- 233 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
The Fictional Christopher Nolan
About this book
This analysis of the role of fiction in the films of Christopher Nolan is "unassumingly brilliant and surgically incisive" (
Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society).
From
Memento and
Insomnia to the Batman films,
The Prestige, and
Inception, lies play a central role in every Christopher Nolan film. Characters in the films constantly find themselves deceived by others and are often caught up in a vast web of deceit that transcends any individual lies. The formal structure of a typical Nolan film deceives spectators about the events that occur and the motivations of the characters. While Nolan's films do not abandon the idea of truth altogether, they show us how truth must emerge out of the lie if it is not to lead us entirely astray.
The Fictional Christopher Nolan discovers in Nolan's films an exploration of the role that fiction plays in leading to truth. Through close readings of all the films through
Inception, Todd McGowan demonstrates that the fiction or the lie comes before the truth, and this priority forces us to reassess our ways of thinking about the nature of truth. Indeed, McGowan argues that Nolan's films reveal the ethical and political importance of creating fictions and even of lying. Nolan is the first filmmaker to devote himself entirely to the fictionality of the medium, and McGowan discloses how Nolan uses its tendency to deceive as the basis for a new kind of philosophical filmmaking, aligning Nolan's films with Hegel's philosophy.
"The most important work to date on Christopher Nolan. . . . [A] thrill to read." —Hugh S. Manon, Associate Professor and Director of Screen Studies, Clark University
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The Ethics of the Lie
- Chapter 1: The Snare of Truth: Following and the Perfect Patsy
- Chapter 2: Memento and the Desire Not to Know
- Chapter 3: The Dirty Cop: Insomnia and the Art of Detection
- Chapter 4: The Banal Superhero: The Politicized Realism of Batman Begins
- Chapter 5: The Violence of Creation in The Prestige
- Chapter 6: The Hero’s Form of Appearance: The Necessary Darkness of The Dark Knight
- Chapter 7: A Plea for the Abandonment of Reality in Inception
- Conclusion: Lying without Consequence
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index