My movies are supposed to sound that way, grumbles Christopher Nolan over abrasive background noise
Listen up: Christopher Nolan’s movies are hard to hear by design
Audiences have never been quiet about Christopher Nolan’s sound design. They hate it. Between Tom Hardy’s masks and the barrage explosions, both hallmarks of the Nolan experience, the director’s blockbusters are noisy and raucous affairs. Considering his work has been hard to hear for over a decade, we all assume this is a stylistic choice. Noise, distortion, and static are all atmospheric sounds that help create the type of film the director wants. As they say in Tenet, don’t try to understand it; feel it.
Nolan, who is so into analog recording that he made IMAX figure out black-and-white 65mm film for the first time, likes to use the audio recorded on location rather than ADR. Nevertheless, Mr. Nolan is much more secure in his decision and the fact that some disagree with his choice than others.
“I like to use the performance that was given in the moment rather than the actor re-voice it later,” Nolan told Insider. “Which is an artistic choice that some people disagree with, and that’s their right.”
When The A.V. Club investigated recent audio issues in film and television, sound professionals told us that filming on location creates variables that make audio harder to capture. As opposed to a soundstage, which is much more conducive to producing clean audio, filming in the wilds of New Mexico means actors must compete with lots of background noise. Most directors opt to re-record the dialogue in a studio, but not Nolan, who prefers the authenticity of the location. On top of all that, those IMAX cameras Mr. Nolan loves so much are loud as hell. However, Nolan says that “certain mechanical improvements” might make his movies easier to hear in the future.
“IMAX is building new cameras right now, which are going to be even quieter,” he said. “But the real breakthrough is in software technology that allows you to filter out the camera noise. That has improved massively in the 15 or so years that I’ve been using these cameras. Which opens up for you to do more intimate scenes that you would not have been able to do in the past.”
Maybe, one day, hopefully, there will be an even more significant breakthrough, and someone will develop software that can digitally remove the masks from Tom Hardy’s face. Either way, noisy audio hasn’t hurt Nolan’s box office. Oppenheimer, a three-hour movie mainly consisting of dialogue scenes backed by an ever-present score, has grossed over $400 million worldwide. Not bad for a movie some consider unintelligible.