Unusually, director Christopher Nolan withheld the release of the score for Interstellar until two weeks after the release of his new film, believing the emotional impact is best married to the full, cinematic experience. And that includes the “experiential” sound mix, that has garnered such a debate about audibility and clarity of dialogue.
“I’ve always loved films that approach sound in an impressionistic way and that is an unusual approach for a mainstream blockbuster, but I feel it’s the right approach for this experiential film,” Nolan told The Hollywood Reporter. “Many of the filmmakers I’ve admired over the years have used sound in bold and adventurous ways. I don’t agree with the idea that you can only achieve clarity through dialogue. Clarity of story, clarity of emotions — I try to achieve that in a very layered way using all the different things at my disposal — picture and sound.”
Nolan credits Interstellar’s final sound mix to “very tight teamwork” among composer Hans Zimmer, re-recording mixers Gary Rizzo and Gregg Landaker and sound designer Richard King.
A key element to the music was the use of the 1926 four-manual Harrison & Harrison organ in London’s 12th-century Temple Church, as played by the church’s current director of music, Roger Sayer. “We went to London and quietly made a pact: If we got even one great note out of that organ, we had fulfilled our mandate. Organs are, by nature, incredibly complicated beasts. As soon as Roger started to play,” Zimmer told Filmmusicsociety.org, “both Chris and I knew, this was going to work. Roger was our star.”
Zimmer used an ensemble of 34 strings, 24 woodwinds and four pianos, as well as a 60-voice mixed choir. “There is an enormous amount (of choral elements),” Zimmer says, “but I use them in strange ways. I wanted to hear the exhalation of 60 people, imagining the wind over the dunes in the Sahara. I got them to face away from the microphones, and used them as reverb for the pianos. The further we get away from Earth in the movie, the more the sound is generated by humans – but an alienation of human sounds. Like the video messages in the movie, they’re a little more corroded, a little more abstract.”
Below is the soundtrack, and a featurette by The Soundworks Collection on the sound design of the film.