Christopher Nolan is widely known as a student of film and
cinema. His movies are full of references and influences from earlier works,
and his latest, Interstellar, is no exception. Watching the
epic space adventure slash family drama unfold, you can’t help but notice nods
to the work of other filmmakers. While there is obvious inspiration taken from
films like Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, Steven
Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Philip
Kaufman’s The Right Stuff, there are many more that you
wouldn’t necessarily expect. Just for the hell of it, we’ve compiled a handful
of classic black and white films (and one that is, admittedly, cheating) whose
presence can be felt, to varying degrees, in Nolan’s latest offering.
A Trip to the Moon
Georges Méliès’ 1902 A Trip to the
Moon has the distinguished honor of being the oldest film on this
list by far, and, based on the work of Jules Verne and others, is widely
regarded as the first science fiction film ever made. In that sense alone, the
film’s echoes can be felt at the theater this weekend, but there’s more. What
Interstellar does better than anything else, is capture a
sense of awe and wonder when it comes to looking up to the stars and exploring
the unknown. While that has been going on since humans first crawled out of the
primordial muck, cinematically speaking, that obsession began right here. Every
movie that came afterwards owes a debt to this. The themes of looking upwards
and marveling, and intrepid adventurers journeying to mysterious other worlds
that are at the forefront of A Trip to the Moon are the very
corner stones of sci-fi, and on full display in
Interstellar.
Metropolis
Fritz Lang’s 1927 expressionist dystopian masterpiece
Metropolis is another movie that, without its influence,
modern science fiction would look drastically different. Directly motivating everything
from Star Wars to Blade Runner, it’s
aesthetic is damn near everywhere. In the case of
Interstellar, however, Metropolis is more
of a spiritual forbearer. Much like Nolan, Lang’s film pushed the boundaries of
what was possible with movie effects at the time. Obviously there was no CGI in
1927, but upon the film’s release, it was hailed as a breathtaking technical
marvel, the kind of movie that you had to see, despite what
many considered a story that was silly, even cliché, and left many viewers and
critics at the time wanting something more. Both of these ideas are being
thrown around in regards to Interstellar in almost every
piece about the film you come across.
The Grapes of Wrath
Interstellar is set in a near future
where, due to unexplained factors—you suspect continued global climate change,
but the real reason is never explored at all—the world is dying. Wheat no
longer grows, the last ever crop of okra is being harvested as the film begins,
and all that grows with any consistency is corn, and even that won’t last much
longer. In fact, with massive, sweeping dust storms—the grit is omnipresent,
seeping through every crack—this reality is consciously reminiscent of the
Great Depression era dustbowl depicted in John Ford’s 1940 adaptation of John
Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. In it’s day,
Grapes was still painfully familiar, while Nolan’s film
feels eerily prescient now. Matthew McConaughey’s Cooper even resembles a
modern incarnation of Henry Fonda’s Tom Joad. Unable to do anything else, both
dream of something bigger, something better for their families, and each leaves,
in his own way searching for a future, only to find unexpected struggles along
the way.
Woman in the Moon
Woman in the Moon marks the second Fritz
Lang entry in our truncated list, and this 1929 silent film, maybe even more
than A Trip to the Moon, is the first depiction of space
travel on screen, at least as it appears today. Revolving around a professor
who believes that there are stores of gold to be mined on the lunar surface,
this is one of the earliest, if not the first, movies to introduce the idea
that there are worlds out there with things we, as a species, can use. Here the
idea is that there are ways to profit—which is similar to the idea of asteroid
mining—but what’s more useful than a new planet to call home like the crew from
Interstellar are looking for? They’re different parts of the
same equation, and Woman in the Moon, depicting the moon
with a breathable atmosphere, definitely brings up the idea that there is more
waiting for us out there beyond our own world. You’ll also notice definite
similarities to one of the planets visited in Nolan’s film.
Fantastic Voyage
This is, admittedly, cheating, as this entry is in color,
but I really wanted to include this title on this list, so there you have it.
At first glance, Richard Fleischer’s 1966 Fantastic
Voyage and Interstellar appear to be polar
opposites. One goes big and out, while the other goes small and very literally inward.
What they share, however, is a similar sense of adventure and wonder and
exploration. After being shrunk, the crew of Voyage is
placed inside the body of a scientist to save his life. Primarily confined in a
small craft, they must navigate a hostile environment where the slightest
misstep will cost them their lives. As they encounter various obstacles on
their journey, this scenario plays out much like in Nolan’s film. Instead of
saving one life, they’re attempting to save all of humanity, and their mission
unfolds much like Voyage on a massive, external scale. They
venture through pathways, between galaxies instead of bodily organs, and as
they explore various new worlds it mirrors Fleisher’s film. They even have to
improvise in similar manners, using what they have at their disposal in order
to survive.
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