That Christopher Nolan sound
I noticed a couple of recent comments here by readers who have taken in the Nolan film The Odyssey and have remarked on the extreme loudness of the music and the almost-unintelligible dialogue – for example, see this.
I’ve seen another Nolan film: Diunkirk. I watched it in a movie theater in 2017, and I reviewed it this post, the title of which is “The Dunkirk Din.”
That title says a lot. One thing it says is that the sound problems are consistent and we can safely conclude they are a choice (and an echo). Here are some excerpts from that post:
I thought “Dunkirk” was the sort of movie that would be good to see in one of those RPX movie theaters. But I took the precaution of taking some earplugs along with me to protect my sensitive ears.
I was tremendously glad I did. One of the first things I noticed about the movie was the assaultive, hideous sound, which even the earplugs couldn’t dull enough for me. I felt the need to push them in deeper with my fingers and kept covering my ears, too. And even then, the blasting percussive bass made the seats vibrate so forcefully that it almost felt as though those Spitfires were flying right over us.
I assume that was the point. Unfortunately, it seemed to be almost the only point of the movie, which concentratee on giving the audience the feeling that we are participants in Dunkirk, The Video Game.
The film is a real blockbuster and has been widely and highly praised. But I had so many quarrels with it that I left the theater almost angry.
Read the whole thing, if you’re interested.
I had been forewarned by reviews about the sound problem; that’s why I came to the experience prepared with the earplugs. But although the sound wasn’t the only problem, it certainly was a big problem. I’ll not subject myself to that again.
The question is, why does Nolan do this? Apparently he’s more interested in spectacle and visuals than in the lowly human interaction known as spoken communication. Now, movies are definitely a visual medium, and so that’s very important. But if people can’t follow the plot and are bombarded by almost-assaultive music, that’s pretty awful. However, Nolan is so highly praised that maybe most people don’t care, or agree with him that spoken human interaction isn’t particularly important.
In that post of mine on Dunkirk, there’s a quote from some veterans of the actual WWII Dunkirk who had attended the movie. They remarked that the film experience was louder than Dunkirk itself had been.
If you’re interested in the technical reasons given for the sound choices in Nolan’s films, see either or both of these two rather short videos:
[NOTE: I also saw the Nolan film Interstellar, but I didn’t review it here. Nevertheless, I distinctly recall being frustrated at not being able to understand quite a bit of the dialogue.]
IMAX was first displayed at Montreal’s Expo ’67. I remember watching a film at Expo ’74, flying through Grand Canyon. It was pretty impressive.
IMAX wasn’t originally intended for feature films.
No plan to see The Odyssey though I like Matt Damon. As fot Dunkirk saw it at a theater. Thought it was very good, could see it again but haven’t. War movies are I would say are my favorite but 1 view didn’t move it to.my top 10.
neo’s first video mentions Nolan’s relative lack of ADR or re-dubbing of sound and dialog. I remember being rather shocked to discover that many of these great older Italian films (maybe Fellini or de Sica, etc.) had no sound recording on set at all. Or perhaps, I suspect, just low quality audio recording. Then, all of the sound in the final film was added after the shooting was finished.