All 4 Short Films By Christopher Nolan Explained

Christopher Nolan has become one of the biggest names in cinema in recent years thanks to his thought-provoking films, and his directing style dates back to his short films. Nolan’s career has been marked by blockbusters that combine complexity with mainstream appeal, often exploring similar themes. Memory, Beginningand Dunkirk They all explore themes of time, memory and identity, wrapped in a complicated narrative structure.

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However, this interest in non-linear stories about complex themes can be seen in Christopher Nolan’s early works: Tarantella, Theft, scribbleand Dock – the four lesser-known short films that the famous director produced between 1989 and 2015. Ranging between 3 and 8 minutes, each short marks the next step in the director’s early career as Nolan investigated the art of storytelling. It’s clear that these short films obviously inspired other Christopher Nolan films, due to their similarities, and it’s fascinating to see how Nolan has evolved since then.

4 Tarantella (1989)

Duration: 4 minutes

Christopher Nolan in Tarantella

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Tarantella It only aired once in episode 1313 of Image uniona television series that showed independent films, on September 12, 1990. The short film follows a man (Christopher Nolan’s brother, Jonathan Nolan) who experiences nightmares about spiders and strange visitations from a young Christopher Nolan. Fans of the director have been trying to unearth this lost footage for years, due to its prevalence as Christopher Nolan’s first film, but efforts to recover the footage have been thwarted due to copyright issues.

While the majority of
Tarantella
It is made up of establishing shots and the story is somewhat vague, it shows the creative talent of Christopher Nolan.

While the majority of Tarantella It is made up of establishing shots and the story is somewhat vague, it shows the creative talent of Christopher Nolan. It focuses on camera angles and the use of sound, and Tarantella explores themes that Nolan will use in later works, such as the strange unconsciousness of what is a dream and what is reality, as well as the theme of identity. Surprisingly, Christopher Nolan plays a villain-like character in the short film, showing his first and only role as a lead actor in his own film.

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3 Theft (1996)

Duration: 8 minutes

Poster Theft 1996 - Christopher Nolan

Theft was Christopher Nolan’s second short film and was screened at the Cambridge Film Festival in 1996. However, the film has not been released beyond that, so not much is known about Theft. According to several interviews with those involved, the plot centers on a landlord during an apartment robbery, featuring a scene in which Jeremy Theobald (Nolan’s college friend) argues with a character about a woman, when “A third man runs out of the closet.Theft the premise is like Followingand in a 2014 Vice interview, Nolan talked about how Theft helped him prepare for the feature film:

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Most of the information about Theft comes from a second-hand source, Jeremy Theobald, in Darren Mooney’s “Christopher Nolan: A Critical Study of the Films.” According to Theobald, the script was clever and had a great plot twist from Christopher Nolan’s film, which was something that attracted him to the project. However, Nolan fans won’t be able to see Theftdespite those involved in the production confirming the existence of copies, because Nolan still firmly holds the rights and has decided not to release it for unknown reasons.

2 Doodlebug (1997)

Duration: 3 minutes

Doodlebug short film by Christopher Nolan

scribble is a psychological thriller that Christopher Nolan wrote and directed in 1997, following the story of a man who anxiously tries to kill a bug in his apartment. The short film was shot on 16mm black and white film on a shoestring budget over the course of a weekend and was three minutes long. scribble was distributed by Alliance Atlantis, for which it received generally positive reviews.

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movies-told-in-reverse-order-like-a-memory-before 4 Related Movies That Told Their Stories In Reverse Order Before Christopher Nolan’s Memento

Memento turned its ending into its beginning, shocking the public. But Christopher Nolan’s thriller was not the first to tell its story backwards.

While not exactly the most notable film of all time, scribble hints at Christopher Nolan’s messy future stories, while the ending recontextualizes the film. After fighting an insect-like creature, the main character eventually crushes it under his shoe, but the twist comes at the end when he finds himself crushed under the shoe of a larger version of himself. Nolan’s identity test in scribble through the use of black and white film shows a distinctive style of Nolan, offering an interesting insight into the process of creating his future success.

1 dock (2015)

Duration: 8 minutes

Christopher Nolan in the documentary Quay 2015
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Dock is Christopher Nolan’s most recent short film, and was surprisingly released after his rise to fame, unlike previous short films, which were the result of his time as a university student. However, Dock It differs from Nolan’s previous work in that it is a short documentary, as opposed to a piece of fiction. The documentary shows the works of animators Stephen and Timothy Quay (the Quay brothers), whom Nolan has admired since the early 1990s.

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what he did Dock What’s special for Nolan is that it came completely out of nowhere, as the director had never made a short documentary before. Despite Nolan’s inexperience in the format, Dock It offered a unique, well-shot look at the lives of two underrated animators, and acted as a tribute to Christopher Nolan as he cited them as an inspiration to him. The short received critical acclaim and Nolan’s name helped boost the Quay brothers’ work. In addition to the short film, Christopher Nolan also showed the restored 35mm prints of in absence, the comband crocodile street.

Christopher Nolan headshot Christopher Nolan Date of birth July 30, 1970 Place of birth Westminster, London, England, United Kingdom