The Chris Nolan cult is running wild, writes DONALD CLARKE
LET'S BEGIN by clarifying a few points. I happen to like Christopher Nolan and I enjoy his films. Followingand Mementoare twisty classics, The Dark Knightis a first-class romp, and Inception, though somewhat self-important, is easily the most attractive tentpole release of the current summer. Moreover, having met Mr Nolan on two occasions, I can confirm that he is an extremely agreeable fellow. Got that?
Taunting David Fincher fanatics can be a great deal of fun. Point out that the half-baked musings on emasculation in Fight Clubwould shame a hormone-crazed teenage moron and you can look forward to an invigorating volley of huffs, puffs and gasps. Fans of The Lord of the Ringsand Hunter S Thompson are equally easily riled.
The Sacred Order of Nolanites offers, however, a considerably more fearsome class of fanaticism. Two years ago I raised some questions about a Nolanist campaign to have The Dark Knightinstalled as the top-rated film on the Internet Movie Database. The column triggered an avalanche of e-mails (well, about half a dozen) ranting at me for daring to suggest that this very well-made superhero sequel might not be The Greatest Film Ever Made.
Hoods had been donned, holy robes belted and broadswords sharpened long before Inception opened at the world’s expectant cinemas.
Warner Bros managed to fuel the expectation by screening the film first for (naming no names) those media outlets that would give five stars to Potato on a Stick: The Movie. A week before Inceptionopened, it was scoring a rare 100 per cent at the review aggregation sites, and the ritual chanting was becoming ever more fervent.
This is when it got ugly. Each negative review attracted appalled threads on IMDb and borderline actionable threats on the reviewer's own outlet. David Edelstein of New Yorkmagazine, was branded an "idiot" and a "loser". With the dulling inevitability of death, several morons suggested that anybody who disliked Inception"didn't get it". Much of this emerged before the fans had even seen the film.
The truly nasty stuff – a sort of online witch-burning – came when longtime Nolan sceptic Stephanie Zacharek dared to deliver an unfavourable review for Movieline. The stream of hysterical, poorly spelled gibberish that appeared beneath her notice set new lows: "without seeing this movie yet, i already know there is no way it is a 3/10. this movie will be no doubt at least a 7," BWEB posted. "Its obvious shes just stupid," SAS added.
Why, exactly, does Nolan attract this degree of fanatical, unthinking devotion? Well, the internet remains disproportionately dominated by teenage boys and, in The Dark Knight, Nolan finally achieved that constituency's greatest aspiration: he made the superhero genre respectable. Like David Fincher, he is a grown-up, but not too much of a grown-up.
Oh, and, of course, he’s also a damn fine director. Did you catch that, Nolanists?
