I like to think I have an implicit contract with certain artists whereby, if they produce a work which changes my life, I am obligated to continue partaking of any future works until such time as they descend to such mediocrity that I can no longer legitimately expect anything earth-shattering from them again. For example, The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany drove me to eagerly read all of John Irving's novels, until a couple years ago. A Son of the Circus, along with a string of other lesser works, released me from any obligation, and Last Night in Twisted River isn't even on my Amazon wish list.
I have yet to be disappointed in Christopher Nolan, though. His first feature film, Memento, was astonishing not for its narrative inventiveness, but for its psychological power. In an earlier short film, Following, Nolan used dischronologized storytelling in order to leave the audience as surprised as was the protaganist by the ending. In Memento, however, Nolan did not, ultimately, tell a story about the character played by Guy Pearce, but instead called the viewer's conception of his own identity and self into question. More than any philosophy book ever has, Memento forced me to wonder whether my self-understanding was anything more than convenient, self-chosen illusion.
His two Batman movies have been entertaining thrillers, but I was very interested to see Inception, which I remember one critic describing as "Memento on a Dark Knight budget." Instead, it seemed more like "Dark Knight without Batman." It used the hypothetical architecture of dreamworlds as a setting for a taut and interesting thriller; but by the end of the movie, a thriller is all it was.
I love Memento because, in the end, it was a movie about me and every other person who saw it. Inception, on the other hand, was merely meant to entertain us.
I have yet to be disappointed in Christopher Nolan, though. His first feature film, Memento, was astonishing not for its narrative inventiveness, but for its psychological power. In an earlier short film, Following, Nolan used dischronologized storytelling in order to leave the audience as surprised as was the protaganist by the ending. In Memento, however, Nolan did not, ultimately, tell a story about the character played by Guy Pearce, but instead called the viewer's conception of his own identity and self into question. More than any philosophy book ever has, Memento forced me to wonder whether my self-understanding was anything more than convenient, self-chosen illusion.
His two Batman movies have been entertaining thrillers, but I was very interested to see Inception, which I remember one critic describing as "Memento on a Dark Knight budget." Instead, it seemed more like "Dark Knight without Batman." It used the hypothetical architecture of dreamworlds as a setting for a taut and interesting thriller; but by the end of the movie, a thriller is all it was.
I love Memento because, in the end, it was a movie about me and every other person who saw it. Inception, on the other hand, was merely meant to entertain us.
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