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Old 2011.11.18, 08:45 PM   #331
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Originally Posted by Nimh View Post
Basically, he makes movies for male adolescents who need reassurance that their comic-book fueled fantasies of the world are actually sophisticated templates of contemporary thought.
You had me up until this. People will always have their opinions about particular directors, sure, but I don't think any one director is simply motivated to make films only because they feel the need to reassure themselves that what they are doing is actually really smart and too sophisticated for general audiences to comprehend. Why would anyone want to alienate an audience? Do you not want people to see your film?

I think that Nolan knows perfectly well the type of film he wants to make when it comes to his big blockbusters - it's just that the demographic at large that see and enjoy his films are male adolescents (actually that could pretty much be said about ANY type of film that Hollywood tries to produce).

I don't think Nolan has to answer his critics at all but if he were to do so, I think it would be best if he went back to making smaller films like Memento and Following.
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Old 2011.11.19, 06:15 AM   #332
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Originally Posted by Nimh View Post
Don't get me wrong, I really want to be convinced that all the time I've spent watching Nolan movies was worth it. There are good things in his movies, I just accentuated the negative to make a point. Sorry my style doesn't seem to hit the sweet spot of balance between enthusiasm and dry objective judgment that you hold up as a personal standard (you got an issue with my general manner on here, I really don't give a shit), but let's stick to substance.

You're right, Nolan is a creature of Hollywood and embodies a lot of its sexism and incoherent storytelling, which doesn't stop his movies from being hits, and there are worse directors. But I think there are far better filmmakers who've come before Nolan and done exactly what he did, much better, and I just can't throw all that stuff away and join the hordes who declare him an original genius. I don't feel "cool" saying that, in fact I feel very uncool and unhip and not-with-the-crowd and that doesn't make me proud, just confused.
I'm a big Nolan fan, and I think the one thing that distinguishes him for me from all the other film makers out there is he chooses fascinating story lines, fills them with a lot of unusual ideas and goes beyond what almost all others would do with it. I also like how he managed to let his movies look gorgeous and at the same time appear very bleak and unspectacular.

If someone asked me what my favourite movie was, I'd defintiely say Memento.

I simply don't care how much people pick apart anything he does, in the end he is still the one who can fascinate, amaze and surprise me more than anyone else. And that's all that counts for me.
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Old 2011.11.19, 06:35 AM   #333
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Originally Posted by golem09 View Post
I also like how he managed to let his movies look gorgeous and at the same time appear very bleak and unspectacular.
You can thank Nolan's DP, Wally Pfister for that. Great cinematographer who is as important in creating the dark, gritty Batman universe as much as Nolan or anybody else.
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Old 2011.11.19, 07:13 AM   #334
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I think that that Nolan's sets out to put "(sm)art film" and "blockbuster" together. To do that, he needs to water down the intellectual ideas so that they can be more accessible. Because they still have everything that a blockbuster needs (attractive actors, explosive action, quotable lines), they succeed as blockbusters. But, as "(sm)art films", they fail, because the ideas are watered down too much, and they usually feel a little thrown together. So people see his films and feel smart because they think they saw something smart/artistic, but what they really saw was a blockbuster. He tries to have it both ways, and I don't think ANY director can, so it just ends up falling short.

Think about it this way: with Inception, he couldn't get too deep into Freudian Psychology and Dream Theory, because it would have alienated the blockbuster audience. The same is for Authoritarian/Fascist Theory and Anarchism for The Dark Knight. He's stuck in a very difficult place.

BTW, comic books can be sophisticated pieces of contemporary thought.
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Old 2011.11.19, 07:58 AM   #335
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I don't think he is ever watering down anything. He uses interesting concepts ONLY to have even more interesting storylines.
He does not make movies to express something, or discuss or interpret it, only to tell it. He is a storyteller.
He couldn't get too deep into Freudian Psychology and Dream Theory, because that would have made the storyline a lot less engaging. It's a construct made to make the story more suspenseful. I don't think he ever thinks about making smart movies, only about making everything so unusual that you never know what's going to happen next.
I have NEVER in my whole life seen an audience so on it's edge as in Inception. When it cut to the credits, literally the whole cinema gasped.

Smart movies can be as smart as they want, I still prefer the work of a storyteller than that of an "artist". And what Nolan creates simply has more impact than any on those would have on their own. I don't think the has to water down anything, I think the sum he creates is greater than the parts he uses.
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Old 2011.11.19, 09:50 AM   #336
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Would you say that Nolan is like Hitchcock, then? That he makes movies based on theories of audience psychology, elements of suspense, etc.? He is definitely a manipulator on a grand scale, not preaching anything but building these huge wind-up contraptions.

I think there's something to that, but if we compare him to Hitchcock, he seems less adult....that's what I meant by "adolescent." His films are devoid of sex...even hostile to sex, in some ways.

I'm curious what people get from Nolan's films on an emotional level. Is it the pleasure of seeing a big puzzle movie? I can go with that.
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Old 2011.11.19, 10:13 AM   #337
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Originally Posted by Nimh View Post
Would you say that Nolan is like Hitchcock, then? That he makes movies based on theories of audience psychology, elements of suspense, etc.? He is definitely a manipulator on a grand scale, not preaching anything but building these huge wind-up contraptions.

I think there's something to that, but if we compare him to Hitchcock, he seems less adult....that's what I meant by "adolescent." His films are devoid of sex...even hostile to sex, in some ways.

I'm curious what people get from Nolan's films on an emotional level. Is it the pleasure of seeing a big puzzle movie? I can go with that.
Actually, when I think about Memento I kinda think "This is the movie Hitchcock would have been proud to make".
But his avoidance of sex is one thing I haven't noticed so far, probably because I myself think of it as mostly completely irrelevant.
For me on an emotianal level it is simply Fascination. He always builds completely artificial settings and worlds, filled with ideas and there are so many that you can't tell which is is gonna be a plot device or how. So it's like a puzzle, but not one you are meant to solve, rather one you enjoy being solved.
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Old 2011.11.19, 10:15 AM   #338
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I still think that a lot of Nolan's appeal is in faux-intellectual egotism. Audience feels smart after watching movies, even if they aren't.

Hitchock mostly dealt with suspense, not action, like Nolan. I wouldn't say Nolan's movies are especially suspenseful or full of tension. Like you said, they're definitely puzzle movies, but when I watch his movies I'm not really on the edge of my seat going "what's going to happen!?" it's more like, I'm watching it, and then a twist happens and I go "Oh! That happened!". There isn't a type of expectancy, more a type of inventiveness. "How interesting!" as apposed to "What's going to happen next!". I'm not articulating this well, sorry.

"So it's like a puzzle, but not one you are meant to solve, rather one you enjoy being solved."


Yes! That is what I was trying to say! The audience is there for the ride, they aren't supposed to be as involved in the movie.
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Old 2011.11.19, 11:07 AM   #339
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Originally Posted by TurtleFu View Post
"So it's like a puzzle, but not one you are meant to solve, rather one you enjoy being solved."

Yes! That is what I was trying to say! The audience is there for the ride, they aren't supposed to be as involved in the movie.
Yes, and that is exactly why I say that he doesn't NOT make movies for an appeal of faux-intellectual egotism. He does everything to make sure we enjoy the ride and involve in the movie, not in the puzzle.
But why some people think that he is making smart movies is probably because he constructs the storyline on overly complicated settings. Thing is he does not go beyond that because it would get in the way of the ride, but it still is important because those settings are more than unique for the kind of movie he is presenting. And that includes merging concept and storyline until you can't distinguish them.
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Old 2011.11.19, 04:11 PM   #340
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Originally Posted by TurtleFu View Post
I still think that a lot of Nolan's appeal is in faux-intellectual egotism.
People that say things like this obviously suffer from it themselves
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