The Disney movie that terrified Christopher Nolan: “I remember vividly”
Few directors have had such an impact on the 21st-century cinematic landscape as Christopher Nolan. The British filmmaker emerged in the late 1990s with his independent feature The Following, which saw him take on most of the main production roles, including cinematography. It was an early sign of his guaranteed success, which he followed up with Memento, which is a cult classic.
Nolan truly broke into the mainstream with his Batman trilogy, beginning with 2005’s Batman Begins. With The Dark Knight, Nolan received unanimous praise, and the film is often considered one of the best releases of the 2000s. His take on the superhero genre was dark and complex, blending Hollywood appeal with an experimental sensibility from his days as an independent filmmaker.
Throughout the years, his output has continued to earn him significant praise, from the beloved sci-fi thriller Inception to his space epic Interstellar and, most recently, his Oscar-winning biopic Oppenheimer. Both critics and widespread audiences love Nolan, who seems to have mastered the ability to keep his movies enjoyable for a mainstream crowd while also demonstrating that there is more to his work than cheap thrills and relentless action sequences for the sake of entertainment.
He fell in love with cinema at a young age, watching an array of films that made him aware of the power of movies, even before he could truly comprehend why he felt so affected by them. One of his earliest memories of cinema involves a classic Disney movie, beloved by many. Talking to the BFI, Nolan recalled, “The first film I can remember seeing is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and hiding terrified under the seat when the evil queen turns into the old crone. The physicality of being behind the seat, of being in an audience, I remember vividly.”
That physical reaction was important to Nolan, showing him the power of cinema to elicit bodily responses which leave you in a state of fear. Released in 1937, the film was Disney’s first feature and the first-ever animated movie made in the United States.
We all know the story – a young woman takes shelter from her evil stepmother in the forest, where she meets dwarfs and woodland creatures who become her friends. When the stepmother realises that Snow White is still alive after her plans to have her killed fall through, she concocts a potion that transforms her into an ugly “old crone,” as Nolan put it, and delivers the protagonist a poisonous apple.
The stepmother is pure evil, using magic to transform herself and enact her elaborate and murderous plans. It’s perhaps one of the earliest examples of a truly horrible villain we will encounter on our screens as children, and for Nolan, the fear this character spurred in him stuck. Nolan has crafted many movies in his career which feature villainous characters, most notably The Joker in the Batman series.
While he might not have been consciously aware of the evil stepmother’s influence when directing such evil characters, her impact is definitely there, floating in the back of his mind from when he was a child, scared by her grotesqueness and lack of humanity.
