Today we will look back over their career together to find out why they make such a great pairing. We will also look at their upcoming collaboration, this year’s Oppenheimer.

Murphy and Nolan Begins

Nolan and Murphy first worked together on Batman Begins. In the first movie of the celebrated Dark Knight trilogy, Murphy played Dr. Jonathan Crane aka Scarecrow. The secondary antagonist creates a fear-inducing toxin to help Ra’s al Ghul destroy Gotham. Despite being dispatched rather easily he later returns with his fear drug dealing introducing Batman in The Dark Knight and later becoming a judge left to decide the fate of the rich and the police in The Dark Knight Rises.

Murphy also played Robert Fischer in the sci-fi thriller Inception. The C.E.O. whose mind Cobb and his team are sent to implant an idea inside of. Finally, in Dunkirk, he played the Shivering Soldier who delivered a dire warning to a civilian rescue boat heading to the title beach.

With these roles varying so much in prominence one wonders why Murphy keeps teaming up with Nolan? Well, the reason is simple, Murphy often gives his films the emotional or thematic resonance they need to work.

A Scene Stealer

In the Dark Knight trilogy, Murphy provided one of the first glimpses of the series’ key grounded reimaginings of Batman’s rogues’ gallery. For the film to wholly work, Murphy had to make the monstrous supervillain Scarecrow feel like a real person. But Murphy plays Crane with flawless believability. Outwardly a seemingly passive person who relishes the chance to exert power over others. The perfect counterpoint to Bruce Wayne’s journey and a perfect realistic realisation of the man who loves stoking fear in others.

Murphy also brings subtlety and pathos to Robert Fischer, whose insecurities regarding his relationship with his father provide the basis for Inception’s heist. Murphy’s changes in manner as Cobb and his team slowly work on Fischer’s subconscious is a masterclass in understatement. The ending of Cobb’s story would have been fine alone. However, Murphy’s performance in Fischer’s parallel narrative elevates the emotional impact of the story and the other actors’ work.

Finally, as the Shivering Soldier Murphy is tasked with personifying the horrors suffered in war. He’s there to show the civilian boat the hell they are going into. Murphy does this so successfully that when the civilians head to Dunkirk anyway it makes everything even more impactful.

This is why the pair work so well. Murphy is always able to provide thematically weighty performances that get audiences invested. While through his considered writing and direction Nolan is able to make Murphy’s talents shine.

“My best memories of working on Christopher Nolan films are never the large-scale stuff. It’s the very involved, intensely focused, extremely rigorous work, with Chris right there beside the camera.”

Cillian Murphy, NME

“I’ve always known since I first met him – however many years ago it is now, almost 20 years – that he is one of the great actors, not just of his generation, but of all time.”

Christopher Nolan on Cillian Murphy, Far Out Magazine

Leading Oppenheimer

This year Murphy will finally be leading a Nolan project as the titular J. Robert Oppenheimer, “father of the atomic bomb”. Nolan has certainly picked the perfect lead for Oppenheimer.

Amongst the all-star cast and sure-to-be spectacular effects sequences depicting the trinity bomb test, at its centre will be Murphy who has already demonstrated throughout Nolan’s work that he can lift the incredible work of the actors around him, ground an extraordinary character in reality and embody someone who knows the true face of horror. This coupled with the personal research Murphy has undertaken undoubtedly makes him the best actor to depict the person who helped create one of the most deadly devices in history and who famously quoted, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds”?

Also Read: The Anatomy of a Christopher Nolan Film

The post Murphy & Nolan: An Underappreciated Duo appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

The most recent iteration of their machine learning-based natural language processor, ChatGPT3 has recently generated furore on the internet as to the possibilities of A.I. In order to test out the A.I tool, we asked the programme to define itself, giving the prompt “What is Chat GPT“? Here’s what it responded with:

“ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI that can generate human-like text in response to prompts. It is trained on a massive dataset of text from the internet and is able to understand and respond to a wide range of topics and questions. It can be used for various natural language processing tasks such as language translation, text summarization, and chatbot development.”

With that out of the way, it was time for a movie-related question. We asked the question “In your opinion, what are the 10 best movies ever made and why?” The response below is directly from Chat GPT:

“As a machine learning model, I do not have personal opinions or preferences. However, I can provide a list of some critically acclaimed films and a brief explanation of why they are considered to be among the best ever made.

“The Godfather” (1972) – Considered a masterpiece of filmmaking, the film explores themes of family, power, and corruption through the story of a New York crime family.
“The Shawshank Redemption” (1994) – This film tells the story of a man wrongfully convicted of murder and his friendship with a fellow inmate. It is praised for its performances, direction, and themes of hope and redemption.

“The Godfather: Part II” (1974) – A continuation of the story from the first film, this movie explores the early life of Vito Corleone and the rise of Michael Corleone, while also depicting the fall of the Corleone empire.

“The Dark Knight” (2008) – A psychological thriller that explores the theme of good vs evil through the story of Batman and the Joker. It is widely praised for its performances, direction and its exploration of the human psyche.

“Schindler’s List” (1993) – This film is based on the true story of a German businessman who saves the lives of more than a thousand Jewish refugees during the Holocaust. It is praised for its powerful performances, direction and its unflinching portrayal of one of the darkest periods in human history.

“12 Angry Men” (1957) – This film tells the story of a jury deliberation in a murder trial. It is widely praised for its performances and its exploration of themes of justice, bias and the human condition.

“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” (2003) – The final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it is widely praised for its visual effects, action sequences, and its exploration of themes of love, sacrifice, and friendship.

“Pulp Fiction” (1994) – This film is widely considered a masterpiece of modern cinema. It tells a number of interconnected stories that explore themes of love, violence and redemption.

“Goodfellas” (1990) – This film tells the true story of a mobster’s rise and fall. It is widely praised for its performances, direction and its unflinching portrayal of the criminal underworld.

“The Matrix” (1999) – This groundbreaking film explores the theme of reality and perception through the story of a hacker who discovers that the world he knows is a simulation. It is praised for its visual effects, action sequences, and its exploration of deep philosophical ideas.”

The above is the full transcript of ChatGPT’s response. It is interesting to note that the machine learning tool clearly states it has no personal opinion. Current A.I chatbots (from ChatGPT to Amazon’s Alexa) function more as a development on Google search i.e. providing information to human prompts than they do as conscious humanoids who develop their own opinions in the way that we do (at least for now). However, it’s still interesting to see ChatGPT’s response. Firstly, it’s very well written and contains films that regularly feature on different movie lists. What is fascinating is why ChatGPT chose these films in this order. How did Chat GPT weigh up what a “critically acclaimed” film was? Why did it only respond with 9 movies? Furthermore, in the future when we look at such programmes to analyse critical acclaim, how do the human biases in the data that are used to train the A.I model play out in its response?

Also Read: A.I Generated Art & Movies: A Collision Course

The post We Asked ChatGPT For The 10 Best Movies Ever Made appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Tim Burton & Michael Keaton – The Oddball Bruce Wayne

Michael Keaton is absolutely the best Bruce Wayne, playing him as an odd eccentric who understands his billionaire life is already somewhat ridiculous before he adds the superhero part. The brilliant “you wanna get nuts?!” outburst from Wayne is one of the few moments in the entire series of Batman films where Bruce Wayne really stands out and does something memorable.

Joel Schumacher & Val Kilmer

It is difficult as there are two Batman films that are almost universally hated, the first being Batman Forever, which saw Val Kilmer become Batman. This is a bad film and overall a bad performance but there is a moment I love in this film. In the beginning, Two-Face plans to blow up a circus if Batman doesn’t reveal his real identity, rightly assuming that in the audience someone will know who Batman is. Kilmer’s Bruce Wayne immediately stands up and declares he is Batman, but in the ensuing panic no one hears him.

Joel Schumacher & George Clooney

The nadir of Batman undoubtedly came with Batman and Robin with George Clooney taking on the role. This film saw the complete collapse into ridiculousness and absurdity started in Batman Forever. It was entirely possible a good film could come from that. The Adam West Batman TV show worked but Batman and Robin had none of that charm and so every silly thing just became stupid. What I will say of Batman and Robin is that they really went for it. It had henchmen on ice skates, it had ridiculous costumes (as Adam West points out in The Simpsons, he didn’t need moulded plastic to improve his physique – pure West), and the infamous Bat Card. There was no pulling its silly punches and I admire directors who will go full throttle with their concept as that can lead to greatness. Admittedly, this film did huge and, in some cases irreparable, damage to everyone involved and is often cited as the worst film ever made.

Christopher Nolan & Christian Bale

My personal favourite Bale’s Batman brought a veneer of reality to the films with half-decent explanations of where Bruce Wayne got those wonderful toys of his. Bale is also the best at playing Batman, bringing a physicality to the role lacking in the earlier films. Fights in previous films were done very differently – in the Burton-Keaton films Batman wasn’t so much about throwing punches, Schumacher’s films the combat became silly. This trilogy contains not only great fight scenes but some of the greatest action sequences of all time.

Zack Snyder & Ben Affleck

Of all the Batmen mentioned this one is the most violent, branding people and very casually killing them when that was essentially always the line that he wouldn’t cross. The problem being I don’t think this was a well thought out move and didn’t dwell on the implications of murder. The Affleck Batman films start with the idea that Batman has been active for years and this is an older and past his prime Batman. This is a great idea and is lifted from the graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns, the better twist in that being Batman essentially retired and starts with Bruce Wayne being drawn back into being Batman.

The Perfect Batman

So to me, the perfect Batman has the weird eccentric billionaire Wayne character perfected by Keaton, the gritty vaguely realistic setting of the Nolan films and the most imposing superhero of Bale. It would have the more idealistic Kilmer portrayal and Joel Schumacher’s huge swing at greatness. The Affleck Batman would put twenty years on Batman, giving us a superhero struggling with decades of fighting. In brief, the Perfect Batman is a middle-aged idealist in a gritty realistic world of amazing action with a director turning it up to 11. I’ll be waiting for the Bat-signal from Hollywood to start work on this new film.

Also Read: Was It Really That Bad: Batman and Robin

The post The Perfect Batman: A Look At The Actor & Director Duos Behind The Films appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

“You make me want to be a better man”

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Film: As Good As It Gets (1997)

Delivered by Melvin (Jack Nicholson) to Carol (Helen Hunt), Melvin has insulted her and she demanded a compliment and after a short speech about working on his OCD he delivered this line, suggested by @Speechyspeeches.

“Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here this is the War Room.”

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Film: Dr. Strangelove (1964)

As delivered by President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) to one of his generals and the Russian ambassador fighting, a perfect line for a great anti-war satire. Put forward by @JohnErikHanson.

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat”

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Film: Jaws (1975)

Jaws, delivered by Brody (Roy Scheider) after he first gets a good glimpse at the shark, suggested by @Bracey452 and considering what happens later in the film he was right.

“In case I don’t see ya, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Goodnight”

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Film: The Truman Show (1998)

The Truman Show, delivered by Truman (Jim Carrey) what starts as a catchphrase for a hapless dupe by the end of the film is a great cry of freedom, suggested by @sadzzilla.

“Not me. I’m in my prime.”

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Film: Tombstone (1993)

Tombstone, delivered by Doc Holliday, as @brenenshur pointed out any line by Doc Holliday deserves to be on this list but I chose the witty retort to being asked if he is retiring – it’s important to bear in mind he’s clearly dying of tuberculosis at this point (this is what I say whenever questioned about my health).

“I’m going to cut your heart out with a spoon!”

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Film: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

Delivered by the Sheriff of Nottingham (Alan Rickman), overall a terrible film that is someway redeemed by the best villain performance since Hans Gruber, picked by @KathleenKriel.

“You talkin’ to me?”

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Film: Taxi Driver (1976)

Delivered by Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) to…well, his own reflection. Really it’s his whole little monologue that shows just how far gone he is, suggested by @DongBao9.

“As you wish.”

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Film: The Princess Bride (1987)

Delivered by Westley/The Man In Black (Cary Elwes). Basically, this whole list could be quotes from this film but I went with this one (as did @kredenbarger) for meaning so much using so few words.

“I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

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Film: Apocalypse Now (1979)

Delivered by Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore (Robert Duvall) as suggested by @fraulot. An insane line from an insane film about an insane war.

“If you’re good at something never do it for free.”

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Film: The Dark Knight (2008)

Delivered by the Joker (Heath Ledger) to a room full of mobsters, even scarier when you realise he’s talking about killing people. Scarier still when he burns all the money he got paid – suggested by @shubham_hadole

Also Read: Five Great AudioFction Podcasts To Listen To

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