The Nolan Variations

An in-depth look at, and written in collaboration with, the man considered to be the most profound, and commercially successful director at work today--his work, including his latest blockbuster, the action-thriller/spy-fi Tenet ("Big, brashly beautiful, grandiosely enjoyable"--Variety); his influences, his vision, his enigmatic childhood past, and much more. With Nolan's never-before-seen photographs, storyboards, and scene sketches.

"The Nolan Variations is that rare thing, a superb book about a living filmmaker. Erudite, complex, labyrinthine and mind-expanding--it's as close as you're ever going to get to the Escher drawing that is Christopher Nolan's remarkable brain."--Sam Mendes

"Fabulous: intelligent, illuminating, rigorous, and highly readable. The very model of what a filmmaking study should be. Essential reading for anyone who cares about Nolan or about film for that matter."--Neal Gabler, author of An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood and Walt Disney, The Biography

A rare, intimate portrait of Christopher Nolan with the full cooperation of Nolan himself who opened up more fully than ever before in his talks with Tom Shone. In chapters structured by themes and motifs ("Time"; "Chaos"), Shone writes of Nolan's thoughts on movies, on plots; on time, identity, perception, chaos, daydreams.

Here is Nolan on the evolution of his pictures, and the writers, artists, directors, and thinkers who have inspired and informed his films.

To write the book, Tom Shone, who has known Nolan for more than two decades and who spent months with the director, was given unprecedented access to Nolan's notes, scripts, storyboards, and artwork.

In this riveting portrait of an artist, Shone deftly navigates Nolan's themes, influences, and working methods (both in writing and directing). Here is his trans-Atlantic childhood ("It makes you feel very differently about the concept of 'home'") . . . how he dreamed up the plot of Inception lying awake one night in his dorm ("I prized the imaginative space of listening to music in the dark, thinking about things, imagining things, films, stories") . . . his color-blindness and its effect on Memento ("People are fascinated by other people's perception of the world and the way in which it differs") . . . his obsession with puzzles and optical illusions . . . and much, much more.