How Christopher Nolan Plays With The Identity & Morality Of His Characters Is Outstanding

Christopher Jonathan James Nolan is one of the most gifted directors of all times. He has created several of the most critically and commercially successful films of the early 21st century. His nine films have grossed over $4.2 billion worldwide and garnered a total of 26 Oscar nominations and seven awards. Over the years, he has developed his own distinct style of storytelling through the medium of film – one that sets him apart and lends to it what is popularly known as the “Nolan experience”.

He has shown us worlds that we wouldn’t have imagined otherwise, and has transfixed us with complex parallel storyline that throw up moral dilemmas that question human nature and its inherent goodness or evil, all through the medium of film. On his birthday today, I want to unfold one of the most distinctive features in Nolan’s films, i.e. ambiguous identity and/or morality of his characters.

Identity is an important part of Nolan’s film and a consistent theme throughout. All his films have the protagonist struggle to perceive reality and the world around them. And since the protagonist plays an integral role in driving the story forward, the viewer is on the receiving end of this very uncertainty. What is also popularly called an “unreliable narrator”, Nolan almost always features a variation of the same.

1. The Young Man – Following (1998)

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Christopher Nolan’s aesthetic quirks can be distinguished as ahead of schedule as his first gimmick ‘Following’, which presented his distraction with personality. In ‘Following’, the Young Man (Jeremy Theobald) has no character. As a battling essayist, he is unemployed with no vocation as being what is indicated to call his own. He has no companions outside of those he makes in his brain, out of the individuals he stalks. His appearance transforms considerably all through the account and he doesn’t even have a name.

It is this absence of personality that Cobb (Alex Haw) abuses when he outlines the Young Man for homicide; with no perceivable character, and therefore no explanation, he turns out to be the ideal substitute. With respect to Cobb, the group of onlookers just encounters him through the personae he embraces to bait his prey:
to the Young Man, he turns into a companion and guide;
to the Blonde (Lucy Russell), he is a beau.
He abuses these positions to produce trust, which he then controls and uses for his own particular purposes.

 

2. Leonard Shelby – Memento (2000)

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A prime example would be Memento, wherein the story is driven and narrated through an unreliable narrator Leonard (Guy Pearce) who suffers from temporary memory loss and is seeking revenge for a man who supposedly killed his wife. What aggravates the situation is the fact that the protagonist suffers from temporary memory loss, a condition that forces him to lead a lifestyle ridden with notes, instructions and tattoos.

Nolan further uses the very form to aggravate the implications caused by the condition and thus build an experience-based narrative but telling the story in a reverse-loop format, wherein the latest segment plays forward followed by the preceding one (in terms of chronology) to create confusion and create the same sense of struggle being experienced by the protagonist.

 

3. Bruce Wayne – The Dark Knight Trilogy ( 2005, 2008, 2012 )

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Batman is another prime example of identity exploration in Nolan’s films. The Batman trilogy also happens to be the only superhero series Nolan has directed. Here, the character of Bruce Wayne is finally explored in depth – adding multiple psychological layers that add volume and weight to his growth into Batman. The transition in the first film, Batman Begins is tremendous. Delving deep into his childhood trauma of losing his parents, Nolan adds emotion to his compelling need to become a vigilante with a strong moral structure dictating his actions.

Such a strong base to his identity allows for a convincing evolution. At the same time, there is a sense of ambiguous morality that masks Batman, for one is still never sure of what he might resort to fully deal with the antagonists. What also helps is that Batman is intrinsically a dark superhero who throws up provoking questions of identity, justice, society and the social structures put in place to punish oppression, crime and wrongdoing.

 

4. Cobb – Inception (2010)

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By reusing the name of Cobb from Following (1998) for the hero in Inception, Nolan implies a comparative beguiling tool compartment. At different focuses all through the account, Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) presents himself as a specialist in dream extraction, a questioner, and a bodyguard under the pretense of ‘Mr. Charles’. These fronts are utilized to an end like that of Following’s Cobb — to incapacitate and misinform. More remote than that anyway, they derive a natural absence of self.

Cobb, an outcast in charge of his wife’s passing, is blame-ridden and carries on with his life playing these different characters in the dreams of other individuals, and by always slipping into these exteriors and fixating on his own remorseful memories, Cobb rejects a particular and dynamic character, which denies him the chance to recuperate naturally.

 

5. Cooper – Interstellar (2014)

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Interstellar also deals with a greater identity – a collective consciousness of all humanity. In a world marred by the catastrophes that humanity have let loose upon the planet, the protagonist implores the viewers (through the narrative) to seek greater purpose and rise as collective to rescue the human race.

The film is a visual manifestation of a philosophy advocated and pioneered by visionary Carl Sagan, who has also at many-a-times, spoken about a greater identity that connects humanity to Mother Nature. Even Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) in Interstellar can’t escape an identity crisis no matter how far he travels. He struggles internally to balance his life as a father and farmer with his potential as an astronaut and saviour of humanity. All the while, his unshakable positivity rivals the nihilistic outlook of co-stars Matt Damon and Michael Caine.

Clearly, Christopher Nolan is a post-modern blockbuster film maker who has built himself a unique space in Hollywood and in the film industry worldwide.

Happy Birthday Christopher Nolan. ?

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With added inputs from Aman Deshmukh 

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