Christopher Nolan vs David Fincher

lol.. I was waiting for that reply. Well, as I always say, I personally find Christian Bale to be far too theatrical for a lot of roles. While an actor like Robert De Niro is brilliant because he displays his characters as attempting to stifle emotions and hide their feelings, Christian Bale goes all-out with intensity. This works well for some actors, but it's a hit-and-miss approach with Bale.

It worked amazingly in American Psycho, but in The Prestige he always had this irritating expression on his face that implicated his fury and lust for vengeance. I didn't buy it. I knew he was selling to the audience and he didn't appear to be fully in character as a result. I think he would be an absolutely astounding stage actor, but I found him unconvincing in both Nolan films I saw him in.

I know you're a die-hard Nolan and Bale fan, but that's my honest opinion.

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Yeah, incase those of you who doubted Christopher Nolan are feeling a tad bit forgetful, i'll bump this post up to give you a little Memento .

You know who you are. Now deal with it

Ha, has soon i saw this thread bumped i somehow knew you were back, Prestige.

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I'd have to go with Fincher on the strength of Se7en, Fight Club and especially Zodiac all of which I prefer to Nolan's best films.
Fincher has more of a distinctive style for me, whereas I find Nolan's output visually unremarkable, generic looking even. He's a little too preoccupied with overly elaborate plotting and cramming every last detail in. Of course this last point can also be said of Fincher's Zodiac, but that's an adaptation that necessitates detail, and I personally find the subject matter more compelling.

That said I'm starting to wonder if either of them are still capable of bringing in a taut 90 minute movie i.e something that isn't bum numbingly bloated.

Don't get me wrong, because I think these guys make intelligent blockbuster movies for the most part. But Nolan especially seems in danger of going off the rails in self indulgent Michael Cimino Heaven's Gate fashion. He kind of already has to a point (and got away with it) when he made Inception, but I know I'm in a minority with that opinion.

Like many, I watched his entire Batman trilogy recently (the first two as a refresher), but unlike most, Batman Begins is the one that holds up for me simply because it's a more focused affair. Naturally much of this is a reflection of personal taste, and that doesn't mean I don't think The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises are good (despite some head scratching plot turns in Rises). I just think Nolan needs to go back to basics for a couple of movies and maybe be little more adventurous when it comes to casting and production design. That kind of goes for Fincher as well.

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The only movie by Nolan which I liked was The Dark Knight(haven't seen other two yet) but TDK is perfect for me,definitely best superhero movie and it definitely goes into my top 10.
On the other hand,I like more movies by Fincher - especially Social Network,Fight Club and Se7en.But still,they aren't as perfect as Dark Knight,so between these two directors I would choose Nolan.

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I have to go with David Fincher. He is my favorite director. His films just resonate with me so much. Fight Club changed my life, Seven was just awesome, The Social Network was about my generation, Zodiac is the result of a great director, great script and great actors, the girl with the dragon tatto was so stunning, panic room was just intense. I don't like CCBB or Alien 3. But when you have been making films as long as he has there are some misses. I have yet to see the game.

Christopher Nolan is a great director and hasn't made a film I didn't like yet. But he hasn't been around as long. Also I would say films like Momento, Following and TDKR don't desetve second viewings. While I can watch any of the Fincher films I like anytime. Fincher also beats Nolan because I would say that The Social Network was the best film of 2010 and the girl with the dragon tatto is better than the dark knight rises.

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Interesting that this thread is so old. Now that Nolan has made some more high-profile films, the comparison is probably a little juicier than it was in 2007.

Still, I like Fincher's films better. Nolan's Memento and Inception are the standouts for me, but Fincher's got some great stuff in Se7en, Fight Club, Zodiac, and The Social Network. Four favorites right there.

I came here due to a newer thread which was made and I think it has been merged with this one. This seems to have started in 2007, and back then I would have given the edge to Fincher, but with the advent of Inception and TDK (I have yet to watch Rises), Nolan is simply the better film maker, not by a huge distance but he just scrapes it.

My favourite Fincher movies are Seven and Fight Club, with Benjamin Button just falling short.

Nolan's three best movies imo are Inception, TDK and possibly Memento or Insomnia. TDK and Inception are both better and in a sense more entertaining. Not only that, they are exceptionally smart and intriguing for "blockbusters". I can't think of a single Fincher blockbuster on the scale or with the depth of Nolan's best.

Having said that, I do like both.

Fincher doesn't really "do" blockbusters, and I think he's all the better for it. Nolan seems to be establishing himself as a blockbuster filmmaker and, thankfully, his films are quite good. But I like how Fincher, huge name that he is, has been able to avoid that and make films for the sake of the material irrespective of "iimportant" summer release dates.

Is anyone allowed to do this anymore? Forget these two, I'd love to see Tarantino do this.

I'd argue that Fincher makes 'grown-up blockbusters', which is a good thing. His films would've been the big releases (blockbusters) back when the big films were released at Christmas, before the advent of the summer blockbuster release.

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I'm going to have to go with Nolan on this one. Although I do like Se7en, I didn't like Zodiac very much at all. I thought a lot more could have been done with such an interesting premise. And for some reason, I have never liked Fight Club as much as everyone else does. I'm sure a lot of people will disagree with me on that statement but it was just one of the movies that I didn't think was as great as everyone made it out to be but maybe I'm just weird like that. One good thing about Fincher is his movies are widely varied at times. Benjamin Button as a romantic drama, psychological thrillers, and movies like The Social Network.

But I think Nolan's films are nothing short of brilliant. I've watched everything he has directed and there wasn't one movie I didn't like. He's just super consistent.

They both know how to pick great actors though.

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How so?

Thanks for making the distinction HK. That's certainly what I meant earlier, but to elaborate beyond my generalisation - 'blockbuster' in the commercially viable thinking man's 'event' sense; rather than a summer Michael Bay bubblegum flick.

Comparing their films, it's very close, but Nolan has a slight edge over Fincher, IMO. However, I've seen four of Fincher's and two of them (Zodiac and The Social Network) are in my top 50, while I've seen six of Nolan's and only one (The Dark Knight) makes the list. Both have a dud which is often considered their best film (Memento and Fight Club) but overall I find that Nolan is a bit more consistent.

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I'd argue that it's better to take risks and make some duds and some great movies rather than be consistently good, even if that does just reflect my opinions of these two directors. For my money, Nolan has made four solidly entertaining flicks in Memento, Inception, Begins and The Dark Knight, but none of them come close to reaching the heights of Se7en, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or The Social Network. In a lot of ways, it doesn't matter that Fincher's also had some weaker efforts because he's given us the full spectrum of not-so-great to mind-meltingly awesome, rather than remaining consistently just pretty good.

I don't see any similarities between the two to really put them in a poll against each other. I would rather see Fincher vs Aronofsky.

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Suspect's Reviews

Lol, what exactly makes The Social Network, Seven, and Girl With Dragon Tattoo the measuring stick that Memento, The Dark Knight, The Prestige and Insomnia couldn't possibly hope to aspire to??

No brainer for me, Christopher Jonathan James Nolan is a better filmmaker than David Fincher.

Now, i'm not going to take this as an opportunity to bash Fincher in an attempt to make Nolan appear superior because a) Nolan's body of work speaks for itself and b) I quite like Fincher.

I think that ultimately it comes down to a combination of examining both their strengths/weaknesses as well as your own filmic needs and desires, i.e. themes you identify with the most.

I acknowledge that Nolan's biggest weaknesses has been in shot juxtapositions used to convey action scenes. This is something that was latent before Batman Begins. I would also agree with the criticism that he has underwritten female characters on several occasions, but not without effect. However, he has made huge attempts to rectify these shortcomings as evidenced by the barnstorming action/fight sequences in the last two Batman films as well as Joseph Levitt-Gordon's anti-gravity exploits on the second level dreamscape in Inception.

Fincher's weaknesses funnily enough are that of what is often directed at (incorrectly) Nolan. I love dark films, but the likes of Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac The Social Network failed to connect me on an emotional level despite their technical virtuosity. It's his films that cold and clinical. Now, i've only seen about an hour's worth of The Social Network, but thematically, there isn't anything remarkable about it's commentary on greed and how it can destroy relationships and such. Unless some incredible **** occurs in the last hour of the film, I have to conclude that Network appears to be a well crafted but ultimately uninspiring drama that uses a popular invention that i'm not at all interested in as a background.

Nolan's strengths are far greater than whatever weaknesses he may have. Somebody said on maybe this thread or another that most of Nolan's shots don't last more than 7 seconds. Yeah...and? Nolan's editing has always been his strongest point. He has a very brisk editing style that many people often confuse as being 'choppy', but I prefer to think of it as using this style to reflect to the state of mind of the character or scene.

Fincher does well because he does have the ability to get great performances from actors and his attention to detail is rivalled by that of R.Scott and S.Kubrick. One only needs to watch Zodiac (a film I really need to watch for the second time) to realise that. He, like Nolan, also paces his films very well, leaving little room for pointlessness and allowing each scene to matter. I guess it's fair to say that most decent directors do this, though.

I think the biggest thing that wins it for me though is their values and codes within the film industry. Fincher is fine and dandy taking a script and putting his own spin on it. It's something he has done his whole career and that's cool. But Nolan actually writes his own screenplays, some completely original, some adapted, some inbetween. In addition, he co-produces his own films and doesn't even have a second unit. This allows him the greatest possible control even in a big studio film like The Dark Knight. He gets to be a full on storyteller rather than simply a director for hire.

Skepsis93, your post implies that Nolan plays it safe that Fincher is this ground breaking, studio defying hero or something. Fact is anybody with a brain can see that Inception was one of the riskiest 'blockbuster' films made in the last 15-20 years. Like I have said before, had this film been a novel first, people would have labelled it 'unfilmable' . What's risky about Network, Dragon Tattoo, Zodiac, etc? Only Fight Club can be considered a little risky, but that's only viewed within the contexts of it's source material. That in itself is a decent film, but not the tour de force that everyone makes it out to be. When Nolan takes risks, he never fails.

Unlike Fincher, Nolan is a keen traditonalist, which again, I value highly. Guys like myself and Nolan are interested in preserving the integrity of film. Fincher seems to reject this what with his permanent crossover to digital and scoffing at the notion of IMAX. I admit, even though they are digital, his films look amazing, but I will always be a film lover and Nolan, along with Paul Thomas Anderson and Michael Bay are the only ones within the american film industry who seem be worried about losing something that is clearly not outdated and still superior to any RED camera.

Again, I like Fincher a lot and find him to be a capable director. But his talents only go as far as to construct a tight, singular narrative. Nolan has demonstrated that he can do the same in Following, Memento, The Prestige and Insomnia, but unlike Fincher, he has also demonstrated visionary scope and multi dimensional plotting in Inception and the Batman films. I know a lot of you lot disagree and think that I see something Nolan that you lot don't, but at the end of the day this man is raising the bar as far as 'blockbusters' AND independent art film goes. The same can not be said of the talented David Fincher. It's my opinion and if it pisses some of you off, then good because



Need a long break from this place

The Social Network was only partly about what greed can do to someone and their relationships. It was a like a look into this generation like no other. A look at how social networking as we know came to be. Amongst that it was just very well crafted. It was art imitating life.

Fight Club (His masterpiece) is a film also about how how things were at that particular times. This time mainly for guys. Consumerism and how we live our lives sometimes without any real meanings. Yet it isn't preachy.

I don't think Zodiac was really meant to connect with the audience emotionally. But show events that happened many years ago as best as possible. And that certainly happened. As for Panic Room, your telling me you didn't just hope Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart got out okay? If you want to see a director who touches emotion better than anyone else than it is probably as much as I don't like him James Cameron.

i do like it when director writes their own films. But it doesn't make them any less of a director. Stanley Kubrick is still perhaps the greatest one to ever live, and he own wrote a few of his films. Steven Spielberg hardly writes his films. The last film he wrote was A.I. That doesn't mean Nolan is better than him. But that is for another thread.

Nolan has made some thought provoking films. I think the Prestige is his masterpiece. I do think Memento is a good movie. But it isn't the great movie that some make it out to be. But it is also a thought provoking film. But one can argue that in recent years he has turned into a director who makes block busters. Fincher still does his bread and butter (though he films have always made money).

I agree with you Flimmaker, I think some people overlook Prestige as one of Nolan's great films. But Prestige in my opinion, is just as mindbending and Fight Club. I loved Prestige

Both are among my favourite directors, but Fincher made Zodiac, so Fincher.

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