Christopher Nolan and The Art of Time

It’s no big secret – at least to those who know me – that I’m a fan of writer-director Christopher Nolan‘s, and I’m certainly not alone.  First making a splash way back in 2000 with the Best Original Screenplay-nominated Memento, Nolan is now known for a number of larger-scale blockbusters, including Inception, The Prestige, Interstellar, Dunkirk, and of course an excellent comic book trilogy comprised of Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises.  Disregarding the Caped Crusader for a moment, and bearing in mind the seeming premise of Nolan’s upcoming film Tenet (due out July 17, 2020), I want to talk for a bit about one of the common themes present in Nolan’s other films, as well as a construct that he seems well-matched to grapple with in the wide world of filmmaking: I’m of course talking about time.  In the case of Tenet, Nolan appears to be concerning himself with the traversal, or perhaps the reversal of time, and while his existing filmography hasn’t exactly gone that far (okay, to an extent Memento has), it’s come about as close to that feat as possible in the way its stories are told.

This little maneuver’s gonna cost us 51 years!

Of course, in the case of Interstellar and Inception, we’re mostly talking about time dilation.  Here, Nolan seems most concerned with challenging the dramatic question of how people deal with vast changes in the way time passes, either in the context of a dreamscape or in deep space.  We’ve all had dreams that feel like they’re hours or even days long when in fact we’re only asleep for minutes, and we can all get a grip on the idea – perhaps with the help of a little exposition – that coming too close to a black hole can even cause years to pass in what only feels to the observer like hours.  A lot of the drama present in these films, then, comes from how said observer manages to cope with the fact that the world as they know it – and the people in it – has passed them by (in the case of Cooper in Interstellar), or simply from how the observer maintains sanity and a grip on reality in a story world where time is supremely malleable (in the case of Cobb in Inception).  In other words, it’s not just a cinematic party trick that allows the protagonist to be the same age as his children after only a few days, nor is it a means to an end for giving us a rotating hallway fight (OK, maybe it kind of is that, too) – it’s a story building block that ultimately gives us powerful scenes like this one that allow Matthew McConaughey the opportunity to display a surprising amount of acting prowess.

Me and my girlfriend finding creative ways to use our indoor space during quarantine.

The Prestige is a bit more subtle with its treatment of time, not making any attempts to alter the passage of time itself, but instead making it a player in the story, and an element that further heightens the surrounding mystery.  Time jumps – most often accompanied by jumps in perspective or setting – don’t come with any kind of title cards, typically serving merely as a way to place the audience on less stable footing.  Another Nolan trademark – beginning at the middle, or better yet the end – is also executed here as well as in Inception and of course in Memento, and doing so plants a narrative seed in the audience’s mind that can then be given ample time to grow (with the assistance of little things like characterization and plot) until it can be returned to in its fuller fleshed-out glory.  While time isn’t exactly related to the theme of The Prestige –  a theme that I suspect more involves the trials of revenge, the cost of greatness, and at its deepest roots, the definition of humanity – it’s certainly a tool that’s used effectively to embolden it.  Out of all of the Nolan movies listed here, The Prestige is probably my favorite, and it’s the one I’d recommend from this de facto list if one is all you feel you can stomach.

Every magic trick consists of three parts.

Dunkirk takes the approach of splitting the film into three interleaved parts, each of which describes a critical part of the historical event: Land (which takes place over one week’s worth of time), Sea (one day), and Air (one hour).  This approach allows Nolan the freedom to cut between these three often independent – but also occasionally interdependent – storylines to build intensity without feeling the need to hold the audience’s hand through various continuity details. With this method, too, the climax is more easily recognizable as the triumphant moment in which all of the timelines meet.  Dunkirk is perhaps the least cerebral of all of Nolan’s movies, and certainly the least so of the ones I’ve mentioned here, and is instead more frenetic (much in the way that war itself is), so the use of time here is less as an implement of obstruction and more as an implement of tension-building.  All the while, Hans Zimmer’s score makes us all the more aware of the importance of time in the literal use of Nolan’s pocketwatch as a percussive refrain.  Indeed, I never would have guessed that there’d be a more on-the-nose embodiment of Nolan’s obsession with time in a soundtrack than in Inception‘s “Time,” and yet here we are.

Me in the toilet paper aisle of the grocery store.

This of course brings us to Memento, which pairs a complex narrative structure – one that alternates between chronological and nonlinear scenes – with a very singular treatment of the construct of memory.  On paper, and without the employment of such a designing principle, Memento would be I think a very unremarkable neo-noir, but with this time-bending technique, it’s a cerebral thriller.  Similar to The Prestige (which would come later), Nolan has more or less made time a character in the exercise that is this movie, and the effect of the unique traversal of time on what’s revealed about each character along the way – as well as the mountain of information kept from our amnesiac protagonist – is profound.  While I suspect that the temporal elements of the movies I’ve discussed in the above paragraphs have been utilized elsewhere, I’m fairly confident that there’s no other movie out there that does the things with time that Memento does, and for that matter, I can’t remotely imagine the process by which it was written. Remember Sammy Jenkis!

Me showing someone a picture of my dog for the 27547th time.

With all of this taken into account, it makes perfect sense that a movie like Tenet – a movie I’m almost certainly going to see in theaters, by the way – is Nolan’s next big project, and at this point, it seems far more common that a Nolan movie treats time creatively than linearly.  It’s only one way that Christopher Nolan is pushing the boundaries of filmmaking (another that comes to mind is stellar use of practical effects, but maybe that’s for another post), be it through a narrative structure that uses time uniquely or through actual alteration of time as a physical entity.  I can’t claim to know what the root cause of Nolan’s fascination with time is, but what seems clear is that it’s unlikely to go away anytime soon, and that’s fine, because what comes out of it is typically a damn good movie or two.

Some of My Favorite Movie Fights

Because I rewatched Guy Ritchie‘s 2009 rendition of Sherlock Holmes over this weekend – it was just added to Netflix’s slate of available content, and given that it’s one of my most-watched guilty pleasure movies, I strongly recommend it – I’m going the way of the listicle this week to pursue a post idea I’ve had for a while before the summer movie grind keeps me from writing about it.  As something of an action fan myself, especially during my younger years, I’ve seen many a hand-to-hand combat fight scene, with a select few of them indulging me to the point of repeatedly looking them up on YouTube.  In no particular ranked order, here are some of my most-repeated favorites.

Sherlock Holmes – Bareknuckle Boxing:  As already mentioned, a recent rewatch of this film formed the impetus for this post, and while there are a number of great brouhahas in Sherlock Holmes (released at the early height of RDJ’s comeback, circa the ancient-seeming Iron Man), the somewhat gratuitous but nonetheless impressive use of slo-mo for this particular scene is one of the things that gets it on the list.  Holmes’ voiceover description of the mentality behind his moves, the prediction of adequate countermoves, and the prognosis of his victim’s continued physical efficacy became a trademark staple of a few scenes throughout Holmes as well as the follow-up Game of Shadows, which actually employed Gavin Free of the Slow-Mo Guys YouTube channel for its equally gratuitous use of slo-mo.  This particular scene’s authenticity is also strongly aided by the fact that Robert Downey Jr. is himself a practitioner of Wing Chun, the martial arts style that he employs to dispatch McMurdo.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Highway Fight: When I was first thinking about immortalizing this list online, a ground rule I set for myself was “no comic book movies.”  After recently rewatching this scene, which may be the single best on this list, I had to go back on that promise to myself.  Featuring a few Oscar-nominated visual effects shots, some incredible knife work, and of course a boatload of Steve Rogers’ shield-based combat style, it’s a breathless five minutes in a film punctuated by a number of other noteworthy scenes showcasing Rogers’ superb hand-to-hand abilities (the elevator scene, which is also excellent in its own right, comes to mind).  Winter Soldier is most likely my favorite MCU film to date – perhaps a ranking of all 22 of those films deserves a post of its own…

Jack Reacher – Bar Fight: Sure, at 5′ 7″, Tom Cruise doesn’t exactly fit the physical description of Reacher that exists in Lee Child‘s source novels, but he portrays the weariness of someone who has experienced – and presumably won – countless barfights in the past quite well.  The mechanics of this scene are also matched by few others, if any, on this list in terms of their gritty realism, which fits the setting.  Having read some of Childs’ Reacher novels, this scene certainly fails to capture the brevity of a typical boxing match featuring the former military policeman, who due to his stature always seems to completely cream a nameless henchman with one critically-placed punch, but that may just be because lengthier fights are much harder to write engagingly than they are to show.  Either way, it does still end fairly quickly.

The Bourne Ultimatum – Book vs. Candlestick: One of the fights from the original Bourne trilogy in all its Paul Greengrass shaky-cam glory had to make it onto this list, and the fight between Desh and Bourne – which serves as the culmination of a phenomenally paced chase scene through Tangiers – is probably my number one.  Not only is the use of household objects for lethal purposes – a hallmark of any good Bourne fight, if the devastatingly effective use of things like pens and magazines in the previous films are any indication  – notable, but the end of this fight features a rather visceral strangling sequence.  Solid 8/10.

Raiders of the Lost Ark – Plane Fight: A classic occurrence of the giant guy vs. average-size guy trope, this scene evokes quite a bit of nostalgia for me, and that may be the main reason it makes the list.  The vintage shooting-the-swordsman scene, which has a fun backstory involving food poisoning that you’ve probably already heard, is probably more widely remembered for its charm, but I’m a bit more partial to the plane fight and its “always mind your surroundings” finish.  On top of that, this scene showcases how the use of musical cues from the incomparable John Williams can add to a fight scene, and also how the introduction of a ticking clock to raise stakes (here, the exploding plane) can heighten the drama.

The Equalizer – McCall vs. The Russian Mob:  This sequence, which features a brief and more subtle “calling your shots” mechanic that’s similar to what’s done in Sherlock Holmes, probably has the most gore of any scene listed here (I’m really referring to the corkscrew bit).  As combatants go, Denzel Washington – who’s moving a little slow as of late – has a bit of a hard time selling this convincingly, but the fluidity of his motions do manage to suggest a man who at one point received special forces training.  Outside of this scene, though, The Equalizer is a fairly average movie in every respect, and its sequel – which I started watching on a plane and failed to finish – is below that even that low mark in terms of quality.

The Rundown – Club Fight: I mean, who among us hasn’t frisbee-tossed a record player at someone while trying to obtain collateral for a gambling debt?  This scene sets the tone for The Rundown – an absolutely ridiculous early-career Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson movie that serves as perhaps my guiltiest guilty pleasure – quite well, and the football player intro effects are just delightful.  On top of that, there’s no better way to grant gravity to every single punch in a fight scene by making all of them capable of literally shattering concrete, given that they’re all being thrown by 250+ pound linebackers and The Rock.

Inception – Hallway Fight: In terms of inventiveness, Christopher Nolan has certainly done something special here, opting for practical effects and creating a full-scale rotating hallway for Joseph Gordon-Levitt – who did all of his own stuntwork for this sequence – to fight in.  The actual fighting itself isn’t particularly impressive, but the fact that it’s happening on the ceiling, then on the wall, then on the floor, is to me.  While Inception certainly has its share of confusing and inconsistent plot points, there’s no doubt that it has an appropriate amount of fun with the occasional absurdity of its premise.

Rush Hour 2 – Spa Fight: My younger self simply wouldn’t allow me to avoid putting one of the Rush Hour fights on this list, and the spa fight probably showcases the ability of Messrs. Chan and Tucker most effectively.  Rife with good old-fashioned flipping kung-fu and a sprinkling of buddy-cop banter, the fact that the fighting is happening amongst a bunch of guys wearing towels and nothing else provides an opportunity for a penis joke that’s obviously capitalized upon.  I also really love the coordinated secret handshake at the end.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout: Bathroom Fight: I mean, give it up for the guy who essentially beats the living crap out of Ethan Hunt and August Walker, who are trained IMF agents and CIA agents respectively, and whom also double as human jackhammers.  Henry Cavill‘s cocking of his arm-guns made waves when it first appeared in the film’s trailer, and it’s every bit as good in the midst of the chaos that is this scene.  Also, congrats to Tom Cruise, the only guy who manages to get onto this list twice.

Some honorable mentions as well: the “manners maketh man” scene from Kingsman: The Secret Service, the subway fight from The Matrix, and Batman vs. Bane from The Dark Knight Rises. Which of your favorite fisticuffs did I miss?  Drop me a comment!