Christopher Nolan

<p>Christopher Nolan is the writer and director of Hollywood blockbusters like <i>The Dark Knight</i> and <i>The Dark Knight Rises</i> and also of arthouse films like <i>Memento</i> and <i>Inception</i>. 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. <p/> 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 <i>mise en abyme</i> 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.</p>