I’d Really Like to See…Christopher Nolan Direct a Western

This originally appeared as part of Zoom In Online's weekly "I'd Really Like to See..." blog series on January 29, 2009... so don't expect this to mention Inception.

In his relatively short film career, Christopher Nolan has proven that he’s among the best filmmakers working today. He slowly gained notoriety for completely changing the way we look at film structure and the reliable narrator with Memento and in less than a decade of work he's helmed one of the biggest motion pictures of all time. While Nolan’s films typically share some similarities tonally and thematically, he’s proven he's admirably adept at directing a wide range of genres, from intimate thrillers such as Memento to big budget summer spectacles such as The Dark Knight. Taking into consideration his versatility and the characteristics seen in Nolan’s films, I’d like to see one of my favorite filmmakers diversify a bit further and take on one of my favorite, mostly forgotten genres: the Western.


The first thing that pops into peoples’ minds about westerns is shootouts in front of the saloon between good guys and bad guys. The action-packed good guys and bad guys elements are obviously rather standard in Nolan’s Batman films. Of course, seemingly simple shoot ‘em ups often bring deeper themes into play, like the kind that question man’s morality and that turn these blacks and whites into shades of gray (3:10 to Yuma or The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). These themes are most obviously resonant in The Dark Knight, which brings into question the ethics of vigilantism and the effects of its escalation that ripple throughout a community.

Most people don’t seem to realize that not all westerns are about the gun slinging, as the gunfights are often just the fruition of gradually evolving characters whose tensions rise to a boiling point. A recent example of this is in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford where a quiet competition between two men boils up until it reaches an astonishing conclusion. Well, I guess the conclusion isn’t that astonishing seeing as the title gives away the ending, but in the case of a similar Nolan film, The Prestige, I couldn’t believe when the endgame was spelled out by the film’s end.

And if Nolan did decide to direct a western, it wouldn’t necessarily be bound to the standard setting of the 1800’s. Contemporary westerns seem to be as frequent as period westerns, which admittedly, is still not that often. In my last entry I spoke a bit about some of the parallels between The Dark Knight and neo-western No Country For Old Men, but the earlier Coen neo-western Blood Simple parallels the noir sensibilities of Nolan’s earlier efforts, Following and Memento.

Whatever Nolan may choose to do between Bat-films, Western or other, he’s likely to think outside the box in whichever realm he’s in. Imagine the possibilities if he gave the same shot in the arm to the western that he did to comic book films and neo-noir.