A Little Perspective

Back during my undergrad, I was heavily involved in the online film community. IMDb primarily, but other web sites as well. Point being: I'm no stranger to hyperbole, both from myself and others... But there's a disturbing trend going on at IMDb, and I need to say a little something about it.

Just check out the Top 250... Something seem a little off to you?

First, entirely too many "modern" titles (ie, post-1975 - yes, I'm using Jaws as a demarcation point); second, entirely too many "fanboy" titles (all the various sci-fi/fantasy trilogies); and finally, most disturbing, there's way too much Christopher Nolan. (I thought about wording that differently, but hey - let's just say what I mean to say.)

Now, I've got nothing against Nolan per se, and I've enjoyed most of his movies, but... seriously? In the Top 100 alone (though Batman Begins is right at 105), he has five titles! ... Christopher Nolan has only made eight feature-length movies! Do you mean to tell me that Nolan, who's really only been around since 2000 with his much lauded Memento, is one of the best filmmakers in history? The only single director I see with more titles is Stanley Kubrick, and the only one with a better "batting average" I notice is Quentin Tarantino.

This bugs me, and kind of annoys me...

Nolan is talented, but he has a very narrow skill set. The dialogue is usually pretty bad... and I don't mean mediocre or average - I mean bad. Exceptions here and there, but for the most part too much exposition, too little humor, no personality... He really should not be a screenwriter. Visually speaking, he's a paradox: the lighting is generally dark, moody, atmospheric (which I like), but the shots themselves - the compositions, the mise en scene, etc - are incredibly simplistic. Even when the camera moves, characters tend to occupy the center of the frame, only moving to the side for traditional cross-cutting during dialogue scenes. Everything is incredibly sleek and polished, but that's not the same thing as visual innovation/ingenuity/tension; he's mistaking size/scale for aesthetic.

Jim Emerson has written extensively about Nolan's (lack of) visual aesthetic, but you don't need to be a film essayist or critic to notice it - just watch his fight scenes. What has always amazed me with Nolan, after making so many action movies, is that he is still utterly incompetant at directing action. Most action scenes are covered up with polished editing, or obsessive cross-cutting, but the action itself is poorly choreographed, a bore to watch, and you can almost never tell what's happening!

Examples abound, but the best one I can think of is the fight scene with Bane in The Dark Knight Rises (I'm referring to the first one, but the same could be said of both)... Let's just think through this for a few minutes... The scene is a big deal. Batman is supposed to be broken down. Not just defeated, but easily defeated. Nolan is obviously trying to make the scene as simplistic as possible: lots of long takes and wide shots meant to show off the actors and their choreography; it's almost entirely hand-to-hand; and the only sound comes from the fight itself... If there was ever a moment for a film to be visually exciting, this is it! ... and yet, the scene falls flat... and you find yourself wondering when, if ever, it's going to end...

There a few reasons this scene fails: (1) It's poorly choreographed. In this day and age, with mainstream successes like The Matrix, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and countless others, if you want to show off your fight scenes, you really have to show off. This looks more like something we would have seen during the seventies in a drama - ie, the actors aren't stuntmen or even action stars, so they don't want to bother themselves with complicated movements: they'll just trade blows for a while until someone wins. (2) It's boring. There's nothing at stake here! Earlier in the film, Alfred implies that Wayne's ego is getting too big (ie, he assumes he'll handily defeat Bane if he has to, he's underestimating this new foe, etc); when he starts getting pummeled, he starts getting desperate - he uses tricks and various gadgets... This makes perfect sense, but it doesn't amount to anything. We don't feel his desperation, we don't feel his pain, so it just seems like the actors are doing this because the scripts requires it, not because their characters demand it. (3) It goes on too long. A good fight scene is like a good movie: it requires an arc. There's a clear start, climax, and resolution. The fight obviously starts and stops, but it doesn't build to anything. There's no "defining moment," if you will. That moment should be, obviously, when Bane finally defeats Batman and humiliates him, but aside from some punishing sound effects, it just feels like more of the same. By the end, we should be looking at Batman the way Catwoman is: feeling utterly depressed and helpless, wondering if he'll live. But none of that tension is there, because the scene just goes on too long without any sort of emotional resonance.

Now... don't think I'm a hater, either. Nolan is the only current filmmaker I can think of who's at least trying (though not always succeeding) to make dumb action films palatable for a smart audience. He's also pretty good with the "broad" strokes of a film - ie, the basic storyline or arc, and general character motivations. And while we're at it, you've got to give it to him for being methodical and logical. His storylines are incredibly dense and complicated beyond necessity, but each piece clicks together fairly nicely; I'd like to see him whittle something down for the sake of simplicity, but that's not what he's interested in... Nolan's greatest strength, however, has always been his way with actors. He consistently gets strong performances, and I think that's why his movies have done so well with the critics. If you look at something like his Batman series, the storylines and scripts are not so different from other, typical Hollywood blockbusters (more refined maybe, but not necessarily better, at least on the page), but the acting elevates the material. I commend him for that.

....

I'm sorry if this seemed like an assault on Christopher Nolan, but I'm just saying - let's be realistic here. He's a good contemporary filmmaker, but he's not one of the best; and if his career thus far is any indication, he'll never be one of the best. My feeling is he'll be remembered primarily as a craftsman who elevated action movies to the level of opera, but that's about it.

I know part of the danger of "popular" lists like the IMDb 250 is that most people don't know what a good movie is, but that's also what makes it interesting: you can really see what resonates with the public, even if you don't think it should. I would rank my list entirely differently, but a good number of titles from the IMDb Top 250 would wind up on my own "greatest movie" list, so really it's a matter of preference.