“How does Nolan present obsession across the film?”
“What is this specific sequence doing, shot by shot?”
What close reading demands
Micro-detail, not “low-key lighting is used”, but where the shadow falls, on whose face, and at what moment in the line of dialogue.
Layering. Showing how several techniques work together in the same shot (framing + sound + colour + editing pace).
Sequence awareness: how the extract develops from its first shot to its last, and why that order matters.
Effect on the viewer, every time. A technique noted without effect earns nothing.
✓
Choosing your extract
Pick a scene that is technically dense and emotionally significant, a turning point, a reveal, a climax. A dialogue scene in a plain room gives you almost nothing to analyse. From your Nolan texts: the rotating-corridor fight or the café “folding Paris” scene in Inception; the docking sequence or the Miller’s-planet wave in Interstellar. All are technique-rich.