wabid said:
I'm with Dwight. I think part of the angst comes from how fans of Nolan preach how deep his movies are, and turn them into philosophical explorations like 2001 etc.
True, most of the interpretation and pretentious thinking comes from fanboys like me who attribute super-genius-powers to nolan, but i wouldn't judge his movies because of that.
This december I was present at a 2 hour interview with nolan and it is incredible how different he is to what people attribute to him (both fans and haters). his first and foremost is to make an entertaining spectacle movie.
So i think it just so happens that people find great things in his movies to ponder about.
I think if a movie makes you think of something it doesn't matter if it was the author's intention or not. The Dark Knight Rises had me thinking of how our civilization would and could evolve and what the meaning of the league of shadows was - i could have gotten the exact same ideas from the comics or reading the economist or doing something else. it is not "nolan's message only" but I happen to discover a lot of interesting ideas by looking at his movies and spending too much time with them - i gues that is true for every work of art. the more you study it the more interesting it gets.
I think it is the thing with great directors that they just encourage you (if they make it intentionally or not doesn't matter imo) to further explore the world.
Personally I hate Tarantino's constant references to other movies as they serve no purpose to me - but there are so many people discovering real treasures of movie history because they are so devoted to his movies that they want to understand how he came up with the ideas in his movies - similarly to me reading "A Tale of Two Cities" because of The dark knight rises.
The thing I don't like is how much sense the movies make the first time through. I like being confused and having everything clicking at the end. It makes watching it again more fun. Think fight club.
to me inception had the same effect - just revisiting the entire movie knowing that cobb was the one who in a way killed his wife had a completely new effect on all his actions
The Prestige is the opposite. The entire third of the movie you're going "it can't be scifi, there must be an explanation." Then it ends and you are pissed. "Seriously, it was sci-fi?" it tricked me. I wanted to believe there was an explanation, but in the end it was magic. So I hated the movie the first time, it felt like a cop out. But on repeat viewing I realized that's what makes it amazing, it's the one Nolan movie that really pulls the wool over your eyes. Its all about slight of hand. It makes you believe there is something deeper going on, but there isn't. The simplest solution (scifi/a double) is the correct one, you just don't want to believe. Memento does to some extent too, but leaves you feeling satisfied, not cheated.
I agree. i hated prestige the first time and now I feel as if this movie has the saddest contemporary message about miracles and science (especially coming from a science background this movie resonated so much).
but i feel if prestige would come out now it would be the same - the movie already tells you exactly what it is about all the way through, everthing hints at it pretty much like all nolan movies so I think prestige just has the advantage of having been engaging before nolan became super mainstream.
So I understand the argument that Nolan needs to tell and not show, to achieve mainstream blockbusters, but in some sense that makes him a sellout. He trades artistic integrity for popularity. (It's funny that we decry Lucas for the same thing.)
I don't see that at all.
A sellout would be if he would fit his stories/change things to please the audience - like removing the spinning top from inception because it could upset the audience. He never sacrifices his story, the sacrifice is some monologues to assure people are along with the trip which is much less a sacrifice than appealing to a fan-demographic. Especially in a world of comic book movies I love how little "fanboy references" there are in his bat movies and even if they are they do not stand out as not fifting in the universe (i.e. helicarrier).
To me trading artistic integrity for popularity is happening when the director has a much better vision but in the end the movie boils down to something redundant - like X-Men First Class. The scene where fassbender is in the bar is probably the single greatest scene i have seen in a comic book movie and had the movie focused on this kind of storytelling it would have easily trumped all other Comic Book movies - but as soon as the 3rd act kicked in we were back to standard generic supervillain fighting (see Amazing Spider-Man as well).
This has only happened in Batman Begins and even than Nolan tried to put a little spin on the cliche (having the kiss but the girl not wanting the hero right now) - that was a compromise in my eyes but since then his movies have become his own movies and not the studio's
Nolan will maybe never have the artistic finesse of someone like wes anderson or make a movie like primer (seriously primer ftw!) but that is not what i want in his movies. He and peter jackson are the great entertainers to me who still have a good story up their sleeve and say "just because my movies are loud and big they don't have to be mysoginist or racist) - he is the anti-michael bay and something I am happy exists
