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Christopher Nolan sure likes his women dead, doesn't he?

Gaith

Gaith

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Please pardon the gimmicky thread title. But, let's review, shall we? :p


Memento: A dude mourns his dead wife.
Batman Begins: A dude mourns his dead mom (and dad).
The Prestige: Two dudes mourn their dead wives.
The Dark Knight: Two dudes mourn their dead girlfriend/girl friend.
Inception: A dude mourns his dead wife. Bonus!: We see her die three different times. Extra bonus!: We also see the other girl (sorta-)die once.
The Dark Knight Rises: I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that that dude in black will start out still mourning his dead girl friend.

Conclusion: Nolan sure likes his fictional women dead, doesn't he?


Correlative observation: No one really falls in love in Nolan movies, do they? They either don't love anyone or already love (and/or mourn) someone. In BB, Bruce seemingly sorta-loves Rachel because they grew up together; intro scenes aside, he already sorta-loves her when the movie proper begins. In The Prestige, not-Bruce (or, spoiler, one of them) falls in love with his wife between scenes. In TDK, Dent starts out with the hots for Rachel. None of the blokes seem to want to smooch poor Kitty Pryde. And I have a hunch that Bruce won't exactly fall in love with Selina.

Just an observation. Oh, and I saw Inception for the first time yesterday, and this awesome College Humor video was definitely the best part. But I'd be curious to see Nolan doing an actual falling-in-love story, a female centric story, or possibly both. I'll go see TDKR because, Batman, but I'm getting a bit tired of all his other morose mourning masochistic manly men.
 
Just an easy way to give a character a tragic background. It's like Disney and the dead-parent motif.

No one really falls in love in Nolan movies, do they?
Click to expand...

They're action movies, not chick flicks.
 
The Batman films are the worse offenders in that the only notable female character in either of them is also by far the most perfunctory. She manages to, if anything, seem far more irrelevant in the second film than the first. Hopefully the addition of Catwoman will even the score for the third film (she is definitely a more promising nemesis than Bane) but one will have to wait and see.

Gaith said:
But I'd be curious to see Nolan doing an actual falling-in-love story,
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I dunno. I think Nolan's heart is in his high concept puzzle stories, really. Memento and its backwards memory, Inception's layers of dreamworld, Prestige's riddles wrapped in enigmas gift-wrapped in preposterously bizarre plot twists.

So a good Nolan love story would need to be one that has some pretty odd stuff going on, most likely.

This is quite distinct from
a female centric story,
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Which could clearly play to his strengths just as well as one with a male protagonist. The handling of Ellen Page's character in Inception certainly points to this possibility.
 
Rachel was stuffed into the Fridge.

I found all of the women in the Batman movies to be very forgettable with the exception of Catwoman in Batman Returns. That was mainly because of Michelle Pfeiffer's superb acting. I loved her character and was actually hoping she could get together with Batman.
 
Kegg said:
The Batman films are the worse offenders in that the only notable female character in either of them is also by far the most perfunctory. She manages to, if anything, seem far more irrelevant in the second film than the first. Hopefully the addition of Catwoman will even the score for the third film (she is definitely a more promising nemesis than Bane) but one will have to wait and see.

Gaith said:
But I'd be curious to see Nolan doing an actual falling-in-love story,
Click to expand...

I dunno. I think Nolan's heart is in his high concept puzzle stories, really. Memento and its backwards memory, Inception's layers of dreamworld, Prestige's riddles wrapped in enigmas gift-wrapped in preposterously bizarre plot twists.

So a good Nolan love story would need to be one that has some pretty odd stuff going on, most likely.

This is quite distinct from
a female centric story,
Click to expand...
Which could clearly play to his strengths just as well as one with a male protagonist. The handling of Ellen Page's character in Inception certainly points to this possibility.
Click to expand...

QFT. The complaints about Nolan and female characters I think are valid; I'm guessing it's just a blind spot of his though, not anything intentional.

Dream said:
That was mainly because of Michelle Pfeiffer's superb costume.
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Uh huh. FTFY. ;)

(I kid, I kid)
 
Dream said:
That was mainly because of Michelle Pfeiffer's superb costume.
Click to expand...

Uh huh. FTFY. ;)

(I kid, I kid)
Click to expand...

That wasn't the only reason. It certainly helped me like the character even more though. ;)

I have a feeling I'm going to be really let down by the new Catwoman in TDKR. I can't see Anne Hathaway being a badass at all! :(
 
Kegg said:
The handling of Ellen Page's character in Inception certainly points to this possibility.
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She had a character? She was (rather clumsily) symbolically named after a figure from Greek mythology. We learned pretty much nothing about her as a person, apart from that she was an architecture student or something. Granted, the male supporting players didn't get any more development themselves, and Nolan is no Michael Bay vis-a-vis women, but I'd hardly call Page's character a strong female part.

Kestrel said:
And Gaith is quite wrong - one of the guys definitely smooches her and they both appear to enjoy it.
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A quick peck that was inspired by fear of others, not emotion. Talk about an exception that proves the rule. ;)
 
Ellen Page's character in "Inception" was like a guide for Cobb. Her purpose was to set him free from his past and self tortures. It was made pretty clear in the film as well that Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) had the hots for her and she was attracted to him. I think the females in Nolan's films are mostly plot devices created to aide or help progress the main character in some fashion, or limit him. I'm sure if he really was interested he could write a very compelling love story but he doesn't seem interested.
 
Yeah, she was fairly plot device-ish. She shakes up the status quo so he can finally heal. Ellen Page did a fine job in that role, but it isn't a spectacular role either way.

BTW, while granted I don't suppose Nolan had to do a Batman movie, I don't think it's particularly fair to count Batman Begins in this list. Rachel yes, but his parents? That's more or less a given for Batman.
 
I wouldn't count Batman Begins in a list like this either. Bruce's mom dying is a starting point for his journey in becoming Batman. While he mourns her she isn't a central figure in his world, the film made a point of creating that connection between Bruce and his father.
 
To be fair, all of the characters in Inception are plot devices except Cobb (and purposefully so.) Ariadne is probably the most detailed as she's the audience stand-in.

But yeah, romance hasn't been an area of focus for him, except dealing with the loss of it. I don't think his female characters are ill-written or stereotypes, though. He just hasn't had a lot of stories with multiple female characters or burgeoning romance. Dark Knight Rises should be interesting, in any case.
 
Gaith said:
But I'd be curious to see Nolan doing an actual falling-in-love story.
Click to expand...

I don't go to a Christopher Nolan film expecting a romance any more than I go to a Richard Curtis film expecting a labyrinthine action-mystery. It's not their preferred wheelhouse.
 
Alidar Warlock said:
Yeah, she was fairly plot device-ish. She shakes up the status quo so he can finally heal. Ellen Page did a fine job in that role, but it isn't a spectacular role either way.
Click to expand...

Quite. But it's a role, a viewpoint character, essentially the second most important role after Leonard DiCaprio, and that works pretty darn well. One could easily see Nolan making an entire film around a character similar to Page's, presumably someone trying to solve some kind of puzzle which will eventually involve explosions (because Nolan has some priorities to meet, after all).

Gaith said:
We learned pretty much nothing about her as a person, apart from that she was an architecture student or something. Granted, the male supporting players didn't get any more development themselves,
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She's also more important than the male supporting characters and exists in a Nolan movie - and Nolan at heart, again, he's not first and foremost a character person. Nolan's films have always been better at puzzle and plot then they are at character, although many of them have been quite good with character as well.
 
... Let's review, shall we?


Gaith said:
Memento: A dude mourns his dead wife.
Batman Begins: A dude mourns his dead mom (and dad).
The Prestige: Two dudes mourn their dead wives.
The Dark Knight: Two dudes mourn their dead girlfriend/girl friend.
Inception: A dude mourns his dead wife. Bonus!: We see her die three different times. Extra bonus!: We also see the other girl (sorta-)die once.
The Dark Knight Rises: I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that that dude in black will start out still mourning his dead girl friend.
Click to expand...
Boy, did I get that last part right! Eight years later, and Bruce can still barely leave the house because he's so upset over her. TDKR definitely keeps up Nolan's signature Dead Women motif.

Especially with the whole "French chick he thought was one person symbolically dies when she reveals herself to be someone totally different, and then literally dies" for bonus Dead Woman points!


I also said this:
Gaith said:
And I have a hunch that Bruce won't exactly fall in love with Selina.
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I'll give myself partial credit here. They do seem to end up together, which I didn't expect, but they hardly had much chemistry, and their one quick smooch came out of nowhere for me at least.

Ultimately, I didn't find Selina as developed or interesting a character as TDK's Rachel. Here's hoping that now that Nolan's finally done with that dude who's so boring he holes himself up in a mansion for years on end without even getting a dog, he spends a bit more time on his female characters next time around.
 
I'm kind of confused about the point of this entire thread. Is there a dearth of Chick Fliks out there with their mandatory romantic subplots?

Why demand that Christopher Nolan make one? Such movies are not everyone's cup of tea. If you're tired of high concept Nolan movies go watch a movie made by someone else. This is like complaining that Michael Bay movies are not deep and thought provoking.
 
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