Christopher Nolan (UK, born 1970)

The Dark Knight (2008) 

(This review, written as part of the BBC’s 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, freely makes reference to other films from the same list and does not read as well when taken out of its original context. It is reproduced here only for the convenience of having a director’s works collected on the same page.)

I was compelled to watch The Dark Knight about three or four years after it came out by a combination of the hype surrounding its release, which I had ignored up to that point, and more pertinently, a love for director Christopher Nolan’s later movie Inception. Perhaps, I thought, this might finally be the mainstream mega-budget superhero film that I would respect and enjoy.

It wasn’t to be. I watched Batman Begins, the film to which this is the sequel, first, and thought it was passable, despite some reservations (this really isn’t my type of movie). I then began The Dark Knight with its higher reputation in mind and an expectation that it would be altogether bigger and better. Subsequently, underwhelmed by what I saw as weaknesses in theme, tone, characterisation and substance, and predisposed against any appreciation of its technical aspects, I found the film completely unengaging and consigned it to the dustbin of films I would never watch again.

This would have remained the case were it not for this project. So I dutifully but reluctantly settled down for a second viewing, declining to re-watch Batman Begins for context, justifying my negligence by telling myself that without it, I would be able to better gauge how far The Dark Knight works as a stand-alone film.

I liked it better the second time around. I’ll say that much. My ‘problems’ with the film, to the extent that they really qualify as problems, are about the same as the ones I had when I watched Mad Max: Fury Road- speaking broadly, I don’t like films that are too loud, have got loads of explosions in them, and feel like they are jumping and shouting for my attention. It seems like they’re trying to appeal to the teenage boy in me, one that has never actually existed; I happened to be a teenager whose tastes were already entrenched in the perennial triad of Almost Famous, 25th Hour, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (albeit somewhat in the late stages of my teens), along with, of course, Lost in Translation, and a fully established roster of firm favourites that also included Clerks, Groundhog Day, Dazed and Confused, The Usual Suspects, American Beauty, Doug Liman’s Go, Fight Club, Ghost World and Sideways. I’m aware of Ghost World’s origins as a comic book, but it’s profoundly not my area; I have literally never read a comic book in my life and simply don’t understand- have never understood- why a man who decides he wants to be a vigilante feels it is necessary to garnish these activities by dressing up as a pointy-eared flying animal.

Other than these gripes, which are utterly irrelevant in the context of its intended audience and eye-watering box-office receipts, it’s undeniably a solid piece of work. I mean, that’s the least you can expect from Christopher Nolan, I suppose, although I haven’t seen the far less well-received Dark Knight Rises (or, for that matter, Tenet). When a film, however, employs a framework of clearly-defined heroes and villains, then it necessitates an ability to be fresh and compelling within these parameters; if we say, for the sake of argument, that The Dark Knight achieves this as well as it possibly could, it nevertheless remains a movie which is, in my view, inherently limited. The presence of a character- Aaron Copland’s Harvey Dent- who occupies positions of both hero and villain in the film, does not, to my mind, present any real challenge to this hypothesis. Conversely, Heath Ledger’s Joker is one of the most uninhibited characters to ever grace our screens; his portrayal, which made little impression on me first time around, became the key aspect of the movie on my second viewing, prompting, for one thing, questions surrounding the importance of motive in crafting a memorable and effective villain. It’s unusual for a villain- or any character, for that matter- to be given no motive, and who just wants to create as much chaos as he possibly can; the only antecedent I can think of off the top of my head is John Ryder in The Hitcher, whose activities, despite their stronger, more adult-oriented air of cruelty and viciousness, are on a much smaller scale than the Joker’s.

Compared to him, Batman is bland and flavourless. Putting aside the questionable message that villainy is altogether more interesting and fun than sticking to society’s rules, this is probably the most crucial sticking point when it comes to my ambivalence towards the film- I didn’t like the main character, I didn’t relate to him and I found him boring. To boot, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s role is underwritten, as is Morgan Freeman’s; ultimately, they play ciphers who are only there to move the plot along.

Is this a ‘bad’ film, then, in my opinion, or one that I would assert is basically a waste of time? No, my feelings towards it are more layered than that, and although many of them are negative, this is still the best film from the (admittedly very small) cross-section of superhero movies that I have actually physically seen (unless one counts The Incredibles, Super, or Mystery Men, which in this context, I don’t), with a palpable air of maturity and substance which was profoundly missing from the others. This was mostly thanks to its effective villain and his apparent embodiment of unmitigated nihilism, brought to life with great style, verve, and assurance by the late Heath Ledger.

Memento (2000) 

(This review, written as part of the BBC’s 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, freely makes reference to other films from the same list and does not read as well when taken out of its original context. It is reproduced here only for the convenience of having a director’s works collected on the same page.)

Memento concerns a man with memory loss looking for his wife’s killer. It’s a thriller- albeit a talky one- and it’s a noir, and it’s a puzzle piece, with particular emphasis, for me, on that final description. The movie is metered out to us in segments of about ten minutes, and to replicate the levels of confusion our protagonist must feel, it starts at the end and works backwards, meaning that we as viewers are never in possession of everything we need to form a full picture.

I saw this film very soon after it came out, aged around 15, intrigued by its USP. I was then alienated by its icy distance and what I perceived as a lack of characterisation and noticeable filmic reference points. Earlier I opined that Carol felt more like an artefact than an actual, full-bloodied movie that had insight, substance and depth, and in that vein Memento felt something like a cryptic crossword or a jigsaw, not a film. Some viewers may have felt as if its final scenes were like the last pieces of a jigsaw falling into place, but I didn’t. It wasn’t seeming to function like a movie should, really- it didn’t have the compelling characters, or little bursts of comedy, or great plotline, or unmistakably good dialogue, that were delivered in one form or another in all the movies that I loved and were generally recognisable in my broader cinematic experiences. If these sorts of things are missing, what are you left with? Like material comprised of watching a technician build something, placing pieces together to form a whole, there may be plenty of skill involved, but it’s not going to make good cinema, and such passages in documentaries are heavily edited and sped-up.

I watched it again as part of a Media Studies course I was on in 2003, and felt the same. Now here I am, almost 20 years later, viewing it for a third time.

It’s a little better than I remember. I still feel like it functions more like a pocket-watch than it does a movie. A contemporary of Memento would probably be The Usual Suspects, a film that I used to absolutely love, and though that love has receded in the intervening years, I still respect it enormously. So I have to ask myself why I have such different reactions to these two films that are both rooted in noir and are both very deliberately playing mystifying games of concealment and evasion with the audience. Well, for one thing, where The Usual Suspects is concerned, you aren’t just watching a guy driving around, with relative aimlessness, and sitting in motel rooms tattooing himself (that’s a very reductive way to look at Memento, but it’s not wholly inaccurate either.) For another, John G., as a mythical offscreen boogeyman, has nowhere near the presence of the monumental Keyser Söze.

I guess it comes back to the short list of attributes I mentioned earlier- the compelling characters, strong plotline, and great dialogue that I don’t feel are in evidence here, but are observable in the darker, more devilish, more ominous Usual Suspects. Even though Guy Pearce is really good in the lead role, projecting a thoroughly convincing melange of childlike naivety and steely determination, this film just doesn’t do it for me. If I had been given more info, if I knew Leonard better, and if I cared about his plight, things might have been different.

If Memento has a principal achievement, it could well be that a movie with such a small budget and such a restricted number of locations looks so good, and is so sleek and slick and confident. But still, I see it as more of an efficient film than a particularly great one- clever, to be sure, ingenious even, but primarily efficient, and proficient.

Inception (2010)

(This review, written as part of the BBC’s 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century, freely makes reference to other films from the same list and does not read as well when taken out of its original context. It is reproduced here only for the convenience of having a director’s works collected on the same page.)

What do you want from a film?

Great visuals? A compelling plotline? Bravura technical aspects?

A cerebral, existential investigation of the psyche that probes at the fragile nature of our perceived reality?

An ensemble cast filled with Academy Award winners and some of the hottest, freshest talent of recent years?

Ingenuity? Espionage? Explosions?

A teasing, open-ended final shot that essentially leaves the film hanging, unended, forever?

It’s all here. In what is surely a display of Christopher Nolan’s multifaceted talents at their fullest extent, his sumptuously lavish, fiendishly clever, outrageously entertaining seventh feature is a true moviegoer’s feast, and sees him, in the role of both writer and director, showing how devastatingly good he can be when working with a particular type of material and a (very) considerable budget.

Although this is a film that I have loved for years, it’s not one that I have watched time and time again, with this viewing being, I think, the fourth time I have seen it. As I settled down for what I thought was going to be a pleasant re-tread of a piece whose qualities I was already convinced by, and not intending to watch the whole thing in one go, I was blown away anew by its creativity, its fluidity, its precision, its audacious verve and its thoroughly magnificent set-pieces.

The characters are not really fleshed-out people- they’re ciphers who are there to serve the narrative, while the dialogue is similarly functional. Nevertheless, every single one of its supporting cast, most of whom will be more used to giving lead performances, are fully capable of wringing out the necessary dimensions from their roles to provide the movie with its human element, thereby- of course- aiding and abetting the considerable narrative thrust.

Like Synecdoche, New York, much of Inception takes place in man-made, constructed settings that mirror our own world, but are distinct from it (that movie, incidentally, also featured several stellar lead actors in smaller roles). Inception’s conceit is that we are inside dreams, but with a caveat- they are not free-forming dreams as we know them but were consciously devised by an ‘architect’. Such dynamics also recall Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where Jim Carrey’s Joel Barish- and by extension, us- spent time inside the landscape of his mind and saw some of the scenes playing out there, but they weren’t dreams, and though he was re-visiting moments from his past, they weren’t straightforward memories either, but fully open to modification, albeit with less control, less planning and more ad hoc improvisation than the situational circumstances laid out by Inception. Although this film, then, has a much different tone and genre than either of those Charlie Kaufman-scripted pieces, one could posit that it sometimes resembles what might result if Kaufman was to pare back his screenwriting eccentricities and consciously try to produce something that was a mainstream, money-spinning endeavour designed primarily to excite audiences.

Either way, it’s a cracker. I loved it when I first saw it back in my twenties, and I love it now- I guess there are still a few things that time hasn’t managed to dilute, and this remains one of them.

Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar is an ambitious sci-fi set about fifty years into our future, where dust clouds have ruined the planet’s atmosphere and time left on Earth is limited. NASA, intent on looking for other habitable worlds, recruit Cooper (Matthew McConaghey), a regular guy who just happens to be a former pilot, and an entire world away from the book-learnin’ scientist types he’s now mixing with.

The idea itself is OK. But the execution? Pfft. McConaughey- a certifiably good actor, perfectly capable of carrying a whole film and nothing short of revelatory in True Detective- plays the kind of straight-talkin’, no-nonsense, loves-his-family all-American hero we’ve seen thousands of times; he does nothing to transcend the hyper-generic traits of the character and I found his performance a resounding disappointment. Meanwhile Anne Hathaway, one of the blandest actresses of her generation, is ‘the girl’ and outdoes herself with possibly the most flavourless performance of her entire career (though I don’t think either she nor McConaughey were done any favours by the script).

Was this movie meant to be a blockbusting thrill-ride for the multiplex, replete with the kinds of visual effects one expects from such a film, or was it supposed to be a cerebral experience, asking questions about our existence and our place in the universe? I think Nolan was aiming for both. I think this was true of Inception too, and if you’ve read my Inception review, or seen my own picks for the top 100 21st Century movies, you will know that in my view, with that film, he succeeded categorically.

So what separates Interstellar from Inception? For me, everything. The cast, the performances, the story, the visuals. I find Inception to be an inherently beautiful movie- intellectually and narratively beautiful along with its aesthetics- and while Interstellar is hardly ugly, it possesses none of Inception’s zip, panache and ingenuity. Interesting ideas emerge occasionally- I find the concept of ‘other worlds’ and the hospitability or otherwise of alien planets inherently stimulating- but anything that was gained in this area was wiped out by an utterly preposterous final forty-five minutes.

Overlong and boring, this lumbering, profligate 160-minute vanity project was not my cup of tea at all. Next.