Christopher Nolan | Auteur Theory

Directed by: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Matthew McConaughey [Cooper], Anne Hathaway [Brand], Michael Caine [Professor Brand]

A global crop shortage in Earth’s future along with a second Dust Bowl are causing the planet to become unsafe for living. A NASA physicist, Professor Brand (Michael Caine), is working on plans to transport Earth’s population to a new home through a wormhole in space, sending NASA pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and a team of researchers through the wormhole to find out which of the three planet choices could be a contender for mankind’s new home.

My rating: 10/10

interstellar-image

Narrative aspects

The film combines a brilliant combination of scientific and mathematical fact, as well as the bond between people and humanity, and how survival is an innate characteristic in all of us. While there are a few moments that would make an audience laugh or chuckle and others that would probably result in a few tears shed, this film is no joke towards what the Earth could be heading for with its current state of pollution. Lighter moments keep the movie entertaining and recapture the audience’s attention.

It has a talented cast including Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain (Older Murph), Matt Damon (Dr Mann), Michael Caine, amongst many others. The film contains characters that are like any normal human being, wanting the best for their family and trying to do their best on their job. It shows a typical family relationship, in the beginning especially, with a sibling rivalry and a father who loves his children more than anything.

The film starts with a clipping of an old lady talking in what seems to be an interview. These kinds of clippings are spread over the beginning few scenes, making it seem as though the plot combines a majority of linear narrative with a few elements of non-linear. This helps to clarify certain points and set-up the story for viewers to understand more, that something happens to the human race and that all that is shown in the film is leading up to those old people being interviewed. However, when further watching the film, their words become more clear and understandable, allowing the audience to figure out what is truly happening. Like with any Christopher Nolan film, clues to its deeper meaning are sprinkled all over through dialogue, gestures and settings, maybe even flashbacks or flashforwards. This makes sure that the audience pays close detail to every point in the film, keeping them on their feet to spot out anything new or intriguing. Being an Auteur, a sensational director and screenwriter, Nolan uses the advantages of a well, thought-out script storytelling medium to communicate the way his mind works with the audience. He has a signature technique of having a sense of ambiguity up till the very end, and sometimes like in his film Inception, leave the audience with questions never to be answered. Interpretation is always open.

During the course of Interstellar as a visual journey, problems are in an abundance. As said and talked about in the film, the storyline follows Murphy’s Law, “The facetious proposition that if something can go wrong, it will”. After a single problem seems to be solved, the crew comprising of Cooper and Dr Brand, Doyle and Romilly, they are faced with another and in some cases a much more drastic one. It challenges the character’s capability to remain calm and maintain their logical reasoning ability to come up with a solution. The fate of the characters is on a constant shift, which in result keeps an audience captivated while wanting the best for the characters on screen. The characters are always challenged and watching them succeed or fail is phenomenal. Nolan’s characters are always well developed and have an immense depth which always enthrals an audience.

Infer & Deduce: The title of the film becomes clear when the meaning is searched online. “Occurring or situated between the stars”, which is what Interstellar introduces to the audience in the science fiction film. While some argued that it should have been called ‘Gravity’, appropriately since the film’s scientific element revolves around it but I feel ‘Interstellar’ better captures the film in one word.

Technical Aspects

Interstellar has a skeleton of a brilliant and multi-layered storyline, with characters bringing more depth and technical effects enhancing the appearance or emotional communication from characters and situations. Transitions are kept to the usual jump-cuts though in some instances while the scenes are quiet, and calm, fade-ins and fade-outs are used as a method to demonstrate forwards in time and further the plot in a less draggy sense. Being a film that is quiet and more dialogue-based than action-based, the aesthetics of the scenes are brilliant, with fascinating off-centre angles and close-ups, like placing the camera on a side wall of the spaceship.

The CGI in this film is captivating and highly realistic, with accurate depictions of space and other elemental entities we have an awareness of. The film’s pre-production staged consulted with mathematicians and physicists to calculate measurements, of Gargantua the black hole, and principles for the film so that the science is of the highest accuracy. The film has not one moment where the visual effects look far from actuality. It is quite intriguing to think about what is animation and what is not, because everything is so well rendered. Along with the computer-generated imagery, Nolan shot the film on two different cameras which give the altered final look of the film of some scenes having the full screen 16:9 aspect ratio and some scenes being widescreen (with those classic movie black bars on the top and bottom). Nolan used IMAX cameras on many occasions as hand-held, something many could not imagine doing at all, which resulted in the full-screen shot scenes. The difference is subtle though noticeable for viewers who are attentive as well as those who have watched the movie a couple of times. This technique can be seen in other Nolan films as well, like Dunkirk.

The films original soundtrack, composed by Hans Zimmer, effectively captures every single moment’s mood by pure and rich Orchestra instrumental pieces. The film sort of depends on the music to convey a certain emotion since there isn’t much action happening on the screen. Where other films get the sound-in-space concept a bit wrong, ‘Interstellar’ cleverly trims music to an abrupt stop when necessary. One example is when Dr Mann fails at docking his spacecraft into the space station, causing it to explode. The music rises to its peak then, at the moment of the blast, everything falls silent. The lack of audio is impacting, sometimes creating a much larger effect than rather having a booming explosion. Silence is sometimes the loudest of sounds.

Favourite Scene

This is probably by far my favourite scene as it starts with introducing the audience to the unknown nature of a black hole and what it could actually be like, in the mind of the film’s creators of course. To add on, it finally solves the many questions the audience has over the course of the film which has drowned them into confusion and curiosity.

Cooper, sacrificing his life to save Dr Brand since the weight of the spacecraft would be too high for them to escape to safety with him on board, ends up being pulled y the forceful gravitational pull of Gargantua and has comes to terms with his demise, only to be surprised by falling into a fifth dimension where time is a physical moment. finding that he is stuck in an infinite loop of every moment in Murph’s, his daughter, bedroom, he finds ways to communicate with her by morse and binary code, only to realise that he was her ‘ghost’ all along.

The signature plot twist is what would stupify the audience in any Nolan film and ‘Interstellar’ is no disappointment. All the puzzle pieces spread across the two and a half hour film come together and form a mind-blowing picture, an unforgettable film plot that makes one question if the concepts are in fact plausible. ‘Interstellar’ is a brilliant combination of science, society, humanity and survival, and that is what makes it stand out from the rest. The way science is presented in this film, along with the dream-like nature of this fantastic plot twist involving Cooper in actuality sending himself to make sure civilization is saved is beyond comprehensible. The paradox in this film is something one ponders on. On top of the narrative aspects of this scene, the special effects are as great as any of the others in this film. The scenes are so well edited and synchronised with the ones shown previously right at the beginning before the entire mission started. This film is an amazing example of how films can actually make the creator’s dreams and imagination a reality.

What would I do differently?

To be honest with my view, and the view of many film enthusiasts, Christopher Nolan is a legendary director and screenwriter whose films were always worthy of time spend watching, while they tickle the part of the mind that wants to see a challenge and he thrilled. His skilful cinematography coupled with his art of captivating storytelling are both a match that makes the audience want Nolan’s world’s shown in his films to be some part of reality or experience the phenomena within them.

I would not even imagine changing anything in the film and much less reach up to the high standard Nolan sets for his films. Though if I had to influence some aspect of the film I would reduce the runtime down a little. At some parts, for an audience who like to see conflict or have the action set out in front for them, they would feel a little bored. Since it’s a film that requires strong listening skills to understand all the dialogues and the importance of each of them, a shorter film length would be, in my mind, a little more appropriate. But of course, Nolan’s films are not for everyone and he does not target them for the wider, majority of an audience so the runtime is perfectly adequate.