If contemporary cinema could be boiled down to its two most absolutely basic categories, then they would be these: the independent and the mainstream. For the most part, according to conventional wisdom, the films made by or within studios are the populist, ‘dumbed-down’ flicks, while the ‘ideas’ movies; the truly creative, expressive works which are progressive of the art form, can only exist in the independent sphere, and ne’er the twain shall meet. Seemingly anomalous, then, is Christopher Nolan, the British director who first made his mark with mind-twisting independent thrillers before moving on films larger in both scale and ideas. For all the increasing pyrotechnic trickery and stunning stunt-work of his films, Nolan’s movies have also grown more thoughtful, more poetic, and gained much greater depth. Indeed, it seems that Nolan has become that rarest of things: the auteur blockbuster film-maker.

Nolan’s career in film began with his surreal short-films, like Doodlebug, which for the most part are available to view on YouTube. His first feature film, Following, was a self-financed British picture made by Nolan and his cast & crew (largely made up of friends and family) on evenings and weekends. Nolan’s début is intriguing if a bit shabby: it’s easy to see the director’s multi-layered narrative style shining through, but the film is hampered by performances which range from amateurish to downright awkward. If Following was a vessel not quite suited to Nolan’s ambitious style, he found his true outlet – like so many British film-makers before him – only after he moved to Hollywood. The LA-set, sun-drenched noir Memento showcased not just Nolan’s sleek directorial language but also his nuanced, complex storytelling style. With it’s non-linear narrative and themes of the gap between perception and reality (a key idea present in all of Nolan’s work) Memento became almost instantly entered the seminal film canon. It heralded the arrival of a new, unique voice.

After suffering his only real stumble thus far with 2002’s Insomnia (his only film in which he was not involved in the writing process) Nolan entered the world of the big-budget for the first time to make Batman Begins, the first in what would become his Dark Knight Trilogy. With these three films, Nolan transformed a tired comic-book cash-cow into the most vitalised, thoughtful and elegant movie series around. Rather than making fantastical superhero movies, Nolan instead roots each chapter of the trilogy in a different cinematic style: Batman Begins is a stylised thriller, The Dark Knight is a crime drama to rival the best of the genre and The Dark Knight Rises is the true definition of a cinematic epic. The Dark Knight Trilogy will undoubtedly live on as defining works of a cinematic era. Nolan’s true standalone masterpiece, though, must be Inception. His dream-centred magnum opus is a whopping work of stunning complexity, precisely constructed to apparent structural and stylistic perfection. The genius of Inception is the fact that it is so many different films: an introspective character drama; a study of memory, loss and the passing of time; a science-fiction story; a Bond-esque action movie; a heist thriller; a meta-textual commentary on the film-making process itself – all wrapped smoothly and meticulously in Nolan’s elegant, compelling style. If there is an argument to be made for the blockbuster-as-art, Inception should be at the spearhead: a thoughtful, intelligent art-house film wearing the expensive clothes of a masterfully-executed action movie.

There’s no doubt that Nolan is a film-maker who works best on a large canvas, as he has demonstrated. Had he, as was originally planned, made Inception on a much lower budget as his follow-up to Insomnia in the early 2000s, it seems unlikely that the film could have retained the same stylistic impact. Nolan is arguably the closest we have to a modern-day Fritz Lang, David Lean or Stanley Kubrick: directors who made profound and intelligent films on a massive scale, utilising fully everything that the medium can do and exploring new methods to discover what could be achieved. Directors with such a level of combined technical prowess and storytelling grace are a very rare breed: So,  whatever Christopher Nolan does next, it’s worth getting excited about.

Sean Hayes