“What I’ve found is, people who let my films wash over them — who don’t treat it like a crossword puzzle, or like there is a test afterwards — they get the most out of the film.” Christopher Nolan
In the first two decades of the 21st century Christopher Nolan has achieved what would appear to be an impossible feat — that of making original films which have all the hallmarks of a personal vision of cinema, films which feature big stars on large budgets, but which nevertheless are challenging and, in many respects, innovative and avant-garde, particularly with regard to their narrative structure. This season of films focuses on his standalone big budget films, from his first large scale movie, ‘Insomnia’, to his latest release, ‘Tenet’, work which is often spectacular, yet cerebral.
It has often been said that a Nolan movie requires several viewings in order to fully understand and appreciate it, but, as he indicates in the quotation above, their appeal is as much to the emotions and the senses as it is to our cognitive faculties. He will take us from inside the Arctic Circle in ‘Insomnia’ to the furthest reaches of outer space in ‘Interstellar’ and back to the coast of France in ‘Dunkirk’. From the competing illusionists in the 19th century London of ‘The Prestige’, to the futuristic spies in ‘Inception’ and ‘Tenet’, his movies are a breath-taking treat for the eyes and ears — and all shot on film, with no green screen and a minimum of CGI, as Nolan proudly attests.