Christopher Nolan movies are notorious for “bad” sound mixing, but Oppenheimer should fix the acclaimed director’s one filmmaking weakness. Christopher Nolan is one of the most critically lauded, commercially successful filmmakers of the day. From the meta dream-scapes of Inception to the movie-as-illusion trickery of The Prestige, to the time-warping head trips of Interstellar and Tenet, Nolan’s high-concept blockbusters are proof that popcorn flicks don’t have to be dumb. They’re also showcases of craft, with great performances, inspired scores, and state-of-the-art effects. In one technical category, however, the movies of Christopher Nolan consistently fall flat.
Christopher Nolan’s filmography has been plagued by bad sound mixing; in particular, inaudible dialogue. From professional reviews to Letterboxd threads, to those ultimate indices of pop-culture consensus, memes, the problem has loomed large in the discourse around Nolan’s films. Even fellow directors, Nolan says, have called him to say his “dialogue is inaudible.” That such a specialized aspect of Nolan’s craft has entered the collective consciousness speaks to the severity of the problem, but one need only look to the stories themselves to see why it’s a big deal. Christopher Nolan’s plots and story structures are complicated, his movies often relying on expository dialogue to help audiences keep up. When audiences can’t hear the dialogue because it’s mixed too low, complication leads to confusion. All that, however, may be about to change.
Related: When Will Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer Trailer Release Online?
With legendary audio engineer, Willie Burton, announced as being on board for Nolan’s forthcoming Oppenheimer should help rehab the director’s reputation for bad sound mixing. Burton, a two-time Oscar winner and seven-time nominee whose credits include War Games, Se7en, and Dreamgirls, is no doubt equal to the task. Moreover, the highly public announcement of his hiring seems to be Nolan’s way of saying, “Don’t worry, Oppenheimer’s sound is in good hands.” Of course, it remains to be seen whether Nolan will have the restraint to get out of Burton’s way.
How Christopher Nolan Justifies His Radical Approach to Sound Mixing
To be sure, the “bad” sound mixing in Christopher Nolan movies is no accident. Nolan strives for gritty and realistic, an aesthetic that famously set his Batman trilogy apart from the superhero crowd, and his radical approach to sound reflects that aesthetic. In real life, dialogue will never be crystal clear during a shootout, a plane crash, or an explosion. Sometimes, it’s clearly the right approach. In 2017’s Dunkirk, a piece of pure cinema where visuals do most of the storytelling, the deafening bomber sirens and drowned-out dialogue create a uniquely immersive experience. Other times, it’s clearly the wrong approach. 2020’s time-inversion puzzler, Tenet, quickly goes from a head trip to a headache thanks to the soft dialogue. Before that, in The Dark Knight Rises, Bane’s (Tom Hardy) mask-muddled delivery is more comical than menacing.
Oppenheimer, set to release in 2023, will tell the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project physicist credited as the father of the atomic bomb and remembered for the quote, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” A biopic, Oppenheimer is sure to have plenty of dialogue, and given the explosive subject matter and WWII backdrop, plenty of dialogue-drowning sound effects. With it, Willie Burton faces the monumental Manhattan Project of his own career: make sure audiences can hear the destroyer of worlds and rehab Christopher Nolan’s reputation as the destroyer of words.
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Key Release Dates
Oppenheimer
Release Date:2023-07-21
