Christopher Nolan's Useful Lies

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An absolutely terrific essay. I think it cracked the code. Nolan is definitely not that interested in subjectiveness and alternate realities, as many reviewers point out, as in the morality and the psychological burden of deception and self-deception.

He seems particularly intrigued by the distinction between 'bad' lies and 'good' inspirational lies. Inception's themes are mostly about the how his beloved film industry works, injecting lies (stories) into the minds of the audience in order to, hopefully, inspire them. On the other hand, Nolan seems to be puzzled about the power of lies and the residual guilt it leaves on the liar, who must sacrifice part of himself to protect the lie, if the goals are dear to him. Shelby, Dormer, Borden, Angier, Wayne... all men who must 'live' their lies, at great cost, to prevent them from falling apart. And Nolan lives this as well... a magician of sorts who won't ever talk about his tricks, maybe fearing their power to amaze will vanish.

I'm not entirely sure he has these big dilemmas figured out. In his movies he seems to err on the side of truth and learning to cope with reality. But I think most of the time he's just settling for one of two possible conclusions. He chooses to uphold the truth because this is Hollywood, not because he's sold on its merits. I think that, in his mind, the jury is still out on how moral and beneficial lies can really be. And he keeps on looking for a story that shows us a perfect, non-evil deception.

Also, I think you can do some reverse-engineering to understand which themes stem from Chris Nolan's mind, and which one come from his brother's. Jonah Nolan's 'Person of Interest' tv show has many tropes that are common to the Nolan brothers movies... the 'dead loved one' motivation, altruistic acts driven by personal guilt, a debate on the virtues of vigilantism, the personal toll ideals have on protagonists 'on a mission', the blurred distinction between crime and law-enforcement (a really corrupt police force), how reliable the Law really is, etc.

... but in Person of Interest there's little to no dilemma about the usefulness, morality or psychological dangers of deception and self-deception. None. There are many psychological burdens, but none comes from lying.

I think Chris Nolan is the one more interested with the power and threat of lies, and the rest of the topics are more in line with with Jonah's interests.

And I wouldn't rule out it has something to do with that third Nolan brother, Matthew Nolan, convicted on charges of murder and also a suspect in a cheque fraud case. I believe some of this story topics are so recurrent and passionate in the Nolan brother's work they could be traced to their personal life, not just their philosophical stances on art-making.



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This is from movie critic Jim Emerson's blog:

(TDKR SPOILERS AHEAD)

<<In "TDKR," Batman's reputation is redeemed. And then he achieves his destiny as a false martyr. He gets his Bat-statue in City Hall, and he gets his personal life back. The argument (from Alfred, anyway), is that Bruce Wayne has done enough; he's sacrificed much of his life to the greater cause, even if he did not literally sacrifice his life in the nuclear explosion from which he saved Gotham. So, Batman's -- and, by extension, Bruce Wayne's -- newly redeemed status is based on a big lie, another deception, that allows him both public glory and an escape to private freedom and blessed anonymity. Like the magic tricks in "The Prestige" or the dream architecture of "Inception," heroism is an illusion, a con designed to fool a willingly gullible audience. "You want to be fooled," claims Cutter (Michael Caine) in "The Prestige.">>

And movie critic Bilge Ebiri says:

<<And when you think about it, Batman's final sacrifice is a reversal/redemption of Harvey Dent's "sacrifice" from "The Dark Knight." Gotham has been told that Dent died a hero at the hands of Batman, setting an example of rectitude and nobility that has been used to enact new laws that have kept criminals off the streets. This has eaten away at the heart of Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman), not just because it's a lie, but also because it has established a false sense of hope. In some ways, it's almost as bad as Bane's prison - just as the prisoners live in a world where they're confronted every moment by a freedom that doesn't exist, the citizens of Gotham live in a world justified by a sacrifice that never happened. Batman's final sacrifice is a correction of that lie, and it replaces that false hope with a genuine one.
Of course, we could call this sacrifice a lie, too, since Bruce Wayne does get to live. But in both The Dark Knight and in this film, Nolan goes out of his way to represent Bruce and Batman as two distinct characters. (There's a notable scene in the earlier film, when Batman shows Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox the elaborate, very illegal, and deeply unethical citywide sonar he has created out of Gotham's cellphones; pointedly, even though Fox knows his identity, Bruce does this dressed as Batman, complete with his deep, growly "Batman voice," establishing the fact that when Bruce is in the Bat-suit, he is for all intents and purposes a different person.) This is also where The Dark Knight Rises' references to Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities play out most poignantly, since that novel ends with one character sacrificing himself so that another, his lookalike, may live on in happiness. Make no mistake, the hero's death at the end of "The Dark Knight Rises" is very real. And it is perversely "hopeful"- with all the ambiguity that implies.>>

I considered them relevant to the essay. Nolan is still fixated on the merits of lies.



Good stuff. I think the first quote is missing a lot of the stuff the second nails, in that Bruce's sacrifice isn't really another lie; he actually is sacrificing his own incarnation of Batman. And I agree that this sacrifice sort of fulfills the invented sacrifice of Harvey Dent.

Great quotes, thanks for posting them.



An absolutely terrific essay. I think it cracked the code. Nolan is definitely not that interested in subjectiveness and alternate realities, as many reviewers point out, as in the morality and the psychological burden of deception and self-deception.
Thanks. Really glad you liked it. And I agree; for all the talk of him making impersonal movies, it'd probably be more accurate to say he just makes a very specific type of personal movie. If his characters seem similar, it's because almost all of them are wrestling with the same inner conflict.

He seems particularly intrigued by the distinction between 'bad' lies and 'good' inspirational lies. Inception's themes are mostly about the how his beloved film industry works, injecting lies (stories) into the minds of the audience in order to, hopefully, inspire them. On the other hand, Nolan seems to be puzzled about the power of lies and the residual guilt it leaves on the liar, who must sacrifice part of himself to protect the lie, if the goals are dear to him. Shelby, Dormer, Borden, Angier, Wayne... all men who must 'live' their lies, at great cost, to prevent them from falling apart. And Nolan lives this as well... a magician of sorts who won't ever talk about his tricks, maybe fearing their power to amaze will vanish.
Yes. The liar always pays part of the price for the lie. And he does seem to (sometimes) make the distinction between lies, which is why TDKR was such a great test case...because there was just a tiny bit of ambiguity in how he'd answered the question before.

I'm not entirely sure he has these big dilemmas figured out. In his movies he seems to err on the side of truth and learning to cope with reality. But I think most of the time he's just settling for one of two possible conclusions. He chooses to uphold the truth because this is Hollywood, not because he's sold on its merits. I think that, in his mind, the jury is still out on how moral and beneficial lies can really be. And he keeps on looking for a story that shows us a perfect, non-evil deception.
That's a really interesting thought...that he keeps siding with the truth because he can't find a lie good enough to justify itself! I suspect, if he's honest and consistent, this will always be true, but I wouldn't rule out that he may make a film that goes the other way at some point. Though if he does, let me be the first to predict that it isn't as successful as the ones he's made so far.


Also, I think you can do some reverse-engineering to understand which themes stem from Chris Nolan's mind, and which one come from his brother's. Jonah Nolan's 'Person of Interest' tv show has many tropes that are common to the Nolan brothers movies... the 'dead loved one' motivation, altruistic acts driven by personal guilt, a debate on the virtues of vigilantism, the personal toll ideals have on protagonists 'on a mission', the blurred distinction between crime and law-enforcement (a really corrupt police force), how reliable the Law really is, etc.

... but in Person of Interest there's little to no dilemma about the usefulness, morality or psychological dangers of deception and self-deception. None. There are many psychological burdens, but none comes from lying.

I think Chris Nolan is the one more interested with the power and threat of lies, and the rest of the topics are more in line with with Jonah's interests.
Jonah = Jonathan, I think. But yeah, tons of similar themes, even down to the corrupt police force (though I expect Carter's going to start making a difference there as the seasons go on).

Regarding Person of Interest: so far, there hasn't been much guilt, no. But we're just one season in. I'll be shocked if, as the seasons go on, the show doesn't continually raise the spectre of the machine falling into the wrong hands, and Finch's resulting guilt from that. In lots of ways Person of Interest is Batman in TV form; it's just operating on a different time scale, and has split the protagonist into two people: Finch is the Bruce Wayne half (wealth, gadgets, concern for how the power is being used), and Reese the Batman half (unemotional, bending the rules, appealing to force).



Excellent essay. I am thankful especially for the philosophic parts.



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How did I miss this?Hehehe,nice work,it was very enjoyable read,I hope you will make more!
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Also, I think you can do some reverse-engineering to understand which themes stem from Chris Nolan's mind, and which one come from his brother's. Jonah Nolan's 'Person of Interest' tv show has many tropes that are common to the Nolan brothers movies... the 'dead loved one' motivation, altruistic acts driven by personal guilt, a debate on the virtues of vigilantism, the personal toll ideals have on protagonists 'on a mission', the blurred distinction between crime and law-enforcement (a really corrupt police force), how reliable the Law really is, etc.

... but in Person of Interest there's little to no dilemma about the usefulness, morality or psychological dangers of deception and self-deception. None. There are many psychological burdens, but none comes from lying.
Regarding Person of Interest: so far, there hasn't been much guilt, no. But we're just one season in. I'll be shocked if, as the seasons go on, the show doesn't continually raise the spectre of the machine falling into the wrong hands, and Finch's resulting guilt from that. In lots of ways Person of Interest is Batman in TV form; it's just operating on a different time scale, and has split the protagonist into two people: Finch is the Bruce Wayne half (wealth, gadgets, concern for how the power is being used), and Reese the Batman half (unemotional, bending the rules, appealing to force).
Stumbled on this thread by accident, and I noticed this bit. Worth pointing out that this stuff from over two years ago, about Finch's guilt and culpability over both creating the machine and hiding it from the world, did end up being a major theme in season 3 (and now into season 4), as predicted. He even revealed (or so he thought) its existence to the world in an effort to absolve himself.

In fact, this week's episode featured the machine explicitly telling Finch that "sometimes it's better not to know," and the flashbacks dealt with early versions of the software trying to deceive him. There was a fair bit of talk about the machine being dangerous because it saw only objectives (usefulness), and was willing to lie to achieve them.

It remains to be seen if the show comes down on the same side as the elder Nolan's films, of course, but it's definitely asking the same questions.



And another bump, to point out that...

WARNING: "Interstellar" spoilers below
...the useful lie is a major part of the plot of Interstellar, as well, and it is similarly condemned there.

When I first noticed this I was thought it was an interesting pattern, and certainly deliberate. But the films he's released since I posted this have only reinforced and amplified the theme, which seems to permeate everything he does.



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Very good read!

That bit about The Prestige made me look at the movie in a new light, although I still don't like it that much as the whole clone thing was way too over the top and out of character for what was happening throughout the scripts.

Any more articles like this one?
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Thanks.

Yeah, there's a handful of others in the Essays section. Not all thematic analysis', but I think they have a similar feel, in that they all try to extrapolate the big picture stuff.



There's one clear example of the "useful/noble lie" in Dunkirk as well.
To think of it, the whole film is again built around a "useful lie", but this time it certainly isn't condemned.

WARNING: "Dunkirk" spoilers below
The main useful lie is that this disappointment of 350.000 soldiers having to withdraw was framed as a major success.
It's not as clearly a lie as the smaller moment where the son of the captain of the small boat doesn't tell Cillian Murphy's character that he killed the young boy, but the propaganda around the whole Dunkirk evacuation could be seen as a gigantic useful lie as well.



Quick bump to note that, after seeing Tenet last night, I realized this morning that it, too, contains a "useful lie" as a major plot point (maybe more than one).



Interesting stuff.


I don't think it's a coincidence that my preferred Nolan films seem to be the ones that I feel have more adequetely handled the "useful lie" device. In that, I mean that they are the films that more explictly show the more negative consequences: Memento and Prestige (my very favorites) are essentially tragedies, after all, and the engineered deception is at the heart of the characters' suffering. More intriguingly is Inception, a film that has frustrated me due to its reputation being so dependent on its intricate FX and the plot mechanics around the 'dream-within-a-dream' structure - all of which I consider little more than an elaborate macguffin. Beyond all of that gee-whizadry, I felt the real emotional core of the film was Mal, and the direct indictment of not only her own chosen self-delusion, but the involuntary inception of delusion, and Cobb's guilt and culpability for this intimate transgression (similar to the harm caused by Joey Pants in Memento, Borden on his wife, etc.). I wrote about this aspect of Inception quite a bit at the RT forum, and it always baffled me how little attention was paid to the fact that this is what the film was about, rather than figuring out the puzzle complexities of some dream-structured corporate espionage shenanigans.


Less popularly, I'm not a tremendous fan of Nolan's Batman films. I mean, they're fine, and actually my favorite among them is Begins. I think its positing of the moral dilemma of the vigilante is the most successful of the series. Here, the useful lie (or 'myth') is Batman himself, and why his compulsion to moral authority gives him a more legitimate authority than some other utilitarian sociopath. In this sense, the lie is still a burden and one Batman, presumably altruistically, chooses to suffer. As much as they try, I don't feel that the sequels add much thematically to this basic conflict. Worse, there are elements there that seem to me quasi-fascist, or at least Randian-objectivist, but I won't go into that here because it's honey for internet Poohs. I'll just say that the added complications of the useful lie in the sequels have diminishing returns for me.


More so with Interstellar. The useful lie here felt completely contrived, almost obligatory, as if the Nolans realized that they needed one somewhere and squeezed it into the script. Which is a shame since, unlike a lot of the film's detractors, I don't have any issue with its more emotional message, but, even more than Inception, I thought that its focus on metaphysical mechanics distracted from, rather than enhanced, its central theme.


Anyway, it's a nice essay, and I definitely find Nolan more philosophically fertile than, say, such dormitory epistles as the Matrix films.



Aye, that and everything else in the Essays area, which is admittedly not updated very often. I usually come up with ideas and let them stew for quite a while.

I've got another that's been 80% done for months, hopefully I'll get that finished (which really just means it's taking too long so I need to lower my standards a little) soon.