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And no expense had been spared for his most ambitious effort to date.
Nobel Prizewinning astrophysicists had been consulted for the movies visions of intergalactic travel and black holes.
The science would be tight, we were assured, and the special effects groundbreaking.
Exclusive early Imax, 70-mm., and 35-mm.
Still, no science-fiction or space movie had ever won Best Picture.
There was just one problem: No one had seenInterstellaryet.
Like most Nolan efforts, the project was shrouded in national-security-level secrecy.
And when he finally did … the wind went out of the films awards-season sails.
Though it possessed some of those elements, it also had, shockingly, a soft and woozy center.
It was successful internationally and ultimately turned a profit.
It even won a bunch of technical awards but little else.
In that yearsVillage VoiceFilm Critics Poll, it tied for the worst movie of 2014.
It definitely felt like the once-infallible Nolan had taken at least a bit of a hit.
Perhaps thats whyInterstellarnow feels like one of the greatest films ever made about being a parent.
Now, he tries to send messages back to his earlier self essentially becoming the ghost in Murphs bookshelf.
This memory is a pivot point for the future of the human race.
If Coop doesnt leave, humanity cant be saved.
How can these two ideas be reconciled?
No, he cant change the past.
He cant keep himself from leaving.But he can want to stay.
By realizing that he wishes he could have stayed, Coop unlocks the ability to communicate with humanitys past.
His anguish and affection become the missing link between the cold hard facts of the cosmos and humanitys survival.
In other words: Yes, the secret ingredient is literally love.
No parent should have to watch their own child die, she tells him.
Look at the way this exchange is shot and edited.
Coop practically floats in the people around Murph part, but they dont say anything.
And as soon as Murph tells him to leave, he pretty much floats right back out.
Nolan even employs a brief jump cut here, to add to the scenes elliptical quality.
But theres something more going on here.
Later, he literally became the ghost in Murphs room, trying to talk to her through her bookshelf.
Coop himself doesnt really ask how or why, either.
The only one with an explanation is the dying Murph.
Nobody believed me, but I knew youd come back, she tells Coop.
Because my dad promised me, she says.
But inInterstellar, for all the astrophysics packed into the script, he cant really explain it all.
He cannot undo the contradictions, only embrace them.
