Lets be a bit more specific about Nolan's body of work:
Following, Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises, Insterstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet
Out of the 11 films he has made, I only haven't seen Tenet yet, so my thoughts will be focused on the rest.
Following was your typical good independent breakaway film. Much like Blood Simple by the Coens' it showed early promise and earned Nolan a chance to work with bigger studios.
Memento is for me by far Nolan's best work and it is mostly because of the structure that he chose for the story that made it so successful an idea. Told in a linear way, the story is far less impressive even if his brother's concept (Jonathan Nolan wrote a short story Memento is based on) can create plenty of situations for interesting events to unfold. However the decision Christopher took to use a complex, yet clearly defined timeline is one of those rare, brilliant calls that make a film stand out.
After Memento, Nolan steadily becomes more proficient in his craft, working with bigger budgets and more well known actors. Insomnia, featured Pacino - who I have a soft spot for- but is utterly flavorless and feels like the sort of film you would make as a filler until you get your next good idea, just to stay relevant. I am not aware of the details, but the script for it was written 5 years before the film was made and it is possible it was one of those scripts nobody was excited about but it was sitting on someone's desk collecting dust until it was finally used when a cash inflow was needed.
From Batman Begins and on, is when we see - at least in my submission- what I would call Nolan as an established director. He can pick his projects, initially piggyback on the marketability of Batman as a character, and eventually become someone whom the studios know can make them money. For the Batman trilogy as a whole, I will say that it is one of those films that one easily and falsely will either absolutely adore or passionately hate. This is because it takes on an established character that everyone has certain ideas or expectations about. Naturally you cannot justify everyone's wildly diverse opinions, so the outcome tends to polarize way more than it should. What I consider undeniable is that it is a departure from how we had previously seen these characters treated, as action sprinkled with a lot of bad comedy (the last Batman film before that was the horrendous Batman & Robin after all), and instead we see a darker side of superheroes, which laid the ground for the films that dominate the box office nowadays. I honestly doubt we could get the cinematic universes of DC or Marvel until somebody came along to show that this approach could work. Whether that's is actually a good thing, it is up to the viewer. As a parting comment, there is a huge drawback these types of films have that gives them a distinct disadvantage against other movies, and it is the same reason so many people flock to see them: familiarity with the character. Nobody with a modicum of familiarity with the stories was surprised at any of the characters' arks in those films, because the moment you utter someone's name, you can immediately place them in that limiting binary spectrum of good or bad. The examples are plentiful so I will briefly only mention one. You see Harvey Dent in his first scene, not as a virtuous character wanting to clean up a city as a DA, but as a time bomb waiting to explode since you already know he is the villainous Twoface. This takes so much away from the viewing experience as it immediately slaps a tag on the character. It would be similar to having a seemingly decent character in a random film named Sneaky McSinister and then expect audiences to be surprised as his journey leads him to darker pastures.
Between the 2nd and 3rd installments of the trilogy, Nolan made The Prestige and Inception, two films that were again technically sound and well acted, but for me have come to highlight Nolan's two biggest weaknesses: foreshadowing and complex plots. Although both can be considered good films, they both respectively suffer from the aforementioned problems. In the case of the Prestige, foreshadowing was done in such an incredibly obvious way, that any experienced viewer could pick up on the twist which was the film's climax from the first act. Subtlety goes a long way in such films and in my mind, no film can be a better example of this than -the also polarizing- Fight Club. After watching those two films, the later has you scratching your head thinking How did I miss that? whilst the former makes you think How could anyone miss that?
Inception, although based firmly on a decent idea and fresh take on the it-was-all-a-dream cliche, gets fuzzy and tiring resting on layers upon layers of complexity and ironically rehashes the cliche it tries to avoid, by being revealed towards the third act that it-was-all-a-dream...within-a-dream. It is by no means neither a bad film nor one that is especially hard to follow, but it is definitely -for lack of a better term- needlessly convoluted.
The reason I mentioned the aspects of foreshadowing and complex storytelling as Nolan's weaknesses, is because they come together as the perfect storm in Interstellar. More often than not, time travel stories end in the same way: that monumental event that took place to set the whole film up was initiated by the protagonist himself/herself...just in the future. From La Jetee to Predestination and anywhere in between, we have seen this play out time and time again, and Nolan's use of foreshadowing makes it so obvious that it really takes away from the experience, even more than in the case of The Prestige. Sprinkling high end physics in the film gives it a distinct taste that someone who appreciates scientific concepts -like myself- would enjoy, and it certainly makes the hero's journey more colorful, but in the end does little to supplement the story and mostly serves as a way to make it more perplexed.
If you have ever played poker you may be able to recognize the conundrum I find myself in. Invest a lot of chips in a mediocre hand early on and you have to see it through to the end. I am now about 40 minutes into this post realizing that you are probably skipping this section altogether hoping for a tldr version. More on that later...
Dunkrik is as close as we have ever gotten to a Nolan passion project. Written by himself it seems like he was finally confident enough to abandon his previous tricks and try his hand at something new to him. Definitely a more artistic film that the rest of his work, it takes a page out of Malick's Thin Red Line to create a pacifist WWII film. However, Nolan being Nolan he feels he does need a gimmick of some sort, something to set his film apart, so he cuts it into three overlapping segments, one for each of the branches of the armed forces. Alas, I think the true great move Dunkirk has pulled off is putting you in the position of the soldier and his unknown destiny. You don't get to see what the Axis powers are discussing in their HQ in order to have some idea what to expect. That may not be fresh, as from the Dirty Dozen to Saving Private Ryan, many films have employed the same tool, but Nolan takes it a step further, by not even showing an enemy on screen for the duration of the film. The threat remains invisible and always looming, which makes for some eerily thrilling situations. The transitions to different segments of the Armed Forces dulls the effect a bit though, as not everyone is facing the same danger at the same time, which means at times, pacing suffers as a result.
All things considered, after the Batman Trilogy and barring Tenet, which again I haven't seen (although it seems like it is a return to his familiar style), Nolan has taken a single departure from what we have come to expect of him in Dunkirk. Perhaps the reason it may feel as a decline in quality to the OP and others, is a form of saturation from being exposed enough times to the relatively limited arrows in his quiver. That is not a unique characteristic of Nolan but quite the opposite. Most directors out there are a one-trick-pony and no matter how well you perform it, if you keep doing the same trick over the course of decades, fewer and fewer people are going to be impressed by it.
tldr: There is no tldr to be had. Life rarely works that way. Do you think I wanted to write such a long post for a director I am mostly indifferent about? I got lost in a sea of drowsiness and caffeine unable to realize what I was getting myself into until it was too late to stop. Join me in this unnecessary, half-baked, semi-knowledgeable analysis or don't. But don't expect a shortcut.
Last edited by Jabs; 02-24-21 at 11:51 PM.