Who has not watched Oppenheimer? More than a week after its release, this question holds very little significance since everyone rushed to book tickets for Christopher Nolan’s magnum opus. While there may still be some who have not watched the movie yet, even they will be aware of the major reason the film had the hype it did: Nolan’s preference for practical effects is renowned. Fans were gobsmacked when they realized that the Trinity test scene had no CGI work done to it. Naturally, the director received much praise for his dedication to the craft. But there exists a Nolan movie that is a testament to his love for filmmaking.

Filmed and released years before Oppenheimer, this film is a symbol of Nolan’s dedication to the craft, with none to rival it.

This Christopher Nolan movie demanded much hard work from the director

1998’s San Francisco Film Festival saw Christopher Nolan making his full feature film debut with Following. The black-and-white neo-noir thriller film follows an aspiring writer whose hobby of following people turns into an obsession that takes him deeper into the world of violence and crime. Despite the new faces in it and the debut director, the film went on to win accolades at several film festivals. It also led to the rise of the iconic director we know and love today. But all of it happened due to the grueling work Nolan and his friends put into this film.

In 2012, during the screening of the restored version of Following at New York’s IFC Center, Nolan dished out details about his first feature production. As reported by Mental Floss, the director took one year to complete the filming of the 70-minute movie. If that time frame seems to make no sense to you, consider this. During the production of the film, Nolan and his friends involved in the filmmaking had full-time jobs, which meant they could only use weekends for filming. Add to that the lack of budget and equipment, and you have a production that even the renowned director deemed as “extreme.“

The label fits when you think about the location restrictions. Most of the movie was shot at Nolan’s parents’ and friends’ place, using direct lighting to compensate for the lack of lighting equipment. He also had to play more than a director’s role. On some days, he would do other tasks when one of his friends could not make it to the shoot. But his efforts were not just limited to production.

Nolan is known for cherry-picking his cast. This trait seems to have been inborn since he did the same for Following. For his first film, he decided to go for theater actors. Why? Because memorizing scripts for months was normal to them. The Tenet director needed that rehearsal because he could only afford a maximum of two takes of a scene, shooting only 15 minutes of footage each time.

Perhaps it is the foundation of this experience that made Nolan prefer practical effects over CGI, as is obvious in the lengths he went to shoot the Trinity test scene in Oppenheimer. However, the efforts put in by the director are not the only thing common between his 2023 release and his first feature.

Oppenheimer and Following have these two similarities

Oppenheimer is definitely a class apart when you compare it to Following, despite the mistakes nitpicked by viewers. On the surface level, the two films may seem very different. One is based on a biography of scientist Robert J Oppenheimer and the other is a crime thriller. The former had a budget of $100 million, while Nolan made the latter with $6000. But at the heart of it lies the Batman Begins director’s dedication to his craft and his unique style of filmmaking. And that is the similarity between the two films.

As is a trademark in the filmmaker’s filmography, both movies have parallel timelines that eventually converge. In Oppenheimer, the timelines were the scientist’s past and Lewis Strauss’s present weaving a thrilling story. In Following, it is the lead character’s gradual progression into the murky waters of crime. But there is one more similarity: the presence of black-and-white sequences. In Nolan’s 2023 masterpiece, these scenes were medium to show the facts of the story, but in his debut movie, they were a necessity borne out of a lack of resources for color correction.

Years have certainly passed between Nolan’s first film to his current one, but one thing remains consistent throughout; his willingness to go the extra mile for a great film.