movie real at the same time. So he picked an actual place in one location for shooting and always made sure to show the attractive landscape of actual Chicago. For example after Joker blows up the hospital, panicking people are running along the shores of the river and are seen on famous bridges that cross the Chicago River. It is clearly the same body of water when Nolan is using some digital showing of the city so to not fool the audience he shows that he still uses the same city for his shooting.
Point of view is made by Third-Person Omniscient but basically it has basic shifting in characters’ perspectives. Nolan is not afraid to shift to Joker, Harvey, even Lucius and Alfred if it’s needed for the story and tells important information. However The Dark Knight focuses more on protagonist and leaves him the point of view rather than focus on narrative techniques.
One of the themes of the film could be definitely rules. As I already said Batman believes in his one rule about hope and also his heroic rule is no killing. He sticks to this rule and basically doesn’t break it even at the ending it’s more ambiguous about what actually happened. Also there is Harvey’s rule with his two-face coin. He lets people call the coin and it has the idea that their life V death is up to fate and not him making decisions however later on we find out that the coin is both sided same. He cheats, making rules he knows he won’t follow but he feels like it’s for the greater good for all and indeed lets face it sometimes probably is. The symbol that scares us the most is a fire truck. It’s part of the car chase while a police convoy is taking Harvey to jail, Joker comes with his truck. It is to create chaos which is Joker’s aim and it is that awful and scary not only for all characters but also for the audience because it has to do with the fact that it’s a fire engine, a part of a big social safety net that everyone depends on, and the truck takes our safety net away which builds mixed and terrifying emotions in a viewer.

Lastly the content analysis of The Dark Knight is contained with lots of additional effects and surreal things like Batman’s superpowers and this kind of stuff. There are moments where it is hard to recognise sound mix like what is music and what is sound design. Nolan himself commented that it was hard to choose and incorporate the right music to create specific emotional response, mainly the end of the movie is strongly scored with the music but it develops as the action progresses. In many scenes are used only diegetic sounds that are naturally in the scenes and leave the focus on conversations and characters, for example in the scene where the Joker proceeds to the mafia gang and advises them to them to kill the Batman, the scene is pretty intense as on the scene comes Joker to have a talk for the first time and builds the scary atmosphere, right in the first few seconds he makes his “magic trick” where he kills some man and to be honest there is no need for any additional sound as all the work does the character himself and meets the expected response from the audience where we have to pay attention to his every movement as this psychopathic guy could do anything in every seconds. As I already said non-diegetic sounds are added more in the action scenes at the end. In The Dark Knight is used dark lighting to highlight the drama and intensity of the scenes and story, many scenes are executed in the way of use of dark shadows with bright elements. Nolan’s creative signatures here are found for example in this storytime, he adds flashback to the robbery mentioned at the end of Batman Begins, his ambiguous hero or antihero thing with Harvey, and his connections on previous Batman movie and for example the use of joker card is found in The Prestige as well when Angier finds it on the bottom of his glass and here Joker gives it to the mafia as his “business card”.

Overall I strongly believe that I showed here that Christopher Nolan is deservedly considered as an auteur because his films are cleverly connected and he always leaves his creative signature in them.