In light of discussing directors today that started out independently, I figured I would blog about my favorite director. Similarly to how Robert Rodriguez and Kevin Smith got their start, Christopher Nolan first started with a low budget independent film before he became a house hold name. In 1996, Christopher Nolan directed his first feature film by the name of "Following." As with most of Nolan's film, the storyline is non-linear, meaning that the scenes are shown out of chronological order and the viewer is trying to figure out what is going on during the entirety of the film. The story centers around a man, Bill (Jeremy Theobald) who follows people around to learn more about them. He encounters a rather interesting man, Cobb (Alex Haw), and decides to follow him more so than others. After the two finally meet, Cobb reveals to Bill that he is a burglar, and so the storyline progresses and we are now in the world of Christopher Nolan.
Although the film was not released until 1998, Nolan filmed it in 1996 with friends that he had met the at the University College London film society. Nolan made the film on a $6,000 budget, and only shot on Saturday's because all of his actors were working full-time jobs. Because of his tight budget, Nolan was having his actors rehearse for up to six months before shooting, because he could only film about one or two takes. After Nolan got recognition for the film, Zeitgeist purchased the filmed and sent it to a limited release. He made "Following" as a chance to look for investors for his next feature film, "Memento," and Newmarket eventually picked up and financed it.
This film has very independent qualities to it, and the movie is interesting, and keeps very much with the style that Christopher Nolan has become famous for. The film is entirely in black and white, it had a $6,000 budget, the actors were friends of Nolan's, and the runtime of the film is a mere 70 minutes. The great storyline and directing techniques is what pushed this film in to the recognition of others, and is the reason Christopher Nolan could go on to make yet another independent film with "Memento" and eventually go on to revitalize the Batman franchise with "Batman Begins" and the forthcoming sequel "The Dark Knight." Other works of Christopher Nolan include "Insomnia" and "The Prestige."
1 comment:
I am probably the only other person in the class that has actually seen this film. But if any of you like Christopher Nolan or Memento AT ALL, you have to see this. As Gino said, it really plays with narrative structure a lot and deals with a very strange and untrustworthy main character. After watching both Memento and Following, it really is easy to see the more artistic side of Christopher Nolan's expertise. I love his big productions as well, but these two films really have a special Nolan kind of touch on them. The narrative is provocative, the characters are flawed, and the plotline never goes where you expect.
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