Countdown to Inception, Part I: Following
By Andrew on July 9th, 2010
Note: Having only see Memento, Batman Begins, and The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan isn’t exactly a filmmaker with whom I’m terribly familiar. So I thought that it would be an interesting exercise to go back and watch all of the films he directed as part of my preparation for Inception, a movie which, if the pre-release reviews are worth anything, will be the best thing in the history of ever. Hence “Countdown to Inception.”
The idea is not to examine each movie fully, but rather to write brief reviews that capture the essence of the film, if you will. I’m trying not to spend too much time on these or go over 500 words. Let’s call it a creative exercise. Each day will be a new capsule, starting with Following and working through Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and Inception (provided I can be arsed to drag myself to the theatre).
Following
For a person afflicted by social and behaviour anxiety, Following doesn’t really need to work all that hard at being an unnerving psychological thriller. The opening shots of a scruffy man tracing individual people through crowds and observing them at a distance as he calmly narrates his aims and intentions in a nondescript room to a nondescript person sufficiently initiate the thick mood of dread that the film maintains effortlessly for a taught, albeit short, 70 minutes. And, being shot in neo-noir black and white, there’s no telling where this story could go. Is the scruffy man some sort of maverick detective, as both you and one of the principle characters might reasonably assume?
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As it turns out, there’s nothing particularly interesting or noteworthy about the scruffy man. He is a starving writer who follows people for character inspiration. When he gets too close to one of his muses, a slick and wily burglar by the name of “Cobb”, he is drawn into the London underworld of robbery, blackmail, and murder. An underworld with a seemingly helpless blonde woman being exploited by a nightclub-owning gangster, whom he tries to free.
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“Drift across a crowd of people, and then slowly stop and fix on one person, and all of a sudden that person isn’t a part of the crowd anymore. They become an individual. Just like that. It became irresistible”
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Filmed on a pittance in the mid to late 90s, Following was released in 1998 where it enjoyed acclaim and circulation at various festivals in the U.S and U.K. Christopher Nolan wrote, edited, and directed the film on weekends with friends from University College in London, as is well evident if not by the cost effective black and white then by the caliber of the talent involved. While there’s a certain eloquence in both Cobb’s and the blonde woman’s dialogue and delivery, the scruffy protagonist rather appropriately shuffles and mumbles through his scenes. From a technical perspective, the cameras generally appear to be handheld even in largely static shots, as can be told from the slight yet seldom obtrusive shakiness. The sound design is rather sparse except for ambient noise, vacant piano, and the occasional tense, thin music looping. And during the brief scrap that heralds the climax, there’s no appreciable post production work to make it even a hint more visceral.
Where Following succeeds the most is in the disjointed arrangement of sequences that allow viewers to be aware of only as much as the protagonist knows. It’s a bit jarring to jump between events out of chronological order, which is clearly noticeable through the appearance of scruffy man before and after he cleans himself up. However this is almost certainly the desired effect as the script reveals that the dramatic change in the protagonist’s looks is intrinsically central to the logic of the film.
It’s equal parts inspired scripting and sequential disorientation that enable Following to be effective. The opening burns slowly as all the pieces are lined up, mostly relying on the delicate silence of frequent furtive escapades to amplify the mood. However as the pieces fall into place in the second half, the time melts away as the audience experiences and reacts to the onscreen events in precise tandem with the central character. Following is clever and economic filmmaking at its best, and wheen seen as Nolan’s first feature length endeavour, it’s not at all difficult to understand the promise we see in him.
Cool idea. Those are the only Nolan movies I’ve seen too, other than the Prestige, but to date I’ve never met one I didn’t like.
Isn’t it ironic? We ignore who adores us, adore who ignores us, love the ones that hurt us, and hurt the ones that love us.
Saw it last night, thought it was very good, very well done. Marion Cotillard is stunningly fantastic, and the rest of the cast is pretty good too. The only thing I’d say is that everyone is very intense and serious, perhaps too much so at times. I mean, even if you’re doing King Lear, you have to find the levity. Damn good film, I’ll probably see it again. It’s nice to have a film that’s intelligently fun after everything else this summer.