It would not be an overstatement to suggest that there has been some controversy in recent months regarding the attitudes of filmmakers like Christopher Nolan in the face of this unprecedented global pandemic. Nolan has infamously been pushing for a cinematic release of his newest film, Tenet, in the immediate future, disregarding the obvious dangers of a tentpole blockbuster release in a time where drawing big crowds could literally prove to be fatal. Refusing for months to compromise with an exclusively international release, Nolan has insisted that Tenet is needed in American cinemas if the medium is to survive. The film is now being released a mere week earlier in other territories, and even this feels like a reluctant concession. The ignorance of this belief in the context of our current crisis speaks for itself, so I would like instead to look ahead to the possible state of the film industry once this hurdle has been overcome, and to demonstrate why I believe it is an industry which should have no patience for the stubborn filmography of Christopher Nolan.

 

Though there are countless questionable traits within Nolan’s approach to filmmaking there are two which I feel require urgent attention; the first is a matter of style and the second is a matter of ignorance and irresponsibility. As to the former, it is not irregular to accuse Nolan’s works of being cold and insubstantial. Films like Interstellar (2014) have received great acclaim for piercing the stratosphere of technical achievement with confident grace, but are equally maligned for failing to stick their landings when forced to reckon with their emotional contents. I have seen Interstellar a number of times over the years, yet I could not articulate for the length of a word the thematic truths the film attempts to gesture at after disappearing up its own black hole. There is a reason why Matthew McConaughey’s waterworks meltdown as ‘Coop’ at the film’s midpoint – a performance on par with that of Patrick Star (Bill Fagerbakke) during the legendary dehydration scene in The Spongebob Squarepants Movie (Stephen Hillenburg, 2004) – was considerably more commonly cited in comedic YouTube mash-ups than awards circuits. If you were to ask Nolan to co-ordinate the timelines of five planets at once, I have no doubt that he would effortlessly and skilfully rise to the occasion, but if you were then to task him with dramatising the guilt of a father grieving for his child, the result would be a frankly embarrassing exercise in crocodile tears.

 

The problem with this soulless, purely mechanical approach to filmmaking which rewards soaring spectacle over heartfelt honesty is the precedent it sets for other new filmmakers. These newer voices may not share Nolan’s unique gifts, yet have been seen in recent years to try and emulate them in place of something more universal, whether by misguided choice or by studio mandate. To exemplify this, I’d like to draw attention to the exceptionally nerdy (though hopefully comprehensible) evolution of the eternally popular and malleable Batman through the hands of three filmmakers: Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder. Burton’s Batman Returns (1992) is, to my mind, one of the greatest comic book adaptations ever to hit cinema screens, with one particular highlight being a pivotal dance between doomed lovers Bruce Wayne/Batman (Michael Keaton) and Selina Kyle/Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer) at a masked ball, wherein they are the only pair not in disguise.  Black tie outfits are more a costume than any spandex in their lives. Within minutes, they deduce one another’s alter egos and realise, almost without a word, that their romance has come to an end. 

 

In Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Bruce (Christian Bale) and Selina (Anne Hathaway) wear masks like anyone else, and engage in a long, expositional conversation about Selina’s technobabble master plan. There is no romance, only efficiency, with neither ever being unsure of the other’s deepest desires. Nolan’s characters are only as deep as his complex plots require them to be, lacking entirely in nuance or, indeed, curiosity. Snyder’s Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) does not build from Burton’s touching, layered spin on the thematic undercurrents of Gotham’s socialites, but rather from Nolan’s methodical brand of dialogue which could easily be transplanted onto any other characters in any other space. In his warmly lit ballroom scene (which, incidentally, foregoes the mask motif altogether), Bruce (Ben Affleck) and Diana (Gal Gadot) discuss a plot point from earlier in the film, concisely doing the work of a Wikipedia contributor and little else. There is no drama, only details. Nolan believes himself to be the final word on twenty-first century American cinema, yet his influence does not serve to evolve the visual conceits of cinematic storytelling, rather to regress them into a purely pragmatic form.

 

This inelegant approach to character has consequences which resonate through my second major issue with Nolan’s filmography; his borderline misogynistic neglect for female voices. A frequent shorthand has developed in Nolan’s constructed narratives which sees the male leads functioning as representations for himself, with Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) in Inception (2010) and Bruce in The Dark Knight trilogy being the most visually evident examples. Consequently, the female leads in these films have essentially been relegated to the roles of tools used as sounding boards for Nolan’s surrogates and, inevitably, mechanisms for their angst. 

 

Inception, itself an elaborate metaphor for the art of filmmaking, has no interest in exploring or even representing any viewpoints beyond Nolan’s own as a tortured, unmistakably male director. The female lead, Ariadne (Ellen Page) is the film’s analogical equivalent to a screenwriter, yet seemingly exists solely to hear Cobb’s problems and advise him late at night in the empty studio, long after everyone else has gone home. There is an unsettling, topical implication here when considering the film’s intended purpose as a parallel for film set behaviours, yet the scientific, sterile way in which Nolan writes their exchanges would suggest that this stems from thoughtlessness rather than a conscious desire to objectify. 

 

The film’s depiction of Cobb’s wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) further reinforces this interpretation. Mal commits suicide before the film officially begins due to an inability to cope with the same mental strain afflicting her husband, yet her death is only a footnote in the story of Cobb being burdened with the responsibility of caring for children while also following his passion of high-risk capers. It is not that Nolan believes women to be weaker, rather he seems to forget they exist entirely. Selina Kyle’s motivation in The Dark Knight Rises is to somehow acquire clear her name and live free of Gotham’s suffocating grasp, yet once she meets Bruce she immediately abandons these plans and instead retires into life as his pet in witness protection, a status quo formed exclusively out of his actions and decisions, rather than hers. Nolan’s voice is an inherently selfish one with no interest whatsoever in troubles beyond his own, and by no means should it become a definitive presence going forward into this next decade of filmmaking. 

 

I do not believe that Christopher Nolan is a bad filmmaker. He is a magician using elaborate, expensive tricks to dazzle audiences around the world while in truth achieving very little (incidentally, this is why The Prestige (2006) persists in being his best work despite falling into every aforementioned pitfall, but that’s an article in and of itself). He does not create material, rather he complicates it. So while by no means do I believe his style of filmmaking needs to be outright banned, I do feel that it needs to be challenged rather than accepted in this modern cinematic climate. Nolan’s technical prowess sets a downright regressive precedent for storytellers who wish to expand their visions into wider, better-funded fields without being forced to sacrifice character for spectacle, especially now that such a diverse range of voices are finally finding their way to mainstream success. With films like Never Rarely Sometimes Always (Eliza Hittman, 2020), First Cow (Kelly Reichardt, 2020) and Ema (Pablo Larraín, 2020) finding releases every week on a range of platforms, Tenet is not the ‘return to glory’ that cinema needs in these difficult times. Contrary to his own, publicly stated beliefs, Christopher Nolan is not the pioneer we need, nor should his cinema be looked to as anything more than a never-ending handkerchief at a children’s birthday party.