Following (1998)

Rated R, primarily for language.  It's not like there's a lot of language, but I can just see angsty Christopher Nolan putting in a little bit of smut to make himself feel like a grown up filmmaker.  Don't get me wrong.  This is a crime drama with its fair share of film noir, but he's just referencing things that he really doesn't need to be referencing.  Also, there's some mild violence that is primarily off screen.  Still, R.

DIRECTOR:  Christopher Nolan

The first paragraph of every blog I write seems to be an excuse for why I haven't written this earlier.  I watched this movie on Wednesday.  It is now Sunday.  That seems pretty irresponsible of me.  Well, do you know what?  I had yet another kid since then.  I could say to my wife, "No, don't give birth.  I have to write another blog for an audience of two."  That would be reasonable, right?  What I should be saying is "Thank you for all of the congratulations."  No, I don't live in that world.  It's amazing that I'm writing this blog with a three-day-old daughter.  (Other people are holding her and I'm watching the other kids at the pool.  I'm not saying I'm doing a great job, considering that I'm blogging right now.) 

Part of me wants to watch and write about every Christopher Nolan film before I go see Oppenheimer.  Much to Nolan's chagrin, the odds of me seeing it in the theater are slim.  I like Christopher Nolan.  He's one of the few auteurs we're dealing with in the 21st Century.  (Okay, I could probably fight that with myself if I wanted to, but he definitely is an auteur.)  I'm going to say this for him: auteur theory might be his enemy for when it comes to nerds like me.  Man, Nolan is really good at what he does.  He's so good at what he does that it makes me forgive that he goes to the same well over and over again.  I'm dancing too much, aren't I?  I'm saying that Christopher Nolan loves messing with temporal narrative so much and you can tell in his first film that this is who he is.  He's the guy who refuses to tell the story in the right order.  Now, I get it.  Outside of his Batman movies, he has what might be a straightforward story that becomes infinitely more complicated by telling the story in a non-traditional way.  When I write it this way, it seems dismissing.  But Nolan is kind of smart.   Nolan loves giving clues.  He wants you to be interactive not only with the visuals of a film, but also the story that he's telling.  For what ultimately is probably a student film, this is a very pretty movie.  I mean, if it's just an independent film, I might write him off a bit.  But this feels like one of the most ambitious student films that I've ever seen.  (It's the 70 minute runtime that makes me think "student film.")

But as I mentioned earlier, Following has a lot of the trademarks of a film noir.  It's a very small cast where people's odd behavior covers up a deeper crime.  It's even got a femme fatale.  I mean, what else do you need?  Listen, as a guy who took a grad class called "Film Noir", I have strong opinions about the presence of film noir in today's cultural marketplace.  That opinion?  Film noir doesn't really exist organically anymore.  It's simply merged itself with the crime drama.  One of the key arguments of the class is that film noir doesn't really have a strict definition.  It is more of a "you know it when you see it".  I can see how Following might be the most appropriate first film for Christopher Nolan because, in the same way that film noir either evolved or de-evolved into the crime drama, Nolan's film have shared DNA with Following.  It's almost pure-Nolan.  It's not that great, let me establish that.  Considering that Nolan would go on to make some of the most important movies that are both Hollywood blockbusters and quasi-respected by cinephiles (for the most part), Following is almost a test run for what we would be seeing later movies.  It's smart.  It's cinematic.  That's what Nolan is known for.  I'll even say that, as depressing as Following is, it's also kind of fun at times?  I'm not saying "really fun" or anything like that.  It's just fun at times. 

I wonder.  I really wonder.  Is Nolan being cheeky with the title?  The movie starts off and immediately gives you the meaning of the title, Following.  It's quite simple.  For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to call him "Bill" because the alias he gives is the only name we get for him.  Bill is explaining to someone who we later identify as a policeman that he enjoys following people.  He downplays the whole thing as harmless and we know that this quirk is what is going to be the inciting incident for the film.  Very film noir.  Moving on.  But the movie kind of abandons the notion of following without completely ignoring it.  The movie becomes about crime and taking away people's sense of security, yet the movie is still called Following.  Like, do you think that Nolan thought that the title secretly had a question mark after it?  Nolan, per ush, loves making things complicated.  So you are watching a story about a guy who surrounds himself with con artists and it takes a minute to figure out everyone's agendas.  I'm sure that cheeky little gentleman thought.  "You know, it's complicated.  Like, Following? You Following?  Ha!  I'm a clever little lad!"

But what I think that makes Following something a bit better than simply another version of The Usual Suspects is the motivation of the characters.  There's something so absurd about the fundamental motivations of the characters that it almost becomes the most realistic film of all time.  Listen, if I came up to you and told you that these characters' motivations is that they just want to disrupt peoples' sense of normalcy, you would scoff at that as a notion.  But that's something that was indie '90s to the core.  And I kind of get it.  I mean, this is pre-social media social media.  (Sure, Friendster was probably around at the time, but you know what I'm getting at.)  It's almost bizarre that such an epic crime spirals out of simply ruining people's sense of security.  Yet, it is reflective of the need to be seen.  Bill has an almost Taxi Driver Travis Bickle mentality.  He sits alone in a room and looks at the world with a scorn reserved for the antisocial.   Scorsese's film was a commentary on a society that ignored its introverts and Following is a reminder that this is a problem that hasn't changed, it just looks different.  But Bill acts more as a protagonist for us.  After all, Bill should be someone who is considered harmless.  If it wasn't for Cobb, Bill might just be a creepy guy.  Yes, he escalates.  But there's something just sad about Bill without Cobb's influence.  Sure, there's a chance that Bill might have escalated himself to the level of Cobb, but that's a bit of an ask based on what we see in this film.  There's something so relatable to the fact that the motivation of Bill is so stupid, yet comforting.  He needs connection without the vulnerability of friendship.  I love that this movie is called Following because this all spirals out of something just left of taboo. 

I could keep writing, but I don't have a lot to say.  It's a 70 minute movie, so how about we make the blog about it short as well. Besides, anything I say from this moment is either obvious or just stretching for time.  Following is such a debut film that it's funny to think that this is Christopher Nolan.  It's almost like a low budget director was in love with Christopher Nolan and tried to out Nolan Nolan.  But that's a fun time, keeping in mind that this filmmaker would be the guy who destroys box offices with every movie he makes.