Film Noir and the Films of Christopher Nolan
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Universidade de Aveiro Departamento de Línguas e Culturas 2004 Mark William Poole Film Noir e Os Filmes de Christopher Nolan Film Noir and the Films of Christopher Nolan Universidade de Aveiro Departamento de Línguas e Culturas 2004 Mark William Poole Film Noir e Os Filmes de Christopher Nolan Film Noir and the Films of Christopher Nolan Dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Estudos Ingleses, realizada sob a orientação científica do Prof. Dr. Anthony David Barker, Professor Associado do Departamento de Línguas e Culturas da Universidade de Aveiro. o júri presidente Doutor Kenneth David Callahan, Professor Associado da Universidade de Aveiro vogais Doutor Anthony David Barker, Professor Associado da Universidade de Aveiro Doutor Manuel José de Freitas Portela, Professor Auxiliar da Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra agradecimentos I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Anthony David Barker for his persistence, encouragement and suggestions. Thanks also go to my father for his assiduous eye in proof reading, Pedro Ferriera for technical support and Marta and Ramon for their patience and understanding. I would finally like to thank the staff and students of Instituto Superior de Assistentes e Intérpretes for their support at all levels. resumo O Film Noir regressou como género comercialmente atraente nos últimos dez anos e na sequência do sucesso de Pulp Fiction. Nesta tese tentamos analisar as diferenças de estilo e de conteúdo, e as razões para estas diferenças entre a incarnação actual do Film Noir e a dos seus antecessores. Enquanto realizador cujos filmes até hoje apresentados contêm elementos de Film Noir, a obra de Christopher Nolan é contextualizada com a dos seus contemporâneos, ao mesmo tempo que se analisa igualmente o objectivo da expressão destes elementos. abstract Film noir has returned as a commercially attractive genre in the last ten years following the success of Pulp Fiction. This thesis discusses the differences of style and content and reasons for these differences between the present incarnation of film noir and its predecessors. As a director whose three feature films to date all contain noir elements, the work of Christopher Nolan is contextualized with that of his contemporaries while the purpose of his expression of these elements is also considered. Índice/Contents Agradecimentos/Acknowledgements………………………….. iii Resumo………………………………………………………… iv Abstract………………………………………………………… v Introduction……………………………………………………. 1 Who is Christopher Nolan?………………………………… 3 What is “Film Noir”?……………………………………….. 5 The Origins and Writing of the Term “Film Noir”…………. 7 Thesis Organisation……………………………………..…. 9 Chapter One – Nolan and the Tradition of Noir…………… 13 1st Cycle Noir........................................................................ 15 2nd Cycle Noir ....................................................................... 19 3rd Cycle Noir....................................................................... 26 Narrative Voice in Noir and Nolan………………………… 31 Transforming the Femme Fatale in 3rd Cycle Noir……….. 36 Crime and Detection in Nolan’s Noir……………………… 39 Location and Setting in Nolan’s Noir……………………… 42 Contradictions in 3rd Cycle Noir and Noir’s Future……….. 45 Chapter Two – Nolan’s British Independent Films……….. 49 Doodlebug – An Exercise in Technique…………………. 51 Synopsis…………………………………………………… 51 Nolan’s Discipline…………………………………………. 51 Theme and Narrative Strategy……………………………... 53 Nolan’s Formalist Concerns……………………………….. 54 Nolan’s Working Practices………………………………… 55 Budget, Noir and Paranoia in Following……………….. 59 Synopsis……………………………………………………. 59 Background………………………………………………… 60 Independent Films?………………………………………... 61 Following Noir…………………………………………….. 67 Following Paranoia………………………………………... 75 Connecting Nolan…………………………………………. 79 Chapter Three – Nolan’s Independent American Film……. 85 Narrative and Memory in Memento…………………….. 87 Lenny’s Synopsis………………………………………….. 87 Synopsis…………………………………………………… 87 Events Reorganised………………………………………... 88 The Opening of Memento………………………………… 89 Order Disrupted…………………………………………… 91 Narrative Source and Purpose…………………………….. 97 Generic Expectations……………………………………… 100 The Fact of Memory………………………………………. 103 Leonard and Society………………………………………. 105 Chapter Four – American Studio Nolan…………………… 111 Stars and Space in Insomnia……………………… 113 Synopsis…………………………………………………… 113 Financial Background…………………………………….. 113 Establishing Generic Expectations……………………….. 116 The Role of Al Pacino in Insomnia……………………….. 119 The Role of Robin Williams in Insomnia………………… 122 Hilary Swank in Insomnia………………………………… 124 Synopsis Re-viewed……………………………………….. 127 Departures…………………………………………………. 127 Time and Place in Global Insomnia……………………….. 130 Conclusion……………………………………………………. 135 Nolan and Noir……………………………………………. 137 Future Research…………………………………………… 140 Filmography………………………….………………………. 143 Christopher Nolan Filmography…………………………… 145 General Filmography………………………………………. 151 Bibliography………………………………………………….. 167 Cited Journals………………………………………………... 175 Cited Internet Websites……………………………………… 175 Nolan Related Material……………………………………… 176 INTRODUCTION 1 2 Who is Christopher Nolan? The Anglo-American1 director Christopher Nolan has made three feature films to date: the self-financed Following (1998) set and made in England, the low budget American independent Memento (2000) and a relatively big budget Hollywood studio remake of the 1997 Norwegian original of the same name Insomnia (2002). The budget for each of his films is discussed further in the chapters related to the respective films. In May of 2003 the two minute fifty-five second film Doodlebug, dating back to the early nineties and his days as a student at University College London, was released as part of the Cinema 16 collection, focusing on short films by British directors. Nolan was educated in both England and America2 and the fact that he has dual nationality suggests that he has been able to move between the two countries3 and cultures with an understanding of both that would be difficult for a person whose identity is fixed within the cultural limits of one nationality. On the other hand, this dual nationality might also have aroused in him a sense of being an outsider, a member of both cultures but belonging to neither, leading him to be a person who prefers to distance himself from, observe and analyse his surroundings. This is something that Nolan was asked about when interviewed by Daniel Argent: Daniel Argent: With an American mother and British father, you’ve said you’ve spent your whole life “trying to be both.” You grew up in England but spent years eight through eleven in Chicago. How did this kind of dual identity and early uprooting inform your philosophies about things like friendships and trust? Christopher Nolan: …Growing up in two countries and having parents from two countries has had me think more than I would have about notions of identity, particularly notions of how we identify ourselves in relation to other people. (Creative Screenwriting, 50) The ideas of “trying to be both” and “how we identify ourselves in relation to other people”, suggest that Nolan is one step removed from his surroundings, a person, who through this distance, is drawn to stand back rather than participate. 1 Christopher Nolan was born of July 30th 1970 to an American mother and a British father. 2 He read English Literature at University College London, which goes some way to explaining his interest in narrative structure. It should also be noted that he has had no formal training in filmmaking. 3 He finally moved to Los Angeles in 1997, after driving across America with his brother, Jonah; a journey which sowed the seeds of the script for Memento and which is described in Mottram’s The Making of Memento (pp 160-61). 3 This idea of distance is certainly supported by the character types of the protagonists of the three feature films he has made to date. That is to say each of the protagonists embodies certain characteristics of the outsider type, with their age being roughly on a par with their degree of world-weariness. In this way the Young Man of Following believes himself to be an observer of people and therefore distant from them, a notion that, due to his inability to be either aware of or express his inexperience, is soon proven to be false. The more self-consciously experienced and older Leonard in Memento uses his “facts” to analyse the supposedly true circumstances of the killer he is seeking, while all the time unaware that it is not he who is in control but those who are around him. In Insomnia the detective Dormer, whose weariness is expressed literally in his name as well as in an ageing Al Pacino’s face, is dislocated from the investigative procedures of a comfortable Los Angeles terrain to an alien Alaskan landscape and lightscape that he has no familiarity with, making him an outsider in his own country and in his own criminal investigation, yet ultimately aware of the implications of the situation he finds himself in. A more detailed description of the character type of the three protagonists will be offered in the coming chapters. Such similarity of protagonist and Nolan’s empathy with this character type is emphasised when one realises that Nolan scripted Following and Memento and worked as a script consultant on Insomnia, making significant changes to the character type of the central protagonist from the original. This further supports the idea