re: Christopher Nolan: The Cycle of Success, Appeal and Backlash

Well, there will always be backlash. Some people just like being out of step with the critical consensus. Or, if you only sort of like a guy, but constantly hear how great he is, it tends to harden your position against his work (which is similar to how I feel about PT Anderson – I don’t HATE his movies, well except Magnolia, I just don’t think they are all that great, and by arguing against his genius, I come off as more PTA as I probably really am in real life).

I will say it’s “safe” to praise Nolan, but I do vehemently disagree that people on this board praise anything Nolan does just because he did it. This board, as a rule, has shown a pretty good ability to rip on anyone for anything. We don’t give free passes. Except to Kurosawa. You say something bad about him, Freaux will hunt you down and gut you like a fish.

I just think it’s a natural reaction to being told how great a guy is over and over. I happen to agree that Nolan is brilliant and I voted Memento #1, but I can see how someone could just resent his critical AND commercial success. That’s a tough trick to pull.

And I absolutely agree that Nolan films can be somewhat cold. He’s comparable to Hitchcock in that regard. He is not an “actor’s director”, which is ironic, given that he coaxed such a performance from Heath Ledger.

Oh, and completely unrelated – I think it’s funny that the backlash against Metallica really picked up steam with St. Anger, which is an album that sounds closer to Kill Em All than anything they have ever done. Of course their recent stuff isn’t as good, they are no longer 25. Rock n roll, particularly punk and heavy metal, is a young man’s medium. I think their late period stuff is good if graded on the Rolling Stones curve.