Christopher Nolan is a modern film director best known for the critical successes of works like Interstellar and Inception. Nolan has been praised for his sophisticated portrayals of abstract scientific concepts and the complexity of his layered plots. Nolan’s movies often take place on a segmented, non-linear timeline to give his viewers knowledge of his characters’ pasts and add nuance to his plots. In order to write such layered plots and keep them cohesive, Nolan employs an unusual creative method as he makes his movies.
When he writes plots for his films, Nolan writes pages of detailed plot that he wants to include in the film. He continues this process to sort out what kinds of scenes and action he wants to take place in the movie, and then orders the events in whatever way seems most logical to him; the action in his movies (again)is not always structured linearly, so it helps him to think of scenes separately. In this way, Nolan’s creative process can be seen as a combination of collecting and making analogies. For example when Nolan created the movie, Interstellar, he reached out to a physicist to help him create visual effects and a plot that worked well within the confines of very advanced physics. The physicist critiqued Nolan’s science and plot, which Nolan then changed, until they reached a storyline that made sense to both of them. Moreover, Nolan makes use of diagrams to help him organize his plots. Thus, he collects information from other fields and applies it to his own and uses analogies to help him organize his plots and thoughts.
The impact of Nolan’s work is immense. He has proved to the film community that complex, nuanced films can be broadly enjoyed by the public. Moreover, Nolan’s on screen portrayals of scientific and philosophical quandaries, like his depiction of a black hole in Interstellar, make science and philosophy more accessible to average people. Nolan himself was inspired by films like Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and, in a way, he provides the public with high concept sci fi films that might inspire the next generation of filmmakers.
Sources:
https://medium.com/@parvez__/creative-process-of-christopher-nolan-part-1-bc4aba19c534#:~:text=Nolan%20prefers%20to%20go%20with,unconventional%20structures%20and%20tight%20plots.
I love your commentary about how Nolan creates his plots. The part about his collaborations with physicists in particular is super interesting to me! It's really great that he both a) fact-checks his work to ensure its accuracy, and b) is aware of the additive benefits of collaboration for an even greater result.
ReplyDeleteI never thought about how complex Nolan's movies are It just seems normal for him. You definitely are right though he does have a special affinity for putting complex problems in a movie and selling it to mainstream audiences. Also, it's amazing to see how close Interstellar's portrayal of a black hole was to the actual one from a few years ago. Legit insane at the closeness of the two
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love so many of Nolan's films, especially Tenet. He always manages to make such masterfully polished and satisfyingly paced movies. Just trying to wrap my mind around Tenet is a Herculean task for me (I've seen it three times and each time I only make minimal progress in properly ordering and understanding it, yet I love it each time). So, reading about the creative process of the man who made such a complex movie was very insightful and interesting!
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