"You look at the first Fellini movie and you can see the seeds of all of Fellini there," said David Cronenberg in a 1999 interview with Sean Axmaker (connected to the release of "eXistenZ"). He was using the example to speak of any filmmaker with a discernible vision, including himself: "Everything is filtered through my own sensibility and my experiences of life and so on, and I'm going to continually be drawing from the same pool of imagery and themes I'm sure, with modifications and adjustments to the angles and of course I'm learning different things about myself, but the connections should be there."
You can certainly see the seeds of Christopher Nolan's later work in his 1998 debut feature "Following," which I just saw for the first time and quite enjoyed.* And I'm not just referring to the auspicious Batman sticker on the door of its protagonist's flat (how could he have known... unless the past and the future were somehow folded together... ?) or the hommage to Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" (another movie in which past, present and future intermingle) next to the guy's typewriter.
Already in "Following" you see Nolan's affinity for convoluted chronological structure and the final twist, in which all the jigsaw plot pieces snap into place and you finally see the whole picture (along with the main character). You may wonder just how necessary/integral they are, but they help make the film fun to watch, even if they don't necessarily add up to a whole lot.
It begins with an interrogation/confession. A young man named Bill (Jeremy Theobald, who brings a halting, naturalistic freshness to his voiceover and dialog) is being questioned by an older man (John Nolan) about his habit of following people just to see what they do and where they go. He kind of rationalizes that it's "research" (he wants to be a writer), but it seems more likely that he's unemployed and bored. There's an element of voyeurism at work, but it's not primarily sexual -- at least not at first. It's more like he doesn't really know much about people, and he's curious to see how they behave. He explains a thought experiment where he picks somebody out of a crowd at a football game and, suddenly, they become an individual to him.
"After a while I became hooked," he admits. "I had to start making up rules just to try to keep it under control..." Now we're really getting into Nolan's favorite zone: Having characters explain "rules" they've made for themselves (or he as screenwriter-director has made for them). Some are common sense, like don't follow women down dark alleys late at night. But the one that eventually gets him in trouble is the first one he breaks: Don't follow the same person twice. "When it stopped being random," he says, "that's when it started to go wrong."
This sets up his fateful encounter with Cobb (Alex Haw), a thief of memories (not unlike Leonardo DiCaprio's dream-thief Cobb in "Inception"), who likes to break into people's homes and take items -- not because they're valuable, but because he likes to remind them of what they had. He enjoys getting inside their heads (figuratively) and shaking up their complacency, causing them to re-evaluate what they took for granted in their lives (kind of like the character of Jigsaw in "Saw" -- though much less bloody).
Cobb knows how to read a room -- to walk into someone's house and figure out who they are just by looking at how they live. "Everyone has a box," Cobb says (prefiguring the dream-vaults of "Inception"), where not just their secrets but their memories and clues to their identities are kept. Personal items -- "like snapshots, letters, little trinkets from Christmas... Sort of an unconscious collection, a display... Each thing tells something very intimate about the people. We're very privileged to see it. It's very rare." He dumps out one such box, just so the people will know he's seen it. "It's like a diary. They hide it. But actually they want someone to see it. That's what I do. See their display."
Up to this point, "Following" has appeared to be more or less linear -- though, of course, we know it's being narrated as a flashback. (But not, as it turns out, just your ordinary framing device; indeed, it's very much like "The Usual Suspects," except the teller of the tale is not the one in control). Nolan has fun scrambling chronology and playing around with visual details -- the length of Bill's hair, his style of dress, bruises on his face -- just to keep us guessing about what is happening / will happen / has happened in the gaps.
Even in his relatively straightforward narratives, Nolan favors parallel-action cross-cutting. Here, the parallel action seeps into the narrator's awareness, as if taking over the story from him. As he begins to put the pieces together, we see what really happened (or what he now imagines must really have happened), intercut with his dawning understanding of events.
When the final twist comes, it's not unexpected -- and, like many of Nolan's clever tricks, it doesn't really develop or illuminate the film's themes -- but it makes for an nifty piece of punctuation to mark the end of the movie. The last shot, of a figure literally disappearing into the throng on a crowded street, reminded me of the rear-view mirror conclusion of "Taxi Driver" (though Scorsese was playing more ambiguously with more visual and thematic levels). I'm sure other films have done something similar, but I can't think of them at the moment. Anyway, it's a very simple, unostentatious and nicely accomplished effect.
Nolan was his own camera operator and cinematographer here, and the dark, grimy/grainy black-and-white (I'm guessing 16mm that sometimes looks like 8mm) works splendidly for the nourish tone of the film. There's a scene in a lounge that's so dark it seems like an abstract idea of a lounge: a backlit bar, a door, a table (always in a separate shot) on the other side of the room where The Bald Guy is watching... (Disclosure: I watched it on my 55" Sony Bravia Rear Projection HDTV through Netflix Instant.) Witty little character touch (though I wish it hadn't been given its own shot): Bill orders a beer. The bartender gives him the bottle, then turns around to get a glass. Bill starts swigging from the bottle. The bartender puts the glass back. This place is a little high-end for Bill, who isn't a sipping kind of guy.
"Following" shows the Nolan we now know almost fully formed at the age of 27 or 28. (You can interpret that as a sign of precociousness or an indication that he hasn't grown as rapidly as his production values.) But what is the film about? As I recall, nobody comes right out and states its themes. Maybe it's about a would-be writer getting an education in human nature. Maybe it has something to do with picking someone out of a crowd and building a story around him -- though it's not necessarily the story you think it is. Maybe "Following" is to short-story writing what "Inception" is to big-studio filmmaking -- a metaphor for the process itself. But, if so, what does it have to say about that process?
IFC has made "Following" available through various on demand services. See it if you have the inclination. I'd like to get your thoughts.
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* BTW, I found more to appreciate in "The Prestige" the second time through, too. I still don't like where it goes and how it gets to the final revelation(s) -- although, as I and others have suggested, perhaps that letdown is built into the movie from the start, as the inevitable response to the disclosure of a magic trick's secret. But at least the second time through I could better appreciate some of the filmmaking. Now that I have a DVD of it, I want to go back and look at how he presents the magic -- when he chooses to cut during the tricks and when he shows them more or less "whole."
42 Comments
It's been a long time since I've seen Following, but I've been thinking about it again recently because of your last couple posts about Nolan and I have to say, it's pretty obvious now looking back over Nolan's career to see what it is that fascinates him. He really is the most left brain of modern directors out there. He really loves showing off how clever he is. This is both his strength and his weakness. Or maybe it's only his weakness because he has yet to stretch himself by striving to combine his cleverness with thematic resonance. I've enjoyed most of his movies because for me, I enjoy the puzzles he sets up. The truth is that Nolan is actually very clever and can pull off these intricate rubik's cubes he makes. Memento is probably him at his cleverest (Following was sort of his warm-up) and as a viewer who is equal parts left brain and right brain, I admire his skill. However, his movies aren't completely vacant thematically (Well, maybe Inception is; it has just about nothing to say about the subconscious or existentialism). Both Memento and The Prestige ask some interesting questions about the cost of obsession, the relationship between what is true and what we believe to be true, and our connection to the world around us; however, Nolan seems too shy or just simply doesn't how to explore these questions further. So even though Nolan's films don't engage me on an emotional or philosophical level, he fully engrosses me in his clever cinematic puzzles. And as far as clever goes, Memento seems to be his greatest achievement to date.
For a guy who doesn't like the movies of Christopher Nolan, you are spending an inordinate amount of time writing about him.
I think you have to ask yourself did you go in to Inception with an open mind.
I didn't, and didn't particularly enjoy it as a result. I'd read Ebert's review and was expecting something of a masterpiece.
It was a solid thriller, no doubt. However, I had some major problems with it. The effects used added nothing to the plot, and were simply used in a "look at me" fashion. The action sequences also seemed completely arbitrary.
SPOILER WARNING
The ambiguity at the end was pointless leaving as it does just two possibilities a/ that Cobb is back in real life or b/ the Dallas-esque possibility that the previous two hours have been a complete waste of time.
If it is b/ then the film is about as satisfying as Shyamalan's the Happening.
Aside from that, there seemed to be some serious problems with the plotting. If Cillian Murphy has gone to the trouble of having security placed inside his dreams, is he really going to catch a flight to Los Angeles on his own without a single minder, secretary, associate or somebody?
I first saw this back in 2003/4 and don't remember much other than being greatly impressed with it's sense of misdirection and unfamiliarity. Nolan's films have a way of creating hyper-reality, where even normal is not quite normal. Similar to David Mamet but less about dialogue and more about mood and visuals. I'm tempted to say a poor man's David Lynch but that would be disingenuous.
Regardless, among the multitude of posts you've made and written about Nolan and his filmography, I think this is the most balanced, most fair, and one that seems to understand the most about what his films are trying to accomplish, IMO.
*Just wanted to quickly note that the film is also on Netflix instantly*
I'm glad you enjoyed Following. It's a nice little film. And like most auteurs, it's not surprising that his first film sort of establishes his base. Godard, Taratino, PTA, are just a few examples who established their base in their first or second feature.
As to what it's about, all the things you said are valid theories. Nolan isn't a filmmaker who just flat out says, "this is what this film is all about!" He loves mystery and he loves when the VIEWER is in the mystery, not just the characters on the screen. He likes to make roller-coasters that ride in a giant existentialist puzzles. There is many ways out of the puzzle, but no right way. You choose whatever you want. That's the existentialist way.
It can be frustrating to watch films that don't give you a definitive meaning at the end. But when the ride is as thrilling as the ones Nolan provides, all I feel is exhiliration.
I've sometimes felt just the opposite ("TDK," for example) when it seemed he was giving his characters too many speeches, delivered to the audience to explain what the film was about (as in Gordon's final monologue). Like you, I prefer films that let you suss these things out for yourself. I'm just proposing another "thought experiment" here, asking what you think the twist adds to the thematic dimension of the film (besides that extra-narrative-level exhilaration that serves as clever punctuation). I'm not saying that there's one definitive answer, I'm just interested in people's interpretations.
Jim, that's interesting, because I don't think Gordon's little coda really is what the film's about, in its entirety. I think what Nolan did was present a variety of different points of view, explain them more or less explicitly, and then put them in conflict that forces them to interact in ways that present a more subtextual overarching theme.
I'm intrigued. What do you think he's doing with the "Two-Face" theme and the "Heroes We Deserve" theme? And how are these subtextual threads you mention woven into the movie?
You mention Gordon's speech, but that's just one side.
Everyone in the film has a different view on Batman: Lucius Fox, Joker, Gordon, Rachel, Dent, etc. all have their own perspective on Batman. Gordon sees him as a Christ-like hero who sacrifices for the greater good; Rachel on the other hand sees him as a revenge-driven madman. And then of course, Bruce himself has his own perspective. The whole film is a debate on Batman.
Just because Gordon's speech is at the end doesn't make his the "right" view.
I understand. I'm not saying there's only one perspective given in the film. I'm just saying they're presented as speeches/monologues.
But all their speeches came after some act of Batman. There was a cause for them to sort of ramble.
Of course, you can say that it would have been better for us to just see these actions and let us interpret them for ourselves and make our own conclusions. Which perhaps would have made it better.
But in the end, this is pop-entertainment. The Dark Knight is a blockbuster, and the mass-public needs more than just action on the screen. They need dialogue (or perhaps I should say, they prefer to have it said to them rather than shown). Though even while explaining them, Nolan doesn't make everything easy to understand.
That's what I admire about Nolan. He pushes what blockbusters are into a new level. Some people may feel he doesn't go deep enough, that he can go deeper. And he certainly can. But I admire him for going as deep as he can yet still retaining that mass-appeal. There are very few films that explore social and personal/psychological themes yet still also have mass-appeal. The Dark Knight and Inception are among those films.
OK, if that's the way you see it. I don't think just because it's "pop-entertainment" has to be spelled out quite so much. (In a previous post cited some examples from "CE3K" and "E.T." which I'd argue "pop-entertainment" AND great, complex films about existential "alone-ness" and the nature of language/communication.) Maybe we want or expect different things from blockbuster movies. Everybody has his/her own and there's nothing wrong with that. It's like trying to convince someone that what they've just experienced is "fun" or "not fun." You can try to show why YOU experience it one way or another, but the other person's experience may not be the same as yours, even though you did the same thing.
One last thought on The Dark Knight: I felt that the speeches in The Dark Knight are well-written and well-delivered, so I don't mind being told. Great acting and great dialogue may not be the most cinematic way of presenting things, but they're still effective IMO.
Close Encounters and E.T. are great examples of blockbusters that dig deeper yet still retain mass-appeal.
I don't really want my blockbusters to be anything particular; I just wish for them to go beyond just being "fun entertainment". Nothing wrong with a film being just fun, but it's certainly better if a blockbuster can do more than that. Spielberg's blockbusters go beyond in a certain way and I feel Nolan's go beyond in another way. I love both their oeuvres, even if their films feel much different.
Oh, and I suggest you listen to the Elvis Mitchell/Christopher Nolan radio interview (http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/tt/tt100714christopher_nolan). Gives you more of an insight on Nolan if you wish to dig deeper.
That speech by Gordon at the end made me cringe, not sure it's a spot on analysis of what the Batman character is about. Seeing as Nolan had to have referred to the large amounts of Batman comic stories and history that exists I don't know where he came up with that take on the character. Not sure that is Christ-like but it is martyr-like. My take would be why would Batman care what the rest of Gotham thinks? He and his methods are outside the law and that aspect of the character has been used to great effect by Frank Miller, whose interpretation of Batman is probably the most influential on all subsequent interpretations.
Jim--
Let's take these lines from the end of the film:
Batman: You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain. I can do those things because I'm not a hero, not like Dent. I killed those people. That's what I can be.
Lt. James Gordon: No you can't! You're not!
Batman: I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be.
and
James Gordon Jr.: Batman? Why's he running Dad?
Lt. James Gordon: Because we have to chase him.
James Gordon Jr.: But he didn't do anything wrong
Lt. James Gordon: Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. And so we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A dark knight.
Textually, what do we have here?
1: Harvey Dent, Gotham's "white knight", has become a villain.
2: Batman has acted heroically, but is not the "hero" Harvey is.
3: Batman and Gordon believe Gotham needs its "White Knight"--if Dent's crimes are known, criminals will be set free and there will be chaos.
4: Batman gives Gotham back its "White Knight" by assuming blame for Dent's crimes.
5: Clearly, Gordon admired Batman for his ability to "take" the blame and abuse of the people he is protecting. Batman clearly states his willingness to make this sacrifice by saying "I'm whatever Gotham needs me to be."
So, clearly we have a number of themes and viewpoints presented here: That deception is sometimes justified; that being a "hero" in the sense of an "idol" and being "good" or not always synonymous; that people need those idols and they need people willing to do the right thing, etc. etc.
Most of these themes carry through the film, and this is, indeed, something of a culmination of them. However, these events and Gordon's viewpoint alone don't capture the dual conflict between good and evil and also chaos and order that is really at the heart of the film. These events actually produce the resolution to that tension without stating it explicitly.
This is a film that clearly displays the power that comes with chaos. The Joker is capable of almost anything because he is mentally capable of almost anything--he has no rules, hang-ups, morals, or even a consistent history to stop him from doing anything he wants. Harvey, on the other hand, is bound by the law, and the law often makes him powerless. He can't retrieve the witness from China, he can't get the Joker's lackey to talk, he can't escape during the chase scene, he can't save his fiance. Batman stands between the two. He "only has one rule", and so he accomplishes virtually everything he sets out to do--except make Marconi talk, because Marconi knows he won't kill him. This is a clearly established theme, but I don't think any variation on the words "chaos is power" are ever actually spoken.
What is clearly stated, repeatedly, in the film is that chaos is infectious. The Joker says as much in regards to Harvey ("all it takes is a little push"), and Gotham itself, as well as talking about how Batman's appearance changed everything. Batman is shown this by the appearance of the copy-cat Batmans--he's inspired people in entirely the wrong direction. Not to stand up to the chaos, but to become it, like he has.
So what we have here is a conflict: Chaos can make you powerful (and power, of course, can be used for good or evil), but it also spreads. In part *because* it makes you powerful, people are attracted to it. Harvey flirts with chaos long before he goes over the edge--He admires the Batman, he psychologically tortures the henchman, he lies and claims to be Batman, etc.
So the fundamental question of the film--never actually stated--is how we resolve this conflict. How do we resolve the need for the power of unlimited freedom--of chaos--with the fact that the infectious nature of chaos leads to more chaos than society can tolerate? (In a way, this is the fundamental question of all vigilante stories--reconciling the need to do the right thing with the damage done to society be embracing lawlessness.)
This is where we come back to what Gordon says at the end: He's running "because we have to chase him." In the context of his speech, this is a reference to him taking Harvey's blame. But the phrasing is very precise--"because we have to chase him." The film isn't simply reiterating the view that Gotham needs its White Knight and so someone needs to shoulder the blame for Dent's crimes. What the various speeches about spreading chaos and how Batman is responsible for the chaos and how people need a White Knight, etc. etc. leads to is a conclusion of the "vigilante paradox" I posed above. The film's solution is that you must have a person who is somehow strong enough to do the right thing, do what needs to be done, and also withstand society's scorn. Society must vilify the vigilante, even as the vigilante protects it. This isn't simply a burden Batman accepts, it's the way things have to be for order to be restored--even if Dent hadn't gone on his rampage, eventually this would have been a necessity.
Batman is presented in the film as the ideal person for this role for two reasons, one explicit and one less so. First, obviously, as Gordon say "he can take it." Or, as Batman himself says, because he's willing to live to see himself become the villain. But the secondary reason is only really mentioned by the Joker, and in a different context: he's incorruptible. The Joker is apparently referring to Batman's refusal to break his "one rule"--against killing--but the adjective equally well describes his attitude toward power, as we see in the cell-phone-monitoring scheme. Here Batman plays counter-point to the story about Caesar. Caesar was given power to protect his city, and then refused to relinquish that power. Batman has a power he uses to protect his city--one Lucius Fox tells him no one should have--but when the threat is done, he *does* relinquish it, destroying the device. Batman's refusal to kill is not, necessarily, what makes him heroic--it's merely a symptom of the real point: that he can't be corrupted by the power he has.
Not how much of this is *not* actually said in the film. No one says "chaos makes you powerful". Nor does anyone say "society must vilify even those law-breakers who do good." Nor does anyone says "Batman is an ideal vigilante because, unlike most real people, he does not allow his power to corrupt him." Instead, we have speeches about related topics that, when taken together and in the context of the plot events, more or less inevitably lead to related themes and conclusions.
Hmm, I seem to have killed the discussion. I'll just assume the brilliance of my analysis stunned everyone to silence. ;)
Very nicely done, Stephen. I just hate the obviousness of it all, and how it is spelled out, underlined and italicized (and even repeated) in dialog/narration -- by Batman, Gordon, and Gordon's kid. All right, already! We get it! Where's the poetry, the mystery? It's all literalized. (I do appreciate the final image, however, which is too little too late, but would have been even more effective if ALL the verbiage you quote had been left out.) Imagine how much stronger the entire ending would have been if the dialog had ended a few pages earlier, echoing the ending of "Batman Begins":
GORDON: Thank you.
BATMAN: You don't have to--
GORDON: Yes I do.
Everything after that is just painfully obvious thematic exposition, Gordon and Batman explaining things to a little kid (not just Gordon Jr., but the audience). It's belabored, redundant, and insulting to our intelligence. Let the images take it from there. I really like the last shot, a kind of action version of the "bat signal"... That says more than all this heavy, stupid dialog can.
"I'm sure other films have done something similar, but I can't think of them at the moment. Anyway, it's a very simple, unostentatious and nicely accomplished effect."
How about the last shot of "Silence of the Lambs?"
Yes! That's it!
Also, the final shot of "The Borune Supremacy." Both films (and I'm assuming this is also the case with "Following") use it to emphasize how dangerous people can be hiding in plain sight.
And if "Following" really delves into this theme, it would be interesting to compare it to "The Dark Knight," which deals less directly with the same theme. Although Nolan doesn't give the "TDK" audience any lengthy speeches to explain this theme, it is a frequent visual motif. For instance, the shot --- which you can't stand --- of the bus pulling out of the bank and vanishing into a line of identical buses. Or when the Joker, out of his make-up and dressed as a policeman, disappears into a crowd of similarly-dressed people. (The second incident doesn't get the same visual emphasis) Or even the opening shot, closing in on one skyscraper out of many.
Thanks, Max. But let me try to tone down the hyperbole again: It's not that I "can't stand" that shot. I simply noted (correctly, as it turned out) that it seemed too tightly framed, and that a more interesting, dimensional shot would have shown us the inside of the bank, too. Because I hadn't seen "TDK" in IMAX or on Blu-ray at that time, but only in a conventional theater and on DVD, I didn't know (until a reader pointed it out) that the shot was actually cropped in those formats. (I did, however, wonder what it was implying about the Joker's organizational powers that an entire schoolbus could pull out of a bank and fall into line with a bunch of regular schoolbusses and nobody noticed. But it can be -- and was -- argued that this was simply poetic/comic book license.) When discussing a movie (or politics, for that matter), a person should be able to express reservations or ask questions without being accused of HATING. Even though I tried to show why I didn't think parts of the movie were very good, that doesn't mean I actively DESPISE the thing, or wanted to change anyone else's mind about what they'd already seen, or harbored a vendetta against it or other people who liked it. As I said then, and keep saying one way or another all the time: too much emphasis is put on "liking or not liking." Let's just talk about what the movie does or doesn't do -- which is exactly what you do with your two pertinent examples!
I apologize, I wasn't trying to be incendiary when I commented. In fact, I can't really remember why I bothered to point out that you had problems with that shot. I suppose that the memory of your blog write-up on it is what prompted it, and it was a hasty and careless word choice on my part.
Very good movie--I liked it more than The Dark Knight, and I'm speaking as a TDK fan.
Also, you wrote:
"I'm sure other films have done something similar, but I can't think of them at the moment."
Maybe it's just me, and maybe I'm remembering the shots incorrectly, but I thought of Bicycle Thieves.
Get to Memento!!
Jim,
Happy to see you've found a Nolan film that seems to work for you in FOLLOWING. I appreciate the fact that you're willing to screen THE PRESTIGE again too.
I think you're right that in many important ways, Nolan's interests haven't changed. He's always aspired to tell us compelling thriller stories that are a cut above most other examples of the genre. I also think that's the fair approach to his work. He's never had anything like the pretensions to art that, say, a Brian De Palma has.
And in a straight-up thriller, a good part of the thrills come from play with conventions and the mechanics of the story.
Btw, the current DVD of FOLLOWING is pretty good, but there's supposed to be a Criterion Blu-ray coming soon.
I saw the movie a long time ago, during the "Memento" success, so it's a bit hard for me to remember. But I remember on the extras, Christopher Nolan kind of explained why he wanted to make a movie about this. He was commenting on the separation of people, which the "following" exposed; he said something like "people don't want to walk in the same rhythm as someone else", you know how when you and someone else are walking in the exact same rhythm, you feet touching the ground at the exact same time. So, from that comment, the movie is about people's separation and not wanting to be followed, walking in sync or anything else involving anyone else.
On Following it would be quite interesting to invoke Godard's view on Kubrick's The Killing a film most similar to Following
" This is the film of a good pupil, no more. An admirer of Max Ophuls, Aldrich, and John Huston, Stanley Kubrick is still far from being the bright boy heralded by the excited publicity surrounding this little gangster film which makes even The Asphalt Jungle look like a masterpiece by comparison. Kiss Me Deadly even more so. I shall not mention Ophuls, who would have nothing to do with the matter except that Kubrick claims his influence through irritating movements of the camera resembling those beloved of the director of Le Plaisir. But what on Ophuls corresponds to a certain vision of the world, in Kubrick is mere showing-off.
The enterprise is not without its sympathetic side, however. An independent production, The Killing was shot quickly and on a low budget. Although the story is not particularly original (robbery of the Los Angeles race-track), and the ending very little better (banknotes fluttering away in the wind after a very badly filmed stroke of bad luck, exactly as in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), one must praise the ingenuity of the adaptation: by systematically dislocating the chronology of events, it maintains one's interest in a plot which otherwise never leaves the beaten track. Once one has commended the newsreel-style camerawork and Sterling Hayden, there is little left to do but wait, not too impatiently, for Kubrick's next feature, Paths of Glory, which has been very highly praised by the American Press.
You say you liked Following. This makes the Nolan films you've claimed to like: Following, and Insomnia, and the ones you've made a point of saying you don't like in various degrees for various reasons: The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Inception.
I haven't seen your opinions of Memento and Batman Begins, which of course gives you a convenient opportunity to form a comeback to the shot I'm about to take at you, but here goes. The two Nolan films you like are also his two lowest rated films on IMDb. This could be a coincidence, of course, except that the films of his you're on record as not liking are not only higher rated on IMDb than the films of his you like, they're among the highest rated films on IMDb, period. They're films celebrated by critics and adored by audiences, which went to see them in droves. Following, meanwhile, is his little-seen indie flick debut, while Insomnia is his low-key follow-up to Memento, a movie pretty much everyone has forgotten exists, and which if they remember it exists they probably don't remember Chris Nolan was the director.
I can't remember having ever seen a more perfect example of the MO of a particular critic.
Oh, the Batman stickers? Let me freak you out Jim with one of the most freakish freakish coincidences, or maybe the most confident references.
Following -> Batman symbol
Memento -> While Dodd's chasing Lenny, and Lenny drives away, the Bat-sign (and Superman sign) appear on the glass door of a shop in the background.
Insomnia -> I don't remember where, but on the door of somebody, there's a Bat sign.
The Prestige -> Here I am iffy, but if someone could please confirm, I think there were bats in some scene. I am sorry, I really don't remember.
Inception is the only movie there's nothing of bats. One may wonder.
As I mentioned in the other thread, the twist at the end of Following is not just there to be clever; it's point is that Bill has drastically misinterpreted his relationship with Cobb. And since that relationship touched on any number of themes--masculinity, voyeurism, criminality--the twist redefines what the film was saying about them.
The central question of Following is the nature of identity, and particularly how fluid it is. Cobb analyzes peoples' property, and their boxes, and tells us who they are (even doing so, humiliatingly, to Bill, dismissing him as a sad sack would-be writer). Bill's struggle throughout the film is to change himself to be more like Cobb; to be braver, more inventive, more charismatic. His failure, the twist reveals, is so complete as to show that he never had a chance. Following argues (using the woman's fate as well) that not only is not possible to change who we are, but that the attempt itself is extremely dangerous. The ending says to Bill, "It doesn't pay to get mixed up with people like that, because you will never be like them."
We can see this theme of identity and the struggle to change it (particularly in a social sense) throughout all of Nolan's work. The protagonist in Insomnia doesn't want to be a bad cop anymore; Bruce Wayne tries to become something greater than himself so he can stop being that scared little kid; the magicians of The Prestige are at war not only with each other but with their own drives to love separately, to obsess, to find success on the stage; much of TDK is about public and private personae and how they are and can be shaped; and of course Inception is all about using a very dangerous and complicated process in order to change someone's notion of who he wants to be.
I like where you went with this. But the twist I was talking about (SPOILERS!) is the murder of the young woman, not the murder of the old woman. The murder of the young woman makes the twist more emotionally immediate, but does it really affect the themes you're talking about?
Aha. That twist is less important, thematically, although I'd argue that the young woman is one of Nolan's beloved twins/mirrors for the main character. What we see of her story matches Bill's; she also gets involved with Cobb, she also believes she can change her social position (by holding onto the rug), and she also gets so caught up in playing the illegal game with Cobb (for her, tricking Bill instead of burglarizing) that she's blindsided when he betrays her.
Whether you ascribe to that or not, I don't think the murder is supposed to be particularly meaningful on its own; it is a prerequisite for the real twist, which is the frame job. At least, it's the latter that always hits me the strongest when I watch the movie.
Jim, did Nolan kill your dog or something? Did he steal your girlfriend at some point, many many years ago? Why so much time spent nitpicking a director that as far as I can tell does his job well. Is he too popular for you? If that's it just say so. We've all been there, when we were teenagers trying to be cooler than the next person. Or if you live in Los Angeles or San Francisco, trying to be cooler than the next person is a state of mind. Either way buddy, just stop with the whining.
You mean it's not cool to like Christopher Nolan's first feature? OH NO!!!
Rory, your timing couldn't have been better. Why? Because I get to paste this link which I was just reading on IMDb.
Enjoy it.
http://splinterend.tumblr.com/post/836405447/the-essential-critic-and-why-we-need-them
I'm most interested in what you say about Nolan being "fully formed" at 28 when making this film. This seems to not only be pretty common, but these early films are often the best representations of their style/theme. Kubrick made Paths of Glory at 29, and it is the most literal interpretation of the theme in all his movies: the individual sacrificed for the benefit of the system. Scorsese's "Who's that Knockin at My Door" has the male relationships with each other and their girls down pat. I think in many cases, such as with Scorsese, they nail this theme over and over, and then have little else to say about life, so they make films about movies.
It's interesting for me, as a filmmaker crossing over from amateur to (quasi)professional, to think about all the fully-formed filmmakers who aren't getting to make movies. I saw "Following" with Nolan present a couple years ago, and he spoke about how "Following" wasn't accepted into Slamdance Film Festival (it's first year, when no one cared about it), and how he tried again the following year and got in. It was there he raised the money for Memento, his one great film in my opinion. It's interesting to think that this fully-formed filmmaker, whether you care for him or not, came fairly close to not making more films, at least for a while. If most filmmakers already have their future films in their blood from before they've made their first feature, it seems more tragic that many never get a chance to to set the wheel in motion, as if their careers were aborted.
It was an interesting screening, to watch Nolan's $7000 feature right after The Dark Knight became the 2nd highest grossing film of all time. I asked him if he thought independent film would recover, and he said he thought it was all cyclical, but it seems like that isn't the case. Budgets are going up and quality down.
Also, have you seen the original Insomnia? It's incredible filmmaking in my opinion, so clearly from the protagonist's perspective, not as literal as Nolan's version. I love the way Stellan begins to resemble a vampire and the locations resemble castles. Nolan would never do anything that fun.
But at least the second time through I could better appreciate some of the filmmaking. Now that I have a DVD of it, I want to go back and look at how he presents the magic -- when he chooses to cut during the tricks and when he shows them more or less "whole."
I am glad to hear you say this, Jim. In my original response in your "Signs/Prestige" comment thread, I was going to address one of the statements you made in your piece. Namely, this one:
Nolan makes some odd directorial choices, sometimes actually cutting during an onstage magic act -- which, of course, destroys the spacial integrity necessary to sustaining an illusion. (Isn't that what CGI is for?
I suspect the sequence you are referring to is when Christian Bale bounces the ball to himself in the first performance of his "transported man" trick. Right before he catches the ball, Nolan cuts to a reaction shot of Michael Caine sitting in the audience and we "hear" the conclusion (or prestige) of the trick rather than witness it with our own eyes. Thus, we are forced to conclude what the trick was. This also struck me as odd when I first saw it, but rather than being turned off or annoyed by it, I was engaged and intrigued. Somehow I felt like Nolan had treated me, as an intelligent audience member, with a little more respect than most directors do. I may not have known initially what his purpose was in cutting the way he did, but I was interested in finding out.
I had known going into THE PRESTIGE that Nolan was going to do something unusual with the editing and/or story structure because that's typically how he does things. His fracturing of time in films like MEMENTO, THE FOLLOWING and even BATMAN BEGINS had prepared me for a different kind of movie-viewing experience than I normally get when I approached THE PRESTIGE. It's still the case that whenever I enter a Chris Nolan film I try to re-adjust my thinking and expectations beforehand to best suit his aesthetic sensibilities such that I can be (hopefully) in a better mindset to understand and/or appreciate what he's doing. This is actually something I try to do with any "unconventional" filmmaker (be it David Lynch, the Coen brothers or, yes, even Robert Altman).
To be fair, though, I was not all that enamored with Nolan's style of editing when I first encountered it. I remember seeing MEMENTO and loving the backwards-forwards narrative idea, but being disappointed in the actual editing within the scenes themselves. In particular, I remember the sequence where some guy with a gun climbs into the front seat of the car with Leonard and before he completely enters the vehicle Nolan cuts to Leonard having almost completely exited the driver's side. There was no "Leonard turning the door handle in order to open he door and escape" shot. He was already out the door by the time the camera cut to him (though you can HEAR the door handle being turned during the preceding shot). It took me by surprise because I didn't have the usual "movie" length of time (i.e. longer) it takes to accomplish these kinds of things. I was disoriented. I didn't like it. This just happened too fast. As time has gone on, I've come to appreciate this choice more and more. Now I find that this is was actually more realistic. This went down in the span of time such an event would probably go down in reality. I realized that my initial annoyance was based on my experience with the way movies (especially Hollywood movies) "normally" do things, but Nolan wasn't doing it that way. I didn't like it because I wasn't familiar with it.
I am going to see INCEPTION later tonight and I am already in the process of shifting my mind to a more "Nolan-centric" way of thinking so I can hopefully interact with his film in the manner that he would intend me to. That means, preparing myself for some editing that is odd and maybe even a little confusing, but (who knows?) perhaps also brilliant.
As I watched “Inception” I got few really peculiar observations. Sure I’m not a movie columnist but an amateur who loves cinema, thus my thoughts are not a critique in any manner. However I’m a professional architect and since the most active and sexy character in the film is… Architecture (sorry Leo!) I wrote this weird text Inception in Architecture: http://archialternative.com/2010/07/26/inception-of-architecture/
I am pleased that ExistenZ came to my mind as well...
I have not seen Following yet, though I did just add it to my Netflix queue. I did want to make a comment on The Prestige. Maybe this has been made a thousand times already, I've not read it anywhere else though.
(Spoilers ahead for people who have not seen the Prestige)
You wrote "Maybe "Following" is to short-story writing what "Inception" is to big-studio filmmaking -- a metaphor for the process itself." Well, I think "The Prestige" is about the process of a magic trick. I don't remember the exact terms, but Michael Caine talks about the three stages of a magic trick, the beginning, where you take something ordinary, the reveal, where you do something extraordinary to it, and the prestige, where you make it fantastic. Or something like that. The majority of the movie follows that structure, but then it takes it one step further. The reveal of the movie is that Christian Bale has a twin brother, the prestige is that Jackson does the same trick without a twin. As Caine's character says, the audience wants to be fooled, they want to believe in the fantastic, and they are disappointed to learn how the trick was done because it destroys the illusion. That's commonly held to be true about magic tricks. But Nolan shows us it isn't. We're comforted to know that it's just a trick. There's a part of us that enjoys being fooled specifically because we know we're being fooled.
The ending, then, is showing us what happens when we find out we aren't being fooled. It isn't an illusion, it is magic. And we are disturbed and disappointed to find out. How many of us wanted a real solution? How thrilling would a clever mechanism for how Jackson did it be? But we're left with the most straight forward explanation, it's real magic.
The owner of the theater Jackson rents, on seeing the trick, said something like, "It's been a while since I've seen real magic" and is genuinely frightened. And that's the thing about magic, it would be terrifying. I think one of the more powerful messages of The Prestige is how we, the audience, don't really want reality to be more than we can see. We want to be enchanted via seduction and trickery, not actual enchantment.
That line also leads to another question about the movie, namely, what real magic has that guy seen before?
Apart from the motion that keeps you on the edge with your seat, the romance and concept of goals vs. simple fact entirely produce this film. The acting in all elements was immaculate. I got chills each and every time Marion Cotillard arrived on screen, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt transformed my opinion of him in this dvd, he did great stunts (without the need of a double) and did an awesome work as Leo's right-hand man. And as for Leo, perfectly, have you by chance viewed a performance wherever he does poorly? His sensible romantic relationship with Mal within your motion picture coupled with his conniving tricks to get into people's minds blew me apart.
"Following" reminds me of "The Pickpocket" or Poe's short, "The Man in the Crowd."
There are quite a bit similarities and themes between Following and Nolan’s later work besides the use of “the twist” and fragmentized chronology. These help not only explain Nolan but the movie as well.
The use of the mentor: Cobb becomes The Young Man’s mentor. Nolan has exploited this relationship later in Inception (the architects with an overriding father figure in Michael Caine) though Batman Begins with Henri Ducard (and Michael Caine as the father figure) is more similar with Ducard and Cobb both later becoming the antagonist. The mentor is also used in The Prestige as well as Michael Caine as the father figure.
The use of the Doppelganger: while Nolan has not used this device anywhere near Johnnie To’s use, it is still a device throughout many of his movies most well known with its literal use (and other implied elements) in The Prestige. The Young Man becomes Cobb through the film (its spelling out of why is another problematic reoccurrence in Nolan’s work as you mentioned earlier that everything is over-explained).
The combination of the mentor/Doppleganger in this film was used later to great affect in Fight Club.
The façade: Following is ultimately about what Memento, The Prestige and Inception (possibly) is about – that what we had thought is an illusion. This I think is why I feel his work can feel pessimistic. Whether we continue the illusion is a different story.
There are quite a bit similarities and themes between Following and Nolan’s later work besides the use of “the twist” and fragmentized chronology. These help not only explain Nolan but the movie as well.
The use of the mentor: Cobb becomes The Young Man’s mentor. Nolan has exploited this relationship later in Inception (the architects with an overriding father figure in Michael Caine) though Batman Begins with Henri Ducard (and Michael Caine as the father figure) is more similar with Ducard and Cobb both later becoming the antagonist. The mentor is also used in The Prestige as well as Michael Caine as the father figure.
The use of the Doppelganger: while Nolan has not used this device anywhere near Johnnie To’s use, it is still a device throughout many of his movies most well known with its literal use (and other implied elements) in The Prestige. The Young Man becomes Cobb through the film (its spelling out of why is another problematic reoccurrence in Nolan’s work as you mentioned earlier that everything is over-explained).
The combination of the mentor/Doppleganger in this film was used later to great affect in Fight Club.
The façade: Following is ultimately about what Memento, The Prestige and Inception (possibly) is about – that what we had thought is an illusion. This I think is why I feel his work can feel pessimistic. Whether we continue the illusion is a different story.
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