Christopher Nolan says filmmakers have called him to complain about his films’ inaudible dialogue

‘If you mix the sound a certain way, people get up in arms,’ claimed the director

Christopher Nolan has revealed that he has received irritated phone calls from other filmmakers about the sound levels in his films.

The Dark Knight director’s latest film, the mind-bending sci-fi blockbuster Tenet, faced a minor backlash earlier this year as cinema-goers complained that they were unable to hear some of the film’s dialogue.

Speaking to Tom Shone for the forthcoming book, The Nolan Variations, Nolan discussed a similar reaction around his 2014 space epic Interstellar.

“We got a lot of complaints,” he said. “I actually got calls from other filmmakers who would say, ‘I just saw your film, and the dialogue is inaudible.’

“Some people thought maybe the music’s too loud, but the truth was it was kind of the whole enchilada of how we had chosen to mix it.”

The Inception director continued by describing the sound mix as “radical”, and claimed that he had underestimated how “conservative” viewers were when it came to sound.

He said: “It was a very, very radical mix. I was a little shocked to realise how conservative people are when it comes to sound. Because you can make a film that looks like anything, you can shoot on your iPhone, no one’s going to complain.

“But if you mix the sound a certain way, or if you use certain sub-frequencies, people get up in arms.”