How Christopher Nolan Manipulates an Audience
A Matter of Film examines how Christopher Nolan manipulates an audience in The Prestige.
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Christopher Nolan
Dunkirk
- Title: Dunkirk
- IMDb: link
Christopher Nolan‘s Dunkirk is surprisingly bad for such an accomplished director. Set during the Dunkirk evacuation of mostly British troops surrounded by Axis forces during World War II, Nolan brings his talents to bear in crafting a visually impressive film. However it’s three-part story, amateurishly cut together in confusing fashion, featuring a migraine-inducing overbearing score (which the director has been infatuated with ever since Inception), without a single trace of emotional resonance, left me detached from both characters and events for most of its running time.
The film inter-cuts three separate plot threads of vastly different lengths creating all kinds of trouble when the threads have to be woven together later in the film. The shortest of these centers around Tom Hardy as a fighter pilot whose action takes place mostly far above the fray. The next, in terms of length, involves a civilian boat hired to help evacuate soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk. And the longest story centers around soldiers on the beach, most notably Fionn Whitehead and Aneurin Barnard, desperately searching for any way off the coastline before the German army arrives.
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Interstellar
- Title: Interstellar
- IMDb: link
If Christopher Nolan‘s sci-fi end-of-the-world epic feels a bit familiar it is. Borrowing obviously from 2001: A Space Odyssey and the recent success of an astronaut stranded in space in Gravity (both far better films), Interstellar showcases both Nolan’s strengths and weaknesses of the director when his subject matter lacks the originality of his best films.
An ambitious project to be sure, Interstellar‘s B-movie plot seemingly ripped straight out of 1950s sci-fi can only lead it so far. The strength of its cast can’t cover up the flaws in the nearly three-hour project whose length also effects the director’s decreasingly-effective bag-of-tricks such as the loud music blasts which may have worked in Inception but come off distracting and disorienting even obscuring dialogue in several scenes.
As a movie experience Interstellar has merit and is worth seeing. As a complete film experience I found it wanting and would compare it to the eerily similar Signs. M. Night Shamalan‘s equally ambitious project relied too strongly on performance, far-too-cute coincidences, and late twists (over a well-developed story) as well.
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The Dark Knight Rises
- Title: The Dark Knight Rises
- IMDB: link
Joel Schumacher killed Batman, at least in the movies, and at least for the better part of a decade. In 2003 the Caped Crusader was still in limbo six years after the theatrical debacle known as Batman and Robin. (One word: Bat-nipples.) Enter Christopher Nolan.
Batman Begins would hit theaters two years later followed up by the critically acclaimed The Dark Knight in 2008 featuring the Oscar-winning performance of Heath Ledger as the Joker. Four years later Nolan releases the third, and final, movie of his Bat-trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises, which brings the story of Nolan’s version of Batman full circle.
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The Best Movies of 2010
This wasn’t a year to wow you. 2010 may have been somewhat of an off year for movies, but there are several quality films that hit theaters this year which are worth noting. A couple things struck me as I was putting together this list. First, how actresses stepped up huge this year. Whether in lead or supporting roles, it was a year dominated by the performances of the fairer sex. And second, 2010 was a year of raw emotion, almost visceral, brought to screen. You might argue that one or two of my choices didn’t have elaborate plots, but each delivered on an emotional level.
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