Nolan's Anti-Heroes.
Posted: October 29th, 2010, 12:35 pm
Fellow Nolanthusiast Sheryl e-mailed me this article, which mentions Nolan:
http://www.avclub.com/articles/beloved- ... oes,46669/"Steve Heisler Christopher Nolan specializes in anti-heroes. Leonard from Memento may or may not have killed the very wife he’s ostensibly avenging; The Prestige’s Angier destroyed his life in pursuit of an ultimately pointless feud; and as Tasha pointed out, there’s Batman, of course. But Cobb from Inception is Nolan’s ultimate achievement in having the audience root for an unlikeable guy by sole virtue of him being the central character. Cobb enlists an elite team of dream specialists to help him with a mission, after which he can finally return to LA and see his kids. (Basically: “One last job, then I’m off the force.”) It’s certainly a noble cause, yet his greed is the reason why he’s in the predicament in the first place. Plus, once he finds these people to help him on the mission, he purposely withholds information and drives them to go deeper into the subconscious, endangering the lives of those he purports to care about. Another director might betray Cobb’s character early on. But what I ultimately love about Nolan—and why I cite him as my favorite director working today—is that his characters lie to themselves so convincingly that by the time an inkling of their true selves creeps out, the audience is already totally invested in the film. It’s only when the film ends that we realize we’ve been rooting for a crazy person the whole time, the kind of surprise that makes being on Team Anti-Hero so much fun."
