Interstellar

A sci-fi epic as emotionally resonant as it is breathtaking

---

Directed By: Christopher Nolan
Other Notable Films From Christopher Nolan: Memento, The Dark Knight, Oppenheimer
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, TARS, outer space, corn
Screenplay By: Jonathan Nolan and Christopher Nolan
Movie Synopsis: A team of astronauts traverse space (and time) in an effort to save humanity from extinction.
Signature Line: “Don’t let me leave, Murph!”

THE INTRODUCTION
An accounting of time, and people, and context

I’m drawn to two separate quotes anytime I think about the greatness of Interstellar, Christopher Nolan’s generation-spanning sci-fi epic. The first is something Nolan said himself during an interview in 2014. And the second is a line of dialogue that occurs in The Prestige, a movie from nearly a decade prior that Nolan co-wrote with his brother.¹

The quote from Nolan: Right around the time of Interstellar’s official release, Christopher Nolan gave an interview to The Sydney Morning Herald. He talked about the general arc of his career,² the origin of his fascination with outer space,³ the level of secrecy he treats his projects with,⁴ and a few other things. In the final beats, he relayed a story about how he and his wife⁵ went to Griffith Park in Los Angeles in 2012 to watch from afar as the Space Shuttle Endeavor was delivered to the California Science Center for preservation. He ended the anecdote by saying, “Getting out there into the universe, it’s absolutely going to happen. I just want it to happen within my lifetime so I can see some of it.”  

The quote from The Prestige: The Prestige is a psychological thriller set in the 1890s. In it, Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale play magicians Robert Angier and Alfred Borden. The two duel throughout the movie, trying to one-up each other with the grandness of their illusions, their battle eventually ending with Borden shooting Angier. As Angier lies there dying, he uses his final words to explain his side of the opposing ways in which he and Borden view the tradecraft of magicianship: “You never understood… why we did this,” Angier says, struggling to breathe. “The audience knows the truth: The world is simple. It’s miserable. Solid, all the way through. But if you could fool them, even for a second, then you can make them wonder. And then you… then you got to see something very special. You really don’t know? It was… it was the look on their faces.”

Those two quotes—the resolute firmness of Nolan’s assertion that mankind will eventually be able to travel across galaxies, and the romantic appeal of astonishing an audience by showing them something they’d thought impossible—provide the structural underpinning for the Interstellar viewing experience. And what I mean is:

Interstellar is a big, ambitious, expertly-crafted spectacle of a movie, yes. It takes place over the course of nearly a hundred years, and across billions upon billions of miles of outer space, making use of high-level science in a way that few movies ever have. But it’s also a wildly affecting emotional story about human connection.

And that those two ideas could be serviced in the manner they are, that’s what makes it wondrous.

THE VIEWING
A timestamped rewatch of INTERSTELLAR

1:11: The opening of Interstellar is set sometime in the mid-21st century (right around 2067). Humanity is on the verge of extinction because of (a) endless dust storms, and (b) a blight that has ruined the planet’s food supply, making it so that the only crop still capable of being grown is corn. I’m glad I’m gonna be dead before 2067. In part, because it seems like an overall pretty miserable existence, but mainly because I just don’t like corn enough to eat it every day. 

1:34: Matthew McConaughey’s here. He plays Cooper, a former NASA pilot who became a corn farmer after the government shut NASA down. McConaughey has had such a fascinating career. He’s been able to credibly oscillate between HUNKY HEARTTHROB and VERY SERIOUS ACTOR in a real and meaningful way. Remember when Kobe Bryant retired and people pointed out that he’d put together two separate Hall of Fame-worthy careers, one when he was wearing the number 8 jersey,⁶ and one when he was wearing the number 24?⁷ McConaughey’s like that, except but with HUNKY HEARTTHROB⁸ and VERY SERIOUS ACTOR⁹ as his two separate jerseys.  

3:37: Cooper has two kids—Murph, a precocious 10-year-old played by Mackenzie Foy who believes a ghost is trying to talk to her through a bookshelf in her room, and Tom, her 15-year-old older brother, who is played by a young Bob Dylan.¹⁰ 

5:58: Oh, man. The first instance of Hans Zimmer’s gorgeous, aching score. He’s a bonafide musical savant. A handful of highlights from his resume: Rain Man (nominated for Best Original Score at the Oscars), The Lion King (won Best Original Score), Gladiator (nominated for Best Original Score), Hannibal (this movie fucking rules, I don’t care), all three of Nolan’s Batman movies (he wasn’t nominated for Best Original Score for these but he should’ve been), Inception (nominated for Best Original Score), Dunkirk (nominated for Best Original Score), both of Villaneuve’s Dune movies (won Best Original Score for the first one), and Top Gun: Maverick (which was not nominated for Best Original Score, a fact that remains fucking insane). 

5:59: Oh, a cool thing is: Right after composing for The Lion King, which won him his first ever Oscar, Zimmer scored Drop Zone, a Wesley Snipes B-action movie that featured multiple skydiving scenes. Hans Zimmer doing the score for Drop Zone immediately after The Lion King is like if Michael Jordan had driven straight from the arena after winning his first championship in 1991 to play pickup basketball at a park. 

8:33: I’ve been trying to get Larami to watch Interstellar with me for eleven years. Every time I recommend it, she tells me that she’s already seen it, then starts recounting plot points from Inception as proof. No matter how hard I try, I cannot convince her that Interstellar and Inception are two different movies.