Christopher Nolan - The Opening shots

   Nolan's movies hugely inspired by the traditional 3 act story structure. And mostly the contents of the theme hooked in the beginning in his movies. And he is the one who knew how to make astonishing visuals to impress the audience.Major elements of magical realism appeared in those visuals.So let us examine the opening shots of Nolan movies.And how they tell the story of the film.

Prestige: Clones and Twins

   These pictures are the initial frames of the first scene in prestige. And those are brilliantly placed at the narration of Michael Caine. We see a bunch of caps lying on the ground and the next shot birds with similar appearances. While story moving forward we know that they are cloned caps of Angier. So the first shot represents duplicates of Angiers are clones and Bordens duplicates are twins it symbolically represented by the birds in the cage.Headless magician caps meant the died clones of Angiers. It is not different from the story and even caged birds have the same looks but they are not clones same like Borden's case.

Memento: Reverse shot

   The Polaroid photo vanishes itself and gets back to the camera and the bullets also do the same thing. Of course, it is the reverse shot for the purpose. And it tells, the story of the movie will be told in a reverse manner by the director like these scene. Nolan placed some metaphors in this scene. The vanishing photo stands for Leonardo's vanishing memories and his memory conditions. And we see the dead man in his polaroid photo before we know that he is the murderer of that man same like a conflict of the movie he is the murderer of his wife.

Interstellar: Memories
 

       Christopher Nolan hugely obsessed with the cinematic language of time and space. So what is the factor that connects time and space? That is memories, They can connect those elements. From classic to modern every writer used books, diaries, Memorable gifts to interconnect the character's memories. We see diaries in prestige and memento for connecting the space and time. And watch in inception and interstellar. Cooper gave a watch to his daughter which stands for love and that is the memory object which also used to show the time. The initial frames filled with books in the shelf and the rocket doll. Which refers the Cooper behind that bookshelf.

Inception: Half remembered dream

    Cobb lying in the beach, half water, and half ground. If we observe the whole movie we can see water symbolism used for portraying the deep subconscious of the cobb. When dream collapsing cobb gets back from the water in the bathtub.But the first scene not placed in the underwater so it means his half-remembered dream. And his children hallucinations show his desires. So total situation can be framed by this sentence," A man in half-remembered dream looks for his children". His children are the ground so he must get back the land instead of lying the water.

Analysing the Dark Knight rises- More than democracy and Nolan's system

The dark knight rises is mostly underrated by the audience as a disappointment of Nolan's work. There is another reason, why it looks like the above comment. Over expectations increases due to heath ledger's astonishing performance, but as per the thematic tones this third part of Batman trilogy complete its scope and fulfill Nolan's interpretations of the law, justice, and society. Of course, the word "rise" stands for the revolution which is made against the Republic of the Gotham. Many film theorists defined it as a French revolution. Absolutely it is.Citizens rise against the government of the city. Bane is the agent of chaos for the rise. Plato's democracy states that democracy leads to anarchy which is mob rule.

 Batman's protection on Gotham seems dictatorship in that city, which leads to chaos in citizens. His care in the city generates many criminals who are willing to defeat Batman. They can't fight against him so that they are doing it in his city.We can see that most antagonists of the trilogy have the same sense of actions. The dark knight constructs a perfect base for the third sequence.

 Harvey dent(twoface) is a goodwill character, we can say him who is the white knight of Gotham. And he is picked by citizens.His transformation in the second half broke the belief of republic system in the city.So in the beginning of Dark Knight rises the justice is worse compare than previous two parts. So while people's affected by chaos in the Republic, by these chance another criminal completely collapses the hope.Because they didn't need to scare people, the reason is at this point, enough people had been so crippled with the system.From this point, Nolan framed the failure of the republic in Gotham.

 And the idea of "Destroying a system" showcase by Ra's al Ghul well as Alfred.He says that they burnt the forest because they can't capture or reduce the criminalism in that village. Ras al Ghul also believes that"Destroying the whole city is the only way to clean the corrupted city". Batman breaks the idea and proves that "Destroying a system" doesn't make a sense. And he also can't find the way to maintain the noncriminal society. He protects a city but people didn't appreciate him as per Joker's philosophy of people,"Their morals and codes are bad jokes".

 In the beginning of Dark knight rises batman didn't care about that orphanage home that he realized that his treatment(Fight against mobsters) is not enough for cleaning criminality in Gotham. As JGL says that,"you have got to pay attention to the details, some of those details may need your help". Bruce is obsessed with his weakness and darkness. He almost lost his ability as a soldier, we see that two times, he is fooled by women in this movie. His redemption in the prison scene is extraordinary in this sequel. And that symbolism when he climbs over the cell, we see many bats rise to light, it hiddenly exhibits his redemption from the darkness.

 This metaphorical plot illustrates the game between people and republic system as same as french revolution. And the final conclusion is brilliantly written by Nolan that making a thread, Levitt as a next Batman.It conveys the point anyone can become the batman. Heros are who are really willing to protect the people. It illustrates the political thoughts of democracy that the leader must be citizens with the service mind.

Christopher Nolan and Film-noir

  Film noir is the genre of cinema which is undefinable with standard definitions. But it has some characteristics to define itself. There are very few directors who are inspired by this particular genre for its infinite quantity of style in both story and technical terms. Christopher Nolan is well known for his non-linear screenplays and meta-physical stories.Even Nolan also inspired by film noir genre hugely. There are lot characteristics applied to his movies without any absence of film noir style. It is very clear that he wanted to start his career from his favorite genre from "Following". It is filmed in black and white to set the label Film-noir instead of Neo-noir. It hiddenly shows his huge interest in film noir and his idea of overlapping this genre to other genres.

 We can see that inception's pacing is very similar to the Bladerunner. Absolutely Bladerunner is one of his favorite movies of Nolan and he tells in one interview that, "I watched over 100 times, it is beautiful". Bladerunner is well known for its gritty tone of sci-fi which is famed as future noir. Mal is the femme fatale of the movie. It is a fictional character of film noir, who often played as an antagonist of the story.She attracted by her sexual approach and leads the disaster of main male characters. It slightly matches the mal and her dressing sense in opening scenes are exactly same as 80's femme fatale. And she looks similar to the Bladerunner's fatale.

 When it comes to memento we can see the pure femme fatalism in Natalie, with the most number of characteristics.She misleads Leonardo to very difficult situations for revenge purpose.She uses Leonardo, in this movie selfishly and this is the main scope of femme fatales.Nolan sketches it brilliantly.And it is very important to writing the fatales with aimful purpose.Because, many film noir writers, only put these character to tell "Hey it is a film noir..". But Nolan wisely handled it in his works.Natalie's arc is hundred percentage femme fatale but the audience is too late to understand her. And in the dark knight rises, we see the women lead character as fatale. This shows Nolan's extraordinary vision of film-noirs, even in superhero films.

 In visual styles, we easily assume film-noir by its low key, dark tone, retro colors and etc. Inception's initial frame is the best example of the retro frames in the scene.Shadows and gritty tones are visually perfect for this genre. Mostly shadows of characters play a major role.These characteristics were brilliantly applied in his remarkable movie memento. The film is ordered in chronological order, so two types of sequences presented on the screen.One is black and white and another one is color. The color portions were very lurid and pulp-retro combinations.Most of the film noir visual styles are placed in this movie.

 Most of the frames were slight looks like modern paintings in this genre.By this term, inception has it's originality in theme style. After watching the movie, we can hold some memorable frames and pictures in the movie. Smokes are used very much in a filmnoir genre.We can see this in famous movies with a purpose or without purpose.Smokes definitely play a major role in the film noirs. It reminds me " Insomnia", which is hugely underrated works of Nolan.By visual technical terms, Insomnia should be considered as the best neo-noir of the decade.

 Detective fiction stories mostly colored by this genre, for example, "L.A.Confidential" and " Usual Suspects", which are hugely acclaimed for this genre.It seems like film noir depends on the story. Absolutely true. In the beginning of 60s,70s noir genre movies mostly written by detective stories.
By these evidence memento and insomnia can be identified as a neo-noir genre. Detective noir movies purely ordered by the murder or series of murder and lengthy conflict with femme fatale and finally, the unpredictable twists. These all captured in a memento orderly. That is why memento is best detective noir of the 21st century.

 Characters are mostly unreliable in this genre. It is no hard to find the bucket list of untrustful characters in Nolan movies. Corrupted cops, misunderstanding of protagonists are well-known terms in his movies. We see teddy who is murdered by Lenny in Memento. And Natalie who we believe that she is helpful for Lenny.But later all hopes are broken. Nolan's first feature film "Following" mostly handles the same theme in the whole movie. We can define it "Most of the characters cheating the protagonist". Of course, it is true. Doomed protagonists are the heart of this genre.

 And no need to take it as the protagonists are always cheated by sub-plot characters. When it comes to sci-fi noir, they are often cheated by realities of fiction.Inception movie majorly plays its plot between reality and dream. And memento did it through memory and facts. The following takes the same idea of beliefs and doubts. Finally, prestige did it through same and different. So "Doubting the reality" is very important in Sci-fi noir. we see blade runner as a famous noir, which dissects the plot between humans and androids.

 We can tell prestige is properly crafted neo-noir as its plot-wise. The movie holds many philosophical ideas to elaborate the theme of originals, duplicates, clones. so identity and chaos is a major characteristic of the movie, and of course for sci-fi noir movies.The film makes interpretations on the ship of thesus theories. So doubting environment is perfectly built in prestige.The same concepts have also revolved around the plot of inception. It also clipping the real world and built in fiction. Characters vs Fiction is the major conflict in sci-fi noir. The movie deeply focusses on simulated realities which are hugely famed after the second world war. So this theme is the key to the neo-noir themes. Of course, the movie portrays the present world as the near-future world. Eventually, this also not about the man who theft the idea but it is about realities and doubting the same environment that we exist.

 Another evident of sci-fi noir is "Doubting situations" which is perfectly shaped in memento. The protagonists of our story don't know, "What is happened?" and "What will happen?". It keeps the audience in the perspective of Lenny. So the idea of subjective realities is presented in the story. The movie mostly conveys the difference between truths and makeovers.So themes also one of deciding factors of neo-noir films.

In the film noir genre, protagonists are mostly alienated, humans. They always think about their lives in pessimistic ways. The present world is very worse by their point of view. Story majorly shows their disturbed past. Film noir heroes mostly chaotic and they ruined by ethics. They also don't know whether they are good or bad. It conveys the ideology of Doubting the ethics in terms of subjective morals.Subjective morals are mostly sketched in film noir characters. But not in the whole film, it will be broken and they became chaotic about their morals and codes. so morally beated character
mostly used to make sense in neo-noir stories.

 Batman is the solid character of Nolan, who is the best example of morally beaten character. Bruce Wayne pictured as a guy who holds fear more than himself. And the story depicts that how he overcame his fear. The movie holds a lot of philosophical elements to the character. And a plot gives major choices to the batman to choose. They are very difficult choices for the batman. In dark knight, Joker did this perfectly by giving inevitable options without any convincing. Unmasking, Rachel or dent and do or die.He is completely alone and the way he sees the world is similar to the world is very similar to the noir heroes. And the idea of wrong and right femme fatales is clearly adapted in dark knight rises.

 When it comes to storytelling terms, flashback narrations, voice-overs, and non-linearity are mostly used in film-noir genres. Memento clearly consumes the above characters. It seems like 4th wall to the audience. Absolutely there is always a connection between post-modernism and film noir.

Inception-Reality is what we believe

Arguably inception is one of the most beautiful films ever made in cinema history. Without any doubt, this is the masterpiece of Nolan's work. I know there is plenty of arguments, debates, explanations, and analysis of the movie. But I want to extract some ideas with some logical interpretations in this post. Many people asked me whether the final scene is the real world or not. And the internet world also focuses the same point of the argument.But it does not make any sense for the plot. The film is heavily focussed on the subjective reality so that question is definitely wrong in my point of view. The movie shows that totem is the only factor to find the reality, additionally, it is used to find whether they are in someone's dream or not. You really don't need totem in your own dream because you know it was a dream.So my point is reality is subjective, dreams may be someone's reality, the whole film wants to convey the same concept, here are some ideas about the unreliability of the totem.

1) Firstly, if you believe the dream as a real world, totems are wastes.The point is if you inceptioned by someone that the dream is a real world, top(totem) will fall itself. We can see this in a limbo life, Arthur tells that only if you ever prisoned in limbo in the past, you may return to the reality. So totem's work only depends on the owner's mindset. So totem may fall even in limbo.

2)And if you inceptioned by someone that this real world is a dream, you will not trust totems. We can see this in mal's case, cobb inceptioned herself as this world is the dream, even the totem fall itself, she didn't trust it.So totem didn't work in this case.

3)Thirdly you should not give your totem to anyone, but Cobb kept his wife's.(many argues that it is not his wife's) This statement was given by Arthur, so the characters also don't have the proper knowledge of totems.

  The movie always wants to show the strong interpretations of the unreliability of the totem. So they are partially untrustful. And the movie conveys some characteristics of reality and dreams. In one scene the old man in  Yusuf's lab said that the dreams became their reality. The world ultimately is what we say it is.And it shows the subjective nature of reality and dreams. The subjective nature idea also applied to Nolan's previous film Memento. In that film, it stands between facts and make-ups. Teddy tells that "you make your own truth". The same idea is shown in inception.

  So everyone's reality is created by their interpretations of their individual data, and we often pick and choose what to believe. To given illustrations of this idea, let me tell Plato's cave men story. It is about the group of men, who spends their major part of life inside the cave with the one-dimensional approach, but when they come to real world, they didn't believe as their real world. So the "reality" is what you "believe". The same concept of Yusuf's Oldman touched it again. Inception is the only process that changes the beliefs of one's reality.By those subjective-nature ideas, totems are simply neglectable for decides your own reality. And our whole life may be a dream or coma-stage without our knowledge.

   In nowadays many philosophers denies the lucid dreaming ideas. Because you can only realize the dream after you came back to reality. They tell that you can't acknowledge it as a dream in your dream. It will collapse. Nolan doesn't want to cheat the audience by writing the story about lucid dreaming. He also wants to convey that point. In fact, the climax is not to create ambiguous ending or confusing the audience, it is more than the ending.We see cobb completely abandons the totem because he does not care anymore, the totem may fall or may not be. But that will be his reality. It hiddenly shows the choosability of director. Because Nolan cannot decide it as a dream or reality. It is given to the cobb's hand and audience's knowledge.