Writer and Director: Christopher Nolan / Released by: 101 Films / 1998 / 71 Minutes
Film and Special Features reviewed by Paul Dunne
13th September 2023 (Released 11th September 2023)
The Pitch: Curiosity develops into voyeuristic fixation as a young writer, Bill (Jeremy Theobald) follows strangers around London to research a novel. After following Cobb (Alex Haw), a well-heeled stranger, who is a thief, Bill’s obsession takes a sinister turn. Drawn into Cobb’s world of burglary, prying into the personal lives of victims, he becomes obsessed with an attractive young woman, played by Lucy Russell, an aspiring actress making her movie debut. In Cobb, Bill has found a strange companion, part mentor, part confessor, and part evil twin.
THE FILM: Early films by great or lauded directors tend to fall into two categories. Either their embarrassing pieces of shit the filmmaker can't wait to distance themselves from, or they act like a roadmap to the future, with way stations and markers pointing to the oncoming quality you can expect from the person in the canvas chair. Lucky us, then, because Following definitively lands in the latter camp. Telling the story of 'Bill', an impoverished, wannabe writer begins shadowing – following - random strangers, eventually giving in a form of stalking as he fixates on two unconnected people: Cobb, a brazen, urbane burglar and an attractive young woman, who claims to be involved with a violent money-lender. Following has all the elements that would make Nolan's films so captivating.
Jeremy Theobold
First, there's the protege relationship we would see most prominently in Inception (and the fact that Alex Haw shares a character name with Leonardo DiCaprio's dream thief). Within that, we have the student who protests too much, and doesn't want to get drawn into the darker side of things... but in actuality does, and is punished for it, not unlike Ariadne in Inception. There's the storyline driven by criminality and deception, again like Inception and The Prestige. Also like The Prestige, the later parts of the film deal with characters who are mirrored, or doubled in some way – although like that film, to give away exactly how would damage your enjoyment. It features a score that inserts itself into your spine, the way Tenet's would. Most of all is the structure of the film, folding in on itself the way would later see in Memento and Interstellar, And of course, there are the more tenuous connections, like the bat symbol on the door of Bill's flat. Following is a film made by a man who saw his future and made it destiny.
The film’s original poster.
The film plays with perception from the outset. At first, we get the sense that Bill's narration might be given to a psychiatrist, only later finding out that there's a more sinister edge to his confessional. There's a rough, shifty, nervous quality to the camerawork, recalling French new-wave films. But Nolan is also riffing on the British kitchen-sink films of the sixties, showing London at its filthy best. There's always been Kubrick comparisons with Nolan, and this does have something of Killer's Kiss or Fear and Desire, beyond the black and white photography. But I think a lot of those comparisons are really about the coldness that emanates from Nolan's films. His pictures don't make you cry. They don't create breathless moments. But what he does do is place you inside moments. And that is evident, even in this embryonic stage of his career. The early scenes of Bill and Cobb breaking into flats vibrate with the excitement of getting caught.
The excitement of getting caught
Nolan manages to sustain this feeling throughout most of the movie, using the built-in economy of the screenplay. Seriously, how many films in the last decade have packed in as many turns as this has in such a scant runtime? Like The Usual Suspects, Following pours in some late-running time rug pulls and handles most of them pretty well. Admittedly, there is something of a student film feeling in the technical aspects and I'm sorry to say, some of the acting. Some of the scenes feel a little airless, like they were rushed, getting the set-ups as quickly as possible. But as you learn more about how the film was made, you become more impressed that there's as much consistency as there is in performance and directorial style. Following is worth revisiting, partly to see Nolan's nascent film-making chutzpah, and partly as a time capsule of London in the late nineties and of British motion pictures on the cusp of a new era, launching exciting writers and directors onto the scene.
Alex Haw
THE EXTRAS: 101 Films have commissioned an excellent set of bonus material to accompany this release. The film's actor/producer Jeremy Theobold and Nolan Biographer James Mottram team up for an insightful commentary. There's a robust selection of brand-new interviews with Nolan's cast and crew, although the director himself is absent. There is also a decent book on the film as with all of 101's terrific 'Black Box' reissues. The only misstep is not porting over Nolan's commentary from the early, DVD version of the film. Likewise, the feature allowing you to re-structure the film is AWOL. But the interviews and commentaries present on this edition more than make up for it. 101 have another winner on their hands here and even better, they're releasing a new Special Edition of Nolan's second film, Memento in October.
Special Features:
Brand New: Unfollow - Director Christopher Nolan on Following
Brand New: Dreamcatching - Producer Emma Thomas on Following
Brand New: Wandering - Actor Jeremy Theobald on Following
Brand New: The Blonde - Actor Lucy Russell on Following
Brand New: Backtracking - Editor Gareth Heal on Following Brand New: Setting the pace - Composer David Julyan on Following
Brand New: Pay Attention - Jonathan Nolan on Following
Brand New: Following in their footsteps - Actors Jeremy Theobald & Lucy Russell revisit exterior locations from Following
Brand New: Commentary with Actor Jeremy Theobald and Film Critic James Mottram.
Doodlebug - Short Film by Christopher Nolan
You can buy Following here. Pre-order Memento directly from 101 Films.
