Praising Christopher Nolan, Hollywood's True Iconoclast

Big Hollywood ^ | July 9, 2012 | Christian Toto

[Bratch]

Let's take a moment to toast director Christopher Nolan before anyone gets the chance to see his latest film, "The Dark Knight Rises."

Yes, it's premature to celebrate a film before it opens, but Nolan's approach to filmmaking deserves kudos no matter what we see come July 20.

"Rises" won't be shown in 3D, a testament to Nolan's ability to fight Hollywood's power structure - and win. The film will be the last in his Batman franchise. No drawn-out fourth installment, no sense that the series is running on fumes. This is a trilogy, he tells us, and it's hard to believe he'll change his mind any time soon.

This week, Nolan refused to take part in a proposed "Justice League" project, DC Comics' answer to the wildly profitable "Avengers" feature. Just imagine the blank check the studio would have handed him for that project. But Nolan routinely bucks conventional wisdom and emerges stronger for it.

[Bratch]

The Dark Knight should have, at the very least, been nominated for best picture, IMO.

[aft_lizard]

Not going to lie, I am not looking forward to this movie nearly as much as I did The Dark Knight. First off there isn’t that pre-movie buzz about Ledgers acting performance(or any acting performance, with the TDK it was months in advance). Secondly Bane and Catwoman suck as villains. I am sure Nolan will do a great job selling them,but to me they just don’t have that oooh factor. Also I have to say the trailers are pretty meh. IMO his movies aren’t re-watchable either. They are great movies for one time viewing but they don’t hold up that well for my tastes.

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Plenty of great reasons for praising Nolan, but the essayist missed many more:

Following
Memento
Insomnia
The Prestige

[who_would_fardels_bear]

Catwoman doesn't have the "oooh factor"?

I'll have to wait until I see her costume to decide.

[aft_lizard]

Not as a villain. For looks sure. But she doesn’t have that threatening air about her.

[Bratch]

[AceMineral]

She’s a burglar.

[Bratch]

As the premier gets closer, they're releasing more interesting information.

The Dark Knight Rises: 'A Tale Of Two Cities' Is The Story's Literary Source, According To Director

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He was the best of bats, he was the worst of bats.

The origins of the plot for The Dark Knight Rises, the new Batman movie, lie in "A Tale of Two Cities," according to its director, Christopher Nolan.

At a press conference yesterday, Nolan answered a question by the website SuperheroHype about the movie’s literary allusions by saying:

"When Jonah [Jonathan Nolan] showed me his first draft of his screenplay, it was 400 pages long or something. It had all this crazy stuff in it. As part of a primer when he handed it to me, he said, 'You've got to think of "A Tale of Two Cities" which, of course, you've read.' I said, 'Absolutely.'

I read the script and was a little baffled by a few things and realized that I'd never read "A Tale of Two Cities." It was just one of those things that I thought I had done. Then I got it, read it and absolutely loved it and got completely what he was talking about... When I did my draft on the script, it was all about "A Tale of Two Cities"."

Nolan had previously stated that “Gotham has always drawn a lot from New York. It’s a heightened version of it, but that was always the inspiration, hence the name Gotham. So I felt that we should get more of New York into this film, specifically because The Dark Knight Rises is very much about Gotham.”

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