Much like most of Christopher Nolan’s movies, the dialogue in “Oppenheimer,” at key moments, would sometimes sound inaudible. In the 3-Hour film, which was heavily dialogue-driven, the mixing, at times, would muffle out what his on-screen characters were saying.
Nolan’s sound editing and mixing is, and has always been, a polarizing topic of discussion. Many have wondered why he never fixes the problem given that it’s become a common complaint from detractors. With that said, “Oppenheimer” was a vast improvement when compared to Nolan’s last few, especially “Tenet,” and he’s already stated being aware of the sound complaints.
In a recent interview, Nolan laid the sound issue blame on his actors not doing ADR, which is the practice of returning to the recording booth in post-production to recapture dialogue and make things a little clearer. His other excuse was that the IMAX cameras being used for his movies can be noisy, interfering with quieter scenes. That will likely change now.
At a recent presentation, it was revealed that Nolan will be be using brand new IMAX technology for his next film, “The Odyssey,” including a “30% quieter camera” which is enhances clarity in the recording of dialogue and sound mix, as well as other improvements like a carbon fiber body for lighter operation and an LCD viewfinder.
In the past, Nolan defended the sound in his films, especially in Tom Shone’s definitive book, “The Nolan Variations,” where he expressed being surprised about how “conservative” moviegoers were about cinematic sound. In the interview, he went as far as to call his style of sound mixing purposeful and “radical.”
Then again, his point of view comes from a biased perspective; he already knows the dialogue in his movies, inside and out, but seems to forget that the audience doesn’t; it’s their first time with the material and they might not grasp it as much.
In Shone’s book, Nolan mentions how he got calls from other filmmakers who would say they just saw his film, and the dialogue was “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," he said at the time.