Christopher Nolan vs. Interstellar — The Nolan Crosscut

hi i'm michael this is lessons from the screenplay christopher nolan films have an amazing sense of momentum whether it's batman racing to save gotham the evacuation of dunkirk or set up for the ultimate magic trick are you watching closely nolan's use of cross cutting between various story threads can create suspense and prime us for cathartic twists but there's one particular cross-cut sequence that has always bothered me it's in interstellar when the story thread of cooper and his team is intercut with that of his daughter back on earth this sequence is as gorgeously shot as any of his films the music is evocative there are strong performances yet there's something about the sequence that i think doesn't quite work so today i want to briefly look at the dark knight to uncover the elements of an effective nolan crosscut to test these elements in similar sequences in both inception and interstellar and to ultimately discover why the narrative power of this interstellar sequence falls short of what we usually expect from one of our most ambitious modern filmmakers let's take a look at the nolan crosscut in addition to being almost universally beloved the dark knight is filled with excellent examples of the nolan crosscut so let's start by examining one sequence to discover the elements that make it so successful as the film hurtles towards its conclusion the audience is following three parallel story threads harvey dent wants to punish commissioner gordon by targeting his wife and children two fairies have been rigged with explosives and the only way for the passengers on board to save their own lives is if they blow up the other fairy and if they don't the joker will blow up both fairies unless batman can stop him across all three threads there are clear and comparable stakes we understand that people's lives are in danger but it's not just that their lives are in danger they're in danger right now dent has taken gordon's family hostage harvey where's my family where my family died and the other two story threads feature literal ticking clocks counting down to midnight the joker's deadline for his ferry experiment so we also understand that there is an equality of urgency all of their problems need to be dealt with immediately but the sequence goes one step further to quickly define a term the dramatic question of a film is the central question that effectively summarizes what a story is about and is what keeps the audience watching and in this case the dramatic question of the dark knight could be phrased will the joker win the battle for gotham's soul all three story threads and the cross-cut sequence directly relate to this question batman is literally trying to stop the joker the people on the ferries must resist playing his twisted game and harvey dent becoming two-face is the joker's doing you need an ace in the hall mine's harvey all three threads pertain to a unified dramatic question so now that we've cracked the code of an effective christopher nolan crosscut sequence let's test our theory against similar sequences an inception and interstellar both inception and interstellar feature extended cross-cut sequences at the end of their second acts both bring the characters to a moment of apparent defeat setting up the final acts of the films but do they both contain the underlying dramatic elements that are so effective in the dark knight let's find out first up clear and comparable stakes in inception a dream thief named cobb and his team must descend through three levels of an elaborate dream world in order to implant an idea in their target's mind during the final stage of this mind heist the film cross cuts between parallel lines of action in all three dream levels this cross-cutting creates suspense because the audience understands what's at stake in each line of action as the film explains several times during this heist if they die in the dream world they will be trapped in limbo instead of simply waking up so what happens when we die i drop in the limbo are you serious and this is a problem because there's an army of subconscious security forces trying to kill them in all three dream levels so now we're trapped in fish's mind battling his own private army and if we get killed we'll be lost in limbo till our brains turn to scrambled egg so on all three cross-cut story threads the characters face these clear and comparable stakes in interstellar a farmer astronaut named cooper leads a mission to find a

habitable planet for humankind while his daughter murph struggles to solve a gravity equation that would enable the evacuation of earth the cross-cut sequence begins when a stranded scientist dr mann also known as surprise matt damon betrays cooper intending to maroon cooper and his team on an uninhabitable planet by stealing their ship dr mann please respond in this space-bound thread the stakes are absolutely clear if he takes control of that ship we're dead if man boards their ship he will strand them and potentially doom all future human life this thread is cross cut with murph's earthbound story where the stakes are trickier to pin down do you have an idea a feeling murph has a feeling that the solution to the gravity equation lies in her childhood bedroom and that it has something to do with her ghost if there's an answer here on earth it's back there somehow in that room so i would say the stakes of murph's overall goal in the sequence are comparable if murph doesn't solve the gravity equation human life on earth will end but most of the earthbound thread we see during the sequence is only indirectly related to that goal instead the threat is primarily concerned with the mechanics of distracting her brother tom so she can gain access to her childhood bedroom and evacuate his family whose health is in danger and while the lives of tom's family are important they are not equal to the fate of humanity he'd maroon us oh he is marooning us so the overall stakes for murph are high but her immediate concerns are not comparable for the audience right now which connects directly to the quality of urgency as in the dark knight the team and inception is racing against a ticking clock they must complete the mission before yusuf initiates the kick and the uppermost dream level once he does the characters at each lower level need to simultaneously create the sensation of falling in order to wake themselves up but in inception time progresses differently at different dream levels this is 10 seconds from the jump which gives arthur three minutes which gives us what 60 minutes so does this count as a quality of urgency well urgency depends not just on how much time you have to do something but also what it is you have to do in that time in each stream level the characters tasks are scaled such that they barely have enough time to complete them it's too soon moreover they all face the same exact deadline so as it approaches the urgency only continues to grow in interstellar the space-bound story thread is constantly ratcheting up the urgency first dr mann attacks cooper and cracks open his helmet so brand must race to his rescue before cooper suffocates cooper were coming hang in there don't talk then man attempts to dock with their ship creating a new kind of ticking clock as cooper and bran try to stop him do not attempt docking i repeat every moment of the space-bound thread is a race against time back on earth there is also a sense of urgency but it's unclear why the situation is so urgent before murph arrives at the farm she indicates that time is of the essence we're running out of time but in this case she's referring to time for humanity as a whole once they get to the farm murf's doctor friend getty examines tom's family all of the dust in the air is causing respiratory issues it's bad they cannot stay here if the family stays presumably this would mean death for them but not right at this very moment the most urgent threat facing murph is her brother let me make something abundantly clear you have a responsibility who stubbornly refuses to let his family leave and keeps murph from investigating her childhood bedroom get out and don't come back so murph decides to light the farm's crops on fire knowing this will distract her brother long enough to allow her to get the family out and finally access the bedroom here the threat of tom's return does seem to be urgent go get the backseat get in the back seat now but it's not clear how urgent it is this is because we don't understand what exactly murph needs to do to solve the equation nor how long she has before tom returns in inception the task is clear get fisher into the strong room and occasional shots of the falling van as well as expositional dialogue continually update the audience on the looming threat

arthur has a couple minutes we have about 20. in the space-bound sequence of interstellar we follow man as he progresses toward the ship he's trying to steal we know he must be stopped and we can see the time is running out but back on earth our only reference for how much time they have left is how concerned getty is at any given moment so unless the viewer knows exactly how long it takes to douse a corn crop fire and decode the messages a ghost sent you 23 years ago it's hard to feel the urgent threat of tom's return ultimately this means that in this sequence cooper gasping for breath on a distant planet while brand races to save him is intercut with murph pouring gasoline on corn both situations are urgent but i think it would be hard to argue that there is an equality of urgency and part of this urgency problem is directly connected to the lack of a unified dramatic question in inception all three story threads are tied together by a fairly simple dramatic question will cobb's team pull off the mind heist in time to escape and the cross-cut scenes are not just commenting on one another they're quite literally affecting each other when yusuf initiates the first kick too early arthur loses gravity and has to find a new way to drop the dreamers all while cobb and the rest of the team race to complete the mission before the second and final kick so every cross cut is giving us relevant information because each thread directly affects all the others to be fair not every movie can be inception for the external forces and one crosscut thread literally affect all the others and the threads of interstellar do eventually connect to the same dramatic question will the human species be saved i repeat do not attempt docking please resp but the problem is that at this point in the movie we don't yet know how these threads are connected and we won't for a while the last image we see from the earthbound thread in this crosscut sequence is murph finding the watch her father gave her the rest of the sequence then focuses on man's attempt to dock with the ship his failure and death and cooper's badassery as he manages to save himself and brand from certain doom this effectively ends the cross cut sequence as it completes the dramatic action that began when man decided to try to kill cooper once on board cooper and brand take stock of the situation make a new plan go their separate ways and cooper flies into a black hole and into act three and only after that 16 minutes later do we pick up where we left off with murph and begin to understand how these two story threads pertain to the same dramatic question in the dark night and inception the crosscut sequences work so effectively because their lines of action are ultimately unified in their stakes urgency and dramatic question without these underlying elements cross-cutting can create a disjointed experience for the viewer christopher nolan's films have redefined what a modern blockbuster can be they're not afraid to challenge mainstream audiences with labyrinthian plots and heady thematic ideas but most of all nolan's films display a distinct cinematic language embodied in the thrilling momentum of a cross-cut sequence by investigating when these sequences work best we can better apply those techniques to our own stories and perhaps even better appreciate the next nolan crosscut hey guys hope you enjoyed the video last month we announced a new video series all about video game storytelling called story mode the first episode on the outer worlds premiered on this channel and the second episode on outer wilds is available on nebula today we're releasing our third story mode video on one of my absolute favorite games horizon zero dawn in the video we talked to the narrative director of the game john gonzalez about how to create a protagonist that is deeply connected to the game's story world and you can watch that video today on nebula if you're not familiar with nebula it's a streaming service developed by creators to be a place where we can house our content ad-free and experiment with original content just like story mode nebula features a lot of great creators including lindsay ellis just wright patrick willems and tons of others so how do you sign up for nebula well we partnered with curiositystream the best place to find documentaries on the internet to create a bundle deal when you sign up for curiosity stream using the link in the description not only will you get access to curiositystream but you'll also get a nebula subscription for free and for a limited time curiosity stream is offering 26

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