Reply to Topic
The problem with Nolan's plots though, is that they are very Hollywood in that they are puzzles meant to be solved. When you understand what happened in a Nolan film, there's nothing left that's interesting and the film ties itself up into a neat little bow. Maybe you think about the film after if you didn't understand it, but if you do, it's still a "within the theater" kind of movie. His decision to leave the ending "open" in Inception was kind of silly as well. It's admitting that he didn't explain the rules of the game well enough for us to understand what happened, basically poking fun at how his own Hollywoodness interfered with the story originally being told.
The other issue is that Nolan is not a cinematic director. He writes A LOT of dialogue, and relies entirely on his words to tell his story. I thought the use of Bane in his newest film was very tongue in cheek in the sense that he made his villain the most anti-Nolan character, he had no mouth to stare at while he talked. He has distilled his color palette down to variations of grays that reduce the visual range of his films greatly. He (like most modern directors) has no idea how to direct a coherent action scene (see: ). His approach to shooting is very conventional, the camera just kinda hangs out and cuts enough to give the film a kineticism throughout. The issue is that Nolan's work is not uniquely cinematic at all, it could be just as easily any other form of media. When I think of a good director, I think of someone who is fluent in the language of cinema and uses the language to aid (or even compose in its entirety) the story, which I don't think Nolan does.
The other issue is that Nolan is not a cinematic director. He writes A LOT of dialogue, and relies entirely on his words to tell his story. I thought the use of Bane in his newest film was very tongue in cheek in the sense that he made his villain the most anti-Nolan character, he had no mouth to stare at while he talked. He has distilled his color palette down to variations of grays that reduce the visual range of his films greatly. He (like most modern directors) has no idea how to direct a coherent action scene (see: ). His approach to shooting is very conventional, the camera just kinda hangs out and cuts enough to give the film a kineticism throughout. The issue is that Nolan's work is not uniquely cinematic at all, it could be just as easily any other form of media. When I think of a good director, I think of someone who is fluent in the language of cinema and uses the language to aid (or even compose in its entirety) the story, which I don't think Nolan does.
Whilst you may be right that his style is not cinematic, in this day and age cinema is not purely used in such serious, cinematic ways and is in the mainstream at least used as a way to show something in the most entertaining way.
I will check out that video now, but I have never noticed much about the action scenes in any of his films, although if I purposely tried to analysis or approach the film like that I maybe would. It's Jim Emerson though so it should be an interesting watch, I was going to say that judging by your posts/tastes that I think Emerson might interest you (I think maybe you made a post about him somewhere else actually), so glad to see that he does, I have enjoyed his other videos about editing such as "Cutting the Bastards" if you've seen that.
