At Oscars 2024, the triumph of the Christopher Nolan grammar

Nolan’s fascination with the concept of time, visual manipulation, experiential contortion, existentialism and a thirst to sculpt the perfect audio-visual thrill was clearly evident in the short film. The form he developed over the years soon gathered a cult following among the youth of multiple generations all over the world and this awe has been accumulating ever since. The singular fact that he plays around with concepts of science in many of his films is something that invites the curious eye of the inquisitive thinker. A style that invites speculation and intrigue makes the perfect Nolan film. As we walk into the theatre to grab the seat for a Christopher Nolan film, we are prepared to submit with intention and the mindful attention of a 6th grade student sitting in a class taught by his favourite teacher.

The interplay between memory, space and time

The field of science attempts to understand the how and the why of the phenomena that we come across in the natural world around us. The questions we ask and how we interact with the world inform us about its nature. There is also the urge to explore, navigate and an impending hope to express occurrences of the ‘human’ world in a more personal, experiential format. In other words, a phenomenological approach, where the strict rules of science are paused to make way for what the artist has interpreted or learnt from the world, becomes inevitable. The fragments of curiosity lie hidden like a diaphanous cloud and slowly emerges as the filmmaker proceeds to answer his own questions through films.

Following was an attempt at understanding social constructs and how the individual loses his way within an established and frail society through a constant search for something. This is where Nolan ventured into understanding the portrayal of humans as desperate pawns navigating the crises of life in the most vulnerable ways, unable to understand why they ‘follow’ someone. The film made for an intriguing watch and soon the Nolan style of curating a thrill blossomed. The most arduous task for a filmmaker or a writer is the righteous construction of human experience while retaining the logic and unnerving possibilities that keep the wheels rolling.

The concept of time is always something that all of us imbibe naturally. The sun rises and sets, the day turns to night. The clock keeps us on our schedule and gets us on the right train to the right destination, provided we remember that we have a train to catch. This interplay between memory, space and time through the use of technology, which shapes our perception of the world, is in a constant state of flux. Nolan’s next film Memento (2000), adapted from his brother Jonathan Nolan’s short story ‘Memento Mori’, explored memory, space and time through the protagonist’s gaze. The only technology that helps him navigate his memories is a polaroid camera. The non-linear cut of the film ushered in a brave style of storytelling by letting a character’s ailment affect the sequence of events within a screenplay. 

Steadily, Nolan began to unpack the seeds of curiosity he had carried all along, deciding to study them separately. He explored themes of guilt and moral tendencies when directing Al Pacino and Robin Williams in the crime thriller Insomnia (2002). Building upon a strong foundation of human narratives, usually dark and ominous in nature, he then directed Batman Begins (2005) and The Prestige (2006), entering the realm of the popular action psychological-thriller genre. His passionate love for geometry, technology and action is evident in the way he unleashed a mastery through his most riveting action film which still gives goosebumps to every Nolan fan in the world to this day, The Dark Knight (2008). Through a highly stylized, hot-headed yet vulnerable Batman, he unlocked a new fan following among the world of comic book readers by bringing in a sense of neo-realism to an already fantasized world where a maniacal Joker wreaks havoc in the world.

Dreams as a gateway to changing decisions

The cinematic experience is often compared to losing oneself into a dream, amidst a polyphony of senses, where every person’s curiosity ticks away at something profound or disturbing, vividly unfolding at a clever pace. There is something thrilling about an experience we do not have complete control over and Nolan makes excellent use of it in his collaboration with Leonardo DiCaprio. Nolan’s Inception (2010), my personal favourite, explored the possibility of understanding dreams as a gateway to changing decisions, informed by memory, affected by the elasticity of time and convoluted by environmental triggers.

The invitation to walk through this carefully knit story of dreams, characters and a fictionalized ‘way of things,’ where there is a voluntary control of constructing a dream world, is a deeply personal one. Nolan redefines the notion of epoché, a suspension of a usual belief system, devises a grammar, and uses it to tell a story. In the highly acclaimed Interstellar (2014) and Tenet (2020), he makes time travel and space travel seem highly normalised. In essence, when we watch a Nolan film, we are not absorbed in the stories as much as we are absorbed in trying to understand the grammar he is asking us to adopt when seeking the cinematic outcome.

Eventually, when we come to his most recent work, Oppenheimer (2023), we observe a holistic confluence of his previously sedimented curiosities for humanity, thrill, temporality, desperation, consciousness, space and science coming together to tell the story of a persona, who dived into an uncontrolled, morally unmediated rabbit hole of scientific research, opening a litany of problems for the future. In Oppenheimer, the challenge for Nolan was to adapt the biographical account of a real scientist. Although critics point out at the credibility of the narrative liberties taken in the film, there is an invitation for a deeply introspective, provocative intervention of a troubled mind, deceived by his own genius and fed by a nation in the race to be the most powerful in the world.

Human tendencies and scientific concepts are the two elements that keep the engine running in Nolan’s world. The fluid, robust and stylistic grammar that he has perfected over the years to become the most likeable director is a strong pointer to the fact that curiosity must never go unattended, even if it means building your own world from purely experiential cues.