(projector whirring)
- [Announcer] Today's episode
of The Director Series
is brought to you by Tailor Sound.
(intense dramatic music)
- [Narrator] With his pair of
breakout independent features,
Director Christopher Nolan
had forcefully created
an entry point for
himself into the realm of
professional, mainstream film making.
The success of 2000's
Memento, in particular
garnered a significant amount of attention
from Hollywood establishment luminaries
and maverick auteurs alike.
He had asserted himself as a
fresh, new voice on the scene
with a potential for
mass commercial appeal
just waiting to be tapped.
It was only a short few years prior
that Nolan had been unable
to get the attention
of independent film grant juries, and now,
he had the major film studios
knocking down his door.
Of these, Warner Brothers
would ultimately be the ones
to bring him into their fold,
beginning what would eventually become
the kind of exclusive
symbiotic relationship
between director and
studio, previously reserved
for the likes of Clint
Eastwood or Stanley Kubrick.
The short-lived period of
Nolan's earlier studio efforts
began innocently enough with
him waltzing onto the lot
as a young Turk with a lot to prove,
but it would culminate with him being
entrusted with Warner
Brothers' crown jewel,
and in the process,
fundamentally realigning
the course of mainstream
American cinema itself.
As previously mentioned,
Memento caught the eye
of many established Hollywood players,
most notably, actor/director
George Clooney
and Indie iconoclast Steven Soderbergh.
Their frequent collaborations together,
especially as producers,
cultivated a shared taste in talent,
and they both saw in Nolan,
the perfect candidate to helm a project
they had in development
over at Alcon Entertainment,
a remake of a Norwegian film
from 1997 named Insomnia,
about a detective
investigating a grisly murder
in an isolated town located so far north
that the sun doesn't set
for months at a time.
Alcon's development deal
with Warner Brothers
effectively meant that
Insomnia would become
Nolan's first studio film,
a testing ground to see if he really had
what it took to play in the big leagues.
As such, he would have
to make a few concessions
on the production methods
he was predisposed to,
namely, working from a
script that was not his own.
While he would ultimately perform
his own pass on credited screenwriter
Hillary Seitz's draft
just prior to shooting,
Insomnia was more or less a work for hire.
Nevertheless, Nolan finds plenty of
artistic common ground with Seitz's prose,
enough that his first big budget
effort would feel at peace
with the puzzlesque
nature of his earlier work
and empower him to deliver a
uniquely captivating thriller
on par with its Swedish counterpart.
- Killing that girl made your
feel special, but you're not.
You're the same distorted, pathetic freak
I've been dealing with for 30 years.
You know how many of you I
caught with your pants down?
- I never touched her like that.
- You wanted to.
Now you wish you had.
- [Narrator] The wet, evergreen mountains
of British Columbia stand in for
the majestic landscape of Alaska,
where a pair of LAPD detectives have been
sent into the small town of Nightmute
to investigate the murder
of a young, local girl.
Nolan's successful
collaboration with the likes of
Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss,
and Joe Pantoliano in
Memento, begets here a cast
with a higher industry profile
and a sterling pedigree.
Indeed, Insomnia begins Nolan's
enviable habit of attracting
award-winning talent,
boasting no less than three
Oscar winners among its ensemble.
- I told you, the body gave us nothing.
- Oh, she gave us plenty.
All this trouble, all this care, why?
- He knew her.
- He knows we can connect him to her.
- This isn't some random psycho?
Crime of passion?
- I don't know, maybe.
But whatever happened, his
reaction to it wasn't passion.
He didn't panic, didn't chop her up,
or burn her beyond recognition.
He just thought about what
we would be looking for.
- [Narrator] Al Pacino headlines the film
as Detective Will Dormer, a
driven yet compromised cop
besieged by an Internal Affairs
investigation back home.
- You think Warfield gives a flying fuck
about you shaking down a
couple of drug dealers?
You think that's gonna
get him his headlines?
He needs the big fish.
He's putting the squeeze
on you to get to me.
It's very simple, Hap.
- But you're clean, Will.
- I'm a good cop, yeah, but
there's always something
that they can use, you know,
to get at your credibility.
You know that.
- [Narrator] Pacino plays
the part like a subdued,
run-ragged version of his character
from Michael Mann's Heat,
an aspect that, no doubt,
wasn't lost on Nolan,
being a self-styled disciple of Mann's.
A big city cop in a small frontier town,
Dormer is figuratively and
literally adrift in a mental fog,
isolated from any semblance
of a familiar surrounding
and lost in a perpetual
state of exhaustion,
thanks to a winter sun that never sets
and refuses to let him sleep.
To further complicate matters,
his inability to think coherently
leads to the tragic, accidental
killing of his own partner
during a raid on the
suspected killer's hideout.
The local Nightmute police investigate
the circumstances of the accident,
led by the doggedly determined
and fiercely insightful Ellie Burr.
- So I'm gonna just take you
guys over to the lodge and--
- No, just take us to the station.
- Right, we need to get started.
Most homicides are solved by work
done in the first 72 hours.
- No, it's 48 hours.
We're a day behind.
But who's counting?
- [Narrator] Hillary
Swank imbues the character
with a palpable sense of
independence, cultivated by a life
lived on the outermost
boundaries of civilization.
Meanwhile, Dormer pursues his suspect,
a local crime novelist named Walter Finch.
- I knew that everyone would
think that I meant to do it,
if I cleaned the body up,
removed all trace of
evidence connected to me.
- Except for your fucking novel.
- Under pressure, you don't always see
the wood for the trees.
You, for one, should have
figured that one out by now.
- [Narrator] Played to chilling effect
by the late Robin Williams in
one of his rare serious turns,
Finch uses his occupational insights
into the law enforcement
profession to become
a formidable and unpredictable adversary.
- You never look in the eyes of a killer.
Killing changes you, you know that.
It's not guilt.
I never meant to do it.
It's like awareness.
Life is so important.
How could it be so fucking fragile?
- [Narrator] He's a killer,
yes, but he's not barbaric.
Williams projects the same warm
sense of paternal authority
he had in Gus Van Sant's
Good Will Hunting,
albeit turned on its ear
to emphasize its innately
creepy undertones.
Finch differs from other
murder thriller heavies
in that his guilt is never in question.
He admits his deed to Dormer
openly and without shame,
as if it were the most
natural thing in the world.
Williams' performance is
the standout of the film,
and in light of his recent passing,
stands as a somber reminder of
the great talent we lost far too soon.
Insomnia is arguably Nolan's
most overlooked major work,
but the impeccable quality of its craft
lets it stand toe-to-toe
with his best efforts.
It certainly helps that the lush,
pristine Alaskan wilderness provides
a stunning and majestic backdrop
entirely unique to the larger
canon of crime thrillers.
The production values
afforded by studio backing
amplifies the scope of
Nolan's stylistic choices,
which began to coagulate here
into an identifiable aesthetic.
He brings back Memento
cinematographer Wally Pfister
in the second of what would be
many more subsequent collaborations,
filling the 2.35:1 35
millimeter film frame
with sweeping panoramas
and earthy texture.
Working in conjunction with
production designer Nathan
Crowley, who would also become
a key collaborator in Nolan's filmography,
Nolan cultivates a distinct color palette
comprised of stark whites,
blacks, and earth tones
with the surrounding
evergreens in particular
evoking that iconic blue-green
color characteristic
of the lush Pacific Northwest.
Warm colors are typically avoided,
concentrated mostly within
the interior hotel sequences
to convey a cozy, hearth-like atmosphere.
The overall effect is
one of majestic beauty
pervaded by gloom and unease,
especially so when a
heavy fog envelopes Dormer
during the pivotal raid sequence.
Nolan's camera work here
is much more ambitious,
perhaps even a little incongruous,
considering the staggering
sense of scope he imposes
on what's otherwise a
relatively grounded story.
His films frequently employ lofty aerials,
and Insomnia marks the point at which
Nolan's camera finally takes flight,
soaring through the dramatic vistas
via a combination of
helicopter mounts and cranes.
On the ground, Nolan alternates between
handheld camera work and
classical dolly moves,
making full use of his new
toys to convey an epic scope
as well as the unique cultural
character of his setting.
Editor Dody Dorn and composer David Julyan
round out Nolan's returning collaborators.
With Dorn's Expressionistic approach
reprising Memento's
quick cutting technique
as a means to jar the
protagonist's thoughts
with the flashes of violence.
While Julyan's last
collaboration with Nolan
moves away from the electronic
nature of their earlier work
to embrace a big-budget orchestral sound
reminiscent of a brooding Hitchcock film.
(tense orchestral music)
Insomnia may not have initially
sprung from Nolan's mind,
but his artistic character permeates
every aspect of the film.
As previously noted, Michael
Mann is a key influence
on Nolan's aesthetic,
and Insomnia allows
the burgeoning director
to play in his idol's wheelhouse.
- The second you're about
to dismiss something,
think about it.
Look at it again.
- [Narrator] Aside from the
shared casting of Pacino
in a similar character
archetype used by Mann,
Nolan also invokes his
spirit in the detail
and tactical accuracy imposed on
even the most minute
aspects of police work.
For all his virtues as a man of justice,
Dormer is also profoundly corrupt.
He plants evidence to justify
his own version of events
and even goes so far
as to cover up his role
in the accidental killing of his partner.
- This kind of thing, I don't know,
maybe we do this by the numbers.
- Come on.
- Hey, I.A.'s gonna be on my ass.
I know I don't want this
turning up in some courtroom
six months from now and
my rep's in the shitter,
and they're pulling apart all my cases.
- Come on, Will, that's bullshit.
- Fuck you care?
- [Narrator] Nolan's interest
lies in Dormer's struggle
to achieve his objectives
without sabotaging himself,
continuing the tradition he established
in both Following and Memento,
where the fundamentally comprised
nature of his protagonists
allows him to better access
the psychological
underpinnings of their actions.
- A good cop can't sleep because
a piece of the puzzle's missing,
and a bad cop can't sleep
because his conscience won't let him.
You said that once.
- I did?
- [Narrator] The twisting
nature of Insomnia's plot
also evokes the revelatory,
puzzle-like character
of Nolan's storytelling,
which allows him to turn time itself
into a compelling narrative
and structural device,
perhaps rightfully so
for his first mainstream Hollywood film.
Insomnia is the first of Nolan's features
to unspool in linear chronological order.
Nevertheless, time still plays
an important factor in the drama.
By setting the story in a place
where the sun doesn't
set for months at a time,
the circadian day-to-night
rhythm is utterly disrupted.
In other words, Dormer
is literally removed
from the dimension of time itself.
This wreaks havoc on his
ability to function, which,
in a profession that's
entirely dependent on
clear-eyed critical thinking
and razor-sharp reflexes,
becomes a formidable
antagonist in and of itself.
Just like he did for
the home video releases
of Following and Memento,
Nolan would also assemble
an alternate, apocryphal cut of Insomnia,
rearranging his scenes in
the order that they were shot
and overlaying his commentary.
- [Nolan] We built that cabin.
We used a crane with a gyroscopic head
to follow the feet over
the rocks, and so forth.
It was an enormous logistical feat
that came off really,
really very smoothly.
- [Narrator] Unlike those
prior alternate cuts, however,
the narrative and logical
cohesion of the story
completely falls apart
in this particular version of Insomnia.
Thankfully, clarity isn't
Nolan's purpose here.
Rather, this version
marries its disjointed order
with his astute commentary to provide
a unique glimpse into
the day-by-day challenges
of mounting his first big studio effort.
The commentary also
yields intriguing insights
into his personal growth as a filmmaker.
If his increasing directorial confidence
wasn't palpable enough in the film itself,
he reveals that during
the shoot he didn't use
crucial preparation
tools like story boards,
shot lists, or video monitors.
Instead, he let the choices of his actors
organically block the scene for him,
which he'd then think up
coverage for on the fly
while he stood by the camera
and watched the performances
directly instead of from behind a screen.
Indeed, these techniques require
an astonishingly high degree
of confidence to embrace
and aren't typical of a director
on only his third feature.
But yet, there he was, pulling
it off quite effortlessly.
That gamble of confidence
paid off when Insomnia debuted
in May of 2002 to critical
and financial success,
as one of those rarest of
remakes that manages to match,
if not transcend, its original material.
Roger Ebert perhaps summed
up the sentiment best
in his review, hailing
it not as a pale retread,
but a re-examination of the material,
like a new production of a good play.
Insomnia may have been easily and
overwhelmingly eclipsed by
anything Nolan's made since,
but it's nonetheless, a
strong and notable addition
to his canon, and an important one, too,
as it would serve as an audition
for his next high-profile film,
setting the stage for
the crowning achievement
of his career thus far.
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