The movies that will always make Christopher Nolan cry: “The classic tearjerker”
Christopher Nolan’s work has electrified audiences around the world, with people remaining glued to the screen as they try to understand the trippy logic of his high-concept worlds that leave his characters running vertically across buildings and redesigning the structure of their world with their minds.
While he is known for his dramatic action sequences and intense obstacles, such as exploding bombs, twisted villains and brutal battles, there are also some surprisingly emotional moments that capture the humanistic stakes of these challenges. In films like Interstellar and Dunkirk, there are moving sequences that will leave you in a fit of violent sobs as you watch Matthew McConaughey’s character weep over the lost relationship with his daughter or as soldiers prepare for death on German beaches.
However, while Nolan has spoken extensively about the films that have most inspired his visual storytelling, the director described the unsuspecting films that have inspired the more emotional elements of his work, praising two stories in particular.
The Champ, directed by King Vidor in 1931, follows the story of an alcoholic prizefighter who struggles to keep custody of his son. In many ways, it is the very definition of a tear-jerker, showing a fun but unstable father who deeply loves his son but isn’t in the right state of mind to properly care for him. Their relationship is tender and heartfelt, with an underlying layer of tragedy as we know that it cannot be sustained and they are sinking deeper into poverty.
While it is lesser known compared to commercial films like Blade Runner and Alien that Nolan has cited as key influences on his work, he described the personal effect that it had on him and the emotional powers it possesses. Nolan explained, “’The Champ’. The classic tearjerker. ‘Get up, Champ! Get up!’ I think our emotional responses to movies over decades are personal to our relationships with that film in other ways, not just the narrative itself. There’s definitely a meta-level to that. Those things tend to be quite personal”.
Nolan is correct in that sometimes we can have very visceral responses to films that we can’t fully articulate or understand, tapping into a deep well of subconscious emotion that resonates with a different version of ourselves. We may have strong associations with the story without truly understanding why it moves us so much.
Nolan also described another film as having a similar effect on him, saying, “I can’t watch “Withnail and I,” Bruce Robinson’s film, without getting a little lump in my throat. It’s a crazy comedy, but there’s a beautiful melancholy to it. There’s something really obvious I’m not remembering”.
Withnail and I is equally devastating but manages to achieve this through a balance between light and dark, exaggerating the tragedy of the story through the heightened sense of humour that both acknowledges and dismisses the misery of the characters. It is one of the most influential films from the canon of British cinema, and perhaps offers some insight into the emotional chord that Nolan attempts to strike in his own work.
