One of the most common complaints about Christopher Nolan’s films is the inaudible dialogue.
Some of the reasoning is obvious, be it obstructions like Tom Hardy’s Bane mask to the usual blaring bombast of a Hans Zimmer score.
At other times though, there seems no real reason for it. Much of the blame for it goes on the film’s sound mixing, but it turns out there’s a more direct reason.
Nolan says he doesn’t have his actors return after filming is done and do additional dialogue recordings (ADR) in post-production, a tool virtually every TV and movie uses.
In ADR, an actor goes into a soundproof booth and reads lines over again so they are clearer. Explaining why he doesn’t use it, he tells Insider:
“I like to use the performance that was given in the moment rather than the actor revoice it later. Which is an artistic choice that some people disagree with, and that’s their right.”
Adding to the complication is that Nolan shoots his movies with IMAX cameras which are famously very noisy – not a problem for large action scenes but an issue in terms of quieter dialogue scenes. Still, that specific issue is diminishing as the technology improves:
“There are certain mechanical improvements, and actually, Imax is building new cameras right now which are going to be even quieter. 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.”
Nolan added he purposely didn’t use the IMAX camera on “Oppenheimer” in the scene where the character meets President Truman (Gary Oldman) due to its dialogue-heavy nature.
Nolan’s artistic choices haven’t hurt his bottom line, with “Oppenheimer” having already grossed over $400 million worldwide.
