5 reasons why Christopher Nolan is currently the best director
10.8.2017
Translation: machine translated
"Dunkirk" quickly redefined the war film genre. "Interstellar" and "Inception" have expanded the boundaries of our imagination and the Joker in "The Dark Knight" is unforgettable. Behind all these things is one man: Christopher Nolan. In my opinion, the man is currently the best director in Hollywood.
Some people may understand "Interstellar", others hate "Inception" because of the stupid ending. But they all agree: Christopher Nolan knows how to make films. The British director's films have a clear signature style and come across as visionary. From A to Z, it is clear what the film is trying to convey and that is why Christopher Nolan is the best director currently working in Hollywood.
Not enough for you? Here are five reasons why.
The writing director
Christopher Nolan is one of the few people in Hollywood who not only directs films, but also writes the stories behind them. He has 14 entries as director and 15 entries as author on the film platform imdb.com. Number 15 is the remake of his 2000 film "Memento".
As author and director, he is able to realise his vision exactly the way he wants from the first letter to the last "Cut!". This is good because Christopher Nolan makes films that often pack more complex concepts into simpler packages. This is usually the time, regardless of the plot of the individual film.
- Memento: Question of short-term memory, half the film is told backwards
- Inception: Time passes differently depending on the dream level
- Dunkirk: Three stories with different timelines come together
- Interstellar: Distortion of time by wormholes and the speed of light
If a studio came in here and asked for simplicity, the films would only be half as exciting.
The mystery remains
Who is the Joker? Where does he come from? What makes him who he is? Is it just a dream? Is the spinning top even the totem? Is love quantifiable and is magic just science that we can't explain yet?
Christopher Nolan leaves these questions unanswered and assumes a lot. In "Dunkirk", viewers are thrown into the action and only get a little pathos along the way. The fact that the small ships on their way to the coastal town that gives the film its title are travelling at the behest of the British army is mentioned in a small subordinate clause. The fact that the whole evacuation was actually called Operation Dynamo and was a really big deal in the Second World War is only made clear in promotional material.
Christopher Nolan keeps his audience in the dark. He tells a story, detached from any framework. He doesn't assume that his viewers are stupid or urgently need this context. Everything that is necessary for the story is there. But nothing more.
Team Nolan
The same faces can be seen in the background of every Christopher Nolan film, known as the Nolan Posse. These are actors with whom the director enjoys working
- Michael Caine: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar, Dunkirk
- Christian Bale: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, The Prestige
- Cillian Murphy: Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Dunkirk
- Tom Hardy: Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Dunkirk
Although he is not afraid to cast young actors such as Harry Styles - formerly a member of the now almost forgotten teen band One Direction. But Nolan knows his team and their strengths. He can therefore utilise his actors exactly where they shine.
The special effects
Director Michael Bay wipes out entire cities, while his colleague Peter Jackson creates a world called Middle-earth with a mixture of practical effects and CGI. But Christopher Nolan is increasingly focussing exclusively on practical effects. In Dunkirk, he had ships rebuilt to look like they did back then.
The lorry that Batman turns lengthways onto its roof in The Dark Knight? It's all real.
The only digital thing about the scene is that the catapult that flips the truck has been removed.
The zero gravity in the hotel in Inception? It's all real.
Once again, the special effects crew only removed the cables that the actors were hanging from. By the way, actress Ellen Page had her hair styled into a bun in the entire dream sequence in the hotel because she wasn't filming, but the hotel was. Her hair would have destroyed the illusion.
The tesseract scene at the end of the film Interstellar? It's all real.
Of course, there are 3D animations of what it's supposed to look like. But in the film, you see an actor floating through a model on a cable.
This gives the film a down-to-earth feel, it seems real on a subconscious level, because the Uncanny Valley - the feeling that arises when something looks deceptively real but not quite real or even too real - can't even set in.
The sound
Just like with the actors, Christopher Nolan likes to work with the same composer. This is none other than Hans Zimmer, multiple Oscar winner and Hollywood legend. Zimmer has worked on a total of six Nolan films.
- Inception
- Dunkirk
- Interstellar
- Batman Begins
- The Dark Knight
- The Dark Knight Rises
In many of these films, Zimmer plays with music as a functional element. In "Dunkirk", a clock ticks along from beginning to end without ever being mentioned or explained. The composer also uses a technique called Shepard Tone. This consists of three tones that create the illusion that the scale goes to infinite heights.
In "Inception", time is nested and passes differently on each dream level. Zimmer has therefore recorded the same song - "Je ne regrette rien" by Edith Piaf - at different speeds. So the dreamers in Limbo still hear the same song, simply distorted in time.
Whether you share Christopher Nolan's enthusiasm for time or critically question it and its passage, if you like the medium of film, then there's no way around Nolan. He combines classic film making and modern technology with complex ideas that he breaks down simply. Is his material, his stories, everyone's cup of tea? No. Are his films good? Absolutely.
Who is your favourite director? Who is the Joker? What do you think? Let me know in the comments. <p
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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