Description

Book Synopsis
With close readings of Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and Inception, this theoretically sophisticated study explores how Christopher Nolan has developed a politically engaged filmmaking that makes explicit use of cinema’s tendency toward the lie.

Trade Review
"Unassumingly brilliant and surgically incisive..." Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society

Table of Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: The Ethics of the Lie
  • Chapter 1. The Snare of Truth: Following and the Perfect Patsy
  • Chapter 2. Memento and the Desire Not to Know
  • Chapter 3. The Dirty Cop: Insomnia and the Art of Detection
  • Chapter 4. The Banal Superhero: The Politicized Realism of Batman Begins
  • Chapter 5. The Violence of Creation in The Prestige
  • Chapter 6. The Hero’s Form of Appearance: The Necessary Darkness of The Dark Knight
  • Chapter 7. A Plea for the Abandonment of Reality in Inception
  • Conclusion: Lying without Consequence
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

The Fictional Christopher Nolan

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    RRP £19.99 – you save £2.00 (10%)

    Order before 4pm today for delivery by Mon 22 Jun 2026.

    A Paperback / softback by Todd McGowan


      View other formats and editions of The Fictional Christopher Nolan by Todd McGowan

      Publisher: University of Texas Press
      Publication Date: 01/09/2012
      ISBN13: 9780292756786, 978-0292756786
      ISBN10: 029275678X
      Also in:
      Film history, theory or criticism

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      With close readings of Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and Inception, this theoretically sophisticated study explores how Christopher Nolan has developed a politically engaged filmmaking that makes explicit use of cinema’s tendency toward the lie.

      Trade Review
      "Unassumingly brilliant and surgically incisive..." Psychoanalysis, Culture, and Society

      Table of Contents
      • Acknowledgments
      • Introduction: The Ethics of the Lie
      • Chapter 1. The Snare of Truth: Following and the Perfect Patsy
      • Chapter 2. Memento and the Desire Not to Know
      • Chapter 3. The Dirty Cop: Insomnia and the Art of Detection
      • Chapter 4. The Banal Superhero: The Politicized Realism of Batman Begins
      • Chapter 5. The Violence of Creation in The Prestige
      • Chapter 6. The Hero’s Form of Appearance: The Necessary Darkness of The Dark Knight
      • Chapter 7. A Plea for the Abandonment of Reality in Inception
      • Conclusion: Lying without Consequence
      • Notes
      • Bibliography
      • Index

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