McConaugheMay Day 20: Inside 'Interstellar'

Maybe a weird choice to throw on my list, in all fairness. On the one hand, this is absolutely Not A Real Movie since it's just disconnected special features BTS segments. On the other, I enjoyed this significantly more than a few of the McConaugheMays this month. I think it helps that I really love Interstellar. I still think it's funny to not put it on this year's list even thought it qualifies, but I also think my own suffering is funny, so…

Interstellar is probably Matthew McConaughey's best film in terms of his own performance (the scene of him breaking down as the videos his children send feature them older and less engaged with the possibility that their dad is even still alive always makes me tear up), and this BTS compilation really made it clear how much of that is down to Nolan and his incredible team making such a realistic world for the actors to inhabit. When the set is so impeccable, when all these artisans are working together to create a vision, all an actor needs to do to start with is to exist within it and ignore the cameras. It's a hell of a gift to offer anyone, especially trained actors used to harder working conditions.

I feel like the discourse around director Christopher Nolan's use of practical effects has mostly died down (?), but I remember it seeming like people thought the whole thing was performative and a waste of money. But you see what his team builds here, and you see how much that attention to detail allows for an immersive space, and it kinda takes your breath away. It takes McConaughey’s breath away, certainly, as he’s seen gasping as he sees the fifth-dimensional black hole space featured in the film’s climax. If you're going to be a blockbuster filmmaker, a massive practical set is the best thing you can spend money on, in this reviewer’s humble opinion. Nolan calls VFX a tool that can be used, rather than a solution, and that's exactly the type of philosophy in big budget filmmaking that I respect. It’s frustrating to see multi-million dollar movies that have such a consistent “Fix it in post” mentality. Art is a synthesis of what's come before, and one new color doesn't make a painting, even if it is cheap to buy at the store.

The coolest detail gleaned from this series of short vignettes this is that they weren't sure how to shoot the whole thing in IMAX because previous experiments hadn't allowed for the kind of flexibility of camera movement that Nolan was happy with. The problem was immediately negated when cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema solved that issue by just picking the camera up himself and treating it like a normal camera. Nolan's response: "Yeah, he's quite strong." Worth watching entirely for that, if I’m being honest.