With his latest offering Inception hitting cinemas this week, Trevor Hogg profiles the career of British filmmaker Christopher Nolan in the third of a three part feature… read parts one and two.
Finding the theme for his second film involving The Caped Crusader was not difficult for British filmmaker Christopher Nolan. “At the end of Batman Begins [2005], we hinted at the threat of escalation—that in going after the city’s crime cartels and attacking their interests, Batman could provoke an event greater response from the criminal community and now that has come to pass. There are some very negative consequences of his crusade brewing in Gotham City.”
To counter the efforts of new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), Police Lt. Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), and Batman (Christian Bale) to put them out of business, the leaders of the criminal underworld hire an uncontrollable rogue to destroy their crusading adversaries. “The arc of the film is the tragedy of Harvey Dent which is in a sense the origin of the villain Two-Face,” stated screenwriter Jonathan Nolan in reference to the main storyline for The Dark Knight (2008). What drives the political savvy and altruistic Dent to psychotic madness is that he becomes the pawn in the war being waged between Batman and The Joker. “For us the purpose of The Joker was always that he has no arc, he has no development,” revealed Christopher Nolan. “He doesn’t learn anything through the film. He’s an absolute. He cuts through the film like the shark in Jaws [1975]. He’s a catalyst for action.”
Cast to play the part made famous by Jack Nicholson’s (The Shining) over-the-top performance in Batman (1989) was Australian actor Heath Ledger who had wowed Christopher Nolan with his Oscar-nominated performance in Brokeback Mountain (2005). “I knew he could take any kind of role and disappear into it,” said the director. “I needed someone who could take this very iconic but absurd role, the guy dresses in a purple jacket for God’s sake, and do something haunting, sometimes serious with it.” Heath Ledger welcomed the challenge of portraying the Clown Prince of Crime. “I feel like this is an opportunity for me to not take myself too seriously and for some reason I just gravitated towards [The Joker]. I knew I had something to give him and I just instantly had an idea of how to do it.” Ledger added, “I knew that there’s a big difference between a Chris Nolan film and a Tim Burton film, therefore, there was enough room for a fresh portrayal.”
Locking himself away in a London hotel room for a month, Heath Ledger wrote a diary and tried a variety of voices; he also experimented with facial paint which resulted in his messily-applied onscreen mask. “It was a combination of reading all the comic books I could and the script, and then just closing my eyes and meditating on it,” stated Ledger as to how his cinematic persona finally came about. Having played his share of bad guy roles, Gary Oldman (The Book of Eli) was impressed by the acting abilities of his co-star. “You’ve got to service what’s there on the page. Heath could take those lines and he had the freedom in the role to just take it places…You don’t have that with Gordon. You’re more reigned in which I think is equally challenging and fun. But you can understand why actors always like the villains rather than the good guys.” Oldman also gives a lot of credit to Christopher Nolan. “The director sets the tone. He’s the real barometer of how you play your character. There’s realism to Batman, but it’s slightly pumped up, slightly heightened. Chris doesn’t want that realistic sort of acting that would be found in a Ken Loach [Land and Freedom] film. You’ve got to know the style of the piece you’re in. [Sir John] Gielgud [Gandhi] once said, ‘Style is knowing what play you’re in.’”
Selecting Aaron Eckhart (Thank You for Smoking) for the role of Harvey Dent was a logical choice for the man behind the camera. “I think he is able to embody that kind of all-American heroic presence. He has something of a young Robert Redford [The Candidate] about him.” One major casting change for The Dark Knight was the replacement of Katie Holmes (Abandon) as Rachel Dawes. A variety of rumours circulated, from Holmes wanting to spend more time with her family to the actress being fired. Taking over the part of Bruce Wayne’s childhood sweetheart was Maggie Gyllenhaal (Secretary). “I’m a fan of Katie Holmes…but I just don’t think it would serve anyone for me to try to imitate her,” remarked Gyllenhaal who found quite a difference in the personalities of Eckhart and Bale (Rescue Dawn). “Christian would spend a lot of time by himself while Aaron and I would spend lots of time hanging out, talking, playing, [and] joking when we worked together.”
An element introduced into the picture was that of The Dark Knight getting to drive something other than the Batmobile. “The Batpod was our new vehicle for Batman in this film and it was something that my designer, Nathan Crowley and I worked on,” said Christopher Nolan. “Rather than trying to produce a motorbike for Batman, we thought about, what if you took an anti-aircraft gun and put it on wheels?” The two men created small scale models which then became a full-size mock up in the garage of Nolan’s home. When planning the principal photography, the London-native made use of his trusted entourage of production staff which includes multi-Oscar nominated cinematographer Wally Pfister (Laurel Canyon). “I would always warn everybody, ‘I don’t intend to shoot the storyboards, we’re going to do it our own way when we get there.’ I think one of the advantages of working with the same people film to film and carrying the same team with you is they’re able to accommodate that.”
Tragedy struck while The Dark Knight was in post-production when Heath Ledger accidentally died from a prescription-drug overdose. “I think people are looking into the Heath story for a darker story than what’s really there,” believes Gary Oldman. Oldman’s statement is hauntingly supported by the late words of his deceased colleague. “That was the most fun I’ve ever had, and probably will have, playing a character,” said Ledger. “It was hard stamina-wise. A high-level of energy was needed, required everyday but it was incredibly enjoyable.” In a tribute published in Newsweek, Christopher Nolan wrote, “Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was creatively hungry. Until he needed it again. He brought that attitude to our set every day. There aren’t many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you complain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them.”
Upon its release, the $180 million production became a box office phenomenon earning $1 billion worldwide. The success of The Dark Knight spread into the awards circuit where the picture won the Oscars for Best Supporting Actor (Heath Ledger) and Best Sound Editing, along with nominations for Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Makeup, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects. At the BAFTAs the picture was awarded Best Supporting Actor (Ledger) while contending for Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Editing, Best Makeup & Hair, Best Music, Best Production Design, Best Sound, and Best Visual Effects. Christopher Nolan received a Directors Guild of America nomination, the Writers Guild of America nominated the picture for Best Adapted Screenplay, the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild posthumously lauded Heath Ledger with Best Supporting Actor, and the Japanese Academy Awards presented the movie with the trophy for Best Foreign Film.
A long-time ambition for Christopher Nolan was a film adaptation of the 1967 British TV series The Prisoner about a secret agent held captive in an isolated seaside villa. Connected with the project since 2006, the moviemaker was developing the script with married writing couple Janet Peoples and David Webb Peoples, who were responsible for 12 Monkeys (1995). With the AMC television network airing a remake in 2009, starring Ian McKellan (Gods and Monsters) and Jim Caviezel (The Passion of Christ), Nolan pursued an idea he had been thinking about since his teenage years.
In the Warner Bros. issued synopsis for Inception (2010), it states, “Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream-state, when the mind is most vulnerable.” The document elaborates further explaining that while his abilities make him a coveted corporate espionage operative, they also have made Cobb an international fugitive pursued by a lethal enemy who can predict his every move. “I wanted to do this for a very long time; it’s something I’ve thought about off and on since I was sixteen,” remarked Nolan. “I wrote the first draft of this script seven or eight years ago but it goes back much further, this idea of approaching dreams and the dream life as another state of reality.”
There is a sense of déjà vu associated with the picture as Cobb is also the name of the pivotal apartment burglar in his feature debut Following (1998), and some of the filming took place at the architectural school located at Christopher Nolan’s alma mater, University College London. Influenced by Dark City (1998), The Matrix (1999), The Thirteenth Floor (1999), and Memento (2000), all of which explored the concept “that the world around you might not be real”, Nolan creatively struggled with the screenplay over a ten-year period. The solution arrived when Leonardo DiCaprio (What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) attached himself to the production. “I’ve incorporated a huge number of his ideas,” said the director. “Leo’s very analytical, particularly from the character point of view but also on how the entire story is going to function and relate to his character…I think it’s improved the project enormously. The emotional life of the character now drives the story more than it did before.”
Impressed with Christopher Nolan’s previous films, especially Insomnia (2002) and Memento, Leonardo DiCaprio was a willing collaborator. “Complex and ambiguous are the perfect way to describe the story,” said DiCaprio. “And it’s going to be a challenge to ultimately pull it off. But that is what Chris Nolan specializes in. He has been able to convey really complex narratives that work on a multitude of different layers simultaneously…and make it entertaining and engaging throughout.” Pressed to explain the project which has been shrouded in secrecy, Nolan replied, “The film deals with levels of reality, and perceptions of reality which is something I’m very interested in. It’s an action film set in a contemporary world but with a slight science fiction bent to it.”
Shot in Tokyo, Los Angeles, London, Paris, Tangier, and Calgary, the $160 million production features Batman alumni Cillian Murphy (The Wind That Shakes the Barley), Ken Watanabe (Memoirs of a Geisha), and Michael Caine (Get Carter) along with newcomers Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Lookout), Marion Cotillard (Public Enemies), Ellen Page (Juno), Tom Hardy (Bronson), Tom Berenger (Platoon), Dileep Rao (Drag Me to Hell), and Lukas Haas (Music Box). “It’s like reading a Haruki Murakami novel, it’s fantasy, but instead of feeling like some strange surreal world it feels very honest,” stated Page, who plays the rookie member of Cobb’s select team of subconscious infiltrators. “The emotional spine of the story is there too, which is key to his movies. There’s the big scale but the sincerity isn’t left behind. The story is complicated but never confusing.”
Maintaining his preference for utilizing practical visual effects, the British filmmaker had Chris Corbould build giant dream-state sets featuring a tilting nightclub that defies the laws of physics. “It was like an incredible torture device,” mused Christopher Nolan about the rotating hallway where a memorable fight sequence shown in the movie’s theatrical trailer takes place. “We thrashed Joseph for weeks, but in the end we looked at the footage, and it looked unlike anything any of us had seen before. The rhythm of it is unique and when you watch it, even if you know how it was done, it confuses your perceptions.” Not everything could be created without the aid of computer graphic ingenuity, in particular the collapsing cityscape scenes caused by a dream becoming unstable.
Contemplating what drew him to the story in the first place, Nolan observed, “I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. Think of film noir and if you picture the story as a maze, you don’t want to be hanging above the maze watching the characters make the wrong choices, because it’s frustrating. You actually want to be in the maze with them, making the turns at their side, that keeps it more exciting.”
2012 is shaping up to be a very busy year for Christopher Nolan as he has taken on the responsibility of shepherding another iconic comic book movie franchise, Superman. Like Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects) who produced Superman Returns (2006), Nolan was influenced by the original teaming of filmmaker Richard Donner (Lethal Weapon) and actor Christopher Reeve (Deathtrap) when pitching his and screenwriter David Goyer’s (The Unborn) vision of Batman. “I went to the studio with the analogy of ‘I want to cast the way they did in 1978 with Superman, where they had [Marlon] Brando [The Godfather], and Glenn Ford [Pocketful of Miracles] and Ned Beatty [Network] and all these fantastic actors in even small parts, which was an exotic idea for a superhero movie at the time.” Speculation has it that Nolan’s younger brother and frequent collaborator, Jonathan Nolan, will be behind the camera. What is known for sure is that David Goyer initiated the concept and is currently writing the screenplay with the goal of creating a contemporary action film tentatively titled Superman: Man of Steel.
Also scheduled to be released in 2012 is the last chapter of the Batman trilogy. “Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes a third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish the story,” enthused Christopher Nolan who is looking forward to working again with Batman regulars Christian Bale, Morgan Freeman (Million Dollar Baby), Michael Caine, and Gary Oldman. “We have a great ensemble, that’s one of the attractions of doing another film.” Addressing the persistent speculation as to the identity and the number of villains in the story, all that Nolan would say was, “It won’t be Mr. Freeze.”
A fellow British countryman has had a tremendous influence on the seven movies produced by the London-born moviemaker. “I have always been a huge fan of Ridley Scott, certainly when I was a kid. Alien [1979], and Blade Runner [1982] just blew me away because they created these extraordinary worlds that were just completely immersive.” Offering advice to aspiring directors, Christopher Nolan instructed, “You have to be making a film because it needs to be made. I’ve had years of working that way, and it frees you up to approach filmmaking from a very interior position. You’re not looking for approval. When you do something you love, you don’t question it.”
Watch the trailer for Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi thriller Inception, in cinemas this week (visit the official site).
Be sure to cast your vote for your favourite Christopher Nolan film in our poll.
For more on Christopher Nolan visit fan sites ChristopherNolan.net and Nolan Fans and be sure to check out Yahoo’s online comic-book Inception: The Cobol Job.
Related:
Short Film Showcase – Doodlebug (1997)
Movies… For Free! Following (1998)
Thoughts on… Inception (2010)
Dark Knight: Lee Smith talks about Christopher Nolan
Trevor Hogg is a freelance video editor and writer who currently resides in Canada.
