An investigation into how Christopher Nolan uses innovative storytelling techniques to reflect a postmodern view of the human condition with reference to Memento (2000), The Prestige (2006) and Inception (2010). Subtextually, there will also be an exploration into how Christopher Nolan can be defined as an Auteur.
From the brink of the 21st century, Christopher Nolan has contributed to cinema with fragmented narratives and postmodern themes which represent the human condition. In relation to Jacques Lacan, Nolan breaks down the structure of the human condition and combines it with chaos and disunity. Lacan believes that we always have a tendency to reason about men as if they were moons, calculating their masses and their gravitation. Indeed for Nolan, the human condition is governed by dreams, memories, beliefs and illusions. Thus Nolan can clearly be seen as an Auteur in the sense that he develops original narratives that contain representation of the human condition as well as subtexts that unveil the fragility of this chimera to his audiences.
Undoubtedly, Nolans film’s are rich and dark, he uses both these concepts to create a philosophically dark and interrogating mood with his films. In an interview with Nolan, Lauren Wilford said “This lush philosophical landscape did not emerge fully formed from Nolan’s brain at the outset. Bleakness was his first language.” This essay will explore Memento, The Prestige and Inception. These are all separate films which possess different representations of the human condition throughout their narratives. Memento tackles amnesia and the power of memory, The Prestige is concerned with illusion, and Inception with the world of dreams. We can quickly see that Nolan is concerned with the subconscious and the power it has.
An Auteur can be recognised for noticeable features in their film which an audience member could notice without researching the film. Christopher Nolan may be seen as an auteur for his similar use of actors throughout his films. Noticeable actors include Michael Caine, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy and Christian Bale. These actors have appeared in Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy as well as Inception and Nolans most recent film Interstellar. Nolan also features a unique soundtrack within his films which is composed by Hans Zimmer. ‘Dream is Collapsing’ has been one of his most popular compositions as it was featured in Inception as well as other productions later in the future. However, Nolan can also be seen as a narrative or subtextual auteur through the use of fragmented storytelling and original plots.
Nolan’s cult-noir Memento created a controversial response from the audience who were exposed to new methods in narrative fragmentation. Memento both defies and utilises common codes of revenge-thrillers. Nolan created a film that was made for the audience to decrypt for themselves, the film was not created for effortless observation and appealed to the discerning and active audience. An important aspect of the film was that the narrative was built around the central protagonist’s memories. Nolan creates narrative enigma codes through tattoos on Leonard’s body and symbolic Polaroid pictures that prompt Leonard’s quest to find the murderer of his wife. ‘Taste of Cinema’ blog questions Memento’s modality of narrative and suspension through moulding memories from nothing. In terms of types of postmodernism, Memento is seen as a ‘time bending’ noir according to On-Postmodernism.com, by cryptically arranging different narratives in a manner that contradicts Syd Fields and Todorovian Theory. Nolan allows the audience to grasp Leonard’s experiences with a voiceover by the main actor, his systematic thinking develops a link between the film and the audience by allowing them to put the information together through this non-linear construction which artistically represents the ‘loss of oneself’, as suggested by Sight and Sound Magazine.
At the start of Memento we as the audience are introduced to the postmodern narrative through the use of opulent cross cutting editing and frenzied cinematography. In an interview with BBC, Nolan describes the cinematography used within the film, ‘We shot the film in 'Scope with anamorphic lenses because I wanted as clear an image as possible to really put the audience in the lead character's head.’ The auteur also explained how ‘playing with the landscape allows you to feel a lot of texture and intimacy’ which explains the absence of establishing shots and lack of wide shots. Nolan’s use of low key lighting also connects to his use of Noir in former films such as ‘The Following’. This creates a claustrophobic effect by removing colour and reflecting a dull mood within the scene. The audience watch Leonard kill ‘Teddy’, an ally who he believes to be the murderer of his wife and cause of his illness. Nolan uses jump cuts which are processed in reverse creating a disorientating sense of time and a non linear narrative from the the outset of the movie. Nolan could be defined as an Auteur since he removes the aim to find out who the main antagonist is and allows the audience to experience the journey in reverse order, this opens up new pathways to storylines within the film. A similar narrative dynamic can be found within ‘Interstellar’ which experiments with time and space dimension. This use of fragmented narrative defies Todorovian Theory since the new-equilibrium is shown at the beginning of the film, the traditional sequence is replaced in order to disorientate the audience. Nolan explains how ‘Memento tries to put you in his head and that's why the story is told backwards, because it denies the information that he's denying. So in a way, it was much more straightforward and organic.’
Nolan uses cinema to psychoanalyse the human condition. His productions seem to centre on our own struggle with the inexplicable; not only with death, but with the nature and purpose of our existence. Nolan is also concerned with the effects and presentation of time. A binary opposition of black and white versus colour footage is presented - nominally to fool us that some sequences are set as flashbacks. It is only at the end of Memento that these flashbacks are revealed as flashforward. Nolan collapses the expectations of the audience suggesting again that the human condition and memory aren’t easily bifurcated. However, Nolan still follows some remnants of linear narrative by including a separate noir style sequence of Leonard on the telephone which is shown through the whole sequence and links to the ending of the actual film. This may suggest that he is still trying to appeal to a mainstream audience to have success for his films. Within this linear sequence, Leonard does a second person voice-over, describing his surroundings to the audience. ‘So where are you? You're in some motel room. You just wake up and you're in a motel room. There's the key. It feels like maybe it's just the first time you've been there, but perhaps you've been there for a week, three months. It's kind of hard to say. I don't know.’ Already, Nolan presents the sense of obscurity and loss of self through the dialogue of the main protagonist. The use of this voiceover as well as black and white creates the convention of Noir that Nolan is accustom to.
In The Prestige, Nolan changed his habit of setting films in the present or near future. The Prestige is set in an isolated Victorian British era in order to support the ideology of illusion and magic. Through this idea of illusion, Nolan represents the fragility of reality and questions the approach we have towards science and fiction. Nolan attracts audiences through star power by including actors Hugh Jackman (Robert Angier) and Christian Bale (Alfred Borden) as well as a cameo appearance from David Bowie who portrays genius Nikolai Tesla. Throughout the film, the stars play competing magicians battle to create the greatest magic tricks for their audience. Philip French from The Guardian explains how in addition to the intellectual or philosophical excitement it engenders, ‘The Prestige is gripping, suspenseful, mysterious, and often darkly funny.’
Nolan’s concerns in The Prestige are to investigate traditions of magic and illusion. Nolan’s conclusion at the end of the film suggests that we have to expect the unexpected, that science is the ultimate deliverer of illusion. In an interview with the Auteur and Film4, he explains how ‘It's all to do with the willing suspension of disbelief. However much as a director or a magician you're trying to convince someone of the reality of something, it's all under the umbrella of this artifice. Whether we're watching a film or a magic trick, we know what we're seeing isn't real, and that's where the entertainment factor comes from.’ Nolan’s concerns are to deliver a film that purposely takes us to both familiar and unfamiliar places. This is reminiscent of the patterns that the subconscious mind generates. As C.G. Jung states, “The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” Nolan too wants to create playful films that are experimental and escapist that also move between sense and nonsense.
A key scene within the film is situated at the ending where both magicians reveal their secrets. The mise en scene of the whole film is Victorian London which creates an isolated atmosphere towards the audience. Nolan plays on the haunting concept of victorian horror stories with his own gothic twist. The audience may recognise this film as a Nolan production because of the steampunk replication of a British era, this is noticeable through the mystic cloning machine used by Angier. Nolan experiments with our expectations of what can be present within the Victorian Era in terms of magic and supernatural illusions, he demonstrates that the secret to some magic tricks may legitimately be real, this reflects on his objective views of what we define as magic. In terms of lighting, Nolan explains how he chose to use natural light so that the actors could move freely on set. He says how this gives a ‘sense of looseness and energy that really throws you into the lives of these two magicians’
Furthermore, the use of CGI and props create a stronger sense of realism as well as similar actors used in his other films, this can be recognised as something Nolan would use as an Auteur. An example would be the lightning bolts coming from the cloning machine, this creates a powerful image to the audience and reveals the violent of extent of the machine. The magicians top hat is another prop which features within the film, this implies the common conventions of magic and mirrors the theme of the film. However, Nolan shows multiple top hats piled upon each other to create an enigma code to suggest the cloning of Angier. It almost creates a ghost of each clone of the character. Nolan also follows other codes of rivalry films by developing the themes of sacrifice and revenge with the support of Illusion in order to produce an effect upon the audience.
Inception contains representation of the subconscious human mind combined with themes of a heist thriller. With similarity to Memento and The Prestige, this film also consists of fragmented narratives which allows Nolan to define the binary oppositions of dream and reality. With the use of CGI, Nolan has the advantage to visually recreate projections from his own mind within cinema. In an interview with the Auteur, he explains that he had ‘never seen the portrayal of a dream that you can believe within it’s reality’. With reference to psycho-analysis within films, Professor Barbara Creed believes that Auteurs can create a cinematic apparatus which refers to both industrial and mental apparatus’. The film itself is divided into five narratives with reality providing the major narrative thrust supported by a nest of dreams ordered to deliberately disorientate the the viewer. Nolan’s nested narratives signify the disorientation of the subconscious human mind.
The first key scene of Inception is ‘the explaining of the dream world’, Cobbs recruits Ariadne, an architect student who will ‘construct’ the dream worlds for the main heist. A notable feature is the use of low key lighting that suggests reality is shrouded in darkness, this may imply dreams are interesting and give us a brighter atmosphere. The extended time of shots within the scene can also replicate a slower passing of time in comparison to dreams which progress much faster, again this can also suggest obscurity within reality.
Cobbs also explains this to the architect, ‘in a dream our mind continually creates and perceives our world simultaneously, and our mind does this so well we don't even know it’s happening. In a Q&A with WIRED, Nolan discusses ‘how Inception plays with the relationship between films and dreaming in a number of different ways. I tried to highlight certain aspects of dreaming that I find to be true, such as not remembering the beginning of a dream. And that is very much like the way films tell their stories.’ Towards the end of the scene, it is revealed to the audience that the location of this scene is in fact the architect's dream. With the use of CGI and props, Nolan creates an earthquake within the scene that represents the fragility of a person's subconscious and the delicate connection between dreams and reality. The mixture of the earthquake and suppressed explosions allows Nolan to deconstruct the augmented reality to represent the human condition.
The second key scene is situated at the finale of the film when the main characters try to escape the subconscious world after achieving the heist. The scene begins with Fischer opening a large safe to reveal his father on a hospital bed, a previous memory that recurred within his subconscious. The safe is common ideology of a heist film, Nolan uses this to his advantage by representing how precious and hidden our subconscious memories can be in contrast to reality. Fischer watches his father die, expressing emotions that he would show within reality, signifying the mirror of both worlds. Upon experiencing this, the dream starts to collapse, similar to the previous key scene, causing the characters to relapse through different dream locations on the venture to reality. The dreams show the characters in different sublime landscapes which depict a better world beyond reality, this is also evident through costume, a notable dream shows the characters in a modern hotel where they are wearing crisp suits and dresses which may present an alternative successful setting in contrast to the grim reality. The end of the scene shows the characters waking up, however Cobbs is still situated in Limbo, a deep subconscious where years are just minutes in reality, another representation of time by the Auteur. Nolan shows the darker side to the logic of dreams and the hazards they may possess, expressing disorientation and obscurity into what we can define as a real world.
Overlooking the films stated, Nolan’s use of complex narratives has certainly contributed to him being classified as an Auteur in contemporary cinema, with the creation noir’s and blockbuster, it is evident that Nolan contributes to an important scheme in filmmaking. Inception attributes a series of questions into how we see ourselves in a reality which questions our existence, He has created a philosophical essence to what is considered art in the world of cinema. The help of advanced CGI has allowed Auteurs to develop their idea’s with more confidence in their narratives as well as their visuals. ‘PsyArt: An online journal’ believes that we can allow Nolan’s fiction to change our fiction despite having control of our conscious’. With all the films mentioned, Nolan has added his own essence of psychological representation and science-fiction which tells the audience his intelligent understanding and enthusiasm for the themes of all his films.
Appendix
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E-F
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