Christopher Nolan : Filmmaker and Philosopher

Goh, Robbie B. H.

ISBN 10: 1350139971 / ISBN 13: 9781350139978

Published by Bloomsbury Academic, 2021

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 43559265-n

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Christopher Nolan : Filmmaker and Philosopher
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1350139971
• ISBN 13: 9781350139978
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Christopher Nolan is the writer and director of Hollywood blockbusters like The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, and also of arthouse films like Memento and Inception. Underlying his staggering commercial success however, is a darker sensibility that questions the veracity of human knowledge, the allure of appearance over reality and the latent disorder in contemporary society.

This appreciation of the sinister owes a huge debt to philosophy and especially modern thinkers like Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud and Jacques Derrida. Taking a thematic approach to Nolan's oeuvre, Robbie Goh examines how the director's postmodern inclinations manifest themselves in non-linearity, causal agnosticism, the threat of social anarchy and the frequent use of the mise en abyme, while running counter to these are narratives of heroism, moral responsibility and the dignity of human choice. For Goh, Nolan is a 'reluctant postmodernist'. His films reflect the cynicism of the modern world, but with their representation of heroic moral triumphs, they also resist it.

About the Authors

Robbie Goh is Professor of Literature in the department of English Language and Literature at the National University of Singapore, Singapore. His research interests are Diaspora Studies, Indian Anglophone Literature, Christianity in Asia, the Bible and Literature/Popular Culture, Late Nineteenth Century English Literature, and Speculative Fiction.

Costica Bradatan is a Professor of Humanities in the Honors College at Texas Tech University, USA, and an Honorary Research Professor of Philosophy at University of Queensland, Australia. He is the author or editor of several books, and his work has been translated into many languages, including Dutch, German, Italian, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Farsi. Bradatan writes regularly for such publications as the New York Times, Times Literary Supplement, Aeon, Dissent, and The New Statesman, and serves as the Religion/Comparative Studies Editor for the Los Angeles Review of Books.