I’m listening to the soundtrack again which is a masterpiece of renowned composer, Hans Zimmer on my DAC connected to a pair of Shure over-ear monitors. The soundtrack is only one of the components that created this masterpiece.
Interstellar is a masterpiece.
Warning, this will contain spoilers but just knowing the story won’t spoil anything about this film
Where do I begin? I saw Interstellar 10 days ago in 35MM IMAX which was a 100 minute drive from my house in northern New Hampshire. I saw The Dark Knight in IMAX over 12 times while living in San Francisco and knew that Nolan does IMAX right. I was blown away by this movie. 5 days ago, I saw Interstellar again in 70MM IMAX while in Chicago. My brain melted.
There is no easy way to describe this film. I don’t care much for the actors’ other works and rarely does a Sci-Fi movie appeal to me. By comparison, 2001 was boring as Hell and I don’t get into Star Trek movies. Interstellar has everything I’ve ever wanted in a film:
- Exceptional cinematography
- Characters that build up and are completely torn down to the most basic human survival emotions
- Apocalyptic setting of the world ending with a hail-mary mission to save it.
- Intense action sequences that are completely shot in the largest film format available in the world
- A science fiction film with completely plausible and believable activities
- Enough humor to keep things fun but not so much to detract from the seriousness of the characters’ missions
For nearly an hour, we are given a very clear picture of our world in a hundred years. Crops are dying and the government we know today is gone. Farming is the most important aspect to sustaining life. There are no wars, no scientific discoveries to be had and no new inventions on the scale we see today. Survival is the key and then we learn that the Earth will not sustain life beyond 2 more generations and we must pick up and move.
There are 3 moments in this film where the most stone-face and non emotional men will be brought to tears:
- Cooper’s jump forward of many decades while experiencing a strong black hole’s gravitational pull
- Dr. Mann asks Cooper, “Do you see them? Your children? Do you see them as you gasp for air?”
- Cooper reunited with Murph after many more decades
The human element in this film must remain strong because it’s what they’re fighting for and eventually they’ll mostly die for. Besides the incredible story-line, the picture is even better for the action and audio in use. It is a film that puts you on the edge of your seat.
Key differences between 35mm and 70mm IMAX:
- Do you want to see the pores, tears and individual hairs of every character?
- Do you want a louder audio, more bass, more treble, more boom and incredibly surreal sounds of action that takes place in space like a wave 2500 feet high crashes down on a small orbiter with a crew of 3?
- Do you want to sit closer to the action in a room with far less people?
- Do you want to be pulled into a film more than any other movie ever?
70MM is the way to go. I honestly think that any film with sequences in 70MM is going to be incredible so Interstellar is not an exception here but unfortunately IMAX has one flaw and that’s the camera noise is insanely loud for spoken sequences. When two characters have a dialogue, the picture shrinks to letterbox because if IMAX was filmed (even 35mm), you’d hear a very noisy buzz in the background. To give you an idea of how little dialogue is in this film, there is over 100 minutes of 70MM IMAX sequences in a movie that’s 180 minutes long. There are also no previews and very fast credits at the end because the film just barely meets the run-time for a film of this size. We’re talking a film spool larger than a king size bed. The amount of data in 70MM is many times larger than 4K video, larger than 35MM IMAX (obviously, double 35mm)
Because of this, the movie has yanked me in to the set itself. You’re there experiencing every emotion with this brave crew who will hopefully save our race.
Interstellar will be the sole reason I get a 4K television next year, it’s the reason I’m going to go see it again in theaters before it goes away in a few days. In fact, after seeing it in 35MM and 70MM, I’m driving 3 hours this week down to Rhode Island to see it a 3rd time in 70MM because this Friday, the 2 theaters under 5 hours from me playing the film in 70MM are going to stop playing it this Friday. Some small digital theaters 1 hour from me will have it for a week or two more but I’ll never get to see it again in such a huge format for a very long time.
Please see Interstellar this week before it’s too late. The film will change how you look at cinema. It’s remarkable.