Christopher Nolan is one of the most celebrated directors in modern cinema. He's racked up four films that have topped $200 million domestically, and two that broke the $1 billion mark worldwide. These days, his name being attached to a film guarantees its success.
A single-minded, intensely focused creative, Nolan's work hovers around the character-driven, heightened drama landscape, where he uses tropes from a range of pop fiction genres to magnify the emotions his characters experience. Part of his appeal is in trying to figure out how he does it, but while we can't penetrate that mystique, we can point you to seven things we've noticed that you'll see in every one of his films.
1. More physical effects than CGI
Nolan is notorious for his staging of enormous setpieces that he films without the help of computer imagery, such as the plane heist scene at the opening of The Dark Knight Rises. Sure, he dips some toes into visual effects when there's no other choice, such as his depiction of space travel and wormholes in Interstellar. But nine times out of ten, if you're seeing an impressive spectacle in one of his movies, then it was rigged up and done physically "in camera," in the real world.
2. Michael Caine
Since Batman Begins, Christopher Nolan has brought back the respected British actor for every film he's done. He often plays a grandfatherly role or an adviser, and very often serves as the spark that kicks off the movie. Nolan has called Caine his "good luck charm," so you can bet he'll be in every movie ever Nolan makes.
Caine is far from the only actor Nolan has hired multiple times. The director is known for finding an actor or actress he likes and bringing them back for a second or third movie. Christian Bale was in all of the Dark Knight movies and The Prestige. Ken Watanabe was in Batman Begins and Inception. Joseph Gordon-Levitt did Inception and The Dark Knight Rises, as did Tom Hardy and Marion Cotillard. Anne Hathaway appeared as Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises and Nolan brought her back for his next flick, Interstellar. Cillian Murphy was in Batman Begins and Inception, as well as popping up in cameos in The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises.
3. Scenes shot on IMAX film
It's no secret that Christopher Nolan prefers film over digital when shooting his movies, but his true passion is IMAX. After using the massive film format for a handful of scenes in The Dark Knight, he's shot ever more scenes in each subsequent movie in IMAX.
4. Plot surprises
While no Hollywood production is 100% leak-proof these days, Christopher Nolan's films may hold the record for the most plot twists and secrets safely kept. The director, perhaps through sheer force of will, somehow manages to keep his biggest plot twists under wraps until they unfold on the big screen.
It comes as no surprise, then, that his movies tend to be structured as complex puzzles with many pieces that always manage to fall right into place before the end credits roll.
5. Psychologically damaged characters
Every protagonist Nolan has ever used has been a broken human being looking for hope and meaning by executing tasks that others would find impossible. Leonard's mind was broken in Memento, unable to form new memories, but he clung to the last thing he remembered — his wife's murder, and the search for her killer — as his purpose (even though he was ultimately fooling himself).
Bruce Wayne was a man who coped with his parents' murder by becoming a vigilante who healed his broken city. Dom Cobb was unjustly accused of his wife's death and kept away from his children, until he carried out an elaborate plan for a client who cleared his name in Inception. Interstellar's protagonist wants to provide a future for his daughter, but has to miss most of her life by going into space to find a new home for mankind.
6. Film noir trappings
Nolan structures his movies using film noir, with lots of muted colors, wide frames with close-ups on his actors, and a major focus on the unsettling beauty of old (and new) architecture. He tackles varying genres -- The Dark Knight was a crime thriller. Inception was a heist movie, Interstellar is a space epic -- but all of his stories are told in the language of film noir.
It's a conscious choice on Nolan's part, because noir is a potent method for dramatizing the human mind. And the mind is something this director is keenly interested in.
7. No post-credits scenes
Marvel movies have become famous for their stingers — that extra scene that comes after the credits. It's a gimmick that's worked so well for Marvel that other studios regularly copy it. But Christopher Nolan is dead set against it.
The Guardian says Nolan told Warner Bros. that "a real movie wouldn't do that" when asked about putting a stinger at the end of Man of Steel, which Nolan produced. Nolan himself has protested this report as inaccurate. Either way, it's clear that he doesn't like post-credits scenes and will never use them.
You can see his latest movie, Interstellar, in theaters now. How many of these tropes can you spot in it?
Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures
