Christopher Nolan' film making aesthetics

If you have ever watched more than one of Christopher Nolan's films, such as;The Dark Knight Rises (2012), or Interstellar (2014), you would notice that all of his films have a certain feel to them, if someone showed you a clip from on of his films you would almost instantly notice that it is Nolan's work. This is definitely a creative decision that he has made as he strives for consistency, we know this because he has used the same cinematographer (Wally Pfister), editor (Lee Smith) and composer (Hans Zimmer), on most if not all of his greatest films. Very often he will also write with his brother Jonathan Nolan on a lot of his greatest films such as The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), and Interstellar (2014). Jonathan's writing style pairs with Christopher's to add to the well recognisable aesthetic.

The aesthetic of his films, whether it is set in the future or an alternate present, always consist of a unique narrative. When Nolan writes a film he doesn't follow conventional story telling of a setup, a confrontation, and a resolution. Instead he seems to mix up the order of the 'three act structure' and not end the film with a resolution, but he will choose to give a resolution and then give another confrontation. For example this is shown at the end of Interstellar, Cooper has just came back from his mission and saw his daughter in a hospital bed close to death due to her old age and he leaves and steals a space ship. This leaves the viewer wanting more and because there is no second film they are left wandering what happens next. This keeps the film open and it continues in the heads of the viewers. Another example is Inception. DiCaprio's character owns a spinning top and throughout the film it is emphasised that if he spins it and it stops spinning, then he is awake in the real world. If it doesn't stop spinning then he is still asleep in the dream world. Inception ends with a shot that slowly moves closer to a spinning top that isn't slowing down, again leaving the story unfinished with he viewers wanting more, and wanting to know whether it stops spinning or not

Another definitive trait of Christopher Nolan's film making is that he will mostly use low key lighting for scenes, creating deep and dark shadows whilst juxtaposing this with rich colours. Or he will use a wide shot of an epic landscape to set the scene. He does this in the same way in all of his films, which seems as though it would be repetitive and boring, however he makes it exciting and instead it just makes each of his films consistently as amazing as the last one. He also used the same cinematographer, Wally Pfister, from Batman Begins (2005) until, The Dark Knight Rises (2012). This allowed the two to flow with each other and be able to achieve a look and feel that both of them wanted to have in the films.

Fans of Christopher Nolan's work were worried after The Dark Knight Rises that Nolan's aesthetic would change, due to Pfister stepping down as his cinematographer to pursue a career as a director. However, as we can see in films such as Interstellar (2014), and Dunkirk (2017) that he still has the same epic approach to sound, visuals, and narrative. Keeping to his theme of deep dark shadows and 'jumbled' story telling. With his consistent use of Hans Zimmer to make his soundtracks.

I believe that Christopher Nolan has perfected his own aesthetic, he knows exactly how he wants a film to look. A measure of his success in creating a consistent aesthetic, is to ask someone to describe a Christopher Nolan film and the first words they say would be "Dark", and "Epic". These words can be used to describe everyone of Nolan's films. From the kind of realistic Interstellar to the superhero films of Batman and The Dark Knight.