The Dark Knight The Real Hero Of Tdk Is Christohper Nolan (appreciation Thread)

[Nina7]

For those of you who live in L.A., Chris Nolan is making his first public appearance since TDK's success. It's a screening of his first movie, Following, and a Q and A. The screening is this Friday and as of today, tickets are still available:

http://shareddarkness.com/2008/08/28/nolan-does-following-qa.aspx

 

[Jokers_Wild]

Christopher Nolan is a wonderful and talented film maker! Thank you for taking on the Batman, and doing him some respect!!

 

[Anita18]

For those of you who live in L.A., Chris Nolan is making his first public appearance since TDK's success. It's a screening of his first movie, Following, and a Q and A. The screening is this Friday and as of today, tickets are still available:

http://shareddarkness.com/2008/08/28/nolan-does-following-qa.aspx

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-books tickets now-

 

[I Am The Knight]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-books a ticket now-

LOL

 

[-Arya-]

One of my favorite if not my favorite director next to only Martin Scorsese! His films are amazing. I'll put aside my favorites BB and TDK for a second and talk about The Prestige and Memento. Easily two of the best films Ive seen. Especially Memento! The way Nolan crafted the story was a sight to behold.

I would also like to thank Chris Nolan for making the Batman films I had always wanted. You have brought true justice to my favorite caracter of all time!

Now Im eagerly awaiting his next Batman title however he deserves a vacation after what be delivered in TDK!

I love you Nolan!

 

[Nina7]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-books tickets now-

Anita, you'll have to report back afterwards with all the juicy details.

 

[Anita18]

Anita, you'll have to report back afterwards with all the juicy details.

I figure, like I did with the Wally Pfister panel, eh? (4 pages of notes, baby! )

Although I think this'll be more general and way less TDK-related. Unless people want to ask about it, which...I think will happen. The poor man, he won't be able to escape! t:

 

[OctaviusINC]

I think Nolan's directing could be all summed up with one word:

Spoiler

Waistcoat

 

[Anita18]

Anita, you'll have to report back afterwards with all the juicy details.

Not many juicy details this time around. It basically only consisted of Kenneth Turan of the LA Times asking Chris about the filming of Following. And as my screenwriter friend pointed out, they weren't very good questions either! Nearly no mention of TDK, aside from the observation of Chris going from a very small no-budget film, to large set-piece action films. (The entire audience roared when the Batman sticker showed up on Jeremy Theobald's door, though... )

Some interesting tidbits included Chris acknowledging his long-time creative team, since it's so important to have that shorthand and the trust that you can only acquire by working with the same people for years. He also acknowledged his preference for shooting on location, since everyone treats it differently and more spontaneously than if they were shooting on a soundstage, and he enjoys that spontaneity. He also explained being able to tune out the craziness of filming a big-budget picture by thinking of himself as a representative for the audience. He's only focused on what's going on on the monitor.



A pseudo-juicy tidbit involves my friend and I finding ourselves walking behind Chris Nolan and Emma Thomas on the way back to the parking garage, after we all apparently decided to ditch the reception. Neither of us were brave enough to actually go up and talk to them, even though my friend had a Memento/Following script book she could have had signed. Instead, we chose to have silly observations about the bamboo, the La Brea tar pits, and how to dispose of a dead body, which the Nolans likely overheard, and is the extent of their knowledge of our existence.

 

[gwynplaine]

Nolan is the man but imo there is more than just one hero in TDK.

 

[[A]]

Someone fix the title

 

[Nina7]

Anita, thanks for your write-up! You and your friend should have approached him! I'm sure he would have signed your friend's script book. He seems pretty approachable and friendly. I know there are several folks here on the Hype who met him during the TDK shooting and got pics with him.

So, did he mention anything about The Prisoner?

 

[Anita18]

Anita, thanks for your write-up! You and your friend should have approached him! I'm sure he would have signed your friend's script book. He seems pretty approachable and friendly. I know there are several folks here on the Hype who met him during the TDK shooting and got pics with him.

So, did he mention anything about The Prisoner?

Yeah, but I have such a hard time going up to people. I just feel so foolish.

No, nothing on future projects.

 

[gwynplaine]

The real hero of TDK is Schumacher, without him the franchise would have not been steered back in the right directiont:.

 

[Anita18]

Digging up an old thread, but I was reading a 2005 Box Office Mojo interview with Nolan and there are some awesomely TDK-relevant bits. Good to see that he'd been thinking of a lot of the themes in TDK shortly after BB came out.

Box Office Mojo: Is Batman a hero?

Christopher Nolan: Hero has become such a bandied about word, used so broadly, and it ceases to have any meaning. Is Batman a hero? Certainly, he's more a hero than superhero [but] I think the word "hero" is very problematic. He has no superpowers, but he's a heroic figure. The reason to me he's heroic is because he's altruistic. He's trying to help other people with no benefit to himself and, whatever motivates him—and this was the tricky thing to really try and nail with Batman Begins as opposed to previous incarnations—is the difference between him and a common vigilante, the Punisher or Charles Bronson in Death Wish. To me, the difference is he is not seeking personal vengeance. We did not want his quest to be for vengeance, we wanted it to be for justice. That's what sends him looking for an outlet for his rage and frustration. What he chooses to do with it is, I believe, selfless, and therefore, heroic. And that, to me, is really the distinction—selfishness versus selflessness—and that is very noble. But it is a very fine distinction. I do think he is a heroic figure.

BOM: But he does gain a value—justice is a value, even to Batman. Is he really selfless—or does he want to have a life to call his own?

Nolan: To me, he's not selfish in terms of how the word is generally understood—he's not obtaining personal gratification in an immediate sense. He's having to obliterate his own immediate [short-term] self-interest. I could tap into the reality of the story if I felt that he saw his mission as an achievable goal.

BOM: So his is a higher, more rational form of selfishness, as against irrational, short-range immediate gratification?

Nolan: Yes.

BOM: Since Batman is a means to an end, are you rooting for Batman so he can get back to being Bruce Wayne?

Nolan: No, I think you're rooting for Batman at the expense of Bruce Wayne. The feeling of the end of the film is the ending, or postponement, of the relationship with Rachel [the character played by Katie Holmes]—it's the ending of the Bruce Wayne story and the beginning of Batman—Batman begins.

BOM: But isn't Batman in business to put himself out of business?

Nolan: I think he is, but I believe that to be futile. There is no utopia. There is no Heaven on earth. We all sort of accept that—it's not possible. If you look at the history of the comics, there are a lot of interesting explorations of the father's life and organized crime, and the nature of the enemy changes. These things can't ever be perfect or balanced or reconciled—it's a constant struggle. As soon as we solve one problem in our lives, something else crops up.

http://boxofficemojo.com/features/?id=1921&p=.htm

 

[Dark Sentinel]

Chris Nolan is what Steven Spielberg pretends to be. The end.

 

[[A]]

Withouth happy endings..

 

[Nina7]

Chris Nolan's first interview back from vacation:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/10/christopher-nol.html

 

[[A]]

Awesome! Thanks for the link

Here's a highlight..

GB: Could you see actually yourself not making the third Batman film?
NOLAN: Well ... let me think how to put this. There are two things to be said. One is the emphasis on story. What’s the story? Is there a story that’s going to keep me emotionally invested for the couple of years that it will take to make another one? That’s the overriding question. On a more superficial level, I have to ask the question: How many good third movies in a franchise can people name? [Laughs.] At the same time, in taking on the second one, we had the challenge of trying to make a great second movie, and there haven't been too many of those either. It’s all about the story really. If the story is there, everything is possible. I hope that was a suitably slippery answer.

 

[Anita18]

Chris Nolan's first interview back from vacation:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2008/10/christopher-nol.html

GB: "The Dark Knight" is closing in on $1 billion. How do you get your arms around that kind of success?

NOLAN: I can’t get my arms around it, to be quite frank. It’s mystifying. It’s terrific but at the same time it’s a little abstract, the numbers are so big. The biggest thrill for me would be, with the number of people who have gone to see the film, how ‘The Dark Knight’ stood on the shoulders of the first film, how we were able to build the audience up and build the story up from the first film. That was really exciting to see. We were all pretty happy with the performance of the first film but so we really didn’t know, ‘Where does it go from there?’ For it to become such a phenomenon is extraordinarily gratifying. I mean, I’ve spent now like six years or something working on Batman films. It becomes an important part of your life; you become very obsessive about it, and its pretty fun when there are other people sharing your obsession and going to see the film a dozen times or whatever.

Wrapping your arms around the scale of the success, as you ask, I don’t find that possible really. There’s something liberating in knowing that my next film, whatever it is, isn’t going to make as much money [laughter]. I don’t have to try for years.

Nolan loves us! :

And hopefully he won't get as gunshy as James Cameron after Titanic.

GB: Could you see actually yourself not making the third Batman film?

NOLAN: Well ... let me think how to put this. There are two things to be said. One is the emphasis on story. What’s the story? Is there a story that’s going to keep me emotionally invested for the couple of years that it will take to make another one? That’s the overriding question. On a more superficial level, I have to ask the question: How many good third movies in a franchise can people name? [Laughs.] At the same time, in taking on the second one, we had the challenge of trying to make a great second movie, and there haven't been too many of those either. It’s all about the story really. If the story is there, everything is possible. I hope that was a suitably slippery answer.

DAMN YOU NOLAN! -shakes fist-

 

[hatebox]

If there's one man who can break the 3rd movie curse, it's him.

 

[[A]]

Absolutely.

 

[mongoose-mania]

I was thinking today about our little slogan: In Nolan We Trust. So, since I don't have Photoshop, I was wondering if someone could do a little favor?

Would someone be able to take THIS picture:

Spoiler

And make it look like THIS one?:

Spoiler

As you can imagine, I'd love to make t-shirts with that little slogan on it. Could anybody please do this simple favor?

 

[BaleISBatman4ev]

Thats not a simple favor, i did an amazing one of myself thats just like Obamas one and it took me FOREVER! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=49920411&id=7903314

If you paid me id make it though .

 

[Doctor Jones]

That's a great idea.