1.
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN
DIRECTOR-SCREENWRITER-PRODUCER
By
KAUSTAV GHOSH
DEPT. - ECE, 2nd YEAR
CLASS ROLL NO. -52
WBUT ROLL - 14800313028
FUTURE INSTITUTE OF
ENGINEERING & MANAGEMENT.

2.
INDEX :
1. EARLY LIFE
2. CAREER
3.FILMMAKING
4. RECURRING
COLLABORATORS
6. PERSONAL LIFE &
TRIVIA
7. RECOGNITION
8. AWARDS & HONOURS

3.
1. EARLY LIFE :
 His British father, Brendan Nolan, was an advertising
copywriter, and his American mother, Christina,
worked as a flight attendant and English teacher.
 He was born on July 30, 1970 in London, England.
 At 7 years old, Nolan began making short movies with his
father's Super-8 camera.
 Nolan was educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College
in Hertfordshire and later read English literature at UCL.
 From the age of 11,he aspired to be a professional filmmaker.

4.
2. CAREER :
 The second was Larceny (1995)-It appeared at the Cambridge Film
Festival in 1996 and is considered one of UCL's best shorts.
 During his college years, Nolan made two short films .
The first was the surreal 8 mm-Tarantella(1989).
 After graduation, Nolan directed corporate videos and industrial films.
A) SHORT FILMS:

5.
 DOODLEBUG
(1997)
~ THE STORY CONSISTS OF A PARANOID MAN
WHO IS TRYING TO KILL A SMALL BUG-LIKE CREATURE
THAT IS SCURRYING ON THE FLOOR OF HIS APARTMENT.
~ It is a short(3 min.) psychological thriller film.
~ STARRING : JEREMY THEOBALD
~ He squashes the bug with his shoe. But every
movement the "doodlebug" makes is later
matched by the grungy man himself and he is
later squashed by a larger version of himself.
~ Later it revealed that the bug resembles
a
miniature version of himself.

6.
B) MOVIES :
• FOLLOWING IS A WICKEDLY CLEVER STORY OF HOW
A YOUNG MAN'S OBSESSION WITH FOLLOWING
PEOPLE LEADS HIM INTO A DARK UNDERWORLD.
• With a $6000 budget, His debut feature and British neo-
noir drama thriller film. It was filmed in London on black-
and-white 16mm film.
• STARRING : JEREMY THEOBALD, ALEX HAW, LUCY RUSSELL .
• Apart from writing , directing and photographing the film,
Nolan also helped in editing and production.
 FOLLOWING (1998)
• Won the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film
Festival and the "Best First Feature" prize at the San Francisco
International Film Festival.

7.
 MEMENTO (2000)
• IT ‘S A NEO-NOIR-PSYCHOLOGICAL THRILLER FILM AND THE
SCREENPLAY WAS WRITTEN BY NOLAN BASED ON HIS YOUNGER
BROTHER JONATHAN NOLAN'S SHORT STORY "MEMENTO MORI“.
• The film is about a man with anterograde amnesia who
uses notes and tattoos to hunt for his wife's murderer.
• STARRING : GUY PEARCE,CARRIE-ANNE MOSS, JOE PANTOLIANO.
• The film received two Academy Award Nominations for Original
Screenplay and Film Editing .
• The film is represented as two different sequences of scenes
interspersed during it --- a series of black & white and a series
of color sequences .

8.
 INSOMNIA (2002)
 AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL MYSTERY FILM AND BASED
ON THE 1997 NORWEGIAN FILM OF THE SAME NAME.
 STARRING : AL PACINO,ROBIN WILLIAMS,HILARY SWANK .
 With a $50 million budget, it was described as "a
much more conventional Hollywood film than anything
the director has done before“.
 It is about two Los Angeles detectives sent to a
northern Alaskan town to investigate the methodical
murder of a local teenager.
 It was well received by critics and performed well at the
box office, earning $113 million worldwide.

9.
 BATMAN BEGINS (2005)
 Superhero film based on the fictional DC Comics character Batman.
 STARRING: CHRISTIAN BALE, MICHAEL CAINE, LIAM NEESON,
KATIE HOLMES, MORGAN FREEMAN, GARY OLDMAN, CILLIAN MURPHY.
 It is a film grounded in a "relatable" world more reminiscent of a
classical drama than a comic-book fantasy . Nolan brought a level of
gravitas back to the iconic hero.
 It tells the story of BRUCE WAYNE’S initial fear of bats, the
death of his parents, his journey to become BATMAN and his
fight against RA’S AL GUL’s plot to destroy GOTHAM CITY.
 It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography
and three BAFTA awards.
 Fear was a common motif throughout the film.

10.
 THE PRESTIGE (2006)
> DRAMA FILM BASED ON CHRISTOPHER PRIEST'S WORLD
FANTASY AWARD-WINNING NOVEL OF THE SAME NAME.
> The story follows two rival stage magicians in London at the end of
19th century. Obsessed with creating the best stage illusion, they fall
under a bitter battle of supremacy .Terrible consequences happen
when each seeking not just to outwit - but to destroy the other man.
> STARRING : HUGH JACKMAN, CHRISTIAN BALE, MICHAEL CAINE,
SCARLETT JOHANSSON, REBECCA HALL .
> The Prestige received critical acclaim including Oscar nomination
for Best Cinematography and Best Art Direction.
> English musician and film score composer DAVID JULYAN penned the music
for The Prestige . Like the film , the soundtrack was divided into three
Sections : the Pledge the Turn and the Prestige .

11.
 THE DARK KNIGHT (2008)
~ WITH THE HELP OF ALLIES LT. JIM GORDON AND DA HARVEY DENT, BATMAN HAS BEEN ABLE TO KEEP
A TIGHT LID ON CRIME IN GOTHAM CITY. BUT WHEN A VILE YOUNG CRIMINAL CALLING HIMSELF THE
JOKER SUDDENLY THROWS THE TOWN INTO CHAOS, THE CAPED CRUSADER BEGINS TO TREAD A FINE
LINE BETWEEN HEROISM AND VIGILANTISM.
~ STARRING: CHRISTIAN BALE, HEATH LEDGER, AARON ECKHART, MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL, MICHAEL
CAINE, MORGAN FREEMAN, GARY OLDMAN .
~It is a sequel of Batman Begins and the first feature film shot partially in the 15/70 mm IMAX format.
~ The film received 8 Academy Award nominations ;
it won the award for Best Sound Editing and Ledger
was posthumously awarded Best Supporting Actor.
~ Pitched at the divide between art and industry,
poetry and entertainment, it goes darker & deeper
than any Hollywood Superhero movies ever made.
~ With a $185 million budget, it earned more than
$1 billion worldwide.

12.
 INCEPTION (2010)
• STARRING : EONARDO DICAPRIO, JOSEPH GORDON LEVITT, ELLEN
PAGE,TOM HARDY, CILLIAN MURPHY, MARION COTTILARD.
• The film won OSCARS for Best Cinematography, Best Sound
Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Visual Effects and BAFTA for
Best Production Design, Best Special Visual Effects & Best Sound.
• A sci-fi thriller film written, produced and directed by Nolan .
The thought-provoking drama was a worldwide blockbuster, earning
more than $825 million dollars worldwide .
• A professional thief who commits corporate espionage by
infiltrating the subconscious of his targets. He is offered a chance
of redemption as payment for a task considered to be impossible :
"inception", the implantation of a person's idea into a target's mind.

13.
 THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (2012)
 EIGHT YEARS AFTER THE JOKER'S REIGN OF ANARCHY, THE DARK
KNIGHT IS FORCED TO RETURN FROM HIS IMPOSED EXILE TO
SAVE GOTHAM CITY FROM THE BRUTAL GUERRILLA TERRORIST
BANE WITH THE HELP OF THE ENIGMATIC CATWOMAN .
 STARRING : CHRISTIAN BALE, TOM HARDY, MARION
COTTILARD, ANNE HATHAWAY, MICHAEL CAINE, MORGAN
FREEMAN, JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT, GARY OLDMAN .
 With a $265 million budget, Nolan directed his third & final
Batman movie and earned more than $1.084 billion worldwide .
 Arguably the biggest, darkest, most thrilling, disturbing and
utterly balls-out spectacle ever created for the screen.
 The film introduces a vehicle that has been compared with the
Bat plane and the Bat copter .

14.
 INTERSTELLER (2014)
~ STARRING : MATTHEW McCONAUGHEY, ANNE HATHAWAY,
JESSICA CHASTAIN, MICHAEL CAINE, MATT DAMON.
~ Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. co-financed and
co-distributed the project .The film was shot on anamorphic 35
mm and IMAX 70 mm Photography.
~ The film received 5 Academy Award nominations, including Best
Original Score, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Visual
Effects and Best Production Design .
~ It is an epic sci-fi film based on the scientific theories of renowned
Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne .
~ A team of explorers travel through a wormhole in an attempt to
ensure humanity's survival. The movie deals with worm hole, black
hole, space voyage, time travelling and also the concept of 5-D .

15.
 FILMMAKING :
• He starts a film with a flashback or a scene that appears at the end of the movie.
• His visual style emphasis urban settings, muted colors, dialogue scenes in wide close-up
modern locations and architecture.
• He uses editing as a way to represent the characters psychological states.
• He chooses to minimize the amount of computer generated special effects
In his movies & prefers to use practical effects whenever possible .
• His film reality is often an abstract & fragile concept .
• His work explores existential , ethical themes such as subjective experience , distortion of
memory , human morality , the nature of time and construction of personal identity .

16.
 RECURRING COLLABORATIONS :
 His wife Emma Thomas has co-produced all of his films and he regurarly work with his
brother Jonathan Nolan who is also screenwriter and producer .
 Michael Caine is his most prolific collaborator having in six of his films and is regarded by
Nolan to be his “good lucky charm “.
 He is also known from casting stars from the 1980’s in his films like Rutger Hauer , Eric
Robberts , Matthew Modine , Tom Berenger .
 His team unit has been same for quite a long time –
EDITOR – Lee Smith .
MUSIC COMPOSER – David Julyan, Hans Zimmer .
SOUND DESIGNER & SOUND MIXER – Richard King & Ed Norick .
VISUAL EFFECT SUPERVISOR - Paul Franklin .
CASTING DIRECTOR – John Papsidera .

17.
 PERSONAL LIFE & TRIVIA:
 Nolan is married to Emma Thomas whom he met at
University College of London .
 They together founded the production company named
SYNCOPY .
 He currently stays in Los Angeles with his wife and
their four children - Flory, Rory , Oliver and Magnus .
 He is a big fan of James Bond movies and also a band
named “ RADIOHEAD ‘”.
 He is colorblind to red and green .
 He is the first director to have released two of the
billion dollar grossing films in 2D only .

18.
 RECOGNITION :
 In 2013 , the official XBOX magazine named him along the 100 most important people in
games .
 Steven Spielbarg referred to Nolan’s Batman series as an example of both art & Big –
studio film .
 In 2012 , The Guardian ranked him 14 on their list of “ The 25 Best Film Directors in
the world “ .
 He has been praised by many of his contemporaries and some have cited his work as
influencing their own .
 Nolan is the rare director determined to make you walk out of the theatre after
watching his film and gasp , “ I’ve never seen anything like that before . “ .

19.
 AWARDS & HONOURS :
 He was referred with awards & nominations from the
world Sci-fi Society , Nebula Awards , Saturn Awards etc .
 He received Boards of the Governors Award from the
American Society of Cinematography in 2009 .
 In July , 2012 he became the youngest director to be
honored with a hand with a hand and foot print ceremony
act Grauman ‘s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles .
 He was also selected as the 2015 Class Day speaker at
Princeton University .

20.
THE END