PUSHING TO SEE, PUSHING TO LIVE

Christopher Nolan’s “Interstellar” boldly takes a team of astronauts into another galaxy, holding onto the idea that love for their dear ones is what motivates and draws them (moves them) to fulfill their finding of a new home for humanity. The editing, by Lee Smith and accompanied by Hans Zimmer’s frenetic piano score, aids this portrayal.

After the team is deceived by Dr. Mann, an astronaut who had been living on an ice planet for years and sent them a signal (to be rescued rather than to confirm his planet as habitable), he damages mission pilot Cooper’s spacesuit in an attempt to take control of the ship. As Cooper lays in the middle of the frozen land and calls for help, the action is briefly intercut with a flashback to his final conversation with his daughter Murphy.

We begin with an over-the-shoulder shot of two arms from different people (father and daughter), each holding a watch. Starting on this frame reinforces a sense of urgency, the image of clocks ticking suggesting time is up. It’s also significant that the sound from the present (astronaut Brandt’s voice telling Cooper they’re coming to rescue him) continues being heard. Both mediums (visual and aural) contain the act of transmitting, the first in the form of the time on the watch, and the second as a response to a distress signal. This function extends to the shot itself, as a sensory reference trying to bring Cooper to picture himself with his daughter. The next shot has Murphy lifting her view from the watch to make eye contact, preoccupied, with her father. She serves as a displacement of the look, continuing the idea of “seeing”. Finally, a cut that keeps spatial continuity but jumps forward has Murphy, by her father’s side, throwing her watch in anger. There is no conduction of the view here (Murphy just looks ahead as she tosses the watch, and Cooper avoids looking at it), but a poignant captured moment. With this pause, we go back to present-day Cooper, who has gained an edge of time to live.

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