Ranking - Christopher Nolan

Haven't seen 'Following'.

8. Insomnia (3/5)

My least favourite Nolan film, and not that it's bad at all, just a bit forgettable outside of Robin Williams' great performance as the villain of the murder mystery, Walter Finch, a crime writer who's mysterious and creepy in an oddly innocent way. The murder mystery isn't terribly interesting, and though Nolan captures the smalltown environment atmosphere and gives Al Pacino a good role for once in the 21st century, it doesn't stick in my mind at any point like the best of Nolan's films. Perhaps I need a re-watch, but I'm not particularly keen on it.

7. The Dark Knight Rises (4/5)

On a technical level I should probably give this a lower grade. The screenwriting here is disastrous in some regards. There are some inane lines and line deliveries by usually adept actors like Aiden Gillens, Ben Mendelsohn and of all people, Marion Cotillard. The plot is at times needlessly convoluted, particularly in the final act with the needless introduction of a second villain, as if Tom Hardy's Bane wasn't memorable or menacing enough. The whole character of (Robin) John Blake is just not all that necessary, more focus should've been given back to Jim Gordon, and it seems like a lesser element that would fit better in the current DC movie universe where every film tries to futilely set up characters for future installments. And though I don't really care how Bruce got into Gotham in the third act, it wouldn't be amiss to include a scene detailing that. The thing is though, even these flaws are quite entertaining in a way, despite not being 'good' filmmaking so to speak.

There's also points in The Dark Knight Rises where we get the best of Christopher Nolan. The escape from Bane's prison cave sequence is an amazing segment, which is supplanted by a fantastic Christian Bale giving his best performance in the series (though not his best Christopher Nolan performance). There's an emotional undercurrent to this film's themes of redemption that extend to characters like Selina Kyle (a delightful Anne Hathaway), and Gordon that though not perfectly realized, has just the right amount of heart to make it work. On a visual level it's perfect as ever, with the Bane/Batman showdown, the increased decadence of Gotham under Bane's regime, all being rather exquisite to look at. I'll probably revise my grade for this film in the near future but as it stands, it's a deeply flawed film but, at points where it gets it right, in small parts a masterpiece.

6. Interstellar (4/5)

Like The Dark Knight Rises, I'll get the flaws out of the way. The film in many ways showcases some of Nolan's worst tendencies as a writer to hammer in the point. Some of the characters here exist purely to express themes, like Matt Damon's mad astronaut and Michael Caine's ageing scientist, which not only seriously limits the actors but also makes their storylines less engaging. It's however, visually as splendid as ever, as Nolan's 2001: A Space Odyssey of sorts in its unique realization of galaxies and universes, Its scientific concepts are well-explained as is the plot, and even though it feels a bit bloated at points the film mainly works due to the most important aspects of the film working well.

That being the central story of Matthew McConaughey's Cooper, and astronaut sent into space to find a new home for humanity. Had the film stuck to this story more closely I'd say it could've been one of Nolan's best. As it stands, it's part of an imperfect overall package, but McConaughey carries the human element of the film brilliantly through his warm and emotional performance, and helps to make his relationship with onscreen daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy, Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn) so incredibly powerful. A film I think is let down in some regards by the less than amazing screenplay, but Nolan's direction always soars in giving a memorable depiction of a journey in space, and I'd love to see him revisit the genre with a tighter, more concise storyline to follow.

5. Batman Begins (4.5/5)

Ah, the first Batman film that oddly enough seems to be forgotten when discussing the trilogy, more due to the title not having The Dark Knight in it than anything concerning its quality. What's interesting is that it's actually far more intertwined to The Dark Knight Rises than The Dark Knight is, through one of the central elements being Ra's al Ghul's League of Shadows, and its relationship to Bruce Wayne/Batman. As an origin story to Batman, it's completely solid and actually quite daring in that Batman doesn't actually appear onscreen till about halfway through the film, making the first half or so more of a Bruce Wayne story. Christian Bale holds the screen rather well in his first venture as the character and depicts the gradual transition from angry, violent young man to a more intelligent and imposing one, as well as being quite entertaining in the scenes where he puts on the front of multimillionaire hedonistic playboy, and having some very good chemistry with Michael Caine. It's in the scenes depicting the rise of Batman that the film is at its best, the first appearance of the Caped Crusader is one of the highlights.

Outside of the origins story, the film is solid but never spectacular. The villains this time round are a little less memorable outside of Cillian Murphy's deeply unnerving Dr Jonathan Crane, soon to become the 'Scarecrow' (his delivery of 'the Batman' is deliciously creepy). Tom Wilkinson's Carmine Falcone and Liam Neeson's big bad are good villains but not particularly memorable outside of being played by renowned actors and carrying some fine menace. The final act, also, is not particularly distinctive, and doesn't have quite the complexity of The Dark Knight (though few films do) or even The Dark Knight Rises, but it provides a decent enough backdrop for Batman to kick some ass, and manages to blend the emotional and action elements together really well. It's a simpler story than the next two films in the series, but that's probably one of its strengths as well.

4. Inception (5/5)

Nolan's most high-concept film, and even though doesn't quite hit the heights it's striving for, you can't really hold anything against it for that. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb, a dream 'extractor', a thief who goes infiltrates the subconsciousness of others to obtain valuable information for corporate espionage, and is offered a proposition he can't refuse by wealthy businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe); 'inception', the implementation/planting of an idea into the subconsciousness of another. Complete it, and Cobb can have his criminal history erased and return to America a free man to see his children.

This is on one level (no pun intended), a heist movie, and the glimpses of potential Nolan showed in that regard from The Dark Knight is wonderfully realized here. The team Cobb assembles to undertake this near-impossible task aren't some of the most interesting characters in a Christopher Nolan film ever, more defined by what they do than who they are, though there's of course Tom Hardy making a strong impression nevertheless. As a heist procedural the film is arresting more in the visual presentation of the heist on each level of their target's, Robert Fischer's (Cillian Murphy), subconsciousness. The realization of each level is aesthetically great, in particular Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Arthur fighting in a zero-gravity hotel environment, and the third-act snowy fortress.

I have to say on a dramatic level it's not as compelling as the next three films I'm going to get to. Cobb's personal dilemma is well-handled, but the intrusions into the heist by his deceased wife (Marion Cotillard) into the dreams are very effective. Each scene feels like it contributes to the plot and makes the conclusion of the film all the more satisfying. There is also Robert Fischer's own personal storyline which creates quite the moving conclusion scene than perhaps the film ever intended. It's not perfect, but it's a great film in many regards, particularly in its visual elements, and is most certainly never boring, and also has perhaps one of the most iconic soundtracks of recent times by Han Zimmer.

3. Memento (5/5)

Where do I start with this utter mindfuck of a film, which I should note I last re-watched about a year ago...so a re-watch could bump it up. The central concept of the film is that it takes both a backwards chronological and chronological order to tell its story, concluding with the two strands coalescing in the middle of the story. It's used to reflect the mental state of our protagonist, Leonard (an amazing performance by Guy Pearce), who after a blow to his head has become inflicted with anterograde amnesia, meaning he can remember details of his life before the injury, but can no longer record new memories and can only remember the past 5 - 10 minutes at any given moment in time.

It's a fascinating concept, and one the film makes full use of; everything in this film is so meticulously constructed, it's probably the one film that I think warrants the comparison to Kubrick. Nolan's utilization of the parralel chronology timeline is dealt with in stylized fashion, the reverse chronology side filmed in colour, and the chronological side filmed in monochrome. There's also the inspired visual element of Leonard having names and numbers that have some sort of significance to his ongoing investigation tattooed on him, and the inspired script elements of him interacting with the same characters over and over again in reverse chronological order as we gradually begin to see how they relate to him, and in the chronological order finding the process of Leonard trying to figure out how to go about finding the killer of his wife.

What I love about the film is that there's a certain ambiguity as to whether or not his wife was actually murdered, since there's another anecdote in the chronological monochrome scenes about a man with a similar condition as him, whose wife died in circumstances that could very well be Leonard's wife's own. Leonard is a character who genuinely knows nothing beyond what other people tell him, and clues he finds on his own body, and the genius of Guy Pearce's performance and the screenplay is that it's utilized through and through for not just the investigation, but also for dark comedy, and a certain emotional poignancy to Leonard's plight. It's a film I definitely need to re-watch soon to re-examine, but even with a less than perfect memory of the film it's one that's most certainly worth a watch, perhaps Nolan's biggest challenge as a screenwriter in particular and one he pulls off perfectly.

2. The Prestige (5/5)

My appreciation of the film has only increased over time - this is pretty much the definition of a film which grows with age. A fascinating examination of two magicians in 1900 London, Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) and Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), friends turned rivals, the film is essentially one sequence of magicians' one-upmanship games after another, with a bit of romance, tragedy, and science-fiction on the side courtesy of Nikola Tesla (David Bowie). To describe the plot of the film is difficult, even more so than Memento, because the various strands of plot surrounding the central rivalry can appear initially discordant to the first-time viewer, which extends to Christian Bale's performance. It does resemble Memento in the way that the plot is unraveled through the two seperate lines of narrative, with protagonists reading each other's journals, but even that isn't exactly what it seems; what's made clear from the outset is that they're trying to get the better of the other, but the way in doing so remains vague till the very end.

We begin with Michael Caine's Cutter (the best of his mentor figures in Nolan films), explaining the various stages of a magic trick,  the 'Pledge', the inspection of an ordinary object; the 'Turn', making an ordinary object do something extraordinary, and has you fooled; and the 'Prestige' where you make that something come back. It establishes the film brilliantly; it's all a big magic trick, and whether or not you choose to go along with it is a hugely important factor to one's appreciation of the film. I personally have always been enraptured with the film, and all its twists and turns in how it depicts the battle between the driven, somewhat charmless and intense Borden and the charismatic showman Angier after the former inadvertently causes a personal tragedy for the latter.

The film up till that point is relatively straightforward, though told in a pretty cryptic, flashback-flash-forward format with the aforementioned journals. A trick called the 'Transported Man' soon becomes one of the objects of conflict; another comes in the form of Olivia Wenscombe (Scarlett Johnasson). The film's non-chronological back-and-forth results in us also getting insight into a visit to Tesla by Angier. I realise that all of this still isn't giving much clarity to the plot, and perhaps that's the point. Onscreen, you're thoroughly entertained and intrigued by each act of one-upmanship, affected by the personal relationships of Borden with his wife Sarah (Rebecca Hall in a brief but extremely effective performance), Olivia and his partner Fallon, intrigued by what Tesla and his mysterious machines have to play in all of this, but it's not till the final act where you begin to really make sense of it all.

It's certainly a daring approach and can result in some feeling the whole film does nothing but build towards its twist...well, two twists. I'd disagree. There's so much to praise in this film beyond just that. In terms of technical aspects it's brilliant, with Tesla's laboratory, the stages and theaters where the musicians practice on, all having so much character of their own. The special effects are subtly handled but great too, the costuming is immaculate. The whole ensemble is stellar; Johansson has the most thankless role but still manages to make an impression, Caine is a warm and effective avatar for the audience to enter the film through, Hall is viscreally effective, Andy Serkis as Nikola Tesla's assistant is very entertaining, and David Bowie is MVP of the supporting cast with his superlative, haunting turn as a genius who knows very well the cost of it all. As for Jackman, it's one of his best performances, and he's excellent at showing the descent of Angier from sympathetic charmer to a fickle, petty man consumed with vengeance, and sells the twist of his character perfectly (it'll take awhile to explain here but it involves the most sci-fi elements of the film).

The best aspects of the film though, are the screenplay and direction of Nolan, and Christian Bale. Nolan knows how to set up hints throughout the screenplay about the secrets of both magicians without ever giving the game away, but when you re-watch the film you don't feel cheated as the film earns these twists completely. Nolan's direction brilliantly implements the more fantastical elements of Tesla's experiments to give the film even more layers, particularly resonant given his real-life rivalry with Thomas Edison, and also never makes these elements feel out of place, in fact they feel just so right. The human element that can sometimes be lost in the midst of Nolan's intellect never does so here as both screenplay and film humanize the characters and scenarios, and while it's all a magic trick, deceiving you at every twist and turn which it's certainly great at, on subsequent re-watches with awareness of the twists you can appreciate the depth of the film's emotional input. A lot of this comes from Borden's half of the story, which brings me to Bale's performance.

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

It's impossible to discuss Bale's performance without discussing the twist concerning his character, which is consderably more downplayed and less overtly built up to by the film than Angier's twist (which is that Angier is still alive, even though at the beginning of the film it appears he has drowned), but I'd say is even more effective because of that. You can't really appreciate Bale's performance fully by just watching the film once. At times there's such violent intensity and crazed determination to succeed in creating the perfect illusion; and sometimes with a kinder, compassionate edge, less invested in the drive to create a perfect illusion, more invested in the wellbeing of his family, and yet even in these scenes he sometimes veers back to his more driven, colder self. It may seem like two completely different people, and here's the twist, it is two different people; Bale plays twins throughout the whole film, and it's so fascinating to examine this on re-watch since you can pinpoint clearly in each scene which twin is onscreen, and yet you can never accuse Bale of giving the game away. He threads the twist in so neatly into his performance and even though it's there, right in front of you the whole time, the intentional duplicity of his performance is so subtle you can't notice it - it's a fascinating portrait of two people in one identity, with little hints here and there of how they differentiate. In that sense Bale's performance, and Nolan's writing and direction behind it, is indicative of the excellence of the film as a whole. It plays a trick on you, without ever cheating or giving it away, and yet that's not all there is to it.

1. The Dark Knight (5/5)

I should state that a re-watch of The Prestige could easily bump it back up to first place again. One reason I can make for that is that while The Prestige is pretty much flawless through and through, The Dark Knight has a few flaws I can nitpick. Some forced dialogue here and there for the extras, Batman's raspy voice can be a bit much at certain points, and I've never loved the underwritten nature of Rachel Dawes, even though it works for the film just fine.

These are quibbles though, and the strengths of the film outweigh the very minor flaws. And that's a vast understatement. The Dark Knight is my favourite superhero film of all-time, but I hesitate to call it even that since it really is more of a crime thriller with the comic book elements of Batman added to it. Standing atop of the crime and decadence of Gotham in this installment of Nolan's Batman trilogy is Heath Ledger as the Joker, who I've talked about multiple times here already, so I won't repeat myself again. It's a crowning, grand pinnacle of the masterpiece that is The Dark Knight, but like the twists to Memento and The Prestige, that's not all there is to the film.

The film is first and foremost, VERY entertaining as just an action thriller. From the opening bank heist, to the Hong Kong extraction setpiece, to Batman chasing down the Joker through the streets of Gotham on his Batmobile, to my favourite setpiece, the SWAT team building battle, they're all incredible sequences to look at, listen to. Nolan's direction and the excellent cinematography by Wally Pfister as per usual, gives each of them a very gritty, down-to-earth vibe that's nevertheless extremely fun to watch. Every punch thrown by Batman is particularly resonant through the excellent sound editing, and the choreography of the fights are great, as are every car chase, and rescue scene, really on a technical level it's a perfect action film.

It goes beyond that though by also being a fascinating psychological thriller in many respects. The cast to The Dark Knight is hugely stocked, and what I love is that you get an insight into just about every character. Harvey Dent, whose arc is technically dealt with fairly swiftly, never feels shortchanged as a character due to the excellent casting of Aaron Eckhart, and a screenplay which never paints him as perfect when a hero, or imperfect when a villain; though he's never referred to as 'Two-Face' within the film I believe, that side of the character always comes through in each scene he's in as both the heroic D.A. and the grieving secondary antagonist.

Lieutenant, and eventual Police Comissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) is so much more than just a cop; Nolan builds up the strong-willed individual he created in Batman Begins by essentially making him the understated heart of the film, a man simply trying to do some good in a world corrupted by evil. Oldman's performance is one of the unheralded beauties of The Dark Knight, as the reactive face to the atrocities of Gotham's chaos, and the character is particularly compelling in the final act where things get personal, and to cap it all off he gets an amazing final speech to cap off what Batman really means to Gotham.

I've mentioned two of the more prominent supporting players outside of Joker, but really everyone in the cast (of mostly crooks) is outstanding. The screenplay does such a great job of delving into the underworld of Gotham, making a subtle distinction from Batman Begins in that the criminals now are resorting to teaming up together to take on the new threat that is the Batman. It does an equally great job in examining the 'good' side of the city, though even that is rampant with corruption. Watching Gordon and the Gotham police force taking down the money laundering schemes of the Gotham mobs is intriguing to watch, and how Batman both works alongside and in opposition to the authorities adds another layer.

This all builds up of course to that brilliant interrogation scene of the Joker where we finally see how all these elements come into play, how through all the threads of crime and justice pulsating through The Dark Knight, the central confrontation between Batman and the Joker's essence is that they're not part of either side; 'don't talk like one of them, you're not...to them you're just a freak like me'.

Some have argued that Batman is overshadowed in this film by the Joker entirely. I'd disagree, in that as showboatingly brilliant Ledger's Joker is, the writing and direction actually utilizes him to amplify the themes and characterization of the Dark Knight. Each of their confrontations brings so much out of each character; we never get a clear sense of what the Joker's past is exactly, but we get a fascinating exploration of his twisted psyche, love of chaos and his view of human nature being inherently ugly. His love for jokes, riddles and wry laughs as a way of bringing out his cynical view of the world as a deeply twisted and selfish place stands in stark oppostion to the humourless, blunt and often violent Batman who believes the best in people. Whether it's the Wayne Ball scene, the interrogation scene, or their final showdown, each confrontation between the two characters makes for scintillating food for thought.

Particular moments within this dynamic I love include: the heartbreaking Sophie's choice he forces Batman to make; Joker daring Batman to kill him ('Hit me! Hit me') and being disappointed when he ultimately chooses not to; their opposing views as to how the two groups of people on the ferry will react to his terrifying social experiment.

It's ethical dilemmas like that which are sprinkled around The Dark Knight that gives the film such an intelligent edge, and yet it never feels bogged down by it. In fact it's these very dilemmas which provide the film with its unrelenting pace and impact; almost every scene is going to absorb you in some sort of hard-hitting impact, whether it be viscreal (the Joker's videotaped murder of a Batman impersonator) or emotional (the conclusion to the 'Sophie's choice' scene). It's a film that can be appreciated as both a treat for the mind or treat for the senses since it never seperates the two apart; it's both an extremely entertaining and extremely complex film.