(the original public
account "Iris") How did Nolan become Nolan?
Like all questions that don't seem worth asking, this is a question that cannot really be answered.
As one of the most important contemporary Hollywood directors, fans, film critics and the darling of various charts, Christopher Nolan has indeed revolutionized mainstream Hollywood narrative films to some extent.
So, what is the historical context of Nolan's narrative innovation? How groundbreaking is it? Where is the conservativeness?
In my opinion, Nolan’s greatest achievement is not how creative or new his narrative approach is, but that he turned the approach of art films into a narrative convention that mainstream audiences can understand and accept.
Nolan's aesthetics is a deliberate transformation, trying to find a balance between the new and the old, transforming the old into the new, and at the same time transforming the new into the old. He is one of the most conservative innovators.
From Nolan's first two non-studio independent production films "Follow" and "Memories", it seems easier to find the aesthetic context, because these two films contain almost all of Nolan's narrative skills. Due to limited space, this article only discusses Nolan's new and old from the point of narrative structure.
1. The old-the rewriting of the classical genre
When we talk about a film language revolution, we must understand that any kind of innovation is a rewriting or subversion of the old rules. Without the old, how can we talk about the new?
Film theorist Bodwell pointedly pointed out that "the independent films in the United States since the 1990s have been based on objectivity, flashbacks, unreliable narratives, and other forms of strategies that emerged in Hollywood movies in the 1940s and 1950s. Experiments. Film noirs such as "Ordinary Suspects" and "Shards of Memory" are examples of this trend." This argument directly refers to "Shards of Memory" as a continuation of film noirs.
There is no doubt that "Follow" and "Fragments of Memory" are rewritings of classical films, especially the reference and appropriation of the plot frame and narrative elements of film noir and detective films. Detective mode, mystery, femme fatale, etc., can find corresponding variants in these two movies.
This kind of reference confirms the interactive relationship between mainstream narrative films and art films. The two have never been isolated from each other, but have always been deeply connected with each other. One responds to the other's methods, creativity and competitiveness.
Hollywood movies have always been super experts in the language of movies, and they have been absorbing the aesthetics and traditions of artistic movies, and used them to refurbish the old methods of their own genres. For example, classic Hollywood noir films have absorbed and transformed German expressionist film techniques. In turn, French New Wave films paid tribute and parody to film noir.
From the perspective of the psychological mechanism of watching movies, "Shards of Memory" is nothing new, but strictly follows a most traditional plot arc and suspense manufacturing model.
The climax of the plot in most mainstream narrative movies is the reveal of the secrets in the story. This model is very common in detective films. In fact, most commercial films use the method of preserving the cause and motivation of the event to stimulate the curiosity of the audience.
The movie-watching expectation of "Memory Fragment" is very close to classical mystery novels. In the mystery novel, a murder case occurred, that is, the audience already knew the result, but did not know the reason, the murderer's manual or even the method of killing. This kind of mysterious story relies on the curiosity of the audience and the desire to understand all the events before the plot, and the detective’s task is to end the parts that have not been shown in the film, the murderer, the motive, the way of killing, etc. Reveal it.
At the beginning of "Memory Fragment", the protagonist Leonard killed Teddy, but the audience, like Leonard with memory impairment, did not know the reason and motive of the murder, so they followed the flashback, peeled off the cocoon, and explored/retrospected his murder step by step. reason.
Although the main line of "Memory Fragment" uses flashback, the structure of all the truth at the end is no different from classical mystery novels (noir and detective films).
The story advancement method of detective films allows flashbacks in the process of reasoning about homicide. This is probably the reason why Hollywood's narrative innovation experiments in the 1940s and 1950s were dominated by film noir. As a film noir lover, Nolan saw the narrative potential of this classical type, so the first two independent productions adopted this narrative mode.
2. New-Reference to Art Film
The narrative structure is the most unique feature of Nolan's films. Nolan's innovation lies in the introduction of the narrative structure and narrative techniques of art films.
Since the 1990s, puzzle movies (mind game movies) have become a new film narrative trend worldwide. The main works are "Pulp Fiction" (1994), "Ordinary Suspects" (1995), "Lola Run" (1998) "Fight Club" (1999), "Sixth Sense" (1999), "Shards of Memory" (2000), "Mulholland Road" (2001), etc.
One of the most important common features of this type of film is to confuse the audience with complex narratives (including non-linear narrative structures, fragmented plots, and disrupting the sequence of stories). Audiences solve puzzles in this kind of movies, and fall into the trap of mind and eyes (refer to the article "Mind Game Movies" by Elsaesser).
The puzzle movie uses intricate narrative techniques—unreliable narrators, multiple timelines, unusual perspectives, unmarked flashbacks, narrative focus and viewpoint switching, etc.—to construct a maze of stories.
Nolan is most obsessed with using flashbacks (a flashback is an audiovisual flashback) to complicate the narrative to create puzzles. The ultimate effect of flashback is to hinder the audience's understanding of the characters and plot. Flashback can achieve a more common purpose: to disrupt the chronological order of storytelling. You can start a film at the climax of the plot, and once the audience is attracted, they will expect you to sort out the ins and outs for them. It is this narrative strategy adopted by "Follow" and "Memories".
In "Follow", the male protagonist uses flashbacks to tell about his bizarre experience (a film noir-style affair), and finds himself in a trap that he cannot break free of.
"Memory Fragment" is even bolder, breaking the story line from the middle and dividing it into two, turning the front and back parts into two narrative lines that alternately appear in parallel. What's more clever is that the two parts are folded and crossed in half, so the first half of the story becomes a positive advance, and the second half becomes a reverse advance because of the double folding, and the two narrative lines meet again at the point where they are folded in half. .
Nolan's flashbacks are not water without a source. Many works in the history of film have explored the narrative potential of flashbacks. Psychologist Piaget once pointed out that one of the most important intellectual activities is the reversibility of performance. Because irreversibility is the nature of things, and the mission of intelligence lies in turning things into reversible forms. This is probably why the flashback (flashback) is so fascinating.
French Impressionist director Jean Epstein's masterpiece "Three Mirrors" (1927) uses flashbacks and multiple narrations, which is completely separate from classical narrative conventions. It was nearly 20 years earlier than the multiple narrations in "Citizen Kane" and "Rashomon".
Li Cangdong's "Mints" (1999) is a complete flashback, with seven large narrative paragraphs advancing in reverse order, telling the tortuous life of the character. "Memories" is farther in narrative complexity than "Mints". Not only does it split a narrative line into two forward and reverse directions, but at the same time, each scene of the reverse narrative is shorter. In this way, the overall The sense of fragmentation is stronger.
The innovation of the flashback (flashback) of "Shards of Memory" is that it is neither a reminiscence flashback nor a narrative flashback. Instead, it completely strips off the guidance of the characters in the usual flashback, presenting a purely objective and external appearance. In the flashback content.
However, in some European art films, flashback techniques are much more advanced and complicated than "Memories". For example, the Czech movie "Happy Ending" (1967), the whole film is the whole movie upside down, so the action is reverse, but the dialogue is positive. The confusion of logic has created a great obstacle to the audience's acceptance. In "Fragments of Memory", although one of the lines is a flashback, there is a clear causal logic in each interconnected scene, and there is no intentional obstacle to the audience's understanding.
At the same time, the unreliable narrator in "Memories" is also a common technique in art films. The most famous should be the ambiguous and unreliable accounts of Alain Rob-Grillet's "Europe Express" and Alan Renai's "Last Year in Marienbad".
Even earlier, Hitchcock had used this unreliable flashback technique in "Cry of the Sea" (1950). A lying narrator used his false past to mislead and confuse the audience. Judging, this is the narrator who deceives the reader.
In the narrative works, there is another type of narrators with mental problems. Because of mental retardation and mental illness, they describe the world through their own feelings, so what the characters tell is very different from the facts.
In Fragments of Memories, Leonard can only retain ten minutes of memory. This neurological disorder makes him an unreliable narrator and also makes it difficult to distinguish between what is false and what is true. He remarked "Don't believe his lies" on Teddy's photo, and finally we discovered that everything he believed in (revenge) was a lie he had woven.
3.
Turning the new into the old-transforming the ambiguity of art films into transparency Bodwell has a point of view, "Shards of Memory" is the most novel and also the most law-abiding film.
Indeed, Nolan’s greatest achievement at the narrative level does not lie in how creative his narrative techniques are, but in his turning the narrative exploration of art films into a narrative convention that mainstream audiences can understand and accept. At the same time, the ambiguity and ambiguity of art film techniques are transformed into a kind of clarity and certainty.
The storytelling and usual performance techniques of mainstream movies depend on a core need, which is to arouse and maintain the interest of the audience. In order to allow the audience to concentrate on the story, Hollywood movies emphasize the transparency of the narrative.
Art films often break the principle of transparency and produce ambiguous, ambiguous, and ambiguous video texts.
Nolan’s conservativeness lies in the fact that even in his first two independently produced films, some of the complex narrative techniques of artistic films were used, but he did his best to make the audience understand the story.
On the contrary, in a Godard or Resnais movie, the audiovisual language and narrative structure will always create a kind of ambiguity, and at the same time lack a suspenseful story to attract the attention of the audience.
There are several conservative aspects of "Memories".
First, the traditional dichotomy of black and white/color is used to clearly mark the difference between the two parallel narrative lines-the forward narrative line uses black and white images (rough, dark, grainy), and the reverse narrative line uses color Image (fine, bright, high saturation).
The two image styles are strictly distinguished to avoid logical confusion when the audience understands the story. In the two narrative lines, the protagonist's appearance also has a strong contrast (solid color suit and suit casual). In the debut "Follow", there is a clear difference between the appearance of the characters (hairstyle, clothing) in the flashback paragraph and the current paragraph.
Secondly, in the plot line of reverse advancement, the end of each scene and the beginning of the next scene have overlaps, as if the director is afraid that the audience will not remember, always remind the audience of the continuity of the two scenes in time with overlap and repetition. (Reverse continuity).
In addition, props and tattoos are also used as clues to remind the audience of the close causal connection between the two scenes.
There is also a particularly interesting point. Nolan, who likes to make puzzles, will always have corresponding clues to all the answers to the puzzles, leaving no room for ambiguity. This is also an important feature of Nolan’s movies that are different from art movies. .
At the end of "Memory Fragment", Teddy tells Leonard that the revenge target and the recounted memories are all made up by Leonard himself. The story of Sammy and his wife is actually Leonard's own story. In an art film, the truth and falsity of memories are often indistinguishable. But in "Fragments of Memory", Nolan used a shot of less than one second (Sammy in a wheelchair becomes Leonard in the next moment) to clearly tell the audience that there is only one answer/truth, which is the version Teddy said. .
Therefore, most viewers, as long as they have watched "Fragments of Memory" twice, they will understand the story, and every place is clearly distinguishable. But some more obscure European art films, such as Aaron Rene's "Muriel" and Jacques Levitt's "Paris Belongs to Us", even after two or three times, still cannot distinguish the true outline of the story.
More importantly, neither "Fragments of Memory" nor "Following" abandon the principles of causal narrative and the action goals of the characters. Classical Hollywood narrative films strictly abide by the principle of causality, and it is precisely this principle that can make the story clear in the end, and it is the character who can provide this causal factor that drives the story forward.
Most Hollywood films take the protagonist with a clear goal as the main object of presentation. The core character has desires and wants to accomplish something, and the story is composed of various actions taken by the character to achieve this goal.
In an art film, causality is sometimes discarded, or certain plots are deliberately omitted, causing the narrative to become incomprehensible. But in Nolan's movie, all the connections of the plot follow causality, and every scene is essential, although the order of events is not in the order in which they occur.
In "Memory Fragment", Leonard goes through many hardships and seeks memory while taking revenge. The goal of revenge is so strong. At the end, we understand that this goal is set for himself by Leonard, who has memory impairment, and is a false goal for self-deception. The pursuit of this goal turns the protagonist into a contemporary Jason looking for the Golden Fleece, and also makes this confusing memory fragment story overlap with the heroic adventure story of classical mythology.
Of course, Nolan's conservativeness in these two films is actually a common phenomenon in American films. Independent film directors use anti-traditional themes and formal strategies to differentiate their low-cost productions. However, even the most bizarre independent films tend to follow the many rules of Hollywood plot structure and narrative.
Therefore, puzzle movies and mind game movies still belong to the category of mainstream narrative movies, because no matter how complex and ingenious narratives are created, this type of movie is still a kind of puzzle that gives a clear answer, a kind that can reach the end. maze.
If you have seen "Western World", you must be familiar with the maze of criss-cross and layered network narratives created by flashbacks. Its producer is Nolan’s younger brother Jonathan Nolan, and he is exactly the same as "Shards of Memory". Author of the original short story.
Although director Christopher Nolan did not subvert the narrative conventions of mainstream movies, it is undeniable that his narrative style does increase the complexity and interest of contemporary popular cultural works.
Nolan’s innovation has a deliberately conservative nature, and this is the root of Hollywood’s vitality-all experiments occur within tradition, requiring a balance between innovation and compliance. "Hollywood storytelling has nurtured a creative revival within flexible and stable limits." (Baudwellian).
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