Analysis of director

1. Christopher
Nolan

2. Introduction
Christopher Nolan is an American-English writer, director and cinematographer. He was born in
Westminster, London in 1970. Chris has been extremely successful in filmmaking. From the 9 films he
has produced, they have grossed over $4.2 billion and have earned 26 Oscar nominations and
numerous awards. Nolan made his directorial debut with ‘The Following’ in 1998. However, his career
started to gain popularity with his 2000 hit ‘The Memento’ since then, he has written and directed
some of the largest blockbusters in recent history. This includes ‘Intersteller’ ‘Shutter Island’ and ‘The
Dark Night Trilogy’ Nolan has co-written several of his films with his younger brother, Jonathan Nolan,
and runs the production company Syncopy Inc. with his wife Emma Thomas.

3. Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan is described as an auteur and postmodern director, he has said in multiple interviews that
most of his films are heavily influenced by ‘noir’ he loves working with deep, evocative shadows and using as
many natural settings as possible.
He is a creative person and this is shown in his filmmaking. He is a very unique director who is well known
for making movies that are difficult to understand at first. He is fascinated by our ‘subjective perception of
reality’ this is shown in Interstellar and Inception. His characters are often emotionally disturbed and morally
ambiguous, facing the fears and anxieties of loneliness, guilt, jealousy, and greed; in addition to the larger
themes of corruption and conspiracy.
Nolan's most prominent recurring theme is the concept of time. The director has identified that all of his films
"have had some odd relationship with time, usually in just a structural sense, in that I have always been
interested in the subjectivity of time."

4. Inception
Inception is an action-thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio. It was written and co-produced by Christopher
Nolan. Inception incorporates the idea that Nolan had of people sharing a ‘Dream Space’ in which people
could access somebody’s unconscious mind. The plot of Inception is that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) A
professional thief who steals information by infiltrating a subconscious mind. The casting of Inception was
moulded completely around Leonardo DiCaprio. The main actors included Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon Levitt
and Ellen Page.
Setting
Inception is based in six different
countries on four continents, including
Japan, Morocco, France, England,
Canada and the United States. The
balance of the filming, however, was
done in and around Los Angeles. Nolan
incorporated ‘Colour Palettes’ for the
dreams the cast entered. This dreams
included a dark world constantly raining,
a dream filmed completely inside a hotel,
a white on white dream with hints of grey
and finally a dream set in Limbo.
Camerawork
Nolan incorporates many different
camera angles in Inception. In the
infamous hotel scene, Nolan uses his
infamous camera roll, in which the
camera rolls on its axis multiple times.
Nolan has used this camera technique in
some of his biggest hits including The
Dark Night. The film was shot mostly on a
35mm anamorphic film., with significant
sequences filmed in 65mm. Inception
incorporates many different camera
angles including: Close up, extreme close
up, extreme long shots, low angles and
high angles.
Music
The music for Inception was written by
Hans Zimmer simultaneously to the
filming of the movie. Zimmer described
the music as “A very electronic dense
score, filled with Nostalgia and
sadness”

5. Interstellar
Interstellar is an American-British film written by Jonathon and Christopher Nolan. It was also directed by
Christopher. It had a budget $165 million and it grossed $675 million. It was released in 2014 and stars
Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon and Michael Caine. Interstellar’s plot
is somewhat complicated. A widowed NASA astronaut is tasked with finding new habitable planets since a
wormhole was discovered near Saturn. He was given 8,000 embryos to colonise the planet as Earth is being
affected by a crop blight.
Setting
Interstellar was filmed in many
different places, however the
majority of the movie was filmed
in Iceland and Alberta, Canada.
Other locations include Los
Angeles and Torrance, California.
Interstellar is set in the year 2070
ahead of a crop blight on Earth.
Camerawork
Camerawork in Interstellar is
unique in many ways, firstly is
Nolan’s use of using as many
natural environments as
possible. He shot most of the
film in Iceland. The movie was
shot mostly in 35mm
anamorphic film while also major
parts of the movie was shot in
70mm IMAX technology.
Music
Hans Zimmer composed all the
music for Interstellar. He has
worked with Nolan many times,
with his music featuring in
Inception and The Batman
series.

6. The Dark Knight
The Dark Night is a superhero thriller film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. It was released in
2008. The film stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Heath Ledger, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. The plot of the
film is based around Gotham police and Batman forming an alliance to get rid of Gotham’s organised crime. The film
is primarily focused on The Joker’s movements in Gotham. The Dark Knight had a budget of $185 million and grossed
over £1 billion at the box office. The Dark Knight is a very ‘dark’ film which is unsurprising considering Nolan’s love for
‘noir’ films
Setting
The Dark Knight was filmed
in Chicago however, a small
part of the movie was also
filmed in Hong Kong. The
Dark Night is a very grimy,
dark film . Chicago was
edited to make it seem more
like this way.
Camerawork
The camerawork in The Dark
Knight is very unique. Nolan
used his signature camera roll
many times in this movie, most
specifically when The Joker was
hanging upside down. Nolan
uses camera angles in The Dark
Knight to emphasise the feelings
of the character at that time. For
example, whenever the character
would say something important,
the camera would do a close up
shot of that characters face.
Music
Batman Begins composers Hans
Zimmer and James Newton
Howard returned to score the
sequel. Composition began
before shooting, and during
filming Nolan received an iPod
with ten hours of recordings.