From Graham Swift to Nicolas Roeg: Christopher Nolan’s earliest cinematic and literary influences
Although he might be a divisive name among cinephiles with a love of arthouse pictures, there’s no doubt that Christopher Nolan is a masterful director. Exploring many different styles and topics with verve, from bringing Batman’s Gotham City to life in a naturalistic way to telling the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer in terrifying detail, Nolan’s dynamism has kept him at the forefront of the cultural conversation for the best part of 25 years.
There’s no real surprise that Nolan has explored various areas in his time as an auteur, as, like with any top creative, on a forensic level, his approach was informed by an intricate patchwork of influences. A modern master of suspense, one of his most prominent idols is the man who made spine-tingling atmosphere his own: Alfred Hitchcock.
Blown away by his pioneering technique, Nolan once said of the late British director: “His technical virtuosity in Foreign Correspondent’s portrayal of the downing of a plane at sea provided inspiration for much of what we attempted in Dunkirk“.
The notions of suspense and non-linear storytelling are two familiar elements of modern cinema that Hitchcock perfected for the modern era, with these two aspects that Nolan would run off into the sunset with in movies such as Memento and Inception. However, it wasn’t just the Psycho director who informed his lifelong dedication to messing with audiences’ heads.
Speaking to DGA Quarterly in 2012, Nolan’s long-term admiration of detective fiction was raised, an area which often employs flashbacks and other time-shifting devices. The director asked if this was an area that his “fascination for non-linear storytelling” comes from. While true, Nolan also cited Author Graham Swift, directors Nicolas Roeg and Alan Parker, and even an early script of Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction as inspirations.
Nolan explained: “Well, I had a couple of big influences. When I was 16, I read a Graham Swift novel, Waterland, that did incredible things with parallel timelines and told a story in different dimensions that was extremely coherent. Around the same time, I remember Alan Parker’s The Wall on television, which does a very similar thing purely with imagery, using memories and dreams crossing over to other dreams and so forth.”
He continued: “Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth and Performance were also influential. Those stuck in my head, as did a lot of crime fiction – James Ellroy, Jim Thompson – and film noirs like Jacques Tourneur’s Out of the Past, which was just staggering. Then, somehow, I got hold of a script to Pulp Fiction before the film came out and was fascinated with what Tarantino had done.”
With mind-bending concepts, nonlinear narratives, unwavering attention to detail and ambiguous endings, it is clear that Nolan has successfully pulled elements of those he admires into blockbuster projects of his own. Nolan’s style combines spectacle with intellectual depth, making his films both commercially successful and critically acclaimed. His unique approach to storytelling and commitment to cinematic craftsmanship have established him as one of the most influential directors in contemporary cinema – even if it does fall into a mainstream and less artistically appreciated area.
