In Contention

Tag: Christopher Nolan

  • ‘Following’ Chris Nolan at LACMA

    (from left) Christopher Nolan and Kenneth Turan at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Bing TheaterI had not seen Christopher Nolan’s directorial debut “Following” in six or seven years, which made for the perfect excuse to drop 20 bucks on a ticket to tonight’s Slamdance screening and Q&A over at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

    The film holds up as a wonderful, if slightly obscure excerpt from that sensational year of cinema: 1999.  It contains the seeds of a director’s fascination with broken narrative storytelling, borrows humbly from genre particulars already developed by David Mamet and Stephen Frears in years past (while turning them on their heads) and is a modest announcement of a significant new talent.

    Little did we know this unassuming director with a film rejected by Sundance would go on to helm one of the highest-grossing movies in film history.

    It’s a delight to listen to Nolan discuss the particulars of his craft today, with five other films under his belt and a lot of perspective to shine back on his initial cinematic foray.  The narrative with Nolan has become, “He still maintains that independent edge even in blockbuster territory.”  Yes, but it’s deeper, and yet simpler than that.  It would be fairer to say he still maintains an understanding of lean storytelling (for the most part), even in the midst of dramatically ambitious stories.

    “Following” is a case study in that.  And of course, the year-long filming process astounds me to this day, grabbing footage here and there on the weekends, the actors maintaining their appearance long enough to complete the project.  Amazing.

    Nolan spoke an all-too-brief 20 minutes to the LA Times’ Kenneth Turan (who was double-checking his notes constantly) in front of a relatively diverse crowd, bringing in examples from his steadily expanding portfolio to emboss artistic points about his view of the filmmaking process.  With Bat-hysteria flying off the rails this summer, it was a treat to listen in on a developing master’s serene take on the nuts and bolts of his art form.

    And that’s what it’s always about at the end of the day, no?

    Here is a recording of the proceedings.  Nolan is soft spoken, and Turan doesn’t exactly announce his queries with the loudest authority, but you might catch some gems of the conversation if you crank the volume:

    [display_podcast]

  • Phoning it in from LACMA

    I’m sitting here at LACMA’s Bing Theater awaiting a screening of Christopher Nolan’s “Following,” to be followed (no pun intended) by a Q&A with the man himself.

    The energy is pretty high. Nearly packed theater with a mix of anxious fans and reserved night-on-the-towners.

    I’ll report back later this evening or in the morning with some snaps and an mp3 of the discussion. Ken Turan is moderating, I believe.

  • Missing the point on the Harvey thing

    Cover of Batman #397Much as I love Brad Brevet and the work he does at Rope of Silicon, the point of the Harvey Dent stuff has never been about what’s in the screenplay.

    We’ve talked about this before, but the script shows what an audience sees, not what is. What the audience was meant to see was that the character was toast, but it was a vague send-off.  Which is what has allowed for all the speculation, for Eckhart to say that he’d love to come back for a third film, for Emma Thomas to outright claim that the filmmakers left it open for interpretation, for Eckhart to even have to ASK CHRIS NOLAN THE CHARACTER’S STATUS (which of course led to yesterday’s item).

    So enough of the “How could you not know??” stuff. It’s always been up-in-the-air, if you ask me.

  • Two-Face is dead afterall…

    It’s official…and totally fucking stupid.  Way to go, Nolie.  Way to neuter the second most important Bat-villain there is.

  • Do you believe?

    God only knows where the Telegraph managed to dig up this rumour – if it was in The Sun, I’d assume some intern made it up during a particularly slow bank-holiday interlude.

    But just for fun, let’s humour them and enter their world of make-believe for a moment. Okay? By that token, I’m excited to inform you that, in Christopher Nolan’s next Batman installment, the role of Catwoman will be played by…

    Cher.

    Riiiiiight. Even with my full guard of irony intact, that’s still hilarious. Don’t get me wrong, I like Cher’s acting work back in the day – when her face could still move and Ronald Reagan was still president. She’s great in “Moonstruck,” better in “Mask,” better still in “Silkwood.” But the thought of the 62 year-old strapping herself into the leather suit and getting frisky with Christian Bale … well, “beggars belief” is putting it lightly. According to them:

    A studio executive said: “Cher is Nolan’s first choice to play Catwoman. He wants to her to portray her like a vamp in her twilight years.

    “The new Catwoman will be the absolute opposite of Michelle Pfeiffer and Halle Berry’s purring creations.”

    Well, I must say I like the idea of a revisionist take on the character, particularly after Berry pretty much shredded the credibility of Catwoman’s conventional incarnation. They’d need to do something radical with her along the lines of Nolan’s reconceptualisation of the Joker, and the prospect of Catwoman as a surgery-paralysed Norma Desmond type sure fits with Nolan’s bleaker approach. It’s arguably insane enough to work … but I still don’t believe a word of it. (Not least because the story takes as a given the casting of Johnny Depp as the Riddler.)

    Kris’ own Batman casting call a while back generated numerous suggestions for Catwoman, ranging from Milla Jovovich (Kris’ choice) to Angelina Jolie (seemingly the default selection) to Christina Hendricks (my own left-field pick). All that, and not one of us picked Cher. Shame on us. I’m switching.

  • Musings on a third ‘Dark Knight’ viewing…masterpiece?

    Christian Bale in The Dark KnightSo once with the press, a second on my own, and a third time last week with my 16-year-old daughter, and still the film enthralled me from beginning to end. In fact, I probably liked it more this time than I did the previous two, realizing as the film’s mighty power rolled over me that I was watching something truly spectacular, the likes of which we have not seen for quite some time, and are not likely to see again.

    Here is a film, a work of art that is also a movie, a great ride for the mainstream audiences seeking nothing more and a reward for those who are.  For we film maniacs who like our films to have substance, “The Dark Knight” is loaded with it: Christian Bale’s tortured hero, Heath Ledger’s deeply troubled Joker, Aaron Eckhart’s truly decent man corrupted by loss and the Joker’s twisted games, Michael Caine’s wise and warm Alfred, and the heart of the film, Gary Oldman as James Gordon, who alone understands the Dark Knight’s sacrifice for the good of his city.

    The action sequences are stunningly choreographed, but Nolan is aware that his film must have much more. He gives the picture a mood and tone that is perfect for the screenplay, he guides his actors with a delicate hand, allowing them to inhabit the characters, and he understands not only his subject, but his audience’s expectations.

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  • Putting the Bat on the couch

    So this is the weekend that the Bat proved stronger than the Force. You’ve surely heard by now that “The Dark Knight” is officially the second-highest grosser of all time in the US, with only “Titanic” sitting above it. Thrilled as I am to see “Star Wars” knocked down a peg, I have to say I never saw this coming. I knew the film would be big – I’m not a moron, I like to think – but I’m still at a loss to explain just what about the film has connected with the public on such a monumental level.

    So is The Sunday Times, it seems. In an interesting piece, journalist Christopher Goodwin poses a number of theories, but can’t really pin it down. (Can anyone?) He covers the obvious angles – the repeated fanboy viewings, the Heath Ledger angle bringing in an unusually broad audience for the genre – but ultimately thinks it comes down to something less tangible than that. Citing the film’s zeitgeisty qualities, he states:

    The film has become a touchstone, beguiling audiences with what appears to be popular, comic-book entertainment, but explores some of the most critical social and ethical issues we face today — in particular, the issues being wrestled with by countries, notably America, fighting the “war on terror”. As those who have seen it will know, The Dark Knight explicitly examines how far it is permissible for individuals and society to go in the fight against “evil”.

    Nothing new there, really. The political resonance of the film in today’s climate has been discussed ad nauseum, something Goodwin emphasises as he quotes extensively from critics such as Richard Corliss and Kyle Smith. For the sake of balance, he also pulls from Andrew Klavan’s perverse conservative reading of the film (covered by Kris here), wherein Klavan called the film “a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W Bush in this time of terror and war.”

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  • Hell of a thing

    George Clooney in Batman & RobinSo…I was watching Joel Schumacher’s “Batman & Robin” on TBS last night (I know…I’m so sorry). Midway through, this line of dialogue between Michael Gough’s Alfred and George Clooney’s Bruce Wayne stuck out as an incredibly insightful blip in Akiva Goldsman’s otherwise wretched attempt at a fourth installment in the franchise:

    Death and chance stole your parents. But rather than become a victim, you have done everything in your power to control the fates. For what is Batman if not an effort to master the chaos that sweeps our world, an attempt to control death itself?

    It’s the sort of line that would have been at home in the Nolan brothers’ insightful, rich adaptation, an adaptation that probably deserves more Oscar attention than any other aspect of “The Dark Knight.” Very curious.

    Of course, the moment is sullied not 120 seconds later with this keeper:

    My name is Freeze. Learn it well. For it is the chilling sound of your doom.

    Cue the Coolio blacklight embarrassment. Sigh…

  • Vulture on David Gordon Green’s action prowess

    (from left) James Franco and Seth Rogen in Pineapple ExpressIn my review of “Pineapple Express” yesterday, I mad it a point of mentioning director David Gordon Green’s salute to the greatest (or worst) of 1980s action cinema.  At the time I wrote:

    Green’s obvious devotion to the action epics of the 1980s that his generation grew up on makes its way to the surface more than a few times (I swear I’ve seen that knife toss before…can’t place it). He makes no bones about an affinity for Steven Seagal and lord knows he found a proper outlet to show his respect for what I like to call the “Steven E. de Souza subgenre” of actioners. But to mix it in with a pothead extravaganza…absolute genius.

    And today, it looks like the ever-insightful writers of New York Magazine’s Vulture blog have taken it a step farther, asking with the utmost sincerity, “Who’s the better action director: David Gordon Green or Christopher Nolan?”

    Take a look:

    Obviously Green is no John Woo, but the [finale] is lucid, well paced, and nowhere near as stupid-looking as one might reasonably anticipate, especially considering that it includes shots of Rogen firing an automatic weapon. There are explosions, bleeding injuries, and some passably impressive stunt work, not bad for a freakin’ Judd Apatow movie.

    They then go on to point out the problems with Nolan’s handling of action sequences in “The Dark Knight” that have been mentioned in a number of mixed or negative reviews of the film.  “Sure, the action in Nolan’s film is more ambitious,” they write, “but the fact that Green’s is infinitely more coherent and suspenseful is…well, sort of funny, right?”

    Gotta love those caljones.  And it’s not exactly an out-of-bounds observation.  Read the full post here.

  • Andrew Klavan, bastion of subtext, calls ‘Knight’ pro-Bush

    Warner Bros. Pictures' The Dark KnightThe first I heard of this Andrew Klavan op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal was over at Awards Daily. I blew off the pathetic stretch for a parallel between Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight” and the disastrous administration of George W. Bush as just that, pathetic. This is, after all, the author of such seminally vacant thrillers as “True Crime” and “Don’t Say a Word” we’re talking about.

    Then I noticed Rupert Murdoch pop up on Keith Olbermann’s list of the “worst people in the world” in response to the mogul’s paper publishing the piece this week, and I figured I would give it a closer look.

    Good GOD what moronic copy. A taste of the absurdity:

    …like W, Batman understands that there is no moral equivalence between a free society — in which people sometimes make the wrong choices — and a criminal sect bent on destruction. The former must be cherished even in its moments of folly; the latter must be hounded to the gates of Hell.

    “The Dark Knight,” then, is a conservative movie about the war on terror. And like another such film, last year’s “300,” “The Dark Knight” is making a fortune depicting the values and necessities that the Bush administration cannot seem to articulate for beans.

    That’s right, he brings up the old (and equally stupid) “‘300’ is an allegory for the Bush administration” stand-by from over a year ago.

    Oh, you want some more? By all means:

    The moment filmmakers take on the problem of Islamic terrorism in realistic films, suddenly those values vanish. The good guys become indistinguishable from the bad guys, and we end up denigrating the very heroes who defend us. Why should this be?

    The answers to these questions seem to me to be embedded in the story of “The Dark Knight” itself: Doing what’s right is hard, and speaking the truth is dangerous. Many have been abhorred for it, some killed, one crucified.

    Alright, dear readers. Shake it off. I know the sheer ignorance is both deafening and infuriating. The sad thing is, Klavan has a thesis worth exploring in there somewhere. That it is buried in this partisan hogwash and sublimely inadequate reasoning within such a staunchly pro-conservative view point ironically reflects the very direct approach of liberal-minded filmmaking he’s apparently railing against. But you already knew that. You’re smarter than this…guy.

    Oh, but don’t blink, or you’ll miss Klaven stumble right past the entire point of “The Dark Knight” on the way to missing it completely, and manipulating it to his own ends:

    As Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon says of the hated and hunted Batman, “He has to run away — because we have to chase him.” That’s real moral complexity. And when our artistic community is ready to show that sometimes men must kill in order to preserve life; that sometimes they must violate their values in order to maintain those values…then and only then will we be able to pay President Bush his due and make good and true films about the war on terror.

    Wow, right? Then there’s this blurb at the bottom of the page:

    Mr. Klavan has won two Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. His new novel, “Empire of Lies” (An Otto Penzler Book, Harcourt), is about an ordinary man confronting the war on terror.

    Can’t wait to see how morally complex that piece of shit will be. Now, I need to go to out to the driveway and grab my sun-faded copy of the Journal so that I can burn it properly.

    (Mr. Nolan — if you happen to be reading this — I implore you to rebut this nonsense in your own op-ed.)

  • More on Harvey…

    I’ve been going around and around in circles on this issue, and I’ve frankly become dizzy at the ambiguity.

    But one of our readers, Gareth, sent a note recently regarding the fate of Harvey Dent in “The Dark Knight,” offering up a line from the shooting draft of the screenplay (available for purchase) that sort of turns the stomach.

    I don’t want to spoil anything here, so check it out after the jump…

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  • ‘Batman 3’ (and beyond) casting call

    BatmanOnce again…allow me to geek out for a bit…

    (SPOILERS FOR “THE DARK KNIGHT” IN THE BODY OF THIS POST — NO WORRIES AFTER THE JUMP.)

    Now that the record-breaking hysteria has (somewhat) subsided regarding “The Dark Knight,” I thought I’d take a moment to forecast the third installment (and perhaps future installments) of Christopher Nolan’s franchise.

    First thing’s first. What to call the next film? Ideas bounced around by fans have included tips of the hat to other aspects of the universe (“Batman Beyond,” “The Dark Knight Returns,” etc.). My personal hope was always that the Dark Knight moniker would somehow be a part of the franchise, and thankfully, they went there with the second installment.

    I kind of think taking Frank Miller’s title for part three would be brilliant (especially considering the nature of the final moments of “The Dark Knight”). But the answer here would, of course, have everything to do with the content of the film.

    At this point, we don’t have a clear idea of what to expect from the next film. “Batman Begins” scribe David Goyer (who shares a story credit on “Knight”) formulated the blueprints for a trilogy with Nolan at the outset, and we’re pretty sure Two-Face was supposed to play a considerable role in the next phase. Despite all the chatter that would have you believe Harvey Dent is dead at the end of “Knight,” that early talk of Aaron Eckhart’s contract being for two films couldn’t have been coming from thin air.

    Beyond that, the wonderful thing about the Batman mythos is that there is an array — a “rogues gallery” — of villains to choose from. And certainly, there are seven decades of story development to glean for a solid denouement to the trilogy.

    The Riddler is staring everyone in the face as the most likely possibility. And I really like the idea of handing it over to the character of Coleman Reese (as mentioned by one of our readers last week). Christopher Nolan is supposedly not a fan of the Penguin, and we all want Catwoman to pop up somehow. But that’s a whole other can of worms.

    If I had my druthers, I’d introduce the Riddler and the Penguin (as a mafia figure…nothing major), with Two-Face running rampant as the most dangerous aspect of the trio. But as I said (and we all know), any combination is possible.

    So with that, below you’ll find my personal casting call for the potential rogues we could see in a third film or even future installments of a franchise that could go from here to eternity. Of course, we won’t be seeing all of these cats pop up, but the sky is the limit with this universe.

    Here’s my perspective…

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  • TDK, FYI

    Christian Bale in The Dark KnightMuch as I admire his spunk, I think Awards Daily contributor Ryan Adams might be getting ahead of himself with his Oscar hopes for “The Dark Knight.”

    In a recent post, he labels the categories of Best Makeup, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Supporting Actor and Best Visual Effects as “virtual certainties.” The other categories mentioned he feels are Oscar-worthy enough and have a good shot as well.

    Best Visual Effects isn’t going to happen. This branch abandoned practical effects considerations long ago. The makeup, meanwhile, could find some trouble from aging and transformative efforts later in the season, so I wouldn’t call it a sure thing either.

    We can all, I think, assume that Heath Ledger is on his way to a nod, and, indeed, the sound work in the film is top notch and worthy of serious consideration. The rest…nah. In fact, I think the most hastily over-predicted category for this film so far has been Best Art Direction, where Nathan Crowely scored at the BAFTAs in 2005 for “Batman Begins.”

    There aren’t a lot of manufactured sets here. All the stuff that looks like a creation was even, for the most part, a practical set. London’s Battersea Power Station really shows up well when used in the film, for instance, and looks like a manifestation. But it’s not.

    Lee Smith’s film editing is certainly a possibility, as he took things up a notch (to say the least) in this effort, but James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer will not be eligible for their brillaint score because of that pesky rule Rule 16b.

    (By the way, speaking of the boys, anyone else just LOVE that creepy two-note string theme for the Joker that is a clever inversion of the Batman theme?)

    I would, however, call Wally Pfister’s work behind the camera this film’s closest thing to a lock. The lensers have tons of respect for this guy (I’d say his nod in 2005 was a surprise) and given the technological steps taken here with the IMAX technology — the sheer balls of lugging those cameras around for these action sequences — I’d say he’s in.

    And of course — I’ve always felt Christopher Nolan has a play here. But I’m not willing to go there. Yet.

    Just my two cents.

  • The ‘geek’ review

    Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight(Read the official “Dark Knight” review here.)

    Alright, now that most audiences have begun filing out of cinemas across the country, I figure it is time to offer up The Geek Review of “The Dark Knight.”

    Bear in mind, this review/column/joygasm will be filled with spoilers. If you want to go into the film fresh (as indeed you should — despite the overall lack of major surprises), then steer clear. Most of the spoilerish stuff I’ll save for after the jump, but for now, I’d like to get into the filmmakers’ handling of the source material.

    Christopher Nolan and company have always been aware of the necessity for being faithful to the seven decades of material available to them when digging into this franchise. What has kept the series fresh and not simply a cut-and-paste effort has been a willingness to test those fan-set boundaries and still get away with some rather brazen decisions.

    “Batman Begins” was filled to the brim with such instances: Utilizing Ra’s al Ghul as a creation point of sorts for the Batman. Introducing a love interest previously absent from the canon and revealing Batman’s secret identity to her. Destroying Wayne Manor. Etc.

    With that in mind, “The Dark Knight” has its fair share of departures that still work in the hyper-real-world setting of the franchise, and, presumably, will be allowed to pass, if not cheered outright by fans seeing the film this weekend.

    Spoilers coming! You have been warned!

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  • Batman through the years

    Michael Keaton in Warner Bros. Pictures' BatmanDominic Wells of The Times has written a cross-section of Batman as seen on film through the past five decades.  I can’t believe I didn’t know this was being written under my nose.

    He takes us back to the serials of the mid-to-late 1940s and into the “Pow!” and “Bam!” psychedeliq of the 1960s TV series, through the Michael Keaton protests of Tim Burton’s re-imagining as well as Joel Schumacher’s disintegration of the franchise, before bringing us up to speed with Christopher Nolan’s vision of the character.

    I especially liked this bit of insight following an aside on Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” (and the subsequent push for a film adaptation):

    The book was a critical and commercial smash, and plans were laid for a film. Adam West, now 58, lobbied to reprise the role, which would have suited the Dark Knight Returns storyline. I met him in 1988, when Britain was again gripped by Batmania (TV-am’s ratings leapt 25 per cent after screening the Sixties episodes), and he sounded as though he’d given it considerable thought: “In the final scenes of the film, if it’s bizarre and mysterious, you can still have Alfred the butler driving the old Batmobile to the rescue. We’d have been using all hi-tech, wonderful slick new stuff, and at the critical moment, there’s Alfred, driving the old Batmobile. People would stand up and cheer.”

    But he kind of gets testy with me on this assessment of Burton’s 1989 elseworld take:

    Even so, it’s not particularly good. There are strange holes in the plot where the producer Jon Peters and Tim Burton didn’t see eye to eye, and Kim Basinger, then the producer’s real-life girlfriend, is a waste of space.

    Easy now, Dom.

    Read the rest here.  One of the commenters mentions Sandy Collora’s “Batman: Dead End,” which has always been a fun watch.  If you’ve never seen it, have a look:

    httpv://youtube.com/watch?v=Hjp0I_okX0w

  • Respect

    Michael Caine

    His vast experience gives him an air of good-humored calm that you could almost mistake for complacency until the camera rolls, and you see his focus and efficiency nail each scene on the first take. He once told me that he’s never asked for a second take — he’s happy to do one if you have an idea for him to try, but he brings a definitive interpretation to every line.

    From Christoher Nolan’s appraisal of the great Michael Caine at Variety, part of a collective of similar sentiments.

  • David Poland dings ‘Dark Knight’

    Slightly.  Here’s a taste:

    I wanted that movie that Nolan was chasing. I really wanted that movie. But as is the nature of the dramatic arts, there is a mystical and undeniable gut feeling when you know that even the best film has come to its natural end. And in The Dark Knight, this occurs more than half an hour before the picture actually ends… maybe an hour…

    But he makes a mistake positing that Nolan would ever offer a “director’s cut.”  The director has infamously debunked such ideas, making it clear that his definitive vision of a film is what is on the screen.

    Read the rest of Poland’s review here.

  • Nolan for Best Director?

    Christopher Nolan and Aaron Eckhart on the set of The Dark KnightAlways willing to be a bit brazen with his predictions (I like that), Nathaniel Rogers is busy updating his picks over at The Film Experience.  My favorite left-field notion is his choice of Christopher Nolan in the lone director slot for “The Dark Knight,” naturally.

    I had the same idea in mind three years ago, right up until the day before the nominations, even.  I caught some email flack for thumping the fanboy drum in the process, but it really felt like a possibility.  Well, I’ve learned my lesson (somewhat) and haven’t bothered bringing it up this year, despite a nagging feeling that this critically acclaimed effort could indeed surprise us along these lines in January.

    But let’s just say I’m glad Nat’s here to help carry the burden this time around.  As he shrewdly notes, “This isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds.”

    Elsewhere, Rogers is hanging onto his “Miracle at St. Anna” forecast in the Best Picture arena, allowing “Australia” to join the party, while he finally finds some room for a little “Revolutionary Road” love in the lead actor and actress categories.

    Read his expanded thoughts here.  The updates are on-going this week.

    And while I’m busy tossing up pics from the set of “The Dark Knight” — I’ve always loved this shot:

    Director Christopher Nolan (hands folded leaning on rail) watches as Christian Bale prepares for a scene in The Dark Knight