The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan

Front Cover
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Nov 3, 2020 - Art - 400 pages
An in-depth look at Christopher Nolan, considered to be the most profound, commercially successful director at work today, written with his full cooperation. A rare, revelatory portrait, "as close as you're ever going to get to the Escher drawing that is Christopher Nolan's remarkable brain" (Sam Mendes). 

In chapters structured by themes and motifs ("Time"; "Chaos"; "Dreams"), Shone offers an unprecedented intimate view of the director. Shone explores Nolan's thoughts on his influences, his vision, his enigmatic childhood past--and his movies, from plots and emotion to identity and perception, including his latest blockbuster, the action-thriller/spy-fi Tenet ("Big, brashly beautiful, grandiosely enjoyable"--Variety). 

Filled with the director's never-before-seen photographs, storyboards, and scene sketches, here is Nolan on the evolution of his pictures, and the writers, artists, directors, and thinkers who have inspired and informed his films. 

"Fabulous: intelligent, illuminating, rigorous, and highly readable. The very model of what a filmmaking study should be. Essential reading for anyone who cares about Nolan or about film for that matter."--Neal Gabler, author of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood and Walt Disney, The Biography
 

Contents

INTRODUCTION
3
ONE STRUCTURE
21
TWO ORIENTATION
51
THREE TIME
77
FOUR PERCEPTION
108
FIVE SPACE
125
SIX ILLUSION
148
SEVEN CHAOS
174
NINE REVOLUTION
235
TEN EMOTION
257
ELEVEN SURVIVAL
283
TWELVE KNOWLEDGE
310
THIRTEEN ENDINGS
334
Acknowledgments
351
Bibliography
357
Index
367

EIGHT DREAMS
202

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2020)

TOM SHONE was the film critic of the Sunday Times from 1994 until he moved to New York in 1999. He is the author of five books, including Tarantino: A Retrospective and Martin Scorsese: A Retrospective. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Intelligent Life, and Vogue. He currently teaches film history and criticism at New York University.

Bibliographic information