Individuals have different tastes and defining the best director surely rests on an ambition consigned to an exchange of convictions. However, and surprisingly one director has continued, for the last decade, to assert himself as the most... The most what ? Not easy to say, but no matter what ; the best because he conciliates success and public recognition which are precisely why movies are made. His name is Christopher Nolan and this is why.
We like competition. This is why medias see in sports the ultimate show capable of uniting many around exclusive events that they fight to buy at a higher cost than ever. For the cinema industry this has been translated into contests and ceremonies that are vectors of celebration for a movie among others or for an actor among others. The Academy awards are born in 1929 (a silent movie, Wings, won).
The Cannes Film Festival even manages to get public attention when it is a ceremony where only movies destined to very few projection rooms are presented. These movies will raise cinephiles attention only later. The suspense around the Palme d’Or winner is cooked and held beyond the amateur circle to a point where its ceremony is broadcasted on television and is summed up to an oral announcement of the winners.
There are ultimately two criteria that rule the judgement on films. Did they attract spectators in projection rooms : it’s the commercial objective of the movie makers. Did the public like the movie : it’s the artistic objective of the authors.
About this last satisfaction criteria, we can argue on the method : instant satisfaction vs. long term satisfaction ? Enchantment vs. satisfaction of expectations ? Emotion of the spectator vs. evasion created by the show ? At the end, the most pertinent to address all these approaches lies in the simplicity of giving it a sum up grade. This brings the spectator to give his grade based on his own appreciation of the pertinence of the criterias (that can be different for a same spectator depending on the movie). And the best database executing this open method regarding every movie and every voting individual remains IMDb and its 250 million visitors : movies in this ranking have been given at least 25 000 votes while the most populars go beyond 1 500 000 votes at the time of this article (read story here).
Then why Christopher Nolan ?
The Cannes Film Festival even manages to get public attention when it is a ceremony where only movies destined to very few projection rooms are presented. These movies will raise cinephiles attention only later. The suspense around the Palme d’Or winner is cooked and held beyond the amateur circle to a point where its ceremony is broadcasted on television and is summed up to an oral announcement of the winners.
There are ultimately two criteria that rule the judgement on films. Did they attract spectators in projection rooms : it’s the commercial objective of the movie makers. Did the public like the movie : it’s the artistic objective of the authors.
About this last satisfaction criteria, we can argue on the method : instant satisfaction vs. long term satisfaction ? Enchantment vs. satisfaction of expectations ? Emotion of the spectator vs. evasion created by the show ? At the end, the most pertinent to address all these approaches lies in the simplicity of giving it a sum up grade. This brings the spectator to give his grade based on his own appreciation of the pertinence of the criterias (that can be different for a same spectator depending on the movie). And the best database executing this open method regarding every movie and every voting individual remains IMDb and its 250 million visitors : movies in this ranking have been given at least 25 000 votes while the most populars go beyond 1 500 000 votes at the time of this article (read story here).
Then why Christopher Nolan ?
Christopher Nolan shot five movies in the last ten years. We notice that all five of them are ranked in the top 250 with an average superior or equal to 8,4 out of 10 ! More, they are even ranked in the top 60. Better still, among the only ten movies shot in the last ten years Christopher Nolan is the author of half of them. In addition, he is the director of the first three that are the only movies post 2004 in the top 30 including The Dark Knight ranked 4th in a ranking dominated by the duet The Shawshank redemption and The Godfather. He is also the author of the three most popular movies of IMDb among every movie issued after 2005 : The Dark Knight, Inception and The Dark knight rises are the only ones that have passed the million voters at the end of 2015.
As a whole, and being only 45 years old, he is responsible for seven movies in the top 250 of the best movies. Not bad for the author of 8 movies (if we neutralize Following issued in 1998 in a confidential loop). Seven, because he didn't wrote the only one missing (Insomnia). Seven, that is as much as Martin Scorcese and Steven Spielberg and one less than the two record holders, Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, who are both pointing at eight. They both have a much longer career than the director of Inception. Anyways, such comparison with these authors demonstrates the status Christopher Nolan built himself to the public.
As a whole, and being only 45 years old, he is responsible for seven movies in the top 250 of the best movies. Not bad for the author of 8 movies (if we neutralize Following issued in 1998 in a confidential loop). Seven, because he didn't wrote the only one missing (Insomnia). Seven, that is as much as Martin Scorcese and Steven Spielberg and one less than the two record holders, Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, who are both pointing at eight. They both have a much longer career than the director of Inception. Anyways, such comparison with these authors demonstrates the status Christopher Nolan built himself to the public.
The other recognition criteria by the public is made out of the capacity to make people come to see the movies at theaters, where the cinematographic spetacle is the most valorized (by the ticket price) and most valorizing (taking into account the quality of the show offered in a cinema compared to other diffusion monitors).
However, every movie directed by Christopher Nolan issued in the last ten years has been a success. It is even more noticeable as Interstellar and Inception are original movies : no comic books or books to their origin. They are also not follow ups or reboot. Behind the record scores set by Avatar, Inception is the first original movie ranked this high in the American box-office (without Disney and Pixar animation movies that have become independent brands). Worldwide, Nolan reaches twice the symbolic number of the Billion dollar receipt for the two last movies of the Batman trilogy. His worst success is Interstellar and its 675 M$ worldwide receipt (as much as the last Hunger Games, seventh in the US box-office). It says much about it.
His movies have generated at least 45 M$ the first week end, even outside of the Batman series, which means his name has become a quality label perceived by the public. Very few authors have reached such scores, usually exclusive to actors. We can cite Steven Spielberg and James Cameron, of course, but what next ?
However, every movie directed by Christopher Nolan issued in the last ten years has been a success. It is even more noticeable as Interstellar and Inception are original movies : no comic books or books to their origin. They are also not follow ups or reboot. Behind the record scores set by Avatar, Inception is the first original movie ranked this high in the American box-office (without Disney and Pixar animation movies that have become independent brands). Worldwide, Nolan reaches twice the symbolic number of the Billion dollar receipt for the two last movies of the Batman trilogy. His worst success is Interstellar and its 675 M$ worldwide receipt (as much as the last Hunger Games, seventh in the US box-office). It says much about it.
His movies have generated at least 45 M$ the first week end, even outside of the Batman series, which means his name has become a quality label perceived by the public. Very few authors have reached such scores, usually exclusive to actors. We can cite Steven Spielberg and James Cameron, of course, but what next ?
His next movie is again completely original. The shooting title is Dunkerque and will portray the evacuation of the french nordic city at the beginning of the second world war (the Dynamo operation under german bombing). Since 2002 and Insomnia, he would leave sci-fi movies to dive into History for the first time. His Save private Ryan that would bring him his first Oscar ? To be continued
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