My Man-Crush on Christopher Nolan

I just watched Inception for about the 20th time. I suspect that it's going to become one of those movies that, when I see it's on, I can't help leaving the TV on that station to let it play out. Short list of movies that are like that. Thomas Crown Affair. Fight Club. How to Train Your Dragon. Jaws. Avatar. A few others. All of them masterpieces, and each in their own way. The only thing all of them have in common is, interestingly, great and distinctive musical scores.

What I love about Inception is the depth. The clear thought that was put into every angle, every character. I blogged what is now years ago about American culture, portrayed through movies, using Fight Club as the halcyon example of how action drama can be elevated to art, not just through violence, explosions, and camera tricks, but through depth and nuance that are sometimes hard to see. Fight Club has enough depth that a college-level literature course could spend a month on it. Inception has more. Even having had a few glasses of wine, I don't think I can adequately convey just how highly I think of these movies.

In any rate, Inception director Chris Nolan will be releasing another Batman movie in the not-terribly-distant future (July, 2012). Fairly little has been released about the plot and storyline. Christian Bale will be back as Bruce/Wayne Batman, and it will feature both major and obscure villains from Batman mythology: Selena Kyle (catwoman, played by Anne Hathaway) and Bane (played by Tom Hardy). Quite a lot of Nolan veterans in the cast, besides Bale and Hardy, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Marion Cotillard. (Could be the booze, but I find myself contemplating Ellen Page in a Batgirl costume. Mebbe seen Whip It too many times. I have a thing for petite willful women, and Page would kick the hell out of Alicia Silverstone's air-headed version.) All in all, the only sour note so far has been that Nolan plans the movie as a vehicle to conclude his take on Batman.

While I have no doubt whatsoever that Nolan will continue to make excellent films - with a few inevitable side-steps along the way - I'm interested to see how he plans to tie a bow around his Batman universe. I expect it to be outstanding, hopefully enough to satisfy Batfans for the next 10 years or so. Nolan abandoning the franchise unfortunately means that Warner Brothers/DC will hire some over-hyped douchebag to take another run at directing the character for however long the public will buy tickets; whoever happens to be the current incarnation of Joel Schumacher, circa 1995. Len Wiseman is probably near the top of the list. Or somebody from his stable, like Markus Nispel. Fair to say that one or (if we're very lucky) two worthy follow-ups are likely, inevitably followed by a steaming pile of dog-shit that will bury further attempts at comic-book movies for a decade. One-liners and chase-scenes will be offered as substitutes for dialog and drama, with the usual results. Gotta love Hollywood, eh?

But we will get one more Nolan rendition of Batman. So. My prediction: the Nolan Batman storyline will conclude with some great pulling-the-wool-over-the-eyes. Some great deception or obfuscation, which comes at great cost to a central character, but which frees them at the same time. All of Nolan's films highlight the concept that ignorance is bliss, which must sometimes be inflicted on others. The stories convey that reality is subjective. They involve situations where creating (or adopting) the reality that is required involves sacrificing a reality that most people would call "real." Leonard Shelby found his happiness by choosing to ignore and leave behind the reality he has been seeking for years. Likewise, Dominic Cobb found happiness when (by implication) he stopped caring whether or not his reality was real in the grander sense (the significance of the still-spinning top is not that it's still spinning, but rather that Cobb is no longer watching to see if it topples). In The Dark Knight, the reality of Harvey Dent's end was intentionally concealed, at great cost to Our Hero. Both Insomnia and The Prestige likewise have pervasive themes of obfuscation and subjective interpretation of "truth" and "reality." Nolan LOVES the emotional impact of a character transcending reality, by disregarding it. The Dark Knight Rises will be the same.

In interviews, Nolan has asserted that - unlike in comics, where storylines necessarily proceed into perpetuity - movie franchises must have some reasonable closure. I like to think if anyone can wrap up Batman with a clever, impossible to follow twist (which leaves Batman alive, as there must ALWAYS be a Batman), Nolan is the man for the job. Ideally, Nolan will create a storyline that will be difficult enough to follow-up on that the inevitable next director will decide to approach the character from a totally different angle. But alas, the sort of dipshits who will line up for the Batman director job in Nolan's wake are not the type to try to do something original.

But hey, it's about time for us to move past superheroes anyway, since we've pretty much used that up. Seriously, if we're resorting to Thor and Captain America, what's next? Aquaman? Seems we've also been through wizards and dragons, pirates, vampires, zombies, slasher horror remakes, and space drama all within the last decade. Could be mistaken, but its been over a decade since The Matrix, so I believe we're due for some man-against-the-world martial arts action flicks.