Christopher Nolan season at the BFI: 1st -22 July

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July's lead season at BFI Southbank is being devoted to RWD's favourite director Christopher Nolan, with screenings of his debut feature Following [1998], havent' seen it - need to. Through to his breakthrough hit Memento [2000] proper brain-fudge that one, seeing the Nolan we know now, deploying lower budget incarnations of the ideas he went on to master, making an undeniable classic, well worth watching in a cinema environment. Our least favourite Nolan film, Insomnia [2002] starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams, a remake of a Norwegian film of the same name, which contained more of the stunning visual techniques he would go on to deploy in in his next four films. Batman Begins [2005], almost underrated, if that's possible, The Prestige [2006], which features new pal Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as rival illusionists in 1890s London, The Dark Knight [2008] the film that well and truly projected Christian Bale into his rightful place of public adoration and Inception [2010] which is essentially our Citizen Kane.
Check the full list and screening dates for the Christopher Nolan season at BFI Southbank below. The Dark Knight Rises screens at BFI IMAX from July 20, by the way.
Following
UK 1998. With Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw, Lucy Russell, John Nolan. 70min. 15
A blocked writer who’s taken to following strangers he sees on the streets of London is confronted by one of his targets, who introduces him to the delights of a perverse form of burglary. But what would the blonde the writer’s just met make of such activities? With its scrambled chronology, stories within stories and its play with public and private, performance and perception, Nolan’s taut, densely intelligent thriller effortlessly belies its tiny budget. A remarkable debut.
Plus Doodlebug (UK 1997. With Jeremy Theobald. 3min): Experiences within experiences: all a matter of perspective.
Sun 1 July 16:00 NFT2
Wed 4 July 20:40 NFT2
Memento
USA 2000. With Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano, Mark Boone Jr. 113min. 15
The film that won Nolan widespread acclaim, this astonishingly inventive variation on traditional noir tropes has a man (Pearce) determined to fathom the identity of – and then take revenge on – his wife’s killer. Trouble is, since her death his memory’s so shot he can barely retain any information – a traumatic, very vulnerable condition mirrored in the film’s chronological
structure, brief fragments of his consciousness waywardly working backwards in time. Tense, edgy, sometimes touching, this was a formidable achievement.
Sun 1 July 18:30 NFT1
Fri 6 July 20:45 NFT1
Insomnia
USA 2002. With Al Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank, Martin Donovan, Paul Dooley. 118min. 15
Reimagining the eponymous 1997 Norwegian thriller in Alaska, Nolan and writer Hilary Seitz turn a gripping policier about two LA detectives hunting for a girl’s killer into another of the director’s subtle, unsettling study of lives treated as narratives: will people believe Will (Pacino), wracked by sleeplessness, his partner (Donovan), or a novelist (Williams) questioning his assumptions and motives? The camerawork by Wally Pfister (with Nolan from Memento to the present) is superb, as are the cast.
Sun 1 July 20:45 NFT1
Fri 13 July 18:30 NFT1
Sun 22 July 20:45 NFT1
Batman Begins
USA 2005. With Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman. 140min. 12A
Nolan reinvigorated a tired franchise by introducing psychological depth (a backstory dealing with Bruce Wayne’s pre-crusading years), contemporary relevance (Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow threatens Gotham with a fear toxin) and echoes of his enduring fascination with the function of narrative in power-struggles. Accordingly, the threat feels all the more urgent, a mood enhanced by the production design, less fantastic and more plausible than in the earlier Batman movies. Katie Holmes, Morgan Freeman, Tom Wilkinson and Rutger Hauer fill out the cast.
Sat 7 July 18:30 NFT1
Sat 14 July 18:30 NFT1
The Prestige
USA 2006. With Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall. 130min. 12A
With his interest in competing narratives, truth and falsehood, it was perhaps inevitable Nolan would turn to the world of magic. Here, rival illusionists (Bale and Jackman) become outright enemies after a trick in 1890s London goes fatally wrong; their obsessive efforts to outwit and damage each other last years, allowing the story – narrated (but how reliably?) by a colleague (Caine) – to cut back and forth in time and place. Elegant, engrossing, ingenious, it also features Andy Serkis, David Bowie (as Nikola Tesla) and real-life magician Ricky Jay.
Sun 8 July 18:30 NFT1
Mon 16 July 20:45 NFT1
The Dark Knight
USA 2008. With Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Aaron Eckhart, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman. 152min. 12A
Dark, indeed: Nolan’s second Batman feature delved deep into the anxieties of the post-9/11 world, be they about surprise attack, security strategies or the onset of sheer nightmarish meltdown. This time it’s the Joker creating the chaos, and he’s superbly incarnated by the late Heath Ledger in a performance as witty as it’s unsettling in its evocation of brilliant, uncontrollably unpredictable insanity. If anyone still entertained doubts as to Nolan’s ability to provide virtuoso action, this film surely demolished them.
Sat 14 July 20:45 NFT1
Tue 17 July 20:45 NFT1
Inception
USA 2010. With Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy. 149min. 12A
Proving that a sci-fi action blockbuster can be as complex, sly and witty as a Resnais film, Nolan creates a future where it’s possible to enter dreams to steal secrets – here, though, a fugitive thief-for-hire organises a team to implant an idea that might change the world. With its multiplicity of agents operating on various levels of consciousness, this is arguably Nolan’s most complex (and playful) tale of conflicting narratives yet. So audacious that the opening scenes are quite bewildering, it re-imagines the world to exhilarating effect.
Fri 20 July 20:45 NFT1
Sun 22 July 18:30 NFT1

When The Dark Knight made its debut, it garnered a level of critical acclaim that hadn’t been seen before for films of its genre. Christopher Nolan‘s second entry into his Batman trilogy had a significant effect on the way that comic book movies were viewed by audiences and handled by filmmakers.
Examples of the film’s impact on the industry can be seen in Empire Magazine’s recent interview with some of Hollywood’s hottest known creative talents; industry names like Tim Burton, Zack Snyder and Rupert Wyatt shared their opinions on Nolan’s work and its influences on their craft and the genre.
Check out what they had to say below.
Tim Burton:

“I like Chris Nolan’s Batman movies. It kind of makes me laugh because I got so much **** for being too dark and now, with him, it’s like, ‘Lucky you.’ But that’s the way it should be. I wish I hadn’t had to go through quite so much torture. They weren’t used to that mood then. Comic books were supposed to be light. I did what I wanted to do and it seemed different at the time. And what he did has become normal.”

Kevin Feige:

“The success and quality of The Dark Knight was just as important for Marvel as it was for all the people involved in that movie. I look back at the summer of 2008 as a two-hander between Iron Man and The Dark Knight, and I think they both really announced, ‘Okay, this is not a fad, this genre is here to stay.’ After The Dark Knight, we didn’t fall into a trap of saying, ‘Woah, audiences like dark and gritty! Make Thor dark and gritty, make Captain America dark and gritty!’ But I think it showed how diverse these movies can be. I root for ever single one of the comic book movies that aren’t ours. I hope every one is great and when they’re not, it’s disappointing, because people don’t always make the distinction between DC and Marvel.”

Gareth Edwards:

“When I’ve watched The Dark Knight more analytically, as a filmmaker, I’ve noticed things that go against the way we’re supposed to do them. Like there’s music throughout that movie, yet they pull it right out during the really intense chase scenes and it has a strange effect of making those moments really grounded and believable and more exciting. It’s stuff like that that really sets it apart from other blockbusters. And I’m really pleased the movie was such a success because never again can a studio underestimate the audience.”

Drew Goddard:

“The greatest villain of all time is The Joker – he always has been and I don’t know anyone who’s not going to have Heath Ledger’s performance burnt into their brains for the rest of their lives. And the thing about Chris that I admire so much is that he’s not afraid to talk up to the audience, rather that down to the audience. He makes a gorgeous film; he makes an elegant and intelligent film, and that’s the sort of thing that they didn’t used to do with the superhero genre.”

Zack Snyder:

“What Chris did with that movie was he made our mythology mean something to us. Batman is no longer a man in a suit. He’s us. But it’s not a repeatable thing, as far as tone and mood go. The Dark Knight Rises can be that again, but other superhero movies can’t because they don’t have the balls. That tone is transcendent. That’s a movie anyone can see and say, ‘I understand that mythology instantly’.”

Rupert Wyatt:

“I think audiences, especially at that particular moment in time, were facing a certain reality check. Foreign wars, a crumbling economy – and the actor who played the villain met a really, premature, tragic death before the movie came out. All of those things combined to make a very zeitgeist film. I referenced it all the time during the making of Apes, in terms of my hopes for people understanding the idea was to make a film that really dealt with our world. Warner Bros. has done a huge amount, especially with that particular film and Christopher Nolan, to make other studios give other filmmakers the opportunity to tell really intelligent, well thought-out character dramas on that kind of scale.”

West Anderson: "I enjoy Chris Nolan's work in general, but I watched the Blu-Ray and it has a thing where you can go to any scene in the movie and go to the making of that. There's nothing that has ever made me feel less like a professional than watching Chris Nolan's group at work. The remote-control miniature cars. Just every technique. The rehearsal of flipping the semi-trailer end over end in the middle of the desert before they blow it up in Chicago...There's one scene where a guy jumps off the top of a skyscaraper - they rehearse the jump but for the actual thing they did it CG. 'But for the rehearsal you did jump off the building?' 'We have it as a reference. 'Wow. Chris Nolan is quite great. My favourite is Memento, but I'd like to learn how to do these things."

Nolan crafted an incredible film with The Dark Knight and even if you aren’t a fan of comic book movies, there’s no denying that it’s a film of great significance and importance. It’s nice to hear these filmmakers speaking so highly of Nolan and The Dark Knight, it’s also interesting to hear their thoughts on it and what they appreciate about it. They’re all right though, Nolan really took the superhero genre to the next level with the film and he forever changed it.

Just in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, Christopher Nolan will conclude his Dark Knight trilogy this summer with the release of The Dark Knight Rises on July 20th.