Christopher Nolan has long since established himself as an auteur with his first feature, Memento, back in 2000. The film is arguably the best piece the writer and director has ever scripted. The film was original, well acted, and oozed creativity and cinematic understanding. Nolan even earned an Oscar nomination for best writing, but I think it’s important to note that his brother Jonathan wrote the original short story that Christopher adapted for the feature. Christopher followed that up with Insomnia in 2002, for which he only directed and did not write. Insomnia happens to be one of the better all-around films he directed, and I believe it’s because Nolan didn’t write it. Regardless, he put himself on the map with Memento and solidified his reputation as one of note after Insomnia was well received by audiences and critics alike.
Chris Nolan is an undeniably talented visionary and director but not the second coming of Hollywood players. His brother and regularly contributing writing partner, Jonathan, is the one who deserves the praise, acclaim, and credit that is typically attributed to Christopher. Chris has a distinctly adept visual style, yet he hasn’t reinvented the wheel like other directors (Tarantino, Kubrick, Scorsese, the Coen Brothers, and Anderson (Paul Thomas and Wes) etc…). He lacks the extreme talent that the true elite directors exude and showcase. Jonathan has the essential ability to tell stories that feel original and fresh, while his brother has the production talent that blinds audiences to where the unique quality of their collective work stems from. Need I say more than, West World, to back up that argument?
One of the best surprises of 2016 entertainment was HBO’s Westworld, which was co-developed, written, helmed by, and overseen by Jonathan Nolan (in top billing by the way). It is my staunch belief that Christopher owes the vast majority of his reputation and acclaim to his brother, and he would be better off, in his own right, if he stopped writing and stuck to directing. This leads me to the film that “shattered the glass” and caused me to feel a deep resentment towards the director. The film was Inception, and after seeing it I became so jaded by it that any project Chris Nolan was attached to I would roll my eyes at. Jonathan had no part in the flick. It was Chris’s baby, and to me, it felt like a still-born that audiences willed back to life.
Specifically, I attribute the sensation that moviegoers ranted about with Inception on the majority of viewers who were so impressed by the stunning visual effects, cinematography, aesthetics, and a powerful score that they forgot to pay attention to the story. For me, 99% of movies need a story to be considered great. That isn’t to say that all enjoyable and fun movies need to reinvent the wheel with the story, but people who get praise like Chris Nolan should be delivering a cohesive and sensible plot which Inception certainly lacks. The other argument for why the film was brilliant was the “genius” ending of the spinning top. Hate to break it to you, but this is nothing new, and because he left us with the “was it or wasn’t it” effect in the closing shot, it doesn’t mean that the final product was deep or smart. Better examples of the same ploy: Rashomon, Mulholland Drive, The Wizard of Oz, Brazil, Pan’s Labyrinth. Hell, even the original Total Recall did it better or as well while still managing to tell a story that didn’t negate the rules of the established cinematic world. After seeing Inception, I felt like I was being excluded from an inside joke that most of America was in on. My problem with the film wasn’t that I didn’t understand it. I believe I did. My problem lies within the spectacular reception from the American audience for a film that is full of more holes than a brick of swiss cheese.
If you are doing your job as a screenwriter, an essential aspect of any movie is creating an established world. This means that audiences understand how this reality works, the laws that characters have to obey and tells us how the created world must function. Now it’s one thing to lack originality. We see it all the time in Hollywood releases and there’s nothing wrong with telling a story grounded in a reality that is supposed to mirror real life or genre based fantasy; however, I do find flaw in going out of your way to script an original world with specific rules, spending the first act taking the time to explain those specifics to the audience, as Inception does, only to negate what 1/3 of the movie worked to convey. The ending of Inception broke all the rules of the world that we were taught, and this is far from the same as when Ghostbusters “crossed the streams” because “crossing the streams” is believed to be dangerous on theoretical science, but not known or told as fact. The difference being, the climax of Inception, hinges on the understanding of how “the kick” works, and until the final moments of the story are consistent and for no reason, we are expected to accept that actually it doesn’t matter how people can safely exit the dream space.
With Inception, Nolan turned out a solid and original effort with a world that has a clear set of rules that drastically differs from reality. He then proceeds to break and disregard all of the rules by Act III. I can’t stomach it. Why set up a world with clear-cut rules only to disregard them? My answer, is he was trying to raise the stakes to gain (what became) UNJUSTIFIED, “oohs and aahs” from the crowd. Did the top keep spinning, or did it drop? Who gives an “expletive deleted” because none of it matters when you throw the reality of the world out the door after taking so much time and using lengthy and complex dialogue to define all of it?
In summation, Christopher Nolan is a talented director who is not a great screenwriter. While I can appreciate the fandom around The Dark Knight Trilogy I respectfully disagree with popular opinion, but that’s a topic I would prefer to save for another day. I’d rather make the following clear; Christopher Nolan gets more than he deserves because while he is a talented director, his brother is the person who made all of his success possible with the writing and his behind the scenes work. If not for Jonathan, Christopher’s bigger works may never have happened, like The Prestige, The Dark Knight, The Dark Night Rises, or Interstellar. Even though I am not a fan of Chris Nolan’s portrayal of Batman, I have to give him credit for the gritty and believable feel of Gotham and of course for overseeing Ledger’s masterful performance. It’s impressive when you can make a guy in a rubber bat suit feel real, and get your audience to suspend disbelief. What he does best is shooting compelling action, like the rich man’s Michael Bay. Jonathan should direct a feature length, just so we know how talented he is. If I had to guess, I bet he’d win.
