INTERSTELLAR (Christopher Nolan, 2014)

[tabuno]

Interstellar (2014). What stands out in this movie is the role of emotion and how the script introduces a fascinating “long-distance” relational component of parent-child interaction unlike those movies with a similar powerful, intense, and emotive impact found in the horror movies of Jennifer Connelly’s performance in Dark Water (2005), Radha Mitchell’s performance in Silent Hill (2006) or John Cusack’s performance in 1408 (2007). Interstellar is today’s version of the 1950s sci fi classic Forbidden Planet (1956) in storytelling, big scale, and special effects, perhaps rivaling 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) of the sixties, or the sci fi monster thriller hit of the1970s Alien (1979) in its scale and authenticity or the inspirational, newly presented idea film of the last decade of the super hit Avatar (2009). The interweaving of two storylines in this movie was also a huge editing and script challenge that was well handled and presented on screen. Interstellar is solid story telling with its dramatic but not overly stylish Hollywood gloss and glamour as of say Avatar or Forbidden Planet. Even Ann Hathaway’s under-stated surprisingly diminutive performance stands out as a directorial and acting highlight considering Hathaway’s bigger than life screen presence and public popularity of the past that enhancing the impact of the movie.

The overall direction and performances in this movie are introspective and authentic in their approach much like that found in the sci fi drama Stranded (2001) or Apollo 18 (2011) that don’t rely on big screen stereotypical theatrics to wow its audiences. Somehow this supposedly epic sci fi adventure is as intimate as Cloud Atlas (2012) was as large spanning literally hundreds of years. Unlike a number of other review references comparing Interstellar to the visual style of sci fi action thriller Inception (2010) or some brief resemblance to Gravity (2013), Interstellar seems to take more from the sci fi relational drama Upside Down (2013) and the sci fi space drama Elysium (2013). As for plot outline, one can argue that Interstellar has more in common with the sci fi mystery of Oblivion (2013) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). And in contrast, the minimalist music score is in departure to A Space Odyssey’s dominating and sometimes haunting musical score. This mind twisting experience includes pieces of the emotion and twisting, off balance characteristics of Déjà vu (2006).

Some might complain about the extended dialogue, there really is a more satisfying exchange of relevant thoughtful ideas during this movie that are interspersed among amazing special effects that are leading edge for our literal time and space. When it comes to cerebral and emotive impact, Interstellar does so in a more narrative, mystery drama fashion as Ender’s Game (2013) hit the similar points using a war action, adventure motif. The sci fi television mini-series The Triangle (2005) brought many of the intriguing and suspense aspects in a lower budgeted, popular mass audience approach, but also indicating how Interstellar was presented in a quality, big budget, high definition big screen format with a corresponding mesmerizing impact.

What makes Interstellar so markedly ground breaking is director’s Christopher Nolan’s leap with this movie in its freshness and significantly different visual presentation, its tight editing and retention of the human relational importance while also presenting to dual track story outline in seamless and meaningful power way. Interstellar recalls the similar breathing mind-bending experiences in Brainstorm (1983) with Natalie Wood and Christopher Walken. Contact (1997) with Jodie Foster and also co-starring Matthew McConaughey, the children’s version of A Wrinkle In Time (2002), the otherworldly time altering classic of Slaughter-House Five (1972), the haunting alien ambiance of Solaris (2002).

[Chris Knipp]

Christopher Nolan: Interstellar (2014)



The end of the world and the meaning of love and whatever

Interstellar's point of departure is the most clichéd one you can start off a sci-fi movie with nowadays: apocalypse now, the earth winding down. It looks like Christopher Nolan, the director, spent most of his $165 million production budget on the interstellar travel part of his expensive new space opera. The depiction of messed up life down on earth, the planet's debacle requiring a search beyond the solar system and even beyond the galaxy, consists mostly just of dusty cornfields. There are some new touches here, and some grand visuals and dramas of surprise and betrayal and revelation in space, along with some pretty frantic cross-cutting back and forth between Gravity- or 2001-like sequences of grand space travel and some sub-Spielbergian (actually Shuyamalanian) midwestern farm scenes of plangent family drama. You may stay pretty excited for two hours: but two hours and forty-nine minutes? More doubtful, since so much of the action is tangled and barely comprehensible. Interstellar is grand, a must-see for sci-fi fans. But still, considering the very nearly equal dramatic and plot interest of little films about space travel like Duncan Jones's 2009 Moon and Sebastián Cordero's 2013 Europa Report, this new epic is another proof, if one were needed, that you can't spend your way to sci-fi profundity.

What's a bit different is how Christopher and his brother Jonathan, co-authors of the screenplay, bite harder than usual into the key space-travel issue of time. Like, it's going to take a really long time to go anywhere really far away in space. And if you actually succeed in traveling outside the galaxy via a black hole time warp, your relatives are going to be way older than you are by the time you get back, if you ever do. And given that fact, you have to consider whether you've traveling out there to save the species, leaving your family behind and never really expecting to see them again. And then you may have to lie about this to reassure your kids before you go. And you may be really conflicted about what you're doing. The instinct, Interstellar points out, is to save one's nearest and dearest, not the human race itself.

The new movie deserves credit for delving into these issues (which are not unfamiliar to sci-fi fiction readers). But there's some question whether they make for good action film material, or just for confusion. Reconciling a treatment of them with an elaborate (and expensive) movie about space-travel action is a source of almost irreconcilable plot entanglement that the Nolans seek to resolve by giving us an unusually long movie. Maybe we're supposed to lose track of what this problem was, but it doesn't really work. Things just seem more and more tangled.

In fact the Nolans have some trouble with details. Unlike other filmmakers who've dealt with space travel, they neglect certain aspects completely. Nobody on the spacecraft piloted by Matthew McConaughey eats or goes to the bathroom. Anne Hathaway's short haircut never grows out. Wes Bentley's beard never needs trimming. There's a black crew member (David Gyasi) who needs lots of Dramamine; but unlike, say, the Aliens films, the personalities aren't very colorful. Nor, helpful though he may be, is the utilitarian robot Tars, voiced by Bill Irwin, in any way distinctive or amusing. He just seems one of the guys, only embedded in metal. As for the music, it's nice that when the crew first enters deep space there is absolute silence (as there is in space). But then Hans Zimmer’s booming score takes over, grabbing our attention, as annoyingly and inappropriately as the music in Iñárritu's Gravity.

And that matter of time catches up with the filmmakers when they deal with earthbound matters. Cooper's daughter, Murph, grows from a little girl (Mackenzie Foy) into Jessica Chastain, and then Ellen Burstin, but the figures seem to be fudged a bit, and that dustbowl earth, decades later, seems to be the same dustbowl. I know Nolan is fond of Michael Caine, a consummate thespian who'll probably be acting to the day he dies, but you have to wonder about casting him, since to begin with he's (in real life) 81, and his character has to age several decades. (He switches to a wheelchair, but hardly looks a day older.)

Is the dilemma humanity faces resolved? Maybe, but exactly how I'd be at a loss to tell you. The Nolans do have a kind of key to the universe, nonetheless, something they throw out toward the end, though it's more a matter of philosophy than of plot resolution, that touches on ideas Dante enunciated in the mid-sixteenth century. The 33rd Canto of the Paradiso refers to "L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle," "love which moves the sun and the other stars." That's what Christopher Nolan and his cowriter brother Jonathan point to at the end of Interstellar. That line is the culmination of Dante's voyage toward God. Interstellar tells us this too: that love binds together the universe.

But of course the Nolans don't have Dante's orderly tripartite vision of the world below and beyond. Their voyage is a pretty confusing mishmash of desperate searching, not for enlightenment, but for human survival. And there's that big conflict between noble aims and human instincts, which seems to lead to a lot of lying, deception and recrimination. All this makes for some excitement, some beauty, and some surprise plot revelations. It also all takes a bit longer than most of us have patience for -- much like Dante's Divine Comedy itself, perhaps, but, needless to say, without the sublime poetry and enormous cultural significance of the Italian poet's great masterpiece.

The physical resolution requires a lot of stretching of the imagination. The plot chews up and spits up Matt Damon, whom Anne Hathaway's in love with, mistakenly, it turns out. But it can't dispense with McConaughey, as Cooper (what a classic American cowboy name!), the protagonist and every boy's hero, though there's no real reason why he should survive his dive into a time-space-gravity warp (don't ask). He does though, by being folded into a CGI mashup borrowed from Inception. The movies tells us you can't go back in time, at least so far as we mortals know, and then it turns out you sort of can -- one of various ways the Nolan brothers fudge the details. Stories are more heroic when their protagonists can't cheat reality. But it has been an exciting ride -- at times.

Interstellar, 169 mins., premiered in Los Angeles and London in October 2014. It opened theatrically in France, the US, and elsewhere 5 November. It has fared well if not spectacularly with critics -- AlloCiné press rating 3.8; Metacritic rating 73%.

[tabuno]

As Chris is a profound critic, this is going to take some time to digest his arguments. But this time I believe he missed on his review of this movie. Metacritic scored this movie a decent 73; while Interstellar really struck a homerun with an IMDb astounding score of 9.1 ranking it #11 on the all-time high list!!!

Stay tune.

[tabuno]

Chris seems to have to stretch his arguments to make a solid case against Interstellar this time. But many of his complaints are likely to fall flat. Consider the following.

• What Chris finds “clichéd” and a “soap opera” about this movie, I found by no means superficial but having a depth and substantive human meaning and fascinatingly depicted with authority including an emotive connection to the audience (its amazingly high #11 ranking on IMDb). Just because a movie uses plot points that have been used before (ignoring that fact that, as Chris admits, Nolan incorporates some very original and fresh ideas), this movie is no Star Wars soap opera. I did not experience any acting with television soap opera cue cards. What Chris might mistake as Ann Hathaway’s under-played performance, I experienced as a very talented actress avoiding acting with overwrought, overdramatic, bloated performances of supposedly A-listed, Oscar-award performer. He seems to complain about the time spent on the interstellar travel part of the movie, which would be as if he might want to complain about 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and its focus on the space voyage to Jupiter. For Chris to complain the demise of earth as “mostly just dusty cornfields” is to ignore and simply dismiss the serious, blight of America’s Dust Bowl in the Midwest of the last century. If one wants to complain about soap operas, it would be much more easy to point to “entire” movies devoted to volcanoes (Dantes Peak, 1997), tornados, superstorms, even asteroid-disaster movies (Space Cowboys, 2000) and other clichéd movies instead. Interstellar however takes a high road to such simple hero saves the world.

• Chris complains about the extended length of the movie at “two hours and forty-nine minutes.” He makes the assumption without support that any movie this long can’t sustain the excitement intensity. If so, I guess he might as well make the same criticism for:

o The Dark Knight (2008) at 158 minutes.
o Django Unchained (2012) at 165 minutes.
o Inglourious Basterds (2009) at 153 minutes.
o Pulp Fiction (1994) at 154 minutes.
o The Godfather (1972) at 175 minutes.
o Schindler's List (1993) at 195 minutes (which includes an eerily seemingly use of documentary-like interview excerpts).
o Saving Private Ryan (1998) at 169 minutes.
o Apocalypse Now (1979) at 153 minutes.
o Dances with Wolves (1990) at 181 minutes.
o Gandhi (1982) at 191 minutes.
o Doctor Zhivago (1965) at 197 minutes.
o
At the same time, Chris makes a critical comment about the “some pretty frantic” cross-cutting back and forth between Gravity- or 2001-like sequences of grand space travel and some sub-Spielbergian (actually Shuyamalanian) midwestern farm scenes of plangent family drama” and then at the same time complain about the length of the movie. Is Nolan supposed to make the movie more frantic so that the movie is shorter? It is actually the well executed editing between the various movie strands and plots that make this movie more coherent and consistent with the basic space-time human connection theme of the movie.

• Chris perceives Interstellar as “much of the action is tangled and barely comprehensible” even as he insists that “Interstellar is grand, a must-see for sci-fi fans.” He assumes that for a great movie doesn’t necessarily need to be long or loaded with expensive special effects. Yet many of the critics appear to be raving about how the huge special effects add to the dramatic and plot interests of space travel in which space by its very nature is huge and big, thus capturing a major component that is missing in the little films. While one might not need huge spending, but if done well, money can sure add to the realism and authentic ambiance of outer space and the alien features of other worlds which small films can’t capture well.

• Chris while admitting to “some new touches and some grand visuals and dramas of surprise and betrayal and revelation in space” seems to diminish their impact and relevance to quality film-making by quickly moving on the complaining about other aspects of the movie. He even devalues his reluctant acknowledgement of the harder bite of space-travel issue of time in this movie as being “a bit different.” I would believe that a number of people would beg to differ that Nolan’s scripted narrative and visual design is cutting edge having a major impact on the movie going experience rivalling if not exceeding that of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Instead how time and its human impact are presented in Interstellar suggests that movies are finally catching up to hard core novels that have dealt with time travel for decades. It’s hard to downplay as “a bit difference” that this movie really his really pretty great when Chris himself writes, “…you have to consider whether you've traveling out there to save the species, leaving your family behind and never really expecting to see them again. And then you may have to lie about this to reassure your kids before you go. And you may be really conflicted about what you're doing. The instinct, Interstellar points out, is to save one's nearest and dearest, not the human race itself.”

• Chris also seems to suggest that his criteria for evaluating Interstellar is that of “a good action film” and implies that adding this time theme concept is not appropriate material and that somehow a director must reconcile them and only entangles them into confusion that in Interstellar it doesn’t really work, just tangled. Oddly enough, it is just the nature of space-time presented that in fact the basis of this movie is – that space-time is tangled and perhaps even confusing, it is for the characters in the movie, but as for the audience, it is just as confusing. But Chris may be missing the appropriate criteria for judging this movie. Interstellar is a fusion of action, family drama, sci fi, and mystery thriller. It is the mystery thriller criteria which if included in judging this movie that confusion becomes clues of a puzzle to put together. It is the very nature of space-time based on current quantum physics and the proposed science of time as presently theorized that instead of confusion, this movie actually captures scientific plausibility, not confusion. This action movie by incorporating human drama makes this movie even more not less powerful and compelling, connecting to the audiences the awe of space travel with the universal human elements of emotions and human drama.

• Chris complains about the absences of what he consider vital details which for me are unnecessary details. Chris wants to insist on a scene with eating or going to the bathroom. Talk about turning this movie into a parody or cliché. Does the audience need another Alien (1979) or 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) eating scene or a quaint, comical rest room scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I believe the audience has seen enough of such scenes in almost every other space movie. It’s time to move onto something more substantive and new that has more meaning instead of regurgitating the same scene over and over again. Such scenes don’t add to the script development or character development, that the movie as Chris insists is long enough. Chris also complains that Anne Hathaway's short haircut never grows out. Wes Bentley's beard never needs trimming. There's a black crew member (David Gyasi) who needs lots of Dramamine. Yet it appears Chris has overlooked the essence of this movie itself that of time travel and the isolation, preservation pods that allow these characters to evolve more slowly or faster depending on their proximity to gravitational forces. Again do we care about such details anyway? Chris also seems to want to have the “colorful” but cliched characterization of action films but it is the very absence of overly dramatic personalities that give this movie its authenticity. Chris appears to be forced to complain about the evolution of dustbowls as if he’s an expert on them or an expert of age preservation of the future and that Michael Caine’s character doesn’t age enough.

• Chris also seems to want this movie to clearly detail with exactitude some resolution to humanity’s dilemmas. He complains about its reliance on the use philosophy and forgets that gravitons are believed by scientists to be able to transition between parallel universes and dismisses love as anything special. Perhaps we should dismiss the haunting ending of Dr. Zhivago (1965) or lost dialogue in the ending of Lost In Translation (2003). Space exploration isn’t always neat, that Chris seems to be looking for, without surprises and unexpected accidents requiring instinct, on the spot decision-making. Deep space flight is likely to involve “a pretty confusing mishmass of desperate searching” for human survival. I agree with Chris that “there's that big conflict between noble aims and human instincts, which seems to lead to a lot of lying, deception and recrimination. All this makes for some excitement, some beauty, and some surprise plot revelations.” It is from Chris’s own description here that makes this scripted plot transformed into the audio-visual format as a movie that allows this movie to be major breakthrough in great movie making.

• Finally Chris seems to believe that Nolan’s script has the hero “cheat reality” when it fact, based on what we presently know about time and space, it actually conforms as closely to reality as we now know it (A Matter of Time, Scientific American Vol. 23, No.4, 2014). What could be more exciting?

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for going to so much trouble to reply to my review. You flatter me. There's not much to discuss. You have your point of view; I have mine. Your effort to persuade me will be useless.

Here is a good article about the true and the dubious science of the movie. "What Interstellar Got Right and Wrong About Science," by Jeffry Kluger in Time.

As examples of two well-known critics who are no more impressed by Interstellar than I am, and in one case clearly much less, see Devid Denby of The New Yorker and Armond White of The National Review. Denby also sees the movie as largely incomprehensible (maybe more than me), though "stirringly beautiful." White sees it as "insipid" and "hackneyed." Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post has published an article about how Nolan's sound tracks are by intention suffer from "muddy" "sound design."

Interstellar has some really exciting passages and its expensive CGI may contribute to its beauties, but as I said in my review, you can't buy profundity. I am personally more looking forward to seeing the other film Denby reviews this week, James Marsh's The Theory of Everything, about the early life of Stephen Hawking, but I missed preview screenings and it comes to San Francisco later than NYC and LA (where it opened yesterday).

I really liked Nightcrawler, with Jake Gyllenhaal. My favorite new American movie. I published my review of it on Filmileaf last week.

[tabuno]

It appears that Chris is one of those people whose confidence and experience allows him to dispassionately observe and comment with style. Chris's reviews deserve close attention. Oddly enough, it is not so much an attempt to change Chris's mind about this opinions, but to illicit further commentary so as to help to shift mine that more comments strive to accomplish.

As for the music of Interstellar, I was struck by how distinctive Nolan's approach was to Stanley Kubrick's in 2001. While Kubrick seemed to use more lofty and classical music, Nolan appeared to struck a more diminutive approach with softer and less obtrusive musical tones, allowing the actual sounds of the movie to be heard instead of an either/or digital effect. Instead creatively enough, Nolan was able to provoke a sort of pseudo-analogic sound effect for his outer space sequences a rather retro-technique in this electronic age perhaps substituting for Kubrick's actual use of classical music instead of copying him.

[Chris Knipp]

I have problem with movie music anyway. But Kubrick's use of music (especially in 2001) is classic, brilliant and can only be admired, not questioned. Not so sure about Hans Zimmer's for INTERSTELLAR. I'm not the only one to comment that his deep organ notes are obtrusive and overwhelming. I think complete silence is more powerful in outer space.

[tabuno]

There were number of places in Interstellar where I noticed that the music was less obvious than in 2001. For me, such scenes were fascinating because it seemed that instead of either the visual or sound taking primary role in the movie, the director was able to balance and use the two sensory experiences together in with a multi-model impact unlike 2001. It would assert that such a multi-model sensory approach to films and, if successful, which I felt it was, was a much more difficult feat and accomplishment.

[Chris Knipp]

If the music is added externally no matter how subtle, it is obvious. So why not be obvious and make the music a player, as Kubrick does?

But I like music in a film whose use is diegetic.

Sound in films is termed diegetic if it is part of the narrative sphere of the film.[6] For instance, if a character in the film is playing a piano, or turns on a CD player, the resulting sound is diegetic.--Wikipedia, "Diegesis."

Memorable recent example for me was in the Italian film SALVO (New Directors/New Films 2014):

The scene shifts to Renato's house (darkened against the Palermo heat) and a long remarkable single-take sequence focused on Rita, at first sitting at a table listening to her favorite song, "Arriverà" by the Modà and Emma, and happily counting money, then gradually realizing that danger and death have invaded, and moving around gradually in growing terror. Remarkable sound design, light (dim, yet revealing), and acting by Sara Serraiocco introduce us at perhaps slightly overindulgent length to the sheer sensuality of this film and its ability to convey an unusual point of view. At this point, Renato is not there. Hence the waiting.

[Johann]

2001: A Space Odyssey was panned as "incomprehensible" on release. I know that Chris Nolan is inspired by Kubrick (the masks of the Joker's goons in The Dark Knight, ending his films with scenes that rouse you to reflect on the whole picture), but I haven't seen this yet. I worship his Dark Knight trilogy and The Prestige, but his other films leave me cold. Interstellar may do the same, I haven't seen it yet.
Thanks for the contrasting points of view Tabuno and Chris. I'll weigh in when I get off my ass and see it ;)

[Chris Knipp]

Good to hear from you, Johann. There are so few of us it's troubling when anyone falls silent. It's true, incomprehensibility is not in itself damning. 2001 I'd argue, though, has a higher kind of incomprehensibility than Interstellar's, the latter more a matter of fudging and trying to say too many things at the same time than of Kubrick's offering great mysteries and deep imponderables. See what you think. It is a movie you need to see, and find out if it's the Nolan you love or the one who leaves you cold. Or something in between.

[Johann]

Good to hear from you, Johann. There are so few of us it's troubling when anyone falls silent.

I just don't want to wear out my welcome. Can't speak for the others. :)
I've been on a Kubrick bender for a while now, with my trip to the Kubrick exhibition approaching very fast. Can't wait to see Barry Lyndon on the big screen. I never have, and it's my favorite Kubrick film. As for Interstellar, I will see it. I am a fan of Chris Nolan's, and think it will deliver something good, but if it doesn't I won't lose my marbles. He doesn't have anything to prove in my opinion. Those Batman films are a godsend. The acting may be hokey and some scenes unnecessary, but overall, the cinema that man delivered was so appreciated. Len Wein said he cried when he saw Batman Begins, that he'd been crying during half the movie and didn't know it- tears of Joy. When Len Wein (a key creator in Batman's history) is sobbing tears of Joy at a batman flick, then it's fucking Great.

Interstellaris a great title for a movie. I hope it lives up to it.

[Johann]

Interstellar was a major disappointment for me.
It is now officially the second worst Chris Nolan film to me. (after Inception). You're right Chris- the running time is a problem. It just went on and on and on and I couldn't care less about the characters or what was happening onscreen.
Armond White used a great word: INSIPID. This movie is insipid and I will never watch it again.

The acting wasn't all that great either- I could not believe in Matthew McConaughey as an astronaut, nor Anne Hathaway. They do their duty, they deliver their lines and sweat and get emotional, but there was zero juice in these performances, and all blame goes to Christopher Nolan. I am a fan of his, but I just could not figure out why he wrote this story, with his brother. Food is running out? OK. The Earth needs to be fled? OK. Humans need to hit the solar system? OK. The relationships were convoluted to me, and just because they explain the space-time thing, Nolan has us witness the effects of that later in the movie. There are a handful of nice SFX shots, but it's not enough to save this turkey.

I want my money back Chris Nolan!

[Chris Knipp]

I agree. It does fit with Inception. These "in" movies are out. Matthew McConaughey is believable as a dissolute cowboy with AIDS, an alcoholic, maybe even as a coke-snorting Wall Street trader, but at this point he's a weird choice for an astronaut. And Anne Hathaway is good for a rom-com with Jake Gyllenhaal (not a good movie, but they played well together and Jake showed maximum charm and sex appeal then -- his Dallas Buyers Club moment is this year's Nightcrawler, which is fun sleaze), but she is not very suitable for such high-toned doings as Nolan has in mind. This is not being remembered much by the more critical at best-of-2014 list-making time. Did you watch the countdown by David Erlich? http://vimeo.com/113355414
He uses Godzilla as this year's blockbuster. And Grand Budapest Hotel is his editing and production tour-de-force. I don't like Budapest Hotel, but it is a prime example of Wes's clockwork, dollhouse mastery.

[Chris Knipp]

If you have any liking for Japan horror see the Penance miniseries. If you have any liking for Japan samurai sword karate tour-de-force spoofs, you must see Why Don't You Play in Hell, the latter featured in Erlich's video countdown.