I have not, historically, cared much for Christopher Nolan's films. Before I get to The Odyssey, I want to walk through his filmography, as a refresher for myself as well.
At the time of its release, I enjoyed Memento, the first of his films I saw, and went back and watched Following, which also seemed very interesting at the time (having only seen it once, over 20 years ago, I cannot really speak to Following now). But sometimes critics can have an impact, and Jonathan Rosenbaum's terse dismissal of Memento did make me think of the film in a different way and feel less impressed by it; if you subtract just being engaged in the game Nolan is playing with form, what do you have, ultimately? (I believe I read a longer-form essay than that in one of his books, in fact, but it touches the same points).
Before I read Rosenbaum, however, when I was still big on Memento, I saw Insomnia first run and was crushingly disappointed, came out of the cinema in 2002 really struggling with how little I had appreciated it, how lame it felt (I was much more demanding of cinema back then). I liked it more the second time I saw it, decades after that theatrical experience, so I think for the most part, my bad reaction the first time round is down to my having a lot of trouble adjusting to late-phase Al Pacino, whose last great performance (that I've seen, at least) was arguably in 1992's Glengarry Glen Ross? Or maybe it was Scarface. If he's done any great work since -- if he's made a film where he doesn't come across as an ill-prepared ham, lacking any trace of subtlety or craft or real engagement with his characters, where he basically isn't playing "Al Pacino acting in a movie" -- I've missed it, but I have missed a lot of his later films, by choice (there are some things he's done post-Glengarry that I've enjoyed, like Michael Mann's Heat, but it's like I've enjoyed the movies in spite of his presence, not because of it. Maybe I should try him doing Shakespeare, or in one of the film's he's directed? I have not felt much desire. I think I watched about five minutes of his Richard III film and turned it off). I think I was still struggling with adjusting my feelings about Pacino (who was so great in the 1970s, of course) that it wrecked Insomnia the first time. As I say, I liked it far better on trying it again a couple of years ago -- it is one of three films on this list that I could see myself watching again for pleasure (if there weren't so many other movies I'd rather see instead).
I didn't see Batman Begins for some time, but went to see The Dark Knight theatrically, and hated it. I wrote about it at the time. As I say, this was 20 years ago, and I've softened a bit since, in part because I made an effort to do so (I have also come to enjoy the Iron Man movies, including the one I call "idiotic and contemptible" in that very review, but that doesn't necessarily mean I don't still think it's idiotic and contemptible; something can be idiotic and contemptible and still be fun to watch, which Iron Man is, and The Dark Knight is not). I think I have come to think, based on the other two Batmans Nolan made, that he really was just going for a cynical cash-grab with his references to current events (9/11 in the first, the War on Terror/ Abu Ghraib in the second, Occupy in the third), but that's more because I came to realize that most of Nolan's films have been about nothing, or nothing very important. I give him credit, in that review, for a sort of right-wing manipulation of his audience, but I hadn't seen enough of his films at that point to recognize mere cynical nihilism for what it was. I actually gave him *too much* credit!
Somewhere much later I saw The Prestige. It was kind of entertaining, and though I didn't and still don't really know what to make of it ("Is this film actually worth thinking about? Maybe!"), I had no objection to it. I felt that way the second time I saw it, maybe even moreso. It feels like it might actually be Nolan's most sincere reflection on his own trickery, hubris, and ambition? Nolan is his own drowned Hugh Jackman (or at least that's the premise I'd start with if I were to watch it a third time). And though Bowie isn't particularly good in it -- he was never that good an actor, just good at playing himself, it turns out -- you gotta give Nolan credit for the idea of it alone: Bowie as Tesla? Nice.
Incidentally, that's the other film on this list I could see re-watching for pleasure, with the the third and final being The Odyssey.
But I hated Inception. I think it was actually the next Nolan film I saw after The Dark Knight (he made it between Batmans, as with The Prestige). For one thing, I felt like it came very close to being a plagiarism of Neuromancer, though there's a section of The Odyssey ("the lotus flower years" with Calypso) that seems to provide a common source for something that happens in both texts. But that wasn't really why I hated it; I hated it because a) it forces you to think far too hard about far too little, seems a walking embodiment of the old saw that if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit; and b) I had never, on seeing it, had a dream where I held or fired a gun, and didn't buy or understand or enjoy how much gunplay the film puts in the dreamlife of its characters. Finally (c), there's nothing of the flavour of dreams in the film -- just the same cold puzzlebox that Rosenbaum finds in Memento. I love dreams and dream movies, generally (try Dreamscape sometime -- it's cheese, but great cheese, and the dreams actually feel like dreams!); so I went in hoping for dreams, and got chilly games and a hey-this-is-kinda-similar-to-William-Gibson and the usual squinting headache trying to just keep the plot sorted, nevermind what it amounts to. And all done at great length, with a huge budget and a tremendous amount of cinematic and financial resources rallied in service of... what?
But maybe I am being unfair. Fact is, Inception is a film I've been meaning to revisit for some time, but I liked it so little the first time around that I have never successfully made myself sit through it again. Most of Nolan's films get more interesting on second viewing, I grudgingly acknowledge, but few of them inspire a second viewing, you know? You kind of have to force yourself. So I may watch this one again someday, but not because I really want to, just to see if maybe I missed something. (Does anyone else do this with films they hated? I mean, I occasionally will do an about-face on second viewing; I really didn't care for Children of Men on first viewing, and now I think it's a masterpiece, so...).
All that said, Interstellar was an exception to how I usually watch Nolan films, because if memory serves, I loved the first three quarters of it. I was even confused by how deeply I engaged with the story, compared to my usual experience of his cinema. But I had a terrifying glimmer in the first 20 minutes or so that I knew exactly where the film was going, one of those premonitions where you think, "this better not be going where I think it is", where I turned out to my horror and disappointment, when we got to the end, to have been absolutely correct: that weird noise on the shelf would turn out, come the end of the film, to be (spoiler!) the main character, at the other end of his journey, observing himself. I swear, I guessed the twist, not based on any clues in the film (it gives you none) but based on a theory I was forming on what kind of filmmaker Christopher Nolan is. Interstellar was the film where his gamesmanship became demonstrably predictable, where he more or less proved (to me, at least) what kind of filmmaker he was. That didn't stop me from liking the first big chunk of it, however, and being impressed, since usually Nolan's films never emotionally engage me at all. I remember being actually angry at Nolan by the film's end, at the bad joke it makes of itself, which I guess is an improvement over my norm with his cinema. It was a good enough film up to a point that it had the capacity to be wrecked by the ending.
I skipped Dunkirk, I was so pissed off with Interstellar, and still haven't caught up. Tenet, I went to see in the same socially-distanced COVID delirium as everyone else and thought it the most empty exercise he'd offered yet: a film that requires immense effort to think about, but that transparently has nothing to it worth thinking about. Big-budget formalist masturbation: I can give myself a cheaper headache by simply laying off caffeine for a day, thanks. What a waste of audience faith!
And then Oppenheimer, which I admit I enjoyed, then read some piece of criticism about that seemed, as with Memento years ago, to force me to reconsider what I'd watched. It wasn't Armond White, but it was as damning. Maybe it was Charles Mudede?). I can only say that I enjoyed the film theatrically, and have no interest in ever revisiting it.
Suffice to say, if you ask me who the most overrated filmmaker alive is, Christopher Nolan is my go-to.
I absolutely loved watching The Odyssey yesterday. It's great spectacle, but it also makes the audience work, and for once, there's a reason to DO the work. I'd probably love the film just because of the sheer number of young people coming into the bookstore where I've been working to buy copies of Homer (though maybe not: the number of people who have bought Dune based on the recent films is pretty impressive, too, and I think they're kinda lousy). Saw the film in 70mm -- an actual film projection -- at the Park yesterday. It's pricy ($26!) but the house was 3/4s full, which is impressive as hell on a Monday night. The film makes me want to read The Odyssey as well (I've only read The Iliad). I particularly love that youngsters shopping for the book are even being specific about which translation they want (the Emily Wilson, which was what Nolan used as the basis of his own writing, we gather; we should note that Wilson, who knows her stuff, had mixed feelings about the film. It has been well-received in Greece, however).
This is all I have to say at the moment about The Odyssey. I may pick up the Wilson translation myself -- I can't really offer meaningful criticism without knowing Homer. But there are ideas about morality and human nature in The Odyssey that elevate it far above most of Nolan's other films. Maybe he's finally made a movie that is thematically worthy of its hugeness? That demands you work with it, but has something worthy of the work underlying it?
That was how I felt after watching the film last night, anyhow.
Note: comments remain turned off on this blog, since there's a commentor I cannot otherwise block who I do not wish to hear from, but feel free to find my link to this review on Facebook, if you can, and comment there (Facebook, unlike Blogger, allows you to block people effectively). I'd love to know what my friends thought, of this or any other Christopher Nolan movies.
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