Doodlebug | |
---|---|
Directed by | Christopher Nolan |
Written by | Christopher Nolan |
Produced by | Emma Thomas Christopher Nolan Steve Street[ citation needed ] |
Starring | Jeremy Theobald |
Cinematography | Christopher Nolan |
Edited by | Christopher Nolan |
Music by | David Julyan |
Distributed by | Alliance Atlantis [1] |
Release date |
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Running time | 3 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Doodlebug is a 1997 short psychological thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan. [2] It follows the story of a man anxiously trying to kill a bug-like creature in his flat. Nolan created the film during his university days using 16 mm film. The film was met with a generally positive critical response.
The story concerns a dishevelled man in a filthy flat. He is anxious and paranoid, trying to kill a small bug-like creature that is scurrying on the floor. It is revealed that the bug resembles a miniature version of himself, with every movement it makes being later matched by the man himself. He crushes the bug with his shoe but is subsequently squashed by a larger version of himself.
Doodlebug was written, directed, shot and edited by Christopher Nolan. He had written the script while studying English literature at University College London (UCL). [3] The three-minute short was filmed on a negligible budget in 1997 using black-and-white 16mm film. [4] Nolan shot the film over a weekend, a technique he used the following year with his first full-length release Following , with two or three-minute excerpts being shot over the two days. [5] He co-produced the short film with his future wife and collaborator Emma Thomas, [6] while Jeremy Theobald, his friend from university who would also star in Following, was cast as the paranoid man. [7] [8] It was scored by David Julyan, a friend of Nolan's from the UCL's student film society, who would go on to compose the soundtrack a number of the director's later films. [9] Nolan explored the idea of multiple dimensions in its plot: in an interview with The Daily Beast , he opined that "films are uniquely suited towards addressing paradox, recursiveness, and worlds-within-worlds," and further cited the works M. C. Escher and Jorge Borges as influences in this domain. [10] The film has been described as Kafkaesque psychological thriller. [3] [11]
Doodlebug was met with generally positive reviews. Christopher Hooton of The Independent deemed it "a fairly unremarkable student film," but considered this to be a "great" thing since "it shows that Nolan was not a master from the second he first got his hands on a 16mm camera but, crucially, kept at it, kept learning and incrementally amassed an impressive set of cinematic skills that put him in command of huge budgets that allow him to fully achieve his vision". [3] Sammy Nickalls, writing for Esquire , expressed the same sentiment, further adding that while "it's certainly no Interstellar , it's filled with Nolan's flair, from his gravitation toward black and white to his abstract imagery." [12] PopMatters ' Jose Solis characterised the short film as "playful" and Following's "most charming bonus feature." [13] Simon Reynolds of Digital Spy listed it among nine "incredible" short films by renowned directors. [7] Film School Rejects ' H. Perry Horton claimed that Nolan "has been one of the most intriguing and intelligent filmmakers working since the first frame of Doodlebug." [14] The Daily Telegraph opined that it "displayed Christopher Nolan's talent for constructing unsettling narratives early on". [8]
Sir Christopher Edward Nolan is a British and American filmmaker. Known for his Hollywood blockbusters with complex storytelling, he is considered a leading filmmaker of the 21st century. Nolan's films have earned over $6,6 billion worldwide, making him the seventh-highest-grossing film director of all time. His accolades include two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and two British Academy Film Awards. Nolan was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2019, and received a knighthood in 2024 for his contributions to film.
Batman Begins is a 2005 superhero film directed by Sir Christopher Nolan and written by Nolan and David S. Goyer. Based on the DC Comics character Batman, it stars Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman, with Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes, Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Ken Watanabe, and Morgan Freeman in supporting roles. The film reboots the Batman film series, telling the origin story of Bruce Wayne from the death of his parents to his journey to become Batman and his fight to stop Ra's al Ghul (Neeson) and the Scarecrow (Murphy) from plunging Gotham City into chaos.
The Bloomsbury Theatre is a theatre on Gordon Street, Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden, owned by University College London. The Theatre has a seating capacity of 541 and offers a professional programme of innovative music, drama, comedy and dance all year round as well as providing a space for student-led productions.
Doodlebug or doodle bug may refer to:
Jonathan Nolan is a British and American screenwriter and producer. He is the creator of the CBS science fiction series Person of Interest (2011–2016) and co-creator of the HBO science fiction/Western series Westworld (2016–2022).
Memento is a 2000 American neo-noir psychological thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, based on the short story "Memento Mori" by his brother Jonathan Nolan, which was later published in 2001. The film stars Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Joe Pantoliano. The film follows Leonard Shelby (Pearce), a man who suffers from anterograde amnesia—resulting in short-term memory loss and the inability to form new memories—who uses an elaborate system of photographs, handwritten notes, and tattoos in an attempt to uncover the perpetrator who killed his wife and caused him to sustain the condition.
Dame Emma Thomas, Lady Nolan, is a British film producer. She has produced all of the feature films directed by her husband Sir Christopher Nolan, which have grossed more than $6 billion worldwide and are regarded as some of the greatest films of their respective decades.
Walter C. Pfister is an American director and former cinematographer, who is best known for his work with filmmaker Christopher Nolan. Some of his collaborations with Nolan include Memento (2000), The Dark Knight Trilogy (2005–2012), and Inception (2010). For his work on Inception, Pfister won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography and received a BAFTA Award nomination.
Interstellar is a 2014 epic science fiction drama film directed by Christopher Nolan, who co-wrote the screenplay with his brother Jonathan Nolan. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Bill Irwin, Ellen Burstyn, Matt Damon, and Michael Caine. Set in a dystopian future where Earth is suffering from catastrophic blight and famine, the film follows a group of astronauts who travel through a wormhole near Saturn in search of a new home for mankind.
Jeremy Theobald is a British actor best known for his portrayal of "The Young Man", the main character in Christopher Nolan's 1998 major picture debut Following, and for which Theobald was also a producer. Filming was scheduled around their day jobs. Jonathan Romney, writing in the New Statesman, noted that "Nolan and his cast are terrific finds: I wouldn't normally say this to struggling artists, but they might want to give up their day jobs."
Syncopy Inc. is a British-American film production company founded and operated by Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan. The name of the company is a play on syncopation and was suggested to Nolan by his late father, who was a classical music fan. It has offices in London and Los Angeles.
Following is a 1998 British independent neo-noir crime thriller film written, produced, directed, photographed, and edited by Christopher Nolan in his feature film directorial debut. It tells the story of a young man who follows strangers around the streets of London and is drawn into a criminal underworld when he fails to keep his distance.
Nathan Crowley is an English production designer and a former art director, who is best known for his collaborations with Christopher Nolan. He has been nominated six times for an Academy Award for Best Production Design for The Prestige (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), Interstellar (2014), Dunkirk (2017), First Man (2018), and Tenet (2020).
Interstellar: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is the soundtrack album composed by Hans Zimmer for the 2014 film Interstellar by Christopher Nolan. The soundtrack garnered critical acclaim and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Score and the Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media.
Dunkirk is a 2017 epic historical war thriller film written, directed, and co-produced by Christopher Nolan that depicts the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II from the perspectives of the land, sea, and air. It features an ensemble cast including Fionn Whitehead, Tom Glynn-Carney, Jack Lowden, Harry Styles in his feature film debut, Aneurin Barnard, James D'Arcy, Barry Keoghan, Kenneth Branagh, Cillian Murphy, Mark Rylance, and Tom Hardy.
Christopher Nolan is a British-American film director, screenwriter, and film producer. His feature directorial debut was the neo-noir crime thriller Following (1998) which was made on a budget of $6,000. Two years later, he directed the psychological thriller Memento (2000) which starred Guy Pearce as a man suffering from anterograde amnesia searching for his wife's killer. Similar to his debut feature it had a non-linear narrative structure, and was his breakthrough film. It was acclaimed by critics and was a surprise commercial success. For the film Nolan received his first nomination for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film, and for writing its screenplay he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He next directed the mystery thriller remake Insomnia (2002) which starred Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank. It was his first film for Warner Bros., and was a critical and commercial success.
Tenet is a 2020 science fiction action thriller film written and directed by Christopher Nolan, who also produced it with his wife Emma Thomas. It stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. The film follows a former CIA agent who is recruited into a secret organization, tasked with tracing the origin of objects that are traveling backward through time and their connection to an attack from the future to the present.
Christopher Nolan is a British-American filmmaker known for using aesthetics, themes and cinematic techniques that are recognisable in his work. Regarded as an auteur filmmaker, Nolan is partial to elliptical editing, documentary-style lighting, hand-held camera work, natural settings, and real filming locations over studio work. Embedded narratives and crosscutting between different time frames is a major component of his work, and his films often feature experimental soundscapes and mathematically-inspired images and concepts. Nolan prefers shooting on film to digital video and advocates for the use of higher-quality, larger-format film stock. He favours practical effects over computer-generated imagery, and is a proponent of theatrical exhibition.
Larceny is an unreleased 1996 short film written, directed, and edited by Christopher Nolan. The film is a little over eight minutes long and involves an apartment burglary.