With the arrival of his latest film, Oppenheimer, to roaring praise, Christopher Nolan is arguably the most successful director working today.
No other director can demand and receive a massive budget to helm tentpoles that aren’t based on pre-existing properties.
By this point in his career, Nolan’s insistence on his original ideas are part of why he’s able to create such vast visions of scale and import.
Nolan has made himself the brand, and the brand is somewhere along the lines of “I make blockbuster features with an intellectual tilt.” Of course, other filmmakers also seek to inject thoughtful themes and ideas into their tentpole features, but Nolan puts those ideas at the forefront of his movies.
A filmmaker obsessed with time and the lies we tell ourselves in order to live, Nolan has made his movies entertaining enough as populist fare while retaining a coolly intellectual vibe.
Read full article