when your protagonist has no name

#christophernolan
Tenet, Inception, Interstellar... Christopher Nolan movies are famously hard to understand. In part, this is because Nolan's use of sound mixing and sound design makes his dialogue hard to hear. In part it's because his plots are complex hard to follow. But ultimately Nolan is hard to understand and to connect with because of how much he relies on the relationship between these two elements.

In this video, we'll examine a few Christopher Nolan movies, Tenet in particular, to see why Nolan movies are hard to understand and connect with, and what can be done to resolve the problem.

For more video essays and filmmaking stories, check out the channel!

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Edited by Danny Boyd
Written by Danny Boyd & Simon Luedtke

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Music used:

[CinemaStix]

Favorite Christopher Nolan movie? Or one you’d like to see covered on here in the future?

[itszaque]

Ironically the scene where the protagonist stats “I’m the protagonist” has felt profoundly emotional to me upon repeated viewings. It feels very noble and shows his dedication to the bizarre job of saving the world he was recruited into.

[danjeyowtub]

Something I'm surprised you didn't mention is Dunkirk, because I think it also experiments with nameless protagonists who don't have prior introduction, and as you pointed out in the Nolan interview, we are forced to jump straight in and witness their story

[EricTheRea]

Nolan has indicated in interviews that watching it more than once is a big part of the point. He has always admired films that hold up to, or even benefit from, multiple viewings, and is self-consciously trying to create films like that. He just tried a little too hard this time.

[barcodebear]

I just noticed --- It's crazy that in a way, this movie makes use of not having a character backstory by making the MOVIE the actual backstory, which you now use to inform yourself on and connect yourself to the protagonist when rewatching.

[samuelzins]

I actually liked that he didn't have a name because I think a spy movie works better when the protagonist isn't known by the whole enemy country (thanks bond)

[rottensquid]

I watched this film a second time as soon as the credits rolled. It immediately felt obvious that it was a second-viewing kind of film, as everything fell into place. The Protagonist's actual character and motivation, and even story-arc, is subtle, but it's clear if you factor in a key character everyone seems to dismiss: Kat.

The Protagonist starts the movie off as a classic James Bond-style protagonist, whose only goal is to get the job done. He even has a Bond-like performative flirtation with Kat to deliberately provoke the Sator, the Antagonist. But something happens shortly after that when, like Bond, his cavalier actions put Kat in immediate, mortal peril. And unlike a James Bond movie, she confronts him about it, throwing all his delusions of heroism in his face. That sparks the story's central twist, and the key to its philosophy. The protagonist who's so busy trying to win that he disregards the lives of the people around them, or even actively puts them in danger, is no hero at all. From that point on, the Protagonist is confronted with this truth again and again, until he shifts his priority to protecting Kat. Her life becomes his top priority, not for reasons of logic, but for reasons of honor and decency, because after all, he's the one who keeps putting her in danger.

And it turns out that Kat becomes the key to saving the world. Hers is the hand that kills Sator, as she's the one with a personal stake. Not in the world, but her son, and his future. For her, the personal and the global are the same thing.

So the Protagonist shifts from simply a guy doing a job to someone with personal stakes through simple dint of developing empathy for another person, something he didn't have at the beginning. Not a flirtation or a romance. Not because he wanted a future with her, but simply because he needed a future worth protecting, and he personally didn't have one. In the final debate between Sator and the Protagonist, Sator reveals his inability to comprehend existence outside his personal experience, so he sees no reason existence should continue without him. The Protagonist's reluctant acknowledgement that Kat's life matters more than doing his job is the thing that gives his job purpose in the first place. Without that acknowledgement, the world he's trying to save is only a theoretical world. Empathy for Kat is what gives him the faith that Sator lacks.

Just as Interstellar builds a world of cold, heartless science, and then positions love at the central, unknowable force that binds it together, Tenet positions empathy as the redemption of a clockwork world where everyone is at the mercy of predestination. Caring for others is the only thing that gives existence meaning.

[HenHenProgrammerTheOneAndOnly]

I watched Tenet with subtitles, I still didn't know what they were talking about.

[lelonmusk]

I liked tenet. Watching it the first time I didn't really know what I just saw and couldn't quite make sense of everything. I didn't feel things I expected to feel. But I know that Nolan can write very emotionally compelling stories. And that alongside the fact that the protagonist had no name and there he himself was being guided through the film made me think that this is exactly what Nolan was aiming for. Tenet is not like a story. It's more like a puzzle. A game which rules you have to figure out in order to enjoy the whole picture in its beautiful complexity. And watching it a second time under this premise was genuinely one of the most fun experiences I ever had while watching a film. I think it's amazing.

[brookegarbarini]

I think strangely a great film to contrast with Tenet is The Martian. Both films feature a protagonist who is mostly defined by his job, isn’t given lots of backstory, and spends a lot of the action working alone. But The Martian does really well in giving the audience reasons to care about and root for the protagonist, while Tenet doesn’t really give the Protagonist many opportunities to connect with the audience. It’s fine that he doesn’t have an extensive backstory, but I wish the film allowed him to show more emotion and spent more time building the relationships between him and the other characters.

[CoilFYZX]

The thing that I love about Nolan, is that he seemingly does his best to totally disregard the QC checklist of a movie. Personally, personally I loved the artistry of the movie. I wish I could go in depth without sounding like I'm whining on his behalf but here we go.

I asked myself the questions 1. Does Christopher Nolan know how to ensure that vocals and language are clear in a film? Yes, he's done it before, it's a hallmark of his work.

2. Does he know how to develop characters such that the audience knows and relates to the protagonist? Adding; such that we also can predict to varying degrees plot reveals? Yes he can, he's done it countless times.

3. Does he know how to prepare the minds of the audience for the plot that is to come? Yes....must I repeat?

So if an accomplished Director "drops the ball" in any many of these areas, do we call it a bad film, overly clever...or do we not assume intention perhaps?

I'll agree Nolan's films aren't for everyone and some people will hate it, they are allowed to. Personally I see his supposed disregard for fundamentals as a fresh approach to story telling. I can always expect a niche experience. All the "flaws" of this movie felt very premeditated. I mean this was a movie of two melding time runs. So of course he experimented the HELL out of the pacing, how much we knew and when we knew it. Nolan's movie accomplishes one thing every time, they let you FEEL what it must be like to be in the film. Not knowing and understanding is kinda the point of the film, right? When we finally get told the effect that making that directional switch has, we understand that vision hearing and understanding are blurred. So when WE can't get the details at times doesn't that make you feel like you also made that switch? Should we be surprised that he attempted to give us that experience? In fact weren't we all watching this in reverse? The fact that it all made perfect sense gradually as the movie went on whilst "missing" dialogue is proof in my book of his intentions! Controlling the experience like Nolan does is something I'm not sure we're all ready for.

Boiled down therefore, what Christopher Nolan did was read us two bed time stories simultaneously, one in reverse word after word...That is artistry in my books. Writing and Directorial prowess. Captivating! It felt wholly original. Mind you, he is a psychopath for even attempting this, but I love it. More please.

[rsolsjo]

It feels like Nolan has been experimenting with how far he can take the anonymity of his characters. In Dunkirk it made sense, it's a war and you're seeing it through the eyes of soldiers: the whole point is they don't need a Hollywood sob story to be in a terrifying situation, they were just random kids thrown into the fray. With Tenet though you're asking a lot by severing the emotional connection to the main character altogether. The film is so well made that it still works and works well, but even The Man With No Name feels emotionally motivated: we realize not just that he's skillful and intelligent, but that he's capable of both great violence and great humor. You don't want to be on the wrong side of him. He also has a far more clear throughline where we always emotionally understand his goals. Maybe the critique he got for tackling love and familial concepts in Interstellar made him go "alright, you want analytical and cold? I'll show it to you" or something, but it's the one aspect of Tenet that makes it lesser than Inception or Interstellar, we have a ton of spectacle but no real reason to be emotionally invested in it at all. Felt largely the same about Dune - amazing visual spectacle throughout, a really commendable film, but do you ever care about Paul Atreides as a human being? I didn't, at least not much.

[codex]

Simply put, tenet is purposely obtuse so as to to encourage you to watch it again to find it’s deeper details. Yet to be actually intrigued by a film enough to watch it again, the basic plot and themes need to be clear on first viewing, otherwise it just feels unnecessarily confusing. TLDR: Nolan tried too hard to be subversive and mysterious

[johnlime]

When I watched Tenet, I felt like I was learning something from a research paper or a textbook. It's complicated, and there is little guide.
I don't think it was as much of a mess as other people say that it is, nor is it covered in mystery as the film’s first act suggests it does. The order of the weird phenomena that occur as the result of time inversion was, in my opinion, probably one of the most cohesive way to understand the concept. To be more specific, Nolan first shows us a glimpse of a bullet traveling backwards, followed by objects flying backwards, followed by a person fighting backwards. These should be enough to introduce the concept of temporal pincer movement, which he shows us twice during the highway car chase scene. All of these information come together at the final Stalsk-12 war scene.
It's a long buildup, but I was engaged from trying to understand the concept during the time the film took to do it, and the timing of the final glimpse of the real history between the protagonist and Neil was just right for me to hit my feelings.
All of these timings made me really appreciate the film during my second watch, because I was now able to feel it knowing, albeit partially, how everything works together.

[Korgano]

Imagine that someone walked onto to your front lawn and, with a friendly wave, started whispering something to you while you stood on the door step. You might ask them to repeat themselves, only to have them whisper again. They’re clearly not infirm or in distress, so you might take a few steps closer while repeating a request that they speak up. But after they persist in whispering and get even quieter, you might eventually tell them to get off of your lawn and stop wasting your time. It wouldn’t matter that they were whispering the most beautiful words of uplifting poetry or telling you secrets you craved to know. The fact that they showed such a callous disregard for your ability to hear them would be enough for you to dismiss what they had to say unless you had a rare capacity for patience.

Most people are willing to listen. And in the case of a Nolan movie, many came as audience members eager to listen. But people also have a sense of self-respect when it comes to communication. They may meet you half way, but they feel that they are worth the effort of being reached. Their time and attention had value to them, and they’re sharing those things with you as a show of good faith. Intentional or not, artistic choice or not, Nolan has repeatedly and after numerous warning signs conveyed to the audience that they are not worth the effort of being communicated to in a clear fashion. He’s a brilliant filmmaker and has made some of my favorite movies, but I came away from Tenet with the impression that he was acting in bad faith and that he didn’t particularly care about communicating with me as his audience member.

[comment]

Tenet: How to make a simple idea sound as complicated as possible, and thus failing to tell a compelling story.

[isaiahvoss]

I loved Tenet. Look, I understand that not many people enjoyed it because of the plot being confusing with time inversion and the sound but at the time Christopher Nolan was experimenting with sound as he did with Interstellar. But the way he didn't use CGI with the time inversion scenes or the 747 Boeing Airplane makes it that we always don't need to use CGI in big and impactful scenes. He can create any scene that is genius with his storytelling that can go all over the place. Nolan uses time as a prominent theme from hunting a killer to a temporal pincer. It just needed more of an understanding than trying to judge its book by its cover. At the end of the day, he's still the genius he is.

[philipsagel]

I highly recommend watching Tenet in a language that isn't native to you and WITHOUT captions (for example the german dub is really nice to listen to without actually understanding it). You will understand that you really don't need the dialogue that much in order to understand what is happening because of how it is structured and shot. Just like you mentioned at 1:40 it's not the voice of an actor that draws me into Nolans movies, it's the whole package that immerses me into the moment. I don't need to 100% understand the words when an actor can deliver emotions through his acting, I don't need some character explaining what's going on/what will happen, when the screenplay and cinematography delivers everything I need. Emotions, Setting, Mood... these are all things that can be shown via visuals rather than words. And that's why I love CN movies, cause he delivers exactly that!

Tenet has been my favorite movie ever so far. And I rewatched it more often then any movie before, even did a rewatch that was completly in reverese.

[jacksonashby]

i watched it 7 times in theatres and it got better each time, one of my favourites

[elijahnoble]

I think that Nolan’s Tenet is a cool experimental piece that did a great job exploring the more niche side of sound, dialogue, and pacing in a movie. I don’t believe that the goal of this movie was to establish any emotional connection with the audience but rather to make a movie about an intellectual concept that Nolan has had for years.

A.K.A: “Ok guys, hear me out: Temporal Pincer Movement”.