Directors in focus: Christopher Nolan

A new little feature has developed within The Yorker...'Directors in focus' aims to look at the life and works of a different director every week, written by people who know a thing or two about them. We kick off this week with Christopher Nolan.

• What makes him special?

If you look at Nolan’s work as a whole, you’d be seriously hard pushed to find a modern-day director to equal his success. Not only has he constantly tended to the cult audience with fascinating ideas and ridiculously complicated plots, but he's brought his unique brand of psychological thriller to the mainstream with the revival of the Batman franchise. Even if Batman didn’t already exist, Nolan would be just the kind of guy to come up with a script about a screwed-up rich guy who decides to dress like a bat (not to mention the villains). Of the five major releases Nolan has had in his career so far, four are in the IMDB top 250 films ever. Not bad for a man of 39.

• Short Films

Like many modern directors, Nolan started out making films as a young boy with his dad’s super 8 camera. This interest lasted, and Nolan made several notable short films while studying English Literature at UCL. The best of these is Doodlebug (1997):

It’s short and sweet and, even at a meagre 3 minute length, it showcases much of the tone and feel Nolan has become known for. In other words – it’s pretty messed up.

• Commitment

As a director, Nolan is a committed hands-on man. The process of making his first full length feature, the 1998 neo-noir Following, about a writer who has an obsession with following strangers on the streets of London, is a perfect example. The otherwise fully-employed cast and crew worked only on weekends for little or no money. Scenes were rehearsed extensively to make sure it only took one or two takes for each shot, since they couldn't afford more. Filming took a year on a £6000 budget - that is insane. Still more admirable, despite taking Hollywood by storm, Nolan never uses a second unit, overseeing every shot of a film himself.

• Style and Themes

He has originally penned, along with screenwriter brother Jonathan, all but one of his films: the 2002 thriller Insomnia – a rare example of an American remake that's better than the original. Nolan’s mastery of the screen comes from his mastery of the page. His trademark non-linear narrative style works because Nolan knows his film plots back to front, blending them with themes of memory, perception and revenge. The best example can be found in his 2000 cult classic Memento, which begins playing the ending sequence literally backwards. We are made to feel the same confusion as the protagonist as Nolan whips us back and forth through his two narrative timelines. To fully understand how complicated the structure of Memento is, try looking up "fabula and sujet" (I didn’t know what it was either).

• Success and Upcoming Projects

With the success of the two Batman films, particularly The Dark Knight (now the third highest grossing film ever after Avatar and Titanic - not bad if the only man to beat you is James Cameron), Nolan is set to return to the mainstream with Inception, a film that has the potential to make heads explode. The production has been shrouded in secrecy, with some actors apparently knowing nothing about the film except their own lines; only Nolan has the recent success to get away with such things.

With media hype still debating the existence of a third Batman film in the works, Inception is slowly creeping up and ready to pounce. In fact, read the film’s tagline and tell me you aren’t excited/confused – “a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind". Have you EVER read a better sentence? Go and watch the trailer. Now.

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