Nolan On Complaints About His Sound Mixes

By
Garth Franklin
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After scoring consistently strong reviews over the years, Christopher Nolan made a rare slip up with “Tenet” which received a much more mixed response from critics and audiences alike.

While there was various complaints about the film, one of the most common was also one that had been levelled at numerous Nolan films in the past – the sound mix. Nolan is a perfectionist so the level of dialogue vs. music vs. other audio elements are always seen as very deliberate.

This time out though, even by Nolan’s standards, the mix was off with many people complaining that they couldn’t clearly hear a big portion of the film’s dialogue. Turns out Nolan’s heard those complaints all before, including from some famous filmmakers who took their issue to Nolan himself.

New quotes have emerged from Tom Shone’s book “The Nolan Variations” (via Collider) and reveal the filmmaker refuses to engage with criticism of his films having “inaudible” dialogue. Speaking about the sound work he did for 2014’s “Interstellar,” he says:

“We got a lot of complaints…I actually got calls from other filmmakers who would say, ‘ I just saw your film, and the dialogue is inaudible.’ Some people thought maybe the music’s too loud, but the truth was it was kind of the whole enchilada of how we had chosen to mix it. It was a very, very radical mix.

I was a little shocked to realize how conservative people are when it comes to sound. Because you can make a film that looks like anything, you can shoot on your iPhone, no one’s going to complain. But if you mix the sound a certain way, or if you use certain sub-frequencies, people get up in arms.”

The quote is only part of a passage which also touches upon the infamous difficulties with sound related to “The Dark Knight Rises”. “Tenet,” with whatever sound mix is deemed suitable for digital and disc, arrives in homes in early December.