Christopher Nolan

Re-worded Summer Task

Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan is a brilliant producer who has made films like “INTERSTELLAR”, “INCEPTION” and “The Prestige”.

Film topics• His films often deal with really heavy topics like human

morality, distortion of memories and dreams like in “Inception”, journey through time like in “Interstellar” and problems with personal identity. I think it is really hard to make films about themes like ethical or social issues. It is risky but to see films like this is really interesting and fascinating. His narratives very often include some streaks of the Science Fiction genre. The new films of Christopher Nolan are really postmodern. Unfortunately technology of today science can’t enable you going into the dreams of other people. I wish, I could control my own dreams and could change nightmares in nice dreams. (Inception)

Inception

References to “the Prestige”

• Fortunately, the earth is not so destroyed yet that we have a need to look on other planets like in Interstellar. On the other hand, Nolan can also make films witch are older or take place some years ago like “The Prestige” when you relate it to their clothes. “The Prestige” is a really interesting film about a competition or later a battle between two (three) magicians who want to outplay each other and being better than the other one.

The Prestige

Characters

• The characters in Nolan’s films are always a bit psychologically damaged. Some time it is a psychic trauma because of the suicide of his wife like in “Inception” or making other ones responsible for her death. Some other time it was an accident in a magic show (The Prestige). In this film you can see how Angier (one of the two magicians) is getting insane more and more by finding out the secret behind Borden’s trick “the transported man”.

Characters 2 with references to “Interstellar”

• But then in Interstellar the people are very normal. A bit crazy of course but everything is in the normal range, at least in the beginning of the film.

• As they decide to save doctor Mann you realize that the long loneliness and the long sleeping-time made him mad and eager to fly back to earth. He is so confident or crazy you don’t really know. In the end he destroys their ship back home.

• You really often get the impression that there is always one innocent person.

• The other ones are definitely blameworthy in some way. In “Inception” there are the children of Dr Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), in “The Prestige” it is the wife of Angier and in “Interstellar” it is the daughter of the main character Cooper “Murphy”.

Interstellar

Setting/Locations• When you see the films of Christopher Nolan you first have the

impression of a completely normal setting of the background of his films. I mean America (LA/plain) or London are absolutely normal places where you can live, aren’t they?

• Well when you watch the films you will see that nothing is normal in this world. You just see the surface at the beginning. After some minutes you realize that the focus lays on different things, no different worlds. The real world in “Inception” are memories and dreams, in “Interstellar” it is the space. And in “The Prestige” it is actually about magic, tricks, swizzes and secrets, just that what we call magic.

• The views in other “worlds” are very typical for Nolan. And it is special; yes something different. That also includes his nonlinear kind of storytelling.

Crew• He is often working with the same staff: the caterer, the editor (Lee

Smith), the producer (his wife Emma Thomas), the production designer (Nathan Crowley), the cinematographer (Wally Pfister) and the special effects supervisor (Chris Corbould).

• In fact you could assert that Christopher Nolan is a creature of habits.• The film music of Nolan’s films is often written in the same style. That

has the reason that Christian Nolan’s film music is composed by nearly only two composers, either Hans Zimmer or David Julyan. Both of them are geniuses in their composing. The most popular composition of Hans Zimmer is “Pirates of the Caribbean” I guess. Of David Julyan it could be the film music of “The Prestige” or “Outlaw”. Two out of three of my best liked film music has been written by Hans Zimmer.

Cinematography

• Christopher Nolan opposes the using of digital cinematography and digital intermediates. In his opinion they are less reliable and offer inferior image quality to film. He also prefers shooting on film to digital video.

• When the films were made the producer/Christopher Nolan used single cameras for the dramatic-action scenes and multi cameras for the stunt scenes.

Explanations

Single Camera Multi Camera

CGI

• Nolan says he wants to minimize the amount of computer-generated-images (CGI) for special effects in his films. He only uses it when he needs to enhance elements witch he has photographed in camera

Example for CGI

Nolan’s point of view

• Nolan shoots his films in one unit entirely. He says, he prefers it rather than do it in two units. So you can keep your point of view in “every aspect and scene of the whole film”.