The people of this world are divided into three different categories: people who love Christopher Nolan’s movies, people who have never seen his films, and people who do not understand them. There might be a few who dislike his movies, but nobody needs that kind of negativity in their lives! If you are a part of the second category, here are eight reasons to convince you to start.
- CONSTANT VIGILANCE!
Seriously, make sure you have 2-3 hours on hand that you can dedicate solely to the pursuit of focused movie-watching. These movies are not meant to be taken lightly. Every moment is crucial, every dialogue is vital. The plot advances speedily yet steadily, without ever allowing a slack or a relaxed moment. These are films that you cannot watch and understand if you are joking around with your friends and munching popcorn; they are films you immerse yourself in so completely that you drown in their complexity and bask in their brilliance. If you want to watch a light romantic comedy while counting the freckles on your girlfriend’s nose or whatever, then these are the films you deserve, but not the ones you need right now.
- UNFORGETTABLE ENDINGS
Every single one of this genius’ movies will leave you stunned at the end, staring unblinkingly at your TV screen in bewilderment thinking, ‘WAIT WHAAAAT?!?!?!’ From Memento to the Dark Knight Trilogy to Interstellar, the conclusion to each of these gripping films will leave you with a raging maelstrom of emotion brewing inside you – disbelief, denial, shock, anger, fury, a grudging admiration and finally, a feeling of surreal wonderment. The villain is NEVER who you thought it would be; the solution is something you couldn’t have imagined even in your wildest dreams.
- YOU DON’T FORGET THEM IN A HURRY – YOU CAN’T!
Take Inception, Interstellar and The Prestige. After watching each of those movies, I had passionate discussions with whoever had braved those mind-boggling masterpieces with me about theories and opinions, the significance of dialogues and the personalities of characters, and WHY ON EARTH WAS THE TOTEM STILL SPINNING? Interstellar got me so deep into black holes and relativity articles that I was telling unfortunate bystanders how those Goliaths of gravity would turn them into infinite strands of humanoid spaghetti, for MONTHS afterwards.
- SO MUCH RESEARCH
Christopher Nolan doesn’t just imagine the most convoluted storyline he can to unleash it on the unsuspecting public. No, he backs up his creativity with solid, scientific facts. For the making of The Prestige, his brother Jonathan Nolan visited Colorado Springs in person to glean more knowledge about the late scientist Nikola Tesla. For Interstellar, Nolan worked with Kip Thorne, a leading American theoretical physicist who led to the most scientifically accurate portrayal of a black hole and the relativity of time, ever seen! A book by this talented scientist called ‘The Science of Interstellar’ has earned wide acclaim.
THE SOUNDTRACK
The music in his films is, quite simply, the best. It haunts you and stays with you for days after, ringing faintly in your ears like a half-forgotten melody. The music for the action-packed Batman films is perfect; it is exciting and invigorating; it keeps you on the edge of your seat and sends the blood pumping through your veins. The Interstellar soundtrack still brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it. It brings back memories of how I felt when I watched this favourite of mine on the big screen for the first time – utterly overwhelmed. Hans Zimmer, you have my respect.
- LOOPS, LAYERS AND SPIRALS
All of these films have an intricate, web-like structure. The plotlines seem to branch out in all directions and yet, in the end, all the loose ends are tied together and presented to you as a perfectly wrapped up gift. The level of the subconscious depicted in Inception, the dream-within-a-dream concept; it takes a while to be able to digest the depth of movies like these. The time-travelling (to put it in simple terms) and the manipulation of gravity and time like the strings of a violin in the Tesseract, the way it all tied together at the beginning to form an infinite loop – it is ideas like these that make you truly appreciate the mind of Christopher Nolan and the work put in by his entire team.
- THE DIALOGUES TO DIE FOR
Instead of boring you with my opinion on these, I’ll let the real thing do the talking for me:
“But I know the rage that drives you. That impossible anger strangling the grief until the memory of your loved one is just… poison in your veins. And one day, you catch yourself wishing the person you loved had never existed so that you would be spared your pain.” – Ra’s al Ghul
Heartbreaking and raw.
“Let’s put a SMILE on that face!” – The Joker
Genuinely one of the most terrifying sentences I have ever heard. The dialogue delivery was inspirational.
“See, their morals, their code… it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show you, when the chips are down, these civilized people? They’ll eat each other. See, I’m not a monster, I’m just ahead of the curve.” – The Joker
Chilling and disturbingly accurate.
“Because he’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. 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.” -Jim Gordon
Did you get goosebumps? Because I did.
“I’m drawn across the universe to someone I haven’t seen in a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can’t understand it.” – Amelia Brand
Beautiful, poignant and touching.
Kudos to the script writers!
- THE BEST CASTING EVER
Morgan Freeman, Liam Neeson, Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Hugh Jackman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robin Williams (from Insomnia); the list goes on and on. Their characters’ personas encase these artists like perfectly fitted gloves. Every time I see Michael Caine on screen, I will ALWAYS think of him as Alfred Pennyworth from the Dark Knight Trilogy; that is the degree of authenticity he lent the role. Everything about Heath Ledger as The Joker was utter perfection; no one else will ever come CLOSE to his remarkable portrayal of the villain. May he rest in peace. All of Nolan’s films have actors best suited to the roles they play, and it is a joy to watch as their presence in the movie makes it the masterpiece that it is.
So make haste and start watching! Add these gems to your repertoire; do not go gentle into that good night – that incredible, exciting world of Nolan.