There are a lot of things to say about "Interstellar," but the conversation probably needs to start at the point of acknowledging that, at the studio level, we haven’t seen a picture of this kind of ambition probably since, well, "Inception." Christopher Nolan‘s film mixes the themes, concerns and emotion of John Steinbeck, Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick into a heady movie that attempts to intersect science and love. Basically, there are few $200 million movies that have as little explosions and toy selling opportunities as "Interstellar." And thus it’s not a surprise that Nolan has earned the appreciation of his colleagues.
Last month, during a talk at the New York Film Festival, Paul Thomas Anderson called Nolan’s film "beautiful," urging audiences to " go see it in IMAX." And now Quentin Tarantino has put his very vocal support behind the picture too.
“It’s been a while since somebody has come out with such a big vision to things,” Tarantino told The Guardian. “Even the elements, the fact that dust is everywhere, and they’re living in this dust bowl that is just completely enveloping this area of the world. That’s almost something you expect from Tarkovsky or Malick, not a science fiction adventure movie.”
For Nolan himself, he sees his movie as sharing elements with another, more unlikely, more contemporary filmmaker and film. "For me, the film is really about being a father. The sense of your life passing you by and your kids growing up before your eyes," the director explained. "Very much what I felt watching Richard Linklater’s ‘Boyhood,’ an extraordinary film, which is weirdly doing the same thing in a completely different way. We are all engaged in the biggest mystery of all, which is just living through time.”
Whether it’s Kubrick or Spielberg or even Linklater, the names being associated with "Interstellar" are unlike any that have greeted a Nolan picture in his career thus far (and be sure to read our retrospective). But has he made a movie that stands alongside the great pictures of all time? The filmmaker himself certainly isn’t going to make that claim, but admits he swung hard for the fences.
“I’ve always believed that if you want to really try and make a great film, not a good film, but a great film, you have to take a lot of risks,” Nolan said. “It was very clear to me that if you’re going to make a film called ‘Interstellar,’ it’s going to have to be something extremely ambitious. You push it in all the possible directions you can. Not for its own sake, but because you know that if you’re going to try to add something to the canon, besides fiction films and all the rest, and live up to the promise of that title and the scale of that title, you really have to go there.”
"Interstellar" opens on November 5th in select cinemas and November 7th everywhere. Check out some new featurettes and TV spots below, along with a video (via FilmDrunk) from AutoNation IMAX Theater Chief Projectionist Armando Mena, who explains the ins and outs of projecting "Interstellar" on 70mm. And yes, go see it in IMAX.