Christopher Nolan is one of the rare modern filmmakers with instantly recognizable styles.
But who is the guy behind the time-bending plots, dazzling effects, and posh British
accent?
Nolan the man is actually way more relatable than you'd suspect.
Christopher Nolan might seem exceedingly British to the casual observer.
In fact, he was born in London and speaks with a British accent, but he's only half-British.
While his father, Brendan, hailed from the U.K., his mother, Christina, was American.
Because of this, Nolan and his two brothers, Matthew and Jonathan, have dual citizenship
in the United Kingdom and the U.S. When they were growing up, the family split their time
between London and Chicago.
But when Nolan began trying to make movies, he couldn't break into the British film industry.
In an interview with The Guardian about those early days, Nolan said,
"In England there's a great suspicion of the new.
In cultural terms, that can be a good thing, but when you're trying to break into the film
industry, it's definitely a bad thing."
He felt Hollywood was more open to fresh talent and ideas, so he and his family settled in
the Hollywood Hills.
But Nolan hasn't abandoned his British point of view.
His 2017 film, "Dunkirk", about the critical World War II battle, was told from the perspective
of the Brits stranded on French shores.
"There are 400,000 men on this beach."
And it just so happens to be the highest-grossing World War II movie of all time.
George Lucas' game-changing blockbuster, "Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope", became an
important touchstone to millions of fans upon its release on May 25, 1977.
One of them was seven-year-old Christopher Nolan.
In an interview at the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, Nolan shared how "Star Wars" inspired him
to be a filmmaker, saying,
"I would make these imaginatively titled little science fiction films with a Super 8 camera,
called Space Wars.
I recently transferred them to DVD, to watch them with my children, and I was surprised
to realize how bad they are."
The 2018 book, "Christopher Nolan: A Critical Study of the Films", explains how Nolan and
his younger brother, Jonathan, would use action figures as stop-motion characters and build
sets out of household items like flour, egg cartons, and toilet paper rolls.
But when asked if he'd have been interested in directing "The Force Awakens", Nolan told
The Daily Beast,
"As far as whether or not I would have ever done it, the truth is I think I'd be afraid
to touch it!"
Christopher Nolan is best known for the way he manipulates time and perspective in his
projects.
His signature storytelling style — nonlinear and often told through the lens of unreliable
narrators — dates back to his earliest work.
Nolan's short films, "Doodlebug" and "Tarantella", play with memory and point-of-view in much
the same way that later features like "Insomnia", "Inception", and "Tenet" do in order to build
suspense and create mystery.
Nolan's made such narrative tricks his calling card, but those techniques have long been
used in detective novels to obscure the truth from the reader until it's time for the big
reveal.
And the director has been a lifelong crime fiction fan.
Speaking with the DGA Quarterly in 2012, Nolan revealed,
"When I was 16 I read a Graham Swift novel, Waterland, that did incredible things with
parallel timelines, and told a story in different dimensions that was extremely coherent."
But, though Nolan is a writer, his true medium is the screen, and he learned how to visually
manipulate time and perspective from a few seminal late-20th century films, including
"Blade Runner", "The Man Who Fell to Earth", and "Pulp Fiction".
When the time came to choose a college major, Christopher Nolan didn't go to film school.
Instead, on his father's advice, he decided to study English literature at University
College London.
But that doesn't mean he stopped loving — or making — movies.
Nolan chose UCL specifically because it had a film studio complete with a Steenbeck editing
suite and 16mm cameras.
There was also a screening room, and as president of the UCL Film Society, Nolan got to program
showings of some of his favorite films and used the admission charges to fund his work.
UCL ended up being the right choice for Nolan, for personal and professional reasons.
He met his longtime wife and producing partner, Emma Thomas, on his first day at university.
She continues to produce his movies to this day and is involved in every step of the process
as his closest creative confidant.
The couple share four children: Flora, Oliver, Magnus, and Rory.
Though he's one of the most artistically and financially successful directors working today,
Nolan endured a streak of bad luck during the mid-to-late '90s, when he was living in
London and looking for a way into the industry.
Around the time his first attempt at a feature-length film, "Larry Mahoney", fizzled, Nolan's apartment
was burglarized.
In an interview at New York's IFC Center, Nolan reflected,
"I realized that the door was just plywood, and that was never keeping anybody out.
What was keeping people out was the social protocols that we have that allow us to live
together.
I was interested in the certain types of people who would stop observing those protocols,
and why that would be."
"The criminal is not complicated.
What you really fear is inside yourself."
He took what could have been a traumatic experience and turned it into the catalyst for his storied
career.
With his wife, Emma Thomas, producing and his friend, Jeremy Theobald, in the lead role,
Nolan got to work writing, directing, filming, and editing his debut feature, "Following".
The neo-noir film imagines what would happen if a down-and-out writer began stalking strangers
for inspiration.
It was made with practically no money – estimates put the budget at about £3,000.
Out of necessity, Nolan utilized a non-linear storytelling structure, black and white film
stock, natural light sources, found locations, and single takes.
It paid off.
"Following" earned attention on the festival circuit and invited comparisons to Alfred
Hitchcock.
Though Christopher Nolan regularly commands budgets of eight or nine figures, he insists
that his biggest step up as a director came between the productions of "Following" and
"Memento".
He made the former on his own dime while working a full-time job, but, with "Memento", he had
financing and was, for the first time, a paid director.
"I can't make new memories.
Everything just fades."
He told DGA Quarterly,
"The difference between shooting Following with a group of friends wearing our own clothes
and my mum making sandwiches to spending $4 million of somebody else's money on Memento
and having a crew of a hundred people is, to this day, by far the biggest leap I've
ever made."
But "Memento" proved to be a difficult sell, even after production was complete and everyone
agreed the film itself was fantastic.
Studio executives heaped high praise on the concept, performances, and overall quality
of the finished product.
But they thought the movie was too difficult to market and too confusing for average audiences.
With no distribution deal forthcoming, Nolan's backers at Newmarket Films decided to release
it themselves.
The support of fans like Steven Soderbergh and great word-of-mouth turned "Memento" into
an instant cult classic.
It went on to make nearly $40 million.
After "Memento" became the talk of the town, Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas established
their own production company, Syncopy Films, and began a nearly two-decade relationship
with Warner Brothers.
The Batman franchise had been languishing in development limbo since 1997's poorly-received
"Batman and Robin", until Nolan went to Warners to pitch his concept of the character.
His vision was dramatic and realistic, not campy and comic book-y.
His Batman was deeply human.
Warner Brothers gave him a deal then and there.
"We weren't really making a Batman movie.
We were making a Chris Nolan movie."
2005's "Batman Begins" was a triumph for both Nolan and the studio, but it was nothing compared
to the sequel that came three years later.
"The Dark Knight" was a cultural phenomenon.
Critics and audiences loved it.
By the winter of 2008, "The Dark Knight" was squarely in the middle of the awards conversation.
When the nominees for the 2009 Academy Awards were announced, the late Heath Ledger was
recognized for his portrayal of the Joker, and the film received eight nods in total,
but none for best picture or best director.
These snubs are still seen as one of the Academy's worst oversights, attributed to bias against
the genre.
Following the backlash, the Oscars expanded the best picture category from five to ten
nominees as of 2010.
Christopher Nolan's "Dark Knight" trilogy stands on its own as a cinematic achievement,
but it's also part of the larger DC film franchise.
But the DC movies have never been able to pull off the same blend of prestige and popularity
that Nolan's trilogy or the best entries of the Marvel Cinematic Universe can claim.
Fans might be surprised to learn Nolan has been involved with DC Studios beyond his three
Batman entries; he also produced Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel", "Batman v Superman: Dawn of
Justice", and "Justice League".
Nolan and Snyder are good friends, and he was originally brought on to consult on "Man
of Steel".
When Batman was introduced into Snyder's films, Nolan was happy to advise, but he didn't feel
any ownership of the character.
"New rules."
"We're criminals, Alfred."
If there's any doubt of the pair's true friendship, it was Nolan who protected Snyder from having
to screen the Joss Whedon cut of Justice League after Snyder left the project due to the tragic
death of his daughter.
When the pandemic upended the film industry, each studio had its own way of coping.
Some delayed films for a year or more while others released their movies via streaming
or premium video-on-demand.
Warner Brothers eventually opted for a day-and-date strategy in which films become available in
theaters and on streaming at the same time.
In late summer 2020, one of Warners' films, Nolan's much anticipated "Tenet", had the
misfortune of being the first major motion picture to debut in theaters after COVID restrictions
began to lift but before WarnerMedia's day-at-date strategy was in place.
"That test you passed?
Not everybody does."
Tenet's underwhelming box office performance made sense given that cinemas in many major
markets, including New York and China, weren't open yet.
But it was Nolan going to bat for filmmakers like James Gunn and Denis Villenueve that
severed his relationship with WarnerMedia.
Nolan publicly called out the studio after they blindsided creatives with the decision
to release their 2021 slate of titles on HBO Max on or shortly after their theatrical premieres.
In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter, Nolan said,
"Some of our industry's biggest filmmakers and most important movie stars went to bed
the night before thinking they were working for the greatest movie studio and woke up
to find out they were working for the worst streaming service."
"These guys have given a lot for these projects, and they deserved to be consulted and spoken
to about what was gonna happen to their work."
Shortly afterward, Nolan announced that he'd be making his next film, "Oppenheimer", with
Universal.
He demanded a 100-plus day theatrical window out of principle.
Because Christopher Nolan has made some of the most visually spectacular films of the
last 20 years, audiences might assume he's all-in on the latest cutting-edge technology.
But, both in his personal and professional life, Nolan prefers to keep things analog.
"Chris is really great in that he wants it for real.
He wants it in-camera.
He doesn't wanna do CG."
Though he films his projects specifically for IMAX screens, he aims to capture as much
as he can using practical effects, not only because it looks more authentic, but because
sometimes it's actually cheaper.
Nolan infamously blew up a real Boeing 747 in Tenet for this reason, and he recreated
something approximating a nuclear bomb for "Oppenheimer" for the sake of authenticity.
In his everyday life, Nolan is even less reliant on modern technology.
He has neither a mobile phone nor an email address and intends to keep it that way.
Nolan explained to The Hollywood Reporter that cell phones weren't as ubiquitous when
he started making movies in the '90s.
By the time smartphones came around, he'd made a name for himself and could easily be
reached since everyone within his orbit had one and could simply tap him on the shoulder
to get his attention.
As he says,
"I actually really like not having one because it gives me time to think."