This is the second part of an article about Christopher Nolan. Continuing the theme, I will discuss the second half of his current filmography. At this stage, the director is already an established name in Hollywood and is successively receiving large budgets and full studio support. Each of his films is in high demand and gets a positive reception. Consequently, the films mentioned here are representatives of Blockbusters. Even if the genre is rather not associated with it, the filmmaker manages to extract maximum spectacularity out of it. So this is the story of an artist who, through his subsequent achievements, is permanently inscribed in the pages of history as a legend of the industry.

The Dark Knight Rises

Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy concludes with The Dark Knight Rises. The film draws scenes and visual iconography from comic books such as Dark Knight Returns and Knightfall. Several years have passed since Batman’s last appearance, the world has moved on and the main character is no longer in the same physical and mental shape. The plot and its construction in this case is based on Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. The film shows how a radical leader can bring out the worst in people and how liberation propaganda can induce terrible acts in the name of revolution.

The main antagonist here is Bane, played by Tom Hardy. The comic book man who broke the bat is inspired here by the historical figure of Robespierre. So, in addition to the physical and mental challenge poses an ideological challenge for the protagonist. He is able to captivate the crowd and persuade people to his cause. By doing so, he causes chaos in Gotham, which leads to the loss of control over the city. At the beginning he also dominates the main character physically. Bruce Wayne must therefore return to his former strength and remind the citizens and himself anew what the legend of the Dark Knight means and what Batman is to the city.

Despite the fact that the film still adheres to the realistic style and is presented in such a manner, the director has smuggled in comic, exaggerated and cartoonish elements. And yet, thanks to the skill and flair of the filmmaker, not even for a moment do they feel false, they fit to the film and the whole trilogy the entire time. This is certainly worth admiring, as it takes masterful skill to combine such extreme concepts in such a good way. This combination of styles was associated with the strongest focus on the heroic aspect of the character and sealed the trilogy as a modern legend.

Interstellar

This time the director took on a sci-fi space epic. In Interstellar you can clearly see the inspiration from 2001 a Space Odyssey. He wanted to create the same effect on the audience as Kubrick’s film, and it can be considered that on many viewers this effect worked. This is another “modern classic.” Regardless of our reception, it must be admitted that it had a huge impact on pop culture and has already made its mark on the consciousness of cinema fans.

Christopher Nolan offered us a breathtaking space journey. During it we can admire amazingly realized scenes showing the cosmos. In addition, the costume designs, interiors of space ships and space bases, research equipment or robots look brilliant. The latter is already an iconic design, very minimalistic but brilliant in its simplicity. Due to the film’s location in space, there is more CGI here, than in Nolan’s previous productions. However, this in no way detracts from the immersion, the director translates his understanding of the camera into this type of effects and implements them in such a way that we don’t feel them even for a second. We should also appreciate the beautiful cinematography, sound design and soundtrack.

We see the story through the eyes of Joseph Cooper, played by Matthew McCounaghey. Due to climate change, humanity’s existence on Earth is slowly coming to an end. The main character is in a group of scientists who discover a space-time tunnel. This revelation is supposed to help find a new home. Through the entire movie we never loose a sense of time, of which the scientists have less and less. The plot itself is full of twists and extremely stressful, in a positive sense, scenes. Ultimately, however, this is a production that deals with the themes of separation, admiration of our world and, above all, love.

Dunkirk

After working on the space epic Christopher Nolan took on another classic genre of cinema, the War drama. He came up with the idea for a film in this style 20 years earlier, when he was sailing with friends across the English Channel to Dunkirk. During the trip, the sea was very stormy. He was fascinated by the idea of the many-hour passage and what it might have been like during the war, in the face of being bombed. And that is why the story itself is about Operation Dynamo. This was the evacuation of British, French and Belgian troops from Dunkirk to Britain.

The film is leading a narrative from three separate perspectives. Each is contained in a different time period. The first lasts a week and is shown from the eyes of soldiers waiting on the beach for evacuation. The second lasts one day and depicts events happening on a civilian boat that went to help with the evacuation. The third lasts only an hour and presents this situation from the perspective of pilots covering the evacuation from the air.

The theme of a countdown, which in previous artist’s movies was only a segment, here is a foundation and most important element. The entire plot has been directed so that we constantly feel the pressure of time chasing the characters, which is further manifested in many smaller aspects of the feature. This motif is further contained in Hans Zimmer’s magnificent soundtrack. Creating it he made use of sounds reminiscent of a ticking timer. The entire film was made with extraordinary technical precision from the first minutes. With its detail approach Dunkirk makes us fall into a total immersion of the world presented by the director. Here, for the first time, the filmmaker’s focus on the “vibe” of the film is much more noticeable. He puts less emphasis on developing the story and tries more to evoke emotions on the viewer by creating constant pressure through images and sound, strictly focusing on the directorial aspects.

Tenet

However, when it comes to the “vibe movie” theme, the director spread his wings in his next production. Here he focused even more strictly on directing aspects affecting the viewer’s feelings. Because of this, he pushes storytelling to the background. The film is a certain fantasy of a crazy, over the top story in the style of a James Bond series.

Again, we have a scientific theory, around which everything was built. Here it is time inversion. It shows the inversion of the effects of time on physical objects. This is, of course, a great excuse for innovative film experiments. There are plenty of scenes that are a combination of footage in the correct course of events and those shot backwards. Many scenes were filmed to simulate the reversal of the flow of incidents. This required careful planning of every sequence in the production and precise coordination of actors and stuntmen. It’s full of practical special effects that were very difficult to execute. At the forefront of this is the blowing up of a real plane. This shows once again that the director does not take the easy way out when it comes to traditional approach to filmmaking.

The story itself is very simple and is only a pretext for further visual achievements. The protagonist, played by John David Washington, is caught up in the world of spies and must unravel the mystery of an international conspiracy. While doing so, he is armed only with the word “Tenet.” The use of the word “Protagonist” is not only to define his role in the plot. This is how the main character is noted in the credits; his name never drops. This shows how little emphasis the filmmaker places on characters in this production. The eventual criticism of the film is connected to this. However, among the cast, the character of Neil, bravuraly portrayed by Robert Pattinson, stands out on the plus side. He is sort of the heart of the film, infusing charisma and the human factor into it.

Christopher for the first time created a “weird” film, fully artistically original, not making compromises in terms of affordability. The result was a representative of the aforementioned niche of Vibe Movies. But isn’t it precisely in such cinema that the director fulfills himself the most? He has mentioned many times that his films should first of all be felt, not tried to be understood. Secondly, we are well aware of his love for the “weird” side of cinema.

Oppenheimer

As a contrast to Tenet‘s ” deficit of complex characters” for his next production, he decided to do a character study. With this we move on to Oppenheimer. The British filmmaker’s latest production enjoys the highest number of nominations in this Oscar race. Many are hoping that the filmmaker will finally get a well-deserved statuette in the director’s category.

The film, as most of you probably know, tells the story of the creator of the atomic bomb. It is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Oppenheimer. The Triumph and Tragedy of the Father of the Atomic Bomb by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The script of the production itself was unique, as it was written mostly from the first person, this allowed those working on the production to show the perspective of the main character and get into his psyche. This was crucial because during the seance, apart from small exceptions, we do not detach ourselves from the main character. We follow him all the time, seeing all the events from his perspective, marked by his view of the situation. The aforementioned exceptions are scenes from an objective point of view. Those, written in script in third person, are shown in black and white and framed differently.

The filmmaker, within such a construction of the plot, uses a variety of tricks and treatments. There are shots showing some kind of visualization of the protagonist’s thoughts on physical concepts. All of them were realized without the use of a computer, with the help of clever constructions built from lights or close-ups of chemical reactions. Additionally, several scenes depicts Oppenheimer’s emotions through very graphic manifestations of his imagination. Apart from that, the director presents the panic and shock that strikes the protagonist with the help of a projector that casts a shaky photo of the background. It matches with what is actually behind him. In this way we get the impression as if the whole world is shaking, of course only in the physicist’s head.

The entire film was shot using IMAX cameras. This gives the film a crystal-clear quality that allows us to notice the dust floating in the air. This guarantee that the viewer is completely absorbed by the depicted story. The extremely clear image also allows us to appreciate the special effects. These were realized entirely practically. Including the test explosion of an atomic bomb. All of this provides an incredible impact on the audience.

This is Nolan’s the most human film, focusing least on the concept and most on the characters. What we gain by this is a work that leaves us with questions, it does not give a clear answer to who is to blame for the creation of such a deadly weapon. The story also serves as a warning. Above all, however, it is a drama of a genius whose potential was exploited in the conspiracies of people in power.

What the future will bring

I kept mentioning the Oscars, but there were many award ceremonies that have already taken place in this season. Nolan and his Oppenheimer are the undisputed leader in the number of prizes won. The film is the culmination of more than two decades of his work. In addition, the financial results of the film show what power his name has. So what can we expect from Hollywood’s greatest filmmaker in future years?

Certainly, he will not move away from creating large-scale productions. He has made it clear that he considers the position he has earned a privilege. He is extremely grateful for it. Many filmmakers dream to work with such a budget at least once. He can be sure of such, with every subsequent project. So he doesn’t want to waste it and intends to deliver more cinematic spectacles.

When asked about the genre, he recently mentioned that he is very interested in creating a Horror film. This is a very original idea for a person whose filmography we tend to associate with larger than life epic stories. It shows that the director does not want to lock himself in an established formula and has a desire to extend his range. The concept itself works on our imagination. Given his statement about budgets, it is understood that in the case of a horror film he would also operate in such scale. So are we in for a return to the giant horror blockbusters like The Omen and The Exorcist in the past? Besides, it will be interesting to see how the director’s filmmaking style itself interacts with the genre, considering that he is a master of building a suspense.

Apart from this, the director’s name has been mentioned for years in context of one specific movie franchise. Especially after the release of Oppenheimer, the director gets a lot of questions about it. We are, of course, talking about the cinematic adventures of James Bond. These films have had a key influence on the filmmaker’s artistic development and his style. In many of his works you can clearly see the influence they had on his filmography. In the Dark Knight trilogy, it was the way the protagonist’s actions were portrayed. In Inception it was the concept of what the third act looks like. And as for Tenet here it was the whole idea of the film. So it seems clear that the director is heading towards taking the helm of one of the next installments in the series. The only question is when it will happen. We can only be sure that if such a situation comes to reality, we are probably in for the most spectacular but also the most detailed story about the world’s most famous spy.

Personally, I have great respect for the director’s work, but the frequent pathos, the need to explain every aspect and the haughty dialogues do not always resonate with me. I hope that the director, after, most likely, winning an Academy Award, will not feel that he has to prove anything anymore. So he’ll be able to get his hands on more weird, totally bizarre projects. The kind that will allow him to fully show his creativity and crazy ideas. This way we will get even more projects that will push the limits of what can be shown on the screen. At the same time adding some much-needed slack, which after all is in him, to his filmography.