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Originally Posted by Severian
Oh, I'm dying to see Dunkirk as well. Doesn't come out for damn near a year, which bothers me, and makes me wish I hadn't followed the schedule so it would feel like a surprise to me (as Inception and Interstellar did).
About the "classic Nolan" thing.. have faith. Remember, the Prestige was really just a story about three dudes (two smart, one dumb) and a competition. But it passes for steampunk, even sci-fi simply because of the amazing visuals and Nolan's pitch perfect sense of pacing and storytelling.
Ever seen Insomnia? Similar deal. Nothing fantastic about it, but holy hell is that a eye-and-brain popping thriller. I would even argue that his first film, that minimalist black and white treachery tale Following, managed to go into some pretty heady places thematically.
We've been talking about Spielberg a bit, and I've gotta say that I think Christopher Nolan is very much a student of the Spielbergian school of film awesomeness. He's more often compared to Kubrick (when the simple fact that he has a few blockbusters under his belt doesn't get him lumped in with artless, humorless brutes... like Bay), but I see a lot of Spielberg in his ability to move between genres. He has a definite signature style, but I think he has managed to reliably fit diverse styles and perspectives and realities into his toolbelt. From noir and suspense to crime drama to dream-spies and hard sci-fi, all with that sort of trademark cerebral feel, tailored to fit each situation and set of characters. Spielberg did this as well, perhaps better than anyone in film... I mean, a dinosaur movie and a black and white Holocaust character study in the same year... both classics in their own right. Only Spielberg's "thing" was less cerebral and more... something else. Human, I guess.
I think we might expect Dunkirk to be Nolan's attempt at a Saving Private Ryan-type thing. That film didn't offer a hell of a lot of complex ideas. It was just a man extremely well made war film. And I've heard Dunkirk is a bit of a passion project for Nolan, so I think he has a solid angle and probably an excellent reason for making it, and odds are it will be great.
I just love Christopher Nolan. Really. Real film aficionados tend to thumb their noses at him a bit from time to time (despite the fact that everyone on the face of the earth at least loves Memento, Dark Knight and Inception), like he's kind of a dim bulb film "bro," but I say fuck that. He and David O. Russell probably have the best track records in Hollywood right now.
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Interesting. I wouldn't say I'm a Nolan fan, even though I do like most of his films. I wasn't even aware that he'd made Interstellar until it'd finished, and that's probably my favourite of his. Same with The Prestige, which I also really like. But I'd say even The Prestige, you could at least see the potential there for him to do his thing, whereas Dunkirk ... I'm not saying it'll be a bad film, just that I don't see where he can take it that'll qualify as 'Christopher Nolan territory'. But that only makes me more intrigued to see it than I would be about something more obviously in his zone.
I'm struggling to really compare him with another filmmaker, although I'd say Kubrick makes more sense to me than Spielberg, but only insofar as I can imagine him making something like 2001 or The Shining more than I can, say, Jaws or ET. But all filmmakers have their limits. I'm not generally a fan of Spielberg's more serious, 'adult' films. Not to say they're bad, just that I don't think they play to his strengths - and in some sense may even run counter to them. I wouldn't be surprised if that ends up being the case with Dunkirk. But again, that only makes me even more intrigued to see it, just because it'll give a better impression of what
kind of filmmaker he is.