It often happens that you can’t really hear the dialogue in Christopher Nolan movies and the director of ‘Oppenheimer’ explains why!
Christopher Nolan has had to endure some criticism during his career – including that concerning certain dialogues that we cannot hear well in his films. And this would not only concern the scenes where the actors are masked (like Tom Hardy in The Dark Knight Rises or even John David Washington in Tenet).
Muffled dialogues, superimposed background noise… Although a clear improvement can be seen in Oppenheimer compared to tenet and his previous films, there are also moments in the atomic bomb epic that are difficult for viewers to understand. But there’s a reason for that, as explained Christopher Nolan to Insider (via FilmStarts). Oppenheimer was shot with huge IMAX cameras that aren’t completely soundproof and, he says, this is a problem that will be phased out in the future.
There are some mechanical improvements. In fact, IMAX is currently building new cameras that will be even quieter. But the real breakthrough is the software technology that filters out camera noise. It has improved tremendously in the approximately 15 years that I have worked with his cameras. Which allows you to do more intimate scenes than you would have been able to do in the past.
However, the director admits that you have to choose “the right moment” to use such cameras. For example, he clarified that he did not use the 15 perf-70mm camera deliberately for the dialogue-rich Oval Office scene, where J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) meets President Truman (Gary Oldman), because it was noisier than the other machines.
BUT CAMERAS ARE NOT THE ONLY PROBLEM
There is indeed another reason why the dialogues of the films of Christopher Nolan have acoustic problems: he does not allow his actors to come back after filming to record additional dialogue in post-production. Usually, the actors, individually, go to a soundproof booth after filming to proofread their lines so that they are clearer. One thing that Christopher Nolan refuses to do.
I like to use the performance that was given at the time rather than the actors seeing it again later. It’s an artistic choice that some people don’t agree with and that’s their right.
Be that as it may, the few acoustic problems in his films did not affect their success. Oppenheimer proves it well, being already a huge success with more than 425 million dollars in box office worldwide.
Oppenheimer is to be seen and re-examined in your nearest cinema.