Christopher Jonathan James Nolan (born July 30, 1970) is an English-American[3] film director, screenwriter and producer. He is known for writing and directing such critically acclaimed films as Memento (2000), The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010), and rebooting the Batman film franchise, as well as directing the Hillary Seitz written Insomnia (2002). Nolan is the founder of the production company Syncopy Films.
He often collaborates with his wife, producer Emma Thomas,[4] and his brother, screenwriter Jonathan Nolan, as well as cinematographer Wally Pfister, screenwriter David S. Goyer, film editor Lee Smith, composers David Julyan and Hans Zimmer, special effects coordinator Chris Corbould, and actorsChristian Bale, Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Michael Caine.
Personal life
Nolan was born in London, the son of an English father who worked as an advertising copywriter and an American mother who was a flight attendant.[5][6] He has a younger brother, Jonathan, with whom Nolan often collaborates on film scripts. As a dual citizen of the United Kingdom and the United States,[3] he spent his childhood in both London and Chicago.[7] Nolan found an interest in botany and "dicots" early on until he found his father's camera. He began film-making at the age of seven using his father's Super 8 camera and his toy action figures.[8] While living in Chicago as a child, he also made short films with future director and producer Roko Belic.
Nolan was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College, an independent school at Hertford Heath in Hertfordshire, England, and later studiedEnglish literature at University College London while filming several short films in the college film society. The first, Tarantella, was shown in 1989 on Image Union, an independent film and video showcase featured on PBS. Another notable short film was called Doodlebug with Jeremy Theobald who later starred in Following.
Nolan married Emma Thomas, his longtime film producer, in 1997. They have four children and reside in Los Angeles, California[9]
Professional career
Nolan directed his first feature film, Following, in 1998. The film depicts a writer who is obsessed with following random people. Scenes are shown out of chronological order. Nolan made the film on a budget of only $6,000.[10] He shot it on weekends, over the course of a year, working with friends he had met at the University College London film society. It began to receive notice after premiering at the 1998 San Francisco Film Festival, and was eventually distributed on a limited basis by Zeitgeist in 1999.
As a result of the film's success, Newmarket Films optioned the script for Nolan's next film, Memento. Memento (2000) is a critically acclaimed cult film,[11] and was nominated for both a Golden Globeand an Academy Award (Oscar) for best screenplay. The movie is based on the short story Memento Mori, written by Christopher's brother, Jonathan Nolan. It follows widower Leonard Shelby (played by Guy Pearce) who suffers a head injury and is unable to form new memories. In keeping with this inability to know what has just happened before, the film's narrative structure runs in reverse (with an interlude between each pair of major "flashback" sequences).
In 2002, Nolan directed Insomnia, an American remake of the 1997 Norwegian film of the same name, albeit with major changes in both the plot and the nature of the main character. The plot ofInsomnia revolves around two Los Angeles homicide detectives that are dispatched to a small town in Alaska, where the sun does not set, to investigate the methodical murder of a local teenager.
In 1997, Warner Bros. put its Batman film franchise on an indefinite hiatus when the fourth installment, Batman & Robin, was released to negative reviews and disappointing box office. In 2003, Nolan, together with Blade screenwriter David S. Goyer, convinced Warner Bros. to take the risk of entrusting the first of a revived Batman film series to a relatively unknown director. Batman Begins was released on June 15, 2005 and became a box office hit, ranking as the eighth highest grossing film of 2005 domestically and the ninth highest grossing worldwide. It received a very positive critical and public reception, with many ranking it as superior to Tim Burton's 1989 Batman film, for instance receiving, according to Rotten Tomatoes, an overall 84% positive review compared to 71% for Burton's film. Strengths of the movie included its dark and intelligent storyline, strong emphasis on character, and the predominant themes of fear and duality. Batman Begins was a major winner at the 32nd annual Saturn Awards. The film won for Best Fantasy Film, Best Actor for Christian Bale and Best Writing for Nolan and Goyer. The film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.
The Prestige, released on October 20, 2006, is an adaptation of the Christopher Priest novel about two rival magicians in the 19th century. It reunites Nolan with Batman Begins stars Christian Bale andMichael Caine as well as starring Hugh Jackman. The movie had a mostly positive response from critics and made over $109 million worldwide.[12] The film was co-scripted by his brother, Jonathan Nolan and co-produced with his wife, Emma Thomas.
In the months following The Prestige's release, Nolan made numerous comments suggesting that he would return to direct the sequel to Batman Begins.[13] In late July 2006, the sequel was officially confirmed as The Dark Knight with Nolan at the helm and Heath Ledger joining the cast as The Joker, Batman's arch-enemy.[14] Nolan and his brother Jonathan wrote a script, based on a treatmentwritten by himself and David S. Goyer. The film began production in early 2007 and was released on July 16, 2008 in Australia and July 18, 2008 in the United States, to overwhelming critical acclaim with some critics calling it the greatest comic-book based movie ever made.[15] It also had enormous box office success, setting the record for the highest-grossing weekend opening in the U.S. with over $158 million and becoming the 3rd highest grossing film of all time domestically, and the sixth-highest worldwide at the time.[16]
At the 2009 Golden Globe Awards, Christopher Nolan accepted the award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture on behalf of the deceased Heath Ledger. Nolan was nominated for the Directors Guild of America Award for Best Director for The Dark Knight. At the 81st Academy Awards, it was nominated for a total of eight Oscars, and won two, the Academy Award for Best Sound Editing, and a posthumous Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Ledger.
After the release of Nolan's successful 2008 film The Dark Knight, Warner Bros. contracted Nolan to a seven-figure deal to direct the science fiction film Inception. The film was based on a script written by Nolan and has been described as being "a contemporary sci-fi actioner set within the architecture of the mind".[17] Filming began in summer 2009, and Inception was released on July 16, 2010 to largely positive reviews and became a box office hit.[18]
During post-production on Inception, Nolan filmed an interview for These Amazing Shadows, a documentary spotlighting film appreciation and preservation via the National Film Registry. He agreed to do the interview after speaking with Amazing Shadows producer Doug Blush, at a piano recital featuring his son and Blush's daughter.[19]
[edit]Upcoming projects
On March 10, 2010, Nolan confirmed that he and David Goyer have been working on an idea for a Superman film. Nolan says, "He basically told me, 'I have this thought about how you would approach Superman.' I immediately got it, loved it and thought: That is a way of approaching the story I’ve never seen before that makes it incredibly exciting. I wanted to get Emma and I involved in shepherding the project right away and getting it to the studio and getting it going in an exciting way… A lot of people have approached Superman in a lot of different ways. I only know the way that has worked for us that’s what I know how to do." Although Zack Snyder is set to direct,[20] Nolan will have significant creative input in the process.[21]
Nolan also confirmed his involvement with a sequel to The Dark Knight and said it will be his last Batman movie, and a conclusion to the story: "Without getting into specifics, the key thing that makes the third film a great possibility for us is that we want to finish our story. And in viewing it as the finishing of a story rather than infinitely blowing up the balloon and expanding the story... I'm very excited about the end of the film, the conclusion, and what we’ve done with the characters. My brother has come up with some pretty exciting stuff. Unlike the comics, these things don’t go on forever in film and viewing it as a story with an end is useful. Viewing it as an ending, that sets you very much on the right track about the appropriate conclusion and the essence of what tale we're telling. And it hearkens back to that priority of trying to find the reality in these fantastic stories."[21] Warner Bros. announced the film is scheduled to be released July 20, 2012.[22] Nolan confirmed that the Joker will not return in the third film.[23] On October 27, 2010, Nolan confirmed that the title of the film will be The Dark Knight Rises.[24] Following The Dark Knight Rises, Nolan wishes to return to his previously shelved biopic about the enigmatic billionaire Howard Hughes.[25]
[edit]
Feature films
| Year | Film | Credited as | Studio | Worldwide Gross | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Producer | Writer | Other | ||||
| 1998 | Following | Yes | Yes | Cinematographer Editor | Momentum Pictures | $48,482 | |
| 2000 | Memento | Yes | Yes | $39,723,096 | |||
| 2002 | Insomnia | Yes | Warner Bros. | $113,714,830 | |||
| 2005 | Batman Begins | Yes | Yes | $372,710,015 | |||
| 2006 | The Prestige | Yes | Yes | Yes | Touchstone Pictures Warner Bros. | $109,676,311 | |
| 2008 | The Dark Knight | Yes | Yes | Yes | Warner Bros. | $1,001,921,825 | |
| 2010 | Inception | Yes | Yes | Yes | $825,532,764 | ||
| 2012 | The Dark Knight Rises | Yes | Yes | Yes | |||
| 2013 | Man of Steel | Yes | Yes | ||||
[edit]Short films
| Year | Film | Credited as | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Director | Producer | Writer | ||||||
| 1989 | Tarantella | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| 1996 | Larceny | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
| 1997 | Doodlebug | Yes | Yes | Yes | ||||
[edit]
Filmography by Awards
[edit]As Director
Year | Film | Academy Award Nominations | Academy Award Wins | Golden Globe Nominations | Golden Globe Wins | BAFTA Nominations | BAFTA Wins | Total Award Nominations | Total Award Wins |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1998 | Following | ||||||||
| 2000 | Memento | 2 | 1 | ||||||
| 2002 | Insomnia | ||||||||
| 2005 | Batman Begins | 1 | |||||||
| 2006 | The Prestige | 2 | |||||||
| 2008 | The Dark Knight | 8 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 1 | ||
| 2010 | Inception | 8 | 4 | 4 | 9 | 3 | |||
| 2012 | The Dark Knight Rises | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| Total | 21 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 18 | 4 | 45 | 11 | |
[edit]Critical reception
| Film | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall | Top Critics | ||
| Following | 76%[26] | N/A[27] | N/A |
| Memento | 93%[28] | 94%[29] | 80[30] |
| Insomnia | 92%[31] | 94%[32] | 78[33] |
| Batman Begins | 84%[34] | 69%[35] | 70[36] |
| The Prestige | 75%[37] | 57%[38] | 66[39] |
| The Dark Knight | 94%[40] | 91%[41] | 82[42] |
| Inception | 86%[43] | 91%[44] | 74[45] |
| Average | 86% | 82.7% | 75 |
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