By 2014, Christopher Nolan was becoming a household name among the cinematic community and general movie going public. Fresh off the ultra successful Dark Knight trilogy, the writer/director had carte blanche to make whatever film he wanted, and much like his indie darling breakout film Mementoand mind-bending blockbuster Inception, Nolan would looked to his his brother and frequent collaborator Jonathan Nolan for an original story idea in the sci-fi drama Interstellaras his next project. Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros Studios would combine to finance and distribute, andInterstellarwas once again a hit with critics and audiences alike, further cementing the legacy of Christopher Nolan among fellow auteur film makers. It marked a change in Nolan’s production aesthetic, that would lead him on a path to his biggest success to date: 2023’s Oscar-winning filmOppenheimer.
Interstellar was a project that almost landed with Steven Spielberg but ultimately Jonathan and Christopher Nolan completed the screenplay with Christopher tabbed to direct. The astrophysics of the film was cross-referenced with theoretical physicist Kip Thorne to maintain scientific accuracy, and it was in Nolan’s practiced hands to not only make the film emotional and exciting, but make scientific sense to general audience. Interstellar is set in a dystopian future where a blight and famine dominate planet earth, forcing NASA to recruit farmer and former pilot Joseph “Coop” Cooper to help find an outer space solution for the human race. Cooper and his crew travel through a wormhole placed near Saturn in hopes to follow the footsteps of the Lazarus Expedition to find inhabitable planets in a galaxy with a powerful black hole named Gargantua. Cooper is in a race against time and space to save his family, the human race, and planet earth before time runs out of survival both at home and deep in space.
At this point in his career, Nolan had a proclivity for casting good leads as well as strong ensembles and he continues here in Interstellar. He catches Matthew McConaughey during his career resurgence fresh off his Oscar-winning performance inDallas Buyers Club and he perfectly fits the “everyman” nature of Coop. McConaughey’s laid back but matter-of-fact style is the audience gateway character, knowing just enough about the science and path laid before the characters and a vessel for Nolan to explain the higher concepts. He also brings the emotional core needed for Cooper, especially the ties to his daughter Murph in the first act on Earth and again in the third act as Cooper communicates through time and space with her via the tesseract. Nolan frequent collaborator Michael Caine makes an appearance as Professor Brand. Other acclaimed actors also joined Nolan for this film with Anne Hathaway, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck, Jessica Chastain chief among them. Matt Damon makes a quiet cameo in the second half of the film as the deceiving NASA astronaut Dr. Brand. And there’s Timothee Chalamet in his first major appearance on screen as the young version of Coop’s son Tom.
The casting is a key component in all Nolan films, but since Interstellar is his most emotional and cathartic script, getting the right performances in Interstellaris vital. McConaughey does the heavy lifting as Coop, and in three specific scenes he brings the emotions out of himself and the other characters to hit a key theme in the film: love. Cooper loves his children and his daughter in particular, it’s his main ingredient for survival not only for himself but his loved ones and the people of earth. The famous “Stay” scenes shows Murph distraught about Coop leaving her, and not knowing when he will get back. Time slippage becomes an antagonist in the film, as space travel and visits to planets with harsher gravity bring in the theory of relativity, aging the people of earth but not Coop and his crew. This fearful reality is shown in the next emotional scene, when Cooper returns to his ship after 23 years on Miller’s planet, and he catches up on years of videos his son and daughter Murph send him. He see’s they are grown adults and almost without hope of his return. Nolan and cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema fixate their camera on Coop’s face as the gambit of emotions wash over him.
Finally, we see near the end of the film when the “other beings” place Cooper in a five-dimensional tesseract, designed to be the infinite resource of his daughter Murph’s bedroom. Coop sees himself with Murph on the day he left, and begs himself not to go and uses gravity within the bridge of the two dimensions to communicate. The audience realizes along with Coop that he is the tool that can tell his loved one how to solve the problem of “gravity” on Earth, and Murph uses that info so the people of earth can leave in time and save themselves. Some critics claim Nolan’s work as clinical and too cold, emotionally;Interstellar would address that criticism with an epic sci-fi drama grounded in concepts of humanity using love to save itself.
While the writing and casting for Interstellarwould carry the emotional core of the film’s pathos, familiar Nolan crew collaboration and one key addition would build out the rest of the production. Long time Nolan editor Lee Smith would again stitch together scenes of both action and drama, with the third act cross-cutting between Coop’s struggles deep in space and Murph’s domestic struggles being the highlight. Hans Zimmer provides the bombast and tug at the heartstrings with one of his best scores for a Nolan film. Zimmer would record a whopping 45 scoring sessions for Interstellar, nearly three times his work on Nolan filmInception. Production designer Nathan Crowley teamed with Nolan for a sixth time and combined visual and practical effects with sets and location shooting, giving Interstellar a 1930s “dust bowl” feel for scenes on earth and sleek/calculated sci-fi feel for space ships and foreign planets. He even helped Nolan build an actual cornfield to drive through for the scene when Coop and his kids are chasing down the drone. The robot design of TARS and CASE is unique and Nolan injects humor for much needed levity thru Coop and the robots.
Long time Nolan cinematographer Wally Pfister was unable to to shootInterstellar for scheduling conflicts. While Pfister was a good fit for Nolan’s frentic shooting style with his Batman trilogy and Inception, van Hoytema brought a fresh new look to Nolan’s aesthetic. Van Hoytema has been more than game for the challenge of shooting Nolan’s films predominantly on IMAX 70mm film the past ten years, working with him on Dunkirk, Tenet,andOppenheimer. Van Hoytema brings a calmness to Nolan’s work, lingering on images longer than Pfister and showing more dynamic composition choices. His work in Oppenheimer would be rewarded with Best Cinematography. Van Hoytema’s imagery leaves a lasting impression on Interstellar, with beautiful vistas on foreign planets, space expedition shots, and dramatic close-ups all tying together the script’s tangible humanity. The “docking” scene in particular highlights tension and suspense in action filmmaking.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence Nolan’s reputation has only gotten greater since his success and fame with the Dark Knight trilogy as his legacy as one of the best modern filmmakers cements itself. Nolan combines curiosity and boldness to craft unorthodox storytelling ideas and technique. Memento is told in reverse. Inception Involves dream sharing to steal ideas. Interstellarbends space/time/gravity around its characters. Dunkirk converges three different war story timelines together. Tenet shows a world with reversed-entropy time-travel. Interstellar is their equal and more. Being re-released in IMAX December 6th, I think it might have its cultural moment of reflection both for itself and as a jewel in the middle of Christopher Nolan’s tremendous twelve-film body of work thus far.
