Symbolic Structures and Collective Memory: A Hermeneutic Analysis of Christopher Nolan’s Filmography

The expansion of postclassical cinema within contexts characterized by informational overabundance has intensified the need to understand how audiovisual symbolic structures contribute to meaning-making and the inscription of narratives in collective memory. This article aims to develop a hermeneutic-symbolic model for analyzing the cinematic archetype as a critical category to explain the inscription of global narratives in collective memory, based on a systematic study of the work of Christopher Nolan. A qualitative approach is adopted within a hermeneutic-critical paradigm, using a multiple case study design grounded in a corpus defined by strong authorship criteria. Analysis is conducted at the level of sequences and key scenes through narrative, symbolic, and formal categories, following an abductive logic with theoretical triangulation. The findings identify three operative archetypes, the truth-seeker, the divided subject, and the redemptive sacrifice, which function as dynamic structures organizing narrative experience and fostering open interpretive processes through temporal fragmentation and epistemological indeterminacy. The study concludes that these archetypes operate as devices of cultural memory whose effectiveness lies in sustaining unresolved tensions, enabling their analytical transferability to other postclassical filmmakers.