No matter how many times you watch and rewatch Christopher Nolan’s films, you will find that there’s something that you missed or something more that wasn’t visible at first, which is kind of how the filmmaker’s projects become masterpieces.
But one thing that the audience notices when they watch his films is the fact that throughout his career with so many movies to his name, most of the protagonists in them have a love interest that had passed away in their story.
This has become a running trope in his films over the years, which hasn’t stopped even in his latest films. To shed more light on this matter, the filmmaker revealed that the reason why has dead loved ones in his films is to extrapolate the real-life fears of losing someone dear in real life to make his projects impactful in the eyes of the public.
Christopher Nolan Reveals Why Most Of His Films Follow The Dead Wife Trope
When you look at it from a wider perspective, you may think that filmmaker Christopher Nolan might just be inclined towards making his protagonists suffer through the loss of their love interest in most of his films. But when you look deeply enough, you will realize that it has a more moral and real-life implication in his projects.
In his book Inception: The Shooting Script, the Academy Award-winning director conversed with his brother and screenwriter Jonathan Nolan about this pattern of him killing off fiancées, girlfriends, and wives of the protagonists of his films. Tackling this question, he explained that the death of a loved one is one of the biggest and most primal fears of an individual in real life.
Thus, since his films are a mixture of every genre, including noir elements, the extrapolation of that fear on a global level is what he wants to achieve with his films. Giving an example of Inception, he said:
“I’ve written a few dead wives, that’s true. But you try to put your relatable fears in these things, that’s what film noir is, and I do view Inception as film noir. You take the things that you’re actually worried about in real life, or things that you care about in real life, and extrapolate into a universal…”
Thus, by bringing everyone closer to these instinctual human emotions in his films through the medium of dead loved ones, Nolan managed to make his films something else to experience.
What’s Next For Christopher Nolan?
With his latest masterpiece Oppenheimer taking home seven Academy Awards, including awards for Best Picture and Best Director, Nolan has his sights set on his future projects already.
So far, it’s been rumored that the filmmaker has his sights set on directing a horror film in the future, which has got fans of the genre excited seeing the director’s storytelling prowess.
Along with that, his reputation has him being sought out by many major franchises and studios, most notably, by Eon Productions’ Barbara Broccoli to make a couple of the upcoming films in the iconic 007 franchise. Although that offer seems to be heading nowhere at the moment as Broccoli doesn’t want to hand over Nolan the creative reigns completely.
Inception, streaming on Hulu.
