Christopher Nolan - Are you watching closely?

Before you start reading this, keep a few things in mind.

1. If you haven’t seen a single Christopher Nolan film, you might want to stay away from this piece because you might not understand the sentiments and fall asleep halfway through the piece. Continue at your own risk.
2. The idea behind the piece is not to make you like the man or his films.
3. I’m not a Nolan fanboy or a Nolan fanatic. I’m just a Nolan fan. What’s the difference, you ask? Well a fan is an avid follower not a blind devotee.
4. The views and ideas expressed here and mine and maybe that of a few other Nolan fans. You may not give a rat’s furry little ass about what is said here but that would eventually make the reading of this piece redundant.

As I write this, I have just come back from my 4th viewing of Christopher Nolan’s Inception and to quote Ellis Redding from The Sahwshank Redemption “I find I’m so excited, I can barely sit still or hold a thought in my head.” But anybody who has seen and known the genius of Nolan will know what I’m talking about. As I write this, critics are hailing it as his masterpiece, audiences are loving it and the cash registers are ringing, though at $60 million, it is far from his last film, The Dark Knight which had an opening weekend collection of $158 million and collected a Billion dollars worldwide. Here in Mumbai, I have experienced things that have made me happy beyond words - people giving a standing ovation to an English film. I really can’t remember the last time I heard so many OH FUCKs and OH SHITs during any film. I can’t remember the last time I heard so many furious discussions as I left the movie theatre. Discussions, mind you, not proclamations. And yet I find a lot of people calling it an over-hyped film, unnecessarily complicated film, emotionally weak film, action-heavy film. That’s fine. Opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one – and I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way. Cinema or any art form, for that matter, divides people as much as it unites them. For someone who loves and lives hip-hop, I have pretty much come to accept the fact that different people will have different choices and opinions.

It’s nice to see that people are appreciating a cerebral film like Inception. Some might consider the word ‘cerebral’ debatable but what else would you call a film that enters a person’s mind? After films like The Matrix (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Slipstream (2007), it can’t be called a totally original idea. In a time where there is almost nothing new to do, just new ways of doing things, Nolan has managed to create a new world and successfully lure the viewer into it. Where most filmmakers will show you what’s happening, Nolan manages to make things happen to you. To paraphrase Nolan himself,

“I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. If you picture the story as a maze, you don’t want to be hanging above the maze watching the characters make the wrong choices because it’s frustrating. You actually want to be in the maze with them, making the turns with them. I quite like to be in that maze.”

With Inception, Nolan does to you what he’s doing to the characters in the film. He puts you in a maze and lets you navigate your way. With The Prestige (2006), he tells the story of 2 rival magicians who entertain people by often misguiding them and as you watch the film, you realize that Nolan is doing the same to you. He doesn’t merely show you a new world; he brings you into it and then takes you on a journey like never before. But he is careful to show you only what he wants to show you and the way he wants you to see it. A reviewer put it best when he said that Nolan is like a Grandmaster who can see 10 moves ahead of you.

The acting, the visuals, the action, the music; all are top notch. But what stands out for me in the film is the story. Anybody who likes Nolan will tell you that he is a great story writer and an even better storyteller. For me, the rise of Nolan is truly the return of the single most important element in cinema – the story. You can simply read a Nolan screenplay and realize that it can be turned into a great film. Which is the reason why even people who generally stay away from Sci-Fi as a genre, have liked the film. The Matrix was a milestone because apart from Sci-Fi lovers, it managed to attract a lot of people who thought of Sci-Fi as something that won’t appeal to them. Inception will do the same, even if on a smaller scale. Because behind all the technology, machines, androids and aliens, a classic Sci-Fi film will reveal more about humanity and being human than any family drama ever can.

The only thing that I feel was lacking, and I realized it quite late, was that in a film that deals with dreams, there was no sex. Any human being, who has dreamed, has dreamed of sex. Not to mention, what happens if a child is born in a dream? Maybe too much to ask for in a single film. I’m sure that in the 8 years that it took to write the film, Nolan must have considered and discarded the idea for a reason!

I first discovered the world of Christopher Nolan on a winter night in November 2006 when I sat down to watch The Prestige. I had heard about this cult-classic called Memento (2000) and the resurrection of the caped crusader with Batman Begins (2005) but never really got to watching either of them. I had just begun to discover Hollywood movies and I had too many classics to catch up with. But the trailer for The Prestige totally grabbed me from the first time I saw it. I have seen the trailer more times than the number of films I have seen till date. As the film ended and the credits began rolling with Thom Yorke singing in the background, I knew I had discovered two British gems, Christopher Nolan and Radiohead (which happens to be Nolan’s favourite band). I also realized that I had finished atleast 10 Ultra Milds in the process. Armed with more cigarettes, I watched the film again. And again. After watching it for the third time, I realized that the film had raised more questions than it had with the first viewing. Obviously, I didn’t get any sleep for the remainder of that night. For the next month or so, I recommended it to as many people as I could and watched it a few more times. I was hooked. I followed it up with Memento, Batman Begins, Following and Insomnia. Though The Prestige remains my favourite Nolan film till date, each and every film gave me something to think about. The one that is my least favourite is the only one he did not write – Insomnia (2002), not to say that it’s a bad film. His films demand and certainly reward the viewer's attention. Like Alfred Borden in The Prestige would say, "Are you watching closely?"

I am yet to meet a person who has watched his films and disliked any one. They may like one more than the other but there’s always something to take away from every Nolan film. Every Nolan fan has one film that blew his mind and they will watch every film that he ever makes for the rest of his career hoping and praying that he can make a better one. That is where the disappointment stems from. Every time, I watch a Nolan film I secretly hope that the film turns to be better than The Prestige. It may be The Dark Knight for some and Memento for others but I guess the sentiment is the same. And just to clarify, I don’t feel the same for any other director. Ask anybody about David Fincher, they will tell you that he’s the guy who directed Fight Club (1999) and Se7en (1997), Sam Mendes will always be the guy who directed American Beauty (1999) and Andy and Larry Wachowski will always be the guys who gave us The Matrix (1999). You ask people who Christopher Nolan is and you will get very different answers. Ask them about the one Nolan film you dislike and there will be a long pause followed by “I don’t really dislike any Nolan film but...”

There are other filmmakers like Martin Scorcese, Steven Spielberg or Stanley Kubrick who might generate varied responses but their films have been around for almost 30 to 40 years while Nolan has been around for 10. The only present-day director who comes close is Quentin Tarantino. Both Tarantino and Nolan make strange casting choices that seem to work, don’t believe in churning out films by the dozen and both write their own films. An interesting parallel is that my least favourite Tarantino film is the one that is not his original screenplay – Jackie Brown (1997). Nobody writes conversations and displays style and class like Tarantino but as an overall filmmaker, I’d still go for Nolan.

The fact that he is a recluse, always wears a suit no matter where he’s shooting, never uses a second unit director, dislikes and avoids CGI, never explains his films and is extremely humble; just add to his allure and enigma. Like the character of Neo in The Matrix, he is an anomaly of sorts in today’s world and for that very reason, I believe that he is The One.

But at the end of it, after all my hosannas, you may not like his film(s) or his filmmaking. And nobody explains it better than Nolan himself,

“Films are subjective – what you like, what you don’t like. But every time I go to the cinema and pay my money and sit down and watch a film go up on the big screen, I want to feel that the people who made this film feel that it’s the best movie in the world, that they poured everything into it. Whether or not I agree with what they’ve done, I want that effort there. I want that sincerity. And when I don’t feel it, that’s the only time I feel like I’m wasting my time at the movies”

Amen to that.