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Following



Before he became a sensation with the twisty revenge story Memento, Christopher Nolan fashioned this low-budget, black-and-white, 16 mm neonoir with comparable precision and cunning. Supplying irrefutable evidence of Nolan’s directorial bravura, Following is the fragmented tale of an unemployed young writer who trails strangers through London, hoping that they will provide inspiration for his first novel. He gets more than he bargained for with one of his unwitting subjects, who leads him down a dark, criminal path. With gritty aesthetics and a made-on-the-fly vibe (many shots were simply stolen on the streets, unbeknownst to passersby), Following is a mind-bending psychological journey that shows the remarkable beginnings of one of today’s most acclaimed filmmakers.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Christopher Nolan, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition
- New 5.1 surround sound mix by sound editor Gary Rizzo, presented in DTS-HD Master Audio on the Blu-ray edition
- Audio commentary by Nolan
- New interview with Nolan
- Chronological rendering of the story
- Side-by-side comparison of three scenes in the film with the shooting script
- Doodlebug (1997), a three-minute film by Nolan, starring Jeremy Theobald
- Trailers
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic and programmer Scott Foundas

Just watched this movie on Netflix. Great little noir, and a nice warm-up for Memento. Great features too. The chronological ordering sounds particularly interesting.

I own the original DVD release. Many of the features listed here are on the original, such as chronological order. I am thrilled to death this was finally announced, because I have been looking forward to it intensely since 2010. But I am equally devastated. One of the features is one of Nolan's shorts called Doodlebug. That is, and has been, available on Youtube for quite some time.

However, he has 2 lesser known shorts that have never seen the light of day: Tarantula and Larceny. I was perhaps overly confident, but convinced that this release, which had been delayed for so long, would include these 2 gems. How apropos it would be to include them on the release of his first feature.

But alas they are not, and now I have to wonder when, if ever, we will have a chance to see them.

Good film, but why would anyone want to see this in the 'chronological order' version? Only to find out that the film without the device of cutting it up temporally is not much more than a quite clever thriller?

This doesn't seem like it has any reason for me to double dip, but it's nice for it to finally come up all the same.

Blu-ray.com review: loads of gorgeous grain

DVD Beaver review is up!

It looks pretty good to me.

This is a really amazing tight little noir. I figured it was low budget, but I'm blown away at just how micro budget the film is. This has to be one of the finest micro-budget films ever put together, and it is a really stellar debut, terribly impressive work from Nolan, and it's no wonder that he managed to use this as a resume/calling card demonstrating his capabilities.

I loved this transfer, it felt like I was projecting a 16mm print on my wall.