Screenwriting 101: Christopher Nolan

“Looking back on, say, the novels of Jim Thompson and how that’s been applied to film, for me, there’s a very strong form of characterization in the noir/thriller genre. It relates back to the historical model of character always having to be defined through action. In all other genres of cinema it sort of comes down to people expecting characterization to come through dialogue, or, you know, characters talking about who they were ten years before, or what’s happened to them in their lives. The thriller is the one genre where it’s absolutely demanded that character be defined through action. You want to be surprised by certain characters. You want to be finding out through what somebody does who they really were. To me, that’s a strong approach to characterization and it’s quite attractive.”

— Christopher Nolan, excerpted from Creative Screenwriting, March/April 2001