Date of Birth
Birth
Name
Christopher Johnathan James Nolan
Nickname
Chris
Height
5' 11" (1.80 m)
Mini
Biography
Best known for his cerebral, often non-linear storytelling,
acclaimed writer-director Christopher Nolan was born on July 30, 1970 in
London, England. Over the course of a decade plus of filmmaking, Nolan has gone
from low-budget independent films to working on some of the biggest
blockbusters ever.
At an early age, Nolan began making short movies with his father's Super-8mm camera. While studying English Literature at University College London, he shot 16mm films at UCL's film society, where he learned the guerrilla techniques he would later use to make his first feature, Following (1998), on a budget of around $6,000. The noir thriller was recognized at a number of international film festivals prior to its theatrical release, and gained Nolan enough credibility that he was able to gather substantial financing for his next film.
Nolan's second film was Memento (2000), which he directed from his own screenplay based on a short story by his brother Jonathan. Starring Guy Pearce, the film brought Nolan numerous honors, including Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay. Nolan went on to direct the critically-acclaimed psychological thriller, Insomnia (2002), starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank.
The turning point in Nolan's career occurred when he was awarded the chance to revive the Batman franchise in 2005. In Batman Begins (2005), Nolan brought a level of gravitas back to the iconic hero, and his gritty, modern interpretation was greeted with praise from fans and critics alike. Before moving on to a Batman sequel, Nolan directed, co-wrote and produced the mystery thriller The Prestige (2006), starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as magicians whose obsessive rivalry leads to tragedy and murder.
In 2008, Nolan directed, co-wrote, and produced The Dark Knight (2008) which went on to gross more than a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. Nolan was nominated for a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award, Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award and Producers Guild of America (PGA) Award, and the film also received eight Academy Award nominations.
In 2010, Nolan captivated audiences with sci-fi thriller Inception (2010), which he directed and produced from his own original screenplay. The thought-provoking drama was a worldwide blockbuster, earning more than $800 million dollars and becoming one of the most discussed and debated films of the year. Among its many honors, Inception received four Academy Awards and eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Nolan was recognized by his peers with DGA and PGA Award nominations, as well as a WGA Award win for his work on the film.
One of the best-reviewed and highest-grossing movies of 2012, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) concluded Nolan's Batman trilogy. Due to his success rebooting the Batman character, Warner Bros. enlisted Nolan to produce their revamped Superman movie Man of Steel (2013), which is set to open in Summer 2013.
Nolan currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, producer Emma Thomas, and their children. Nolan and Thomas also have their own production company, Syncopy.
At an early age, Nolan began making short movies with his father's Super-8mm camera. While studying English Literature at University College London, he shot 16mm films at UCL's film society, where he learned the guerrilla techniques he would later use to make his first feature, Following (1998), on a budget of around $6,000. The noir thriller was recognized at a number of international film festivals prior to its theatrical release, and gained Nolan enough credibility that he was able to gather substantial financing for his next film.
Nolan's second film was Memento (2000), which he directed from his own screenplay based on a short story by his brother Jonathan. Starring Guy Pearce, the film brought Nolan numerous honors, including Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay. Nolan went on to direct the critically-acclaimed psychological thriller, Insomnia (2002), starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams and Hilary Swank.
The turning point in Nolan's career occurred when he was awarded the chance to revive the Batman franchise in 2005. In Batman Begins (2005), Nolan brought a level of gravitas back to the iconic hero, and his gritty, modern interpretation was greeted with praise from fans and critics alike. Before moving on to a Batman sequel, Nolan directed, co-wrote and produced the mystery thriller The Prestige (2006), starring Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman as magicians whose obsessive rivalry leads to tragedy and murder.
In 2008, Nolan directed, co-wrote, and produced The Dark Knight (2008) which went on to gross more than a billion dollars at the worldwide box office. Nolan was nominated for a Directors Guild of America (DGA) Award, Writers Guild of America (WGA) Award and Producers Guild of America (PGA) Award, and the film also received eight Academy Award nominations.
In 2010, Nolan captivated audiences with sci-fi thriller Inception (2010), which he directed and produced from his own original screenplay. The thought-provoking drama was a worldwide blockbuster, earning more than $800 million dollars and becoming one of the most discussed and debated films of the year. Among its many honors, Inception received four Academy Awards and eight nominations, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. Nolan was recognized by his peers with DGA and PGA Award nominations, as well as a WGA Award win for his work on the film.
One of the best-reviewed and highest-grossing movies of 2012, The Dark Knight Rises (2012) concluded Nolan's Batman trilogy. Due to his success rebooting the Batman character, Warner Bros. enlisted Nolan to produce their revamped Superman movie Man of Steel (2013), which is set to open in Summer 2013.
Nolan currently resides in Los Angeles with his wife, producer Emma Thomas, and their children. Nolan and Thomas also have their own production company, Syncopy.
Mini Biography
Born in London in 1970, Christopher Nolan began making films at
the age of seven using his father's super 8mm camera and an assortment of male-action
figures. He graduated to making films involving real people, and his super 8mm
surreal short 'tarantella' was shown on PBS' 'image union' in 1989. Chris
studied English Literature at University College London while starting to make
16mm films at the college film society. His short film 'larceny' was shown at
the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996, and his other 16mm shorts include a three-
minute surreal film called 'doodlebug'.
Spouse
(1997
- present) 4 children
|
Trade Mark
Begins his movies and introduces his main characters with a
close up of their hands performing an action.
Frequently casts Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Mark Boone Junior and Larry Holden. As of 2012, Caine will have appeared in five of Nolan's films,
the most of any single actor.
Usually starts films with a flashback or a scene from the end of
the movie
When shooting a dialogue scene, the actors are often framed in
wide close-up with a shallow depth of field to blur out the background.
Films conclude with the two central characters discussing the
preceding events and the results which have stemmed from said events.
Non-linear timelines (Following (1998), Memento (2000), Batman Begins (2005), and The Prestige (2006))
Crosscutting several scenes of parallel action to build to a
climax (The
Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Inception (2010), The Dark Knight Rises (2012)).
His endings have a recurring theme of justified dishonesty.
(Examples: Guy
Pearce's "Do I lie to myself to
be happy" monologue in Memento (2000), Michael Caine's closing remark that the audience "wants to be
fooled" from The Prestige (2006) and Christian Bale's rationale of how the citizens of Gotham City "deserve to
have their faith rewarded" at the end of The Dark Knight (2008)).
His films usually revolve around characters that are afflicted
with some kind of psychological disorder. (Examples: Guy Pearce's short-term memory "condition" in Memento (2000), Al Pacino's titular sleeping disorder in Insomnia (2002), Christian Bale's phobia of bats in Batman Begins (2005) and Aaron Eckhart's dual personality in The Dark Knight (2008) and Leonardo DiCaprio not being able to grasp onto reality in Inception (2010)).
The storyline in his films usually involves a determined
character seeking vengeance over the death of a loved one. (Examples: Guy Pearce in Memento (2000), Christian Bale in Batman Begins (2005), Hugh Jackman in The Prestige (2006), Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight (2008), and Marion Cotillard in The Dark Knight Rises (2012)).
Often casts actors in roles contrary to their usual screen
persona
Frequently uses hard cuts when transitioning to the next scenes.
This is most prominent in his films from 'Batman Begins' onward, especially in
'The Dark Knight', where, in some instances, the hard cuts he uses will go so
far as to nearly cut off character's lines in order to quickly and efficiently
get to the next scene.
All of his films contain a major reference to the film prior to
it
His protagonists will often resort to tactics of physical or
psychological torture to gain information (e.g. (SPOILERS) in 'Batman Begins',
Batman uses the hallucinagenic fear compound on Jonathan Crane in order to gain
information about his "boss"; in 'The Prestige', Angier buries
Borden's assistant alive in order to get Borden to talk; in 'The Dark Knight',
Batman throws Salvatore Maroni off a building, breaking his legs, in order to
gain information about The Joker; in the same movie, Harvey Dent puts a gun to
one of the Joker's henchman and flips a coin for his life every second he
doesn't talk to scare him into talking. Also in this movie Batman uses physical
intimidation for the interrogation of The Joker; in 'Insomnia', Dormer drives
into oncoming traffic in order to scare the victim's best friend into talking;
in Inception Cobb demands that Saito discloses information to him on gunpoint;
in The Dark Knight Rises, Batman physically threatens Bane to accquire the
location of the trigger).
Employs non-linear storytelling techniques, often flipping
around the three acts of a movie to tell the story in an interesting fashion.
Characters in films often gain a physical or psychological
handicap in the course of the film (SPOILERS: in 'The Prestige', Angier gets a
crippled leg while Borden loses two fingers; in 'The Dark Knight', Salvatore
Maroni gets a crippled leg; in 'Insomnia', Dormer gets insomnia; in 'Memento',
Leonard gains a memory handicap, the event of which is shown in flashback
during the film)
His films often have obsessive protagonists with a troubled
past, who are obsessed to gain justice by any means in life (e.g. Leonard in Memento (2000), Al Pacino's character in Insomnia (2002), Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins (2005). Also the protagonist of Following (1998) and Hugh Jackman in The Prestige (2006) were obsessive)
Lonely troubled protagonists who are unwillingly forced to hide
their true identity from the world.
Typically ends his films with a character giving a philosophical
monologue
Frequently in his films the protagonists, at some crucial
moment, feel let down or betrayed by their mentors whom they have been
following blindly and with respect. (e.g. The protagonist being cheated by Cobb
in Following (1998), Leonard "discovering" that Teddy is the
culprit in Memento (2000), Hilary Swank's character respecting Al Pacino as a great detective in Insomnia (2002) only to find out that he is also flawed, Bruce Wayne and
Liam
Neeson's character's confrontation in
Batman
Begins (2005), Cutter not supporting
Angier in The
Prestige (2006), Ariadne feeling
betrayed by her mentor Cobb when he doesn't tell her about Mal's domain over
his dreams in Inception (2010), Blake feeling let down by Gordon when his lie about
Dent's death is exposed in The Dark Knight Rises (2012)).
His films' protagonists have mostly lost their loved ones and/or
failed in love, a circumstance that causes them turn into malevolent and/or
apathetic forever. (e.g. Leonard in Memento (2000) has lost his wife in a brutal murder in the past, Bruce
Wayne in Batman
Begins (2005) has lost Rachel Dawes'
faith in him throughout the film, Borden in The Prestige (2006) does not get his wife's love because of his character's
'act' in the movie and Angier loses his beloved in a mishap during a magic
trick, Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight (2008) loses Rachel as well as Bruce Wayne is not able to win
her love back)
Often casts non-American actors in American roles. (e.g. Guy Pearce, Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman, Heath Ledger, Cillian Murphy, Liam Neeson, Gary Oldman, Tom Wilkinson)
Uses camera revolving around a character. (The Prestige, The
Dark Knight, Memento and Inception)
Displays the title before the end credits (Batman Begins, The
Dark Knight, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises)
The original scores of his films usually play over most of the
film, or one piece of music will play over many small scenes, as if they are
edited in a montage; there are few moments in his films when there is no music
playing in the background.
Characters who are unreliable narrators (e.g. Borden, through
his Journal, in "The Prestige", the Joker through his conflicting
monologues in "The Dark Knight", and Leonard through his memory
problem and 'conditioning' from "Memento").
Very frequently his films contain blackmail, attempted blackmail
or a reference to blackmail.
The main characters in all his films are primarily driven by an
obsession
His soundtracks are typically score-based. Anytime that a song
is heard, its always source music in the sense that we see the characters
playing the song from a device ("Non, je ne regrette rien" by Edith
Piaf used as a kick in "Inception")
His films almost always end with the character's fate open to
interpretation
Enormous visual scope and heavy emphasis on location and
architecture
Villains in his films often threaten to harm the hero's friends
or family
His antagonists are often motivated by a philosophical belief
rather than money
Recurring theme of betrayal (Friends and mentors often turn out
to be untrustworthy or outright treacherous)
Often works with editor Lee Smith, composer Hans Zimmer, cinematographer Wally Pfister, production designer Nathan Crowley and wife-producer Emma
Thomas.
Often ends his films with a jump cut to black (Memento (2000), Batman Begins (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), The Prestige (2006) and, most significantly, in Inception (2010)).
Frequently uses symmetric image composition, possibly inspired
by 'Stanley Kubrick'.
Trivia
Gained major funding during the 1999 Hong Kong Film Festival by
showing his film Following (1998) and then asking the audience to donate money to his next
film Memento (2000).
Is red and green colorblind.
Studied English Literature in college.
He is a big James Bond fan, and said to David S. Goyer, that his favorite James Bond movie is On Her Majesty's Secret
Service (1969).
His top ten favorite movies are: 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), The Black Hole (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Chinatown (1974), The Hitcher (1986), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), On Her Majesty's Secret
Service (1969)), Star Wars (1977), The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and Topkapi (1964), as well as anything by Stanley Kubrick.
Following Insomnia (2002), his next project was going to be a Howard Hughes biopic starring Jim Carrey. Nolan had the screenplay written (calling it "one of the
best things I've ever written"), but once it became apparent Martin Scorsese was making his own Hughes biopic, The Aviator (2004), Nolan reluctantly tabled his script and took up
directing Batman
Begins (2005).
Spent his childhood moving back and forth between United Kingdom
and the United States. His accent is mostly English, but occasionally varies
into an American accent. Nolan is comfortable with and knowledgeable of both
cultures.
Has both US and UK citizenship.
Always has both his US and UK passports with him at all times,
just in case of emergency.
Is of Irish descent.
As of 2012, 6 out of eight films Nolan directed are on the
IMDB's top 250: The Dark Knight (2008), Batman Begins (2005), Memento (2000), The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010), and The Dark Knight Rises (2012).
Was doing camera and sound work on training videos before making
his film debut.
His film, The Dark Knight Rises (2012), is the fifth consecutive movie of his to have a role
played by Michael
Caine.
Adapted Ruth Rendell's novel, "The Keys to the Street", into a screenplay
that he was set to direct for Fox Searchlight after Insomnia (2002). However, he instead went on to direct Batman Begins (2005). "Keys to the Street" remains unproduced.
First cousin of Miranda Nolan, whom he gave minor roles in Inception (2010) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Miranda's brother Tom had a minor role in Batman Begins (2005).
The first Director to do three live action Film adaptations of
the DC Comics character Batman.
He and Spider-Man (2002) director Sam Raimi are the only directors to do three live-action Comic Book
adaptations of the same character.
Prefers shooting on film stock over digital, and has been
outspoken against the threat by studios to phase out the use of film as a
choice over digital.
Refuses to use Digital Intermediates for his films, instead
opting to use the photochemical timing process.
He is one of the few people (also including his brother Jonathan Nolan and David S. Goyer) to work on films about DC Comics' two most famous characters
and two of the most iconic heroes in Comics, "Batman" and
"Superman".
Honored with a hand-print and foot-print ceremony at Grauman's
Chinese Theater on July 7, 2012 in Los Angeles.
He initially directed his Batman films so he could get funding
and support for his bigger films. The one he had planned for years was
''Inception''.
After James Cameron, Christopher Nolan is the second director
make 2 films that have grossed more than $1 billion in the worldwide box office
(The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises). However, Nolan is the first
director to have released both of the billion dollar grossing films in 2D only
(James Cameron's Avatar and Titanic have both been released in 3D at some point
during their releases).
Always refuses to use a second unit in his movies, preferring
instead to oversee every shot himself with DP Wally Pfister.
Was inspired to create the "Dark Knight" trilogy after
viewing Richard Donner's Superman Films.
Despite directing many acclaimed films, he has never been
nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.
Personal Quotes
"The best actors instinctively feel out what the other
actors need, and they just accommodate it." - commenting on working with
actors who have distinctively different styles.
...I studied English Literature. I wasn't a very good student,
but one thing I did get from it, while I was making films at the same time with
the college film society, was that I started thinking about the narrative
freedoms that authors had enjoyed for centuries and it seemed to me that
filmmakers should enjoy those freedoms as well.
As soon as television became the only secondary way in which
films were watched, films had to adhere to a pretty linear system, whereby you
can drift off for ten minutes and go and answer the phone and not really lose
your place.
A lot of it is being done in commercials and music videos. I've
never done them, but I think that those are forms in which cross-cutting and
parallel action are absolutely standard and accepted as a mainstream language.
Film-makers like myself enjoy the fruits of that experimentation and absorption
by the mainstream. I think people's capacity to absorb a fractured
mise-en-scene is extraordinary now compared to forty years ago.
Yes, to me that's one of the most compelling fears in film noir
and the psychological thriller genre - that fear of conspiracy. It's definitely
something that I have a fear of - not being in control of your own life. I
think that's something people can relate to, and those genres are most
successful when they derive the material from genuine fears that people have.
The term 'genre' eventually becomes pejorative because you're
referring to something that's so codified and ritualised that it ceases to have
the power and meaning it had when it first started. What I'm trying to do is to
create modern equivalents that speak to me of those tropes that have more of
the original power.
I have always been a huge fan of Ridley Scott and certainly when I was a kid. Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982) just blew me away because they created these
extraordinary worlds that were just completely immersive. I was also an
enormous Stanley
Kubrick fan for similar reasons.
[on using CGI in Batman Begins (2005)] "I think there's a vague sense out there that
movies are becoming more and more unreal, I know I've felt it. The demand we
put on ourselves was to be as spectacular as possible, but not depend on
computer graphics to do it".
[on casting Batman] "Batman is a marvelously complex
character-somebody who has absolute charm and then, just like that, can turn it
into ice-cold ruthlessness. There are very few actors who can do that, and
Christian is one of them."
I think there's a vague sense out there that movies are becoming
more and more unreal. I know I've felt it.
Superheroes fill a gap in the pop culture psyche, similar to the
role of Greek mythology. There isn't really anything else that does the job in
modern terms. For me, Batman is the one that can most clearly be taken
seriously. He's not from another planet, or filled with radioactive gunk. I
mean, Superman is essentially a god, but Batman is more like Hercules: he's a
human being, very flawed, and bridges the divide.
But there's a very limited pool of finance in the UK. To be
honest, it's a very clubby kind of place. In Hollywood there's a great
openness, almost a voracious appetite for new people. In England there's a
great suspicion of the new. In cultural terms, that can be a good thing, but
when you're trying to break into the film industry, it's definitely a bad
thing. I never had any luck with interesting people in small projects when I
was doing Following. Never had any support whatsoever from the British film
industry, other than Working Title, the company that [producer] Emma Thomas was
working for at the time. They let me use their photocopier, stuff like that,
which is not to be underestimated.
I never considered myself a lucky person. I'm the most
extraordinary pessimist. I truly am.
We all wake up in the morning wanting to live our lives the way
we know we should. But we usually don't, in small ways. That's what makes a
character like Batman so fascinating. He plays out our conflicts on a much
larger scale.
Working with a legend like Michael Caine is about as enjoyable and relaxing an experience on set as one
could hope for. His vast experience gives him an air of good-humored calm that
you could almost mistake for complacency until the camera rolls, and you see
his focus and efficiency nail each scene on the first take. He once told me
that he's never asked for a second take -- he's happy to do one if you have an
idea for him to try, but he brings a definitive interpretation to every line.
His method has the casual air of effortlessness that can only come from decades
of dogged hard work, and you sense that he's still as hungry for every last
morsel of a part as he was when he first captured everyone's imagination. A
fine actor first, and screen icon second, he's a director's dream.
At the time I did Following (1998), I was looking at the American ultra-low-budget model
that didn't really exist in the UK. A low-budget film in England tended to be
about £500,000 to £600,000. In America, there was a tradition of guys like Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith making films for thousands, and that's what we'd been doing for
short films. So it was really just a case of using that knowledge and expanding
it to feature length. I hear of people doing it in the UK now and I think
that's a great thing.
(On Memento (2000)) The budget was about £3million, which is low for an
independent film - but yes, it was a huge leap of faith. "Memento"
was clearly on a bigger scale than Following (1998) but, at the same time, there were very strong stylistic
connections. People want to see something that shows them you can do what you
say. That's the trick.
The procedure is basically to try to get into film festivals.
I'm half American, so I was able to come over to America and live here and
start battering the American film festivals. There are a lot of great
festivals, not just Sundance. So the key is to get it screened at a festival
and start interesting people there.
I didn't go to film school. I guess my whole experience has been
just to make films. What I've talked about on the commentary to the DVD of
Following is the production method and how things came about. I feel like that
might be a point of interest that a lot of people might be thinking about with
their own films, so I've tried to put in as much of the detail as I can
remember. The more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that
everybody's situation is unique, and the one thing I've learned is that instead
of copying someone else's model for a low-budget film, you really have to look
at what you've got available and see how you can tell the story you want to
tell, using the things that you have around you. That's what we did with
Following, and on the DVD I try to explain how it worked for us and what I
learned from it, but at the same time suggest that it'll be different for
someone else.
I always find myself gravitating to the analogy of a maze. Think
of film noir and if you picture the story as a maze, you don't want to be
hanging above the maze watching the characters make the wrong choices because
it's frustrating. You actually want to be in the maze with them, making the
turns at their side, that keeps it more exciting...I quite like to be in that
maze.
Films are subjective-what you like, what you don't like. But the
thing for me that is absolutely unifying is the idea that every time I go to
the cinema and pay my money and sit down and watch a film go up on-screen, I
want to feel that the people who made that film think it's the best movie in
the world, that they poured everything into it and they really love it. Whether
or not I agree with what they've done, I want that effort there-I want that
sincerity. And when you don't feel it, that's the only time I feel like I'm
wasting my time at the movies.
Every film should have its own world, a logic and feel to it
that expands beyond the exact image that the audience is seeing.
(on The Dark Knight Rises premiere shooting in Colorado)
Speaking on behalf of the cast and crew of The Dark Knight Rises, I would like
to express our profound sorrow at the senseless tragedy that has befallen the
entire Aurora community. I would not presume to know anything about the victims
of the shooting, but that they were there last night to watch a movie. I
believe movies are one of the great American art forms and the shared
experience of watching a story unfold on screen is an important and joyful
pastime. The movie theatre is my home, and the idea that someone would violate
that innocent and hopeful place in such an unbearably savage way is devastating
to me. Nothing any of us can say could ever adequately express our feelings for
the innocent victims of this appalling crime, but our thoughts are with them
and their families.
I sometimes get frustrated with studio executives - and indeed
critics - who will watch a film in a very linear way and make notes as they go,
because that's not how movies work. You get to the end - the audience gets to
the end - and then you take about five minutes to decide 'OK, what was all
that?' and your brain really looks at everything in a different way and then
you decide. And that's why endings are so important and that's why you really
have to get to the end of a movie before you know what it is.
Anybody who sees an original-negative print of a film shot in
IMAX is looking at the best image quality available to filmmakers today. As
long as any new technology is required to measure up to that, I think film has
to remain the future.
If you're trying to challenge an audience and make them look at
elements in a different way, you've got to give them a familiar context to hang
onto... But you have to be very aware that the audience is extremely ruthless
in its demand for newness, novelty and freshness.
We're definitely well into a phase where our actors are not
willing to brand themselves as movie stars, the way actors of the past did.
When you look at a guy like Christian (Bale), whether he's wearing a mask or
not, this is one of our great actors. But he wants to be different in every
film. He doesn't want the audience to go to a 'Christian Bale movie'. He wants
them to come see the character he's playing.
[regarding his canceled Howard Hughes film] Luckily I managed to
find another wealthy, quirky character who's orphaned at a young age.
For me, "The Dark Knight Rises" is specifically and
definitely the end of the Batman story as I wanted to tell it, and the
open-ended nature of the film is simply a very important thematic idea that we
wanted to get into the movie, which is that Batman is a symbol. He can be
anybody, and that was very important to us. Not every Batman fan will
necessarily agree with that interpretation of the philosophy of the character,
but for me it all comes back to the scene between Bruce Wayne and Alfred in the
private jet in "Batman Begins," where the only way that I could find
to make a credible characterization of a guy transforming himself into Batman
is if it was as a necessary symbol, and he saw himself as a catalyst for change
and therefore it was a temporary process, maybe a five-year plan that would be enforced
for symbolically encouraging the good of Gotham to take back their city. To me,
for that mission to succeed, it has to end, so this is the ending for me, and
as I say, the open-ended elements are all to do with the thematic idea that
Batman was not important as a man, he's more than that. He's a symbol, and the
symbol lives on.
We tried with all three [Batman] films, but in the most extreme
way with "The Dark Knight Rises," what I call this sort of
snowballing approach to action and events. We experimented with this in
"The Dark Knight," where the action is not based on clean and clear
set pieces the way "Batman Begins" was, but we pushed it much further
in this film. The scope and scale of the action is built from smaller pieces
that snowball together so you're cross-cutting, which I love doing, and trying
to find a rhythm in conjunction with the music and the sound effects, so you're
building and building tension continuously over a long sustained part of the
film, and not releasing that until the very last frame. It's a risky strategy
because you risk exhausting your audience, but to me it's the most invigorating
way of approaching the action film. It's an approach I applied with
"Inception" as well, to have parallel strands of tension rising and
rising and then coming together. In "The Dark Knight Rises," from the
moment the music and sound drop and the little boy starts singing "The
Star-Spangled Banner," it's kind of like the gloves are coming off. I've
been amazed and delighted how people have accepted the extremity of where
things go.
I think I'm not so much a fan of science fiction as I am a fan
of cinema that creates worlds, that creates an entire alternate universe that
you could escape into for a couple of hours.
I think anytime you look at science fiction in movies, there are
key touchstones; Metropolis (1927). Blade Runner (1982). 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Whenever you're talking about getting off the planet, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) is somewhat unavoidable.
Source : http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0634240/
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