Joel Mayward, “Now Where Was I?: The (In)Capable Self in the Films of Christopher Nolan”

About This Event

As part of the Faith, Film, Philosophy 2025 series organized by the Gonzaga Faith & Reason Institute on the theme "Psyches, Personae, and Characters: Human Selves in Film," Joel Mayward, professor at George Fox University visits Gonzaga to present a talk on the theme of the self in the films of Christopher Nolan.

Christopher Nolan is undoubtedly one of the most successful and creative filmmakers working today. From the non-chronological plot structures of Memento, The Prestige, and Dunkirk, to the imaginative time-bending sci-fi action worlds of Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet, to the timely moral ambiguities within the Dark Knight trilogy (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises) and Nolan’s neo-noir psychological thrillers (Following, Insomnia), all leading up to the historic award-winning biopic, Oppenheimer, time, narrative, and identity are themes woven throughout Nolan’s filmography. Though his films are noticeably lacking in representations of religion or references to God, Nolan's postsecular cinema nevertheless contains valuable theological and philosophical insights. This paper suggests that Nolan's films can and should be considered works of cinematic philosophical theology—they are doing theology and philosophy through the medium of film as they explore what it means to be human in relation to the transcendent. Every single Nolan film deliberately addresses the subjective nature of human identity and self-understanding. Indeed, the nature of the human self is an essential concern for Nolan—in interviews about his films, he regularly mentions a desire to explore the “subjective” human experience or the relationship between “objectivity” and “subjectivity.” By drawing upon the perspectives of St. Augustine of Hippo and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, we can trace a cinematic theological anthropology through Nolan’s films: what it means to be human is to be a wounded-yet-capable self.

Joel Mayward is Assistant Professor of Christian ministries, theology and the arts at George Fox University. His areas of academic and teaching expertise include Christian ministry leadership, theological aesthetics, contextual theology, theology and philosophy in film, liberation theologies, continental philosophical theology, and the spiritual formation of youth and young adults. In addition to books on church ministry, Joel is the author of The Dardenne Brothers' Cinematic Parables: Integrating Theology, Philosophy, and Film (Routledge, 2022) and the forthcoming Cinematic Transcendence: Theology and the Films of Christopher Nolan (Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2025). For several years he has been a professional freelance film critic as a member of the Online Film Critics Society and a “Tomatometer-approved critic” for Rotten Tomatoes. He also runs a film criticism website, cinemayward.com.

This event is part of the Faith, Film, Philosophy 2025 series. Events will take place each night of the week of October 6-10 on the Gonzaga campus.