How do Nolan and Zimmer use music to convey the relationship between father and daughter in Interstellar (2014)?
After the completion of his Dark Knight Trilogy (2005 – 2012), writer-director Christopher Nolan approached long-time musical collaborator, Hans Zimmer with a simple premise for his next project. Nolan did not reveal the story of the genre of the work, instead, he sent a single typewritten page, that Zimmer describes (Interstellar: Making of, 2015)
“On the paper was a short story, no more than a precis, about a father who leaves his child to do an important job. It contained two lines of dialogue
“I’ll come back”
“When?”
After one day of writing, Zimmer played the first iteration of his Interstellar (2014) main theme to Nolan, who then revealed that the film was to be a sci-fi blockbuster that would combine quantum physics and black holes with the most basic of human bonds, parent and child. Zimmer was apparently perplexed at this reveal, as he recalls in an interview:
“Chris, hang on, I’ve just written this highly personal thing, you know?”
To which Nolan replies
“Yes, but I know where the heart of the movie is now”
Whatever the reality of his anecdote it reveals the important role Zimmer plays in Nolan’s work and reaffirms his position as a contributing auteur in his own right, as Nolan admits he would “listening to it extensively whilst I finished writing the script” as it “captured the emotional qualities of the film I wanted”, (Interstellar: Making of, 2015). The emotional qualities Nolan identified are crystallised by Hathaway’s Dr. Brand, whom, whilst trying to convince the crew to head to the planet her former partner is stranded upon, states:
“Love is the one thing that we are capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space”
‘Love’ acts as a catalyst throughout the film as it compels characters to override their logical senses and follow the transcendent call from within and these moments are rewarded throughout the narrative as they lead to scientific discoveries that feed the emotional connection between father and daughter, bringing their relationship in to focus at the heart of the narrative. Therefore, it would be incorrect to say of the music of Interstellar that is “situated in another time and another place then the events…” as Chion would argue, rather it acts as a perceptual guide from with the diegesis (Winters, 2010, p. 15) giving voice to the un-voice-able; the notion what we feel should be given equity with the rational, scientific perspective we used to understand our reality.
In this essay, I will show how Zimmer’s simple four-note theme, inspired by his love for his son, became the sonic basis for the entire film and reinforces the films primary message that love is a force that transcends all know human and scientific dimensions. The theme, which undergoes five variants throughout the film functions as the connective tissue that ties the narrative strands of Copper and his daughter Murphy and is evidence of music’s non-verbal and non-denotative nature being used to cross “all varieties of ‘borders” (Chion, 1994) within the film’s narrative.
Whilst solidly rooted within the sci-fi genre, Zimmer rejects its formal musical conventions and approaches sound design and music in an experimental manner rather than conforming with the expectations of Hollywood blockbusters. Nolan, a proponent of the “sound is as important as picture” approach, states that “I’ve always loved films that approach sound in an impressionistic way” and for Interstellar, he wanted his world to be “based on very intimate, recognisable sounds”.
Diverging away from traditional approaches to cinematic scoring, Zimmer did not write leitmotif for individual characters, instead, he wrote a single theme that goes through a series of variants as it underpins the emotional state of characters throughout the film. The main theme of Interstellar is an example of one of Zimmer’s many authorial signatures, a mode of composition (Lehman, 2017, p. 29) terms the “cathartic staccato”; cues built from the repetition and cumulative intensification of a short motivic module, and is just one such “Zimmerism” that envelope important narrative moments with high emotional resonance. Given the nature of the theme’s composition, the question of authorship is again raised as (Wierzbicki, 2009), argues that composers are chameleons who adapt to the conditions of each project, but in this case those conditions were initially withheld from Zimmer which explains why his voice is at times has primacy over other technical aspects of the film.
Throughout his career, Zimmer’s work been criticised for being too ‘Wagnerian’ and the comparisons are obvious; his themes are made up of layers of beautiful, nuanced chord movements, overlaid with repetitious and all-encompassing macro melodies that often threaten to overwhelm his entire score. However, given the level of emotional resonance the theme must impart on to Nolan's extraordinary visuals and the broad themes at play, Zimmer’s Wagnerian influences provide the ideal framing device for this narrative as Wagner himself saw music as:
"as pure organ of the feeling, [the music] speaks out to the very thing which speech in itself cannot speak out… that which, looked at from the standpoint of human intellect, is the unspeakable". (Wagner, 1964)
Like most of the themes written for Nolan, Zimmer’s are often musically quite simple but always effective in conveying the mood and tone of the scene, and what Zimmer produced for Nolan was a delicate four-note ‘main theme’ [fig .1] sequence that would form the basis a series of ‘cathartic staccato’ (Lehman, 2017) with varying intensities.
In selecting the instrumentation for the theme neither Nolan nor Zimmer wanted a traditional approach, “It was very important to me that the music not pay any attention to the genre of the film” (Interstellar: Making of, 2015), and the pair eventually settled upon London Temple Church’s 1926 Four-manual Harrison & Harrison organ. Nolan hoped this would bring a sense of religiosity to the film as he saw the instrument as “mankind’s attempt to portray the mystical or the metaphysical, what’s beyond us, beyond the realm of the everyday”, and in giving Zimmer’s voice such prominence the music is not restricted to the external world, but is part of the ‘filmind’ (Fampton, 2007); part of the film itself steering its own discourse. In the same way that Winters’ recalls the force from Star Wars to explain music (an energy field that surrounds us, binds the galaxy) the music of Interstellar functions in the same way love does; a perceptible force that guides attention and perception whilst remaining intangible and transcendent to the characters.
This representation of the metaphysical is best seen during scenes with Cooper when he and the crew encounter obstacles in which the organ lets out rhythmic breaths that punctuate tense moments and strengthen the conflicting human and scientific perspectives that constantly threaten to destabilise the crew’s mission. Throughout the score the organ dominates the film and provides the necessary emotional resonance to act as the catalyst for the relationship between Cooper and Murphy, fulfilling a primary role of film music in what (Chion, 1994) describes as the “connecting tissue…among all levels of narrative”. Whilst not religious, the score does evoke feelings of the divine that stem not from spiritual discovery but from scientific endeavor, and it is in these moments of the film that the bond between Cooper and Murphy is at its most intimate and vulnerable.
The organ was not universally loved upon release however and the film’s score was met with some harsh criticism, with stories emerging of how the film broke an IMAX cinema. (Denby, 2014) of the New Yorker said of Zimmer, “The composer Hans Zimmer produces monstrous swells of organ music that occasionally smother the words like lava” However, Zimmer’s re-iteration of the same basic theme forms the emotional core of the film and help drive its primary message; love is the most important aspects of human experience, and it is fitting that Zimmer’s score at times overwhelms, whilst at other times the simplicity of the theme transcends the role of mere narrative accompaniment.
The film’s scientific ideas are grounded in the work of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, and the Nolan’s went to great length to remain as scientifically accurate as they could, but the scientific is in constant juxtaposition with human perception and ‘feeling’; best exemplified by the robot Tars, who tells Copper his attempt to rescue a crashing space station is impossible, to which Cooper replies, “No, it’s necessary”. Zimmer’s themes and the blasts from the organ reinforce the transcendent nature of love through the blistering sonic experience that continually overwhelms the scientific; an idea expressed via an instrument that mimics human breathing "it can only make a sound with air and it needs to breathe, an on each not, you hear the breath, you hear the exhale” (Zimmer, 2014).
The film opens with faint echoes of Zimmer’s main theme playing over studio logos before abruptly cutting off to be replaced with the blast from Cooper’s failing shuttle, establishing Cooper as a risk-taking engineer willing to put his life in danger for scientific discoveries. The main theme at this points remains in its original form with single notes reverberating into the void without a response, a convention used throughout the narrative when Cooper's isolation from his family is brought in to focus.
The only time we see the family in harmony, with specific emphasise placed on the relationship between Murphy and Copper takes place during the opening sequences in which they chase an Indian drone that appears above their home. When they stop to replace a flat tyre, Cooper explains the scientific inspiration for Murphy’s name; Murphy’s Law; “it means whatever can happen, will happen”, the first variant of the ‘main theme’, which I will refer to as the ‘love’ theme, begins to play, [fig .2]
Simple, low and delicate, the theme is first introduced at a moment scientific endeavor acting as the bonding agent between father and daughter, forefronting these interconnected themes that will be used as connective tissue at the heart of the narrative. The conversation between Murphy and Cooper is scientific in nature as are their interactions and the defining moments of their relationship are centred around science as the discoveries of the world develop their relationships and eventually bring the narrative to a resolution. The music then progresses through a flurry of erratic syncopation as the drone flies overhead, signaling its arrival to the audience and the excitement of the characters. As they chase the drone the theme remains in the major key but increases it’s time signature from 6/4 to 3/4, building intensity and giving the scene a sense of momentum and wonder as Murphy and Cooper work in tandem to track and hack the drone. Zimmer’s addition of an E note after the existing notes in the main theme creates a series of doublets that act as a second voice calling back to the initially solo voice, reflecting the two voices of Cooper and Murphy as their shared scientific discoveries and strengthen their bond whilst move the narrative slowly towards its resolution. The theme at this point is played on a pipe organ which does more than recall religiosity; the swirling strings and rapid sequence of notes create an ethereal sound that seems to emanate from with the diegetic world mimicking the intense emotion between characters as both the music and love are unseen forces that affect the characters whether they realise it or not.
In their next interaction, Cooper is investigating Murphy’s ‘ghost’ (a gravitational anomaly in her bedroom) which is later to be revealed as Cooper, manipulating gravity from inside the black hole. As Cooper inspects the anomalies the mid-section of Zimmer's theme plays the solemn melody in a minor key, repeating the back and forth between notes in a continuous but stalled progression, as Cooper ruminates. With Murphy’s assistance, they discover the pattern left by the anomalies are actually coordinates to a location nearby. As the discoveries are made the ‘love’ theme bursts free from the stalled progression and restores its tempo with the quickening narrative as the dialogue between the A and E notes finally resumes its progression, further framing the intense bond between father and daughter via scientific discovery.
What the pair find at the coordinates is a top-secret NASA installation at which Cooper is offered a role in their Interstellar project designed to save the Earth, which Cooper accepts. Upon their return home, Cooper enters the bedroom as Murphy lies in her bed with her back to her father. A single note sounds faintly as the dialogue emerges from the silence, before changing to the second note of the theme, slowly moving forward towards Cooper’s imminent departure. At this early stage the theme is played within a major key and recalls the emotional bond between Cooper and Murphy established in the film’s opening sequences, however, the doublets begin to work backward as they repeat the same back and forth, halting the sense of narrative and emotional momentum as the notes fall out of sync. During the conversation Cooper is trying to soothe his daughter but as he says “we are here to be memories for our kids” a low, stable bass notes enter the score, rumbling almost imperceptibly beneath the scene (connoting Murphy’s inner turmoil), threatening to overwhelm the soundtrack as Murphy’s emotions are overwhelmed as she disappears from the bottom of the frame. Despite Murphy's distress, she remains confident that Cooper will return sooner rather than later and the two-alternating high pitched notes mirroring the back and forth between father and daughter becomes underscored by the ominous bass note. When Cooper reveals he may not return for decades the theme begins operating as an indicator of narrative space (Winters, 2010) as it shifts down to a minor key as the positive back and forth between notes transitions in to a sinister, driving tone, marking the emotional, temporal and geographical rift that is being created between them as the music goes beyond a connotative device and begins to exert direct influence on the spectators’ cognitive processing of the film. (Boltz, 2001)
As Cooper leaves the score slowly builds in pitch and intensity to an explore burst from an organ as the sound overwhelms the visuals; Murph’s voice as she calls to her father is completely drowned by the sound mix as the breakdown of their relationship is most powerfully expressed via the sound. As Cooper drives away the house the mid-section of the ‘love’ theme climaxes with increasing intensity on the organ as all other sources of sound (shuttle countdown, shuttle take off) synchronise in to one sonic message that intensifies consequence of breaking the bond, until an abrupt removal of sound as Nolan cuts to space. The abrupt removal of music serves the narrative and adds verisimilitude but its primary act is as an aural signifier of the broken connection between the two; the theme was never able to rise back up to the major key and promise reunion and joy as it does later in the film. Here, the finality of the break is heart-breaking and crystallises the severed connection between Murph and Cooper.
The next interaction between Cooper and Murphy takes place after his disastrous attempt to rescue one of his predecessors from an earlier mission which, due to ‘time-slippage’, creates a 19-year disparity between Murphy and Cooper’s narrative strands. As Cooper sits down to screen the messages the ‘love’ theme surfaces once again with two notes in dialogue; this time the music accompanies Cooper’s interactions with his son, Tom, who informs Cooper that he is now a grandfather. When the next message begins to play a jump in time is noticeable as the Tom, has grown a beard and the lighting has shifted from high key to more sombre darkness. Tom informs Cooper of the deaths of his own son and that of the maternal grandfather Donald (Lithgow) and during this interaction the music stalls. The dialogue between the two notes becomes stuck as the melody begins its usual uplifting drive forward before becoming stuck, repeating the first and second doublets but never reaching the third. The theme’s role has been to drive the narrative and act as emotional connective tissue between his Cooper and his daughter, but here the break of emotional connection resulting from 19 years unanswered messages has led to the breakdown of their relationship. The music’s disorientation also acts to simultaneously signify the time slippage and physical effects that resulted from Cooper’s failed attempt to rescue the scientist and act to maximise the distance between characters spatially, temporally and emotionally. At moments like this when music and image synchronise so strongly the music the implication to the spectator is clear, however as (Winters, 2010, p. 24) argues the theme’s denotative nature can be said to have an influence on the diegesis and the characters whether they are aware of it, or not as the music becomes part of the diegesis as it acts as an interpreter of the emotion the characters are feeling within the diegetic world. Whilst they may not be able to hear the actual pieces of music, the intensity and feelings of emotional expression are perceptible via Zimmer' theme.
The music abruptly ends with the messages before Murphy appears on screen, 19 years older. What is interesting here is that the music is used over the son’s messages reinforcing its role as connective tissue but when the son shuts off his final message the music cuts off with it. The emotional connection has been severed by the son and spectators are forced to share the stark silence with Cooper as his family disappears. When Murphy appears on screen the music refrains; instead her voice becomes the primary mode of communication as she effectively breaks the bond between father and daughter when reminding Cooper of his failed promise to return by her birthday. The silence that greets Cooper and the spectator is more than a mere absence of sound as it acts to highlight the significance of what it denies or displaces (O'Rawe, 2006, p. 395); the emotional bond between Cooper and Murphy. Removing the music forces attention to her voice whilst underpinning the spatial, temporal and emotional distance between Cooper and Murphy. As Murphy breaks down a single, low organ note can be heard; a faint reminder of their dissipating relationship, like a single voice calling into the void but getting no reply as Murphy’s voice reverberates in the cabin. The two do synchronise their emotions when Murphy states: “this would be a real good time for you to come back” – the crying and emotional outpourings of each character repositions their relationship within the narrative as one defined by emotional absence, not emotional connection.
During the climactic sequence Copper and Murphy's theme is formulated as DETACH; the musical accompaniment to Cooper's descent into the black hole. [fig 3.]
The scene begins with Cooper admitting that their maneuver around the black hole will result in 51 years of time slippage that will end any chance of Cooper seeing his daughter again. As Cooper and Brand’s ship sling-shots around the black-hole a repetitive note pulses from an organ, traversing the ‘fantastical gap’ between non-diegetic and diegetic, rendering the effect of the black hole in music.
Having been abruptly halted upon Cooper’s initial departure from his daughter, the mid-section of the Love theme is used again to underscore Cooper’s departure and his severing of an emotional connection before the theme reaches its gloriously uplifting climax as Cooper releases himself into the black hole, departing the mission and bringing himself closer to his daughter whom he will communicate with from within Gargantua.
As he enters the black hole the music stops as if sucked into the event horizon like everything else. The connection between the two is on hold as the absence of music creates a sonic no-mans-land in which both Cooper and the spectator are left floating, before the Tesseract rushes in to focus and Cooper makes the realisation that he can communicate with Murphy; which is underscored by the first iteration of the theme used in the Drone chase sequence that opens the narrative.
Inside the Black Hole, Cooper encounters a Tesseract; a place in which time is manifested as a physical dimension, in which Cooper can manipulate the past and interact with Murphy. At first, Cooper is terrified and disorientated but when he realises what the place is (behind the bookcase) and that he himself was Murphy’s ‘ghost’, he states:
“Love, Tars. Love! Dr. Brand’s was right. My connection to Murph, it is quantifiable. It is the key!”
The theme returns in its purest and clearest form so far. The theme is played entirely in a major key and at these moments combines the themes of scientific exploration and human love. As Cooper translates the information into the watch Tars asks "What if she never came back for it?", to which he replies “She will. Because I gave it to her”. The two-note dialogue returns and re-establishes the deeply personal connection between Cooper before the doublet notes fall back to a single note as the family is unified once again.
After being ejected from the Tesseract and picked up by a local space ship, Cooper awakes in a white hospital room on a space station. He learns that Murphy is still alive and he enters her room in a POV shot accompanied by a single note from the organ, increasing in fidelity. The note abruptly halts as father and daughter see one another for the first time in over ninety years, and the ‘love’ theme quietly begins playing. The theme is clear, in a major key and is not disrupted by lingering base notes or overpowering breaths from the organ.
Reunited, Cooper and Murphy’s theme plays in its purest, simplest and most affecting form. The two notes that structure the piece is complemented by additional erratic syncopation that seem to dance around one another in the major key, underpinning the joyous emotional reunion. Given this themes importance to our understanding of Copper and Murphy’s relationship, I argue that the music of Interstellar is not automatous to the narrative as it participates in the construction of narrative meaning. The themes final act is to transfer its role as connective tissue from Murphy to Brand as the theme increases in volume and intensity after Murph gives Cooper permission to go after Brand.
Throughout Interstellar, variants of Zimmer’s ‘main theme’ provide more than extra-textual resonance, the music is the emotional bond that drives the narrative forward and gives the narrative a sense of finality as characters are reunited with the same theme that introduced them. When Brand talks about Love’s transcendent qualities she says “maybe it means something more, something we can’t yet understand… Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space”, and whilst music does not transcend time, real or diegetic, it’s capacity to transcend space is what makes it an essential component of cinema.
Bibliography
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