Christopher Nolan Interviewed on The Treatment

The radio show The Treatment on KCRW hosted by Elvis Mitchell interviewed Christopher Nolan on November 12, 2014.  Nolan is a highly accomplished film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and cinematographer.  Nolan has worked on numerous films, most notably Memento (2000), The Dark Knight (2008), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014).  Nolan has been nominated for numerous awards for his film adaptations.  Nolan was born in England and started making films early in his childhood.

Christoper Nolan: Director, co-writer and co-producer for Interstellar

Nolan is very concerned with having the audience feel an emotional connection to the characters in his movies.  Nolan is always interested in having the moviegoer feel that sense of childhood enthusiasm and excitement that he felt when he was a child, he also seemed very interested in basic human emotions and how he can have the person watching the film feel what he wants them to feel with editing, symbolism, context, mis-en-scene and cinematography.  He wants the audience to be immersed in a world that they believe is real so that they can feel, smell and relate to all aspects of the film.

Interstellar: Official Trailer # 3

While Nolan is being interviewed about Interstellar and his other film works he states that “I really try to push the idea of immersive cinema, really tried with this film to give the audience an experience.  It’s a very very simple story, that’s sort of the point of it, it’s simple, it has symbolic resonance I think, but ultimately, you have to experience the film in the theater to see what it is.”  This is very true, the way he tries to portray realism in a very literal sense is astounding.  In his narrative, Nolan tries to show that this could happen to our world and the composition of his film further solidifies that theme.  

Movie poster for Interstellar

The protagonist, Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), makes one feel like we need to try for not the just the betterment of our family, but for the betterment of the entire human race to survive.  Their only hope is to search for another planet that will sustain their way of life.  “I am really interested in cinemas ability to give you different points of view, and multiple points of views within a single film.  I’ve always been very fascinated by the relationship between storytelling and movies and how it works and the way it aligns you with different characters.” Nolan makes you feel emotionally connected to Cooper as a parent, he is trying to do what any parent would do for their child, sacrificing himself to help his children in any way possible. “I think the idea of yearning, of trying to regain something that’s been lost, I find that idea very powerful, that pathos, I think it’s something that’s very human in its frailty.  The idea that our lives are imperfect and we have ideas on how we can make them better and we can’t quite get there.  I find it moving.”  Nolan gives explicit and implicit meaning in all his movies to have the viewer connect with the movie and the characters on a deeper level.  I think Nolan’s point of view of humanity and life comes out so strongly in this movie, that you can’t help, but need Cooper and mankind to survive and flourish once again. 

How far the crew traveled while searching for new planets

There are several scenes in Interstellar where we see this motif occur between Cooper and his daughter Murph (Jessica Chastaine) about Morse Code and time.  We cannot control time, but we can have it work to our advantage.  Nolan explains that “The antagonism in the story comes from a lot of different places, certainly it comes from humanity and our own flaws, but there is an antagonist and I would consider it to be time.  It’s really the first story where I’ve been able to indulge my obsession with time and how it plays in movies and everything, as a story element, rather than a structural device as a point of view, it’s a character in the film.” To have time as the antagonist and be a significant figure in the movie is done so well that you can only wonder if space and time can be manipulated in such a way as to help mankind in real life.

Time is not bound by space and neither are black holes

I found this interview to be very informative about what Christopher Nolan wants his audience to see and feel.  I thought it was interesting to hear the director’s wants for the movie because I have never heard an in-depth interview like this before.  The host seemed more interested in talking with Nolan about all of his films not just his current film Interstellar, and in doing so I learned the themes that Nolan tries to portray in all of his films that he creates.  I enjoyed this interview and plan to listen to more interviews from this source at a later date.