From Doodlebug to Oppenheimer : an analysis of Christopher Nolan's film work : with a digression on James Bond's fall in Skyfall /
The analysis of the corpus formed by Chrisopher Nolan's film works allows us to derive its poetics. The key to this point is provided by the magic trick script in The Prestige that influences all of Nolan's post-Insomnia films. Inception is an allegory of filmmaking entirely shaped by the...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Stuttgart ; London :
Edition Axel Menges,
[2024]
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| Summary: | The analysis of the corpus formed by Chrisopher Nolan's film works allows us to derive its poetics. The key to this point is provided by the magic trick script in The Prestige that influences all of Nolan's post-Insomnia films. Inception is an allegory of filmmaking entirely shaped by the script of magic tricks. The Joker in The Dark Knight turns out to be the embodiment of neoliberalism, and in The Dark Knight Rises, we see Bane, a populist who benefits from the destruction that neoliberalism wreaks. Interstellar and Tenet are about how humanity reacts to the climate catastrophe: in Interstellar, all that remains for humanity is to flee into space; in Tenet, Nolan has future generations fight back against the present, because we are destroying their essential conditions for life. With the nuclear bomb, the protagonist of Oppenheimer gives humanity the power to destroy itself. In doing so, he not only heralds the atomic age but also the Anthropocene. Thus, the analysis shows how outstanding Nolan's films are, but they also prove to be surprisingly political. Other key topics in this analysis include: the attack on the Kiev Opera in Tenet and the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine; the references in Inception to Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris; the relationship of the dead female characters in Nolan's films to Edgar Allan Poe's The Philosophy of Composition; the transformation of the canary birds of The Prestige into planes in Nolan's later films; how the escape from Earth in Interstellar is complemented by the evacuation in Dunkirk; the interdependencies between Interstellar and Zack Snyder's Man of Steel; how neoliberalism is reflected in Michael Mann's Thief; what it means that Nolan casts his daughter Flora in the role of a refugee in Interstellar and in the role of the atomic bomb victim in Oppenheimer; and the allusions in Tenet to the James Bond film Skyfall. Because of this last point, there is a digression that deals with Skyfall. Against the background of changing gender relations, Bond is looking for a new identity. Silva's homosexuality is a cipher for misogyny, and the femicide of Severine is a reference to the death of Joan Vollmer Burroughs. This includes an explanation of why Bond has to do without his Beretta in Dr. No and is instead accompanied throughout his film series by the >triumvirate< of the Walther PPK, the Aston Martin, and the Vodka Martini. These findings are looked at in relation to Daniel Craig's subsequent Bond films. Konrad Kirsch is a PhD in literature and an enthusiastic viewer of films. The Edition Axel Menges has published his volume A Second Look, that deals with films of Aldred Hitchcock, Blake Edwards, Ridley Scott and Stefan Ruzowitzky. |
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| Physical Description: | 104 pages : color illustrations ; 30 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references. |
| ISBN: | 9783869050379 3869050373 |