Christopher Nolan’s 2014 science fiction achievement,Interstellar, brought a heap of heart and hope alongside all of its complexities, serving as a prime example of the genre at its best. Written by Nolan and his brother,Jonathan Nolan, the film depicts a dystopian version of an Earth not-so-distantly in the future. It starsMatthew McConaughey,Jessica Chastain, and a cascading list of fantastic players, both wildly famous and largely unknown. And it’s actually the unknown names that areInterstellar's brilliant secret ingredient.
Near the beginningand periodically revisited throughout, interviews with seemingly everyday people are showcased, looking back on the degradation of the Earth and the events that led to humanity’s need to colonize the cosmos. You may not have realized it, but these characters are some of this masterpiece’s most interesting aspects.
Survivors of the Dust Bowl Play a Key Role in ‘Interstellar’
Interstellar's interviews are presented as flash-forwards, hinting at the aftermath of the film’s plot with unnamed characters reflecting on the central conflict — but there’s a special twist. Aside fromEllen Burstyn, who’s in the mix portraying an older version of Chastain’s Murphy Cooper,the interviewees aren’t actors at all.They’re real people who survived the last century’s Dust Bowl. The footage comes fromKen BurnsandDayton Duncan’s 2012 PBS documentary,The Dust Bowl.Floyd Coen(pictured above)of Morton County, KS, a Dust Bowl survivor interviewed for Ken Burns' documentary, is among those whose interviews were repurposed forInterstellar.
According to theNational Drought Mitigation Center,the Dust Bowl encompassed a period of severe drought in the south-central United States in the 1930s. A series of factors gradually compounded throughout the 1920s that culminated in the terrifying event. The Great Depression spurred the farming of submarginal land (areas incapable of sustaining indefinite cultivation), which exacerbated severe soil erosion. When the major droughts of the ’30s began, the region was tragically primed for unfathomable dust storms.
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It’s estimated thatapproximately 7,000 people died as a result of dust pneumonia, and the toll of subsequent poverty and starvation was virtually incalculable in conjunction with The Great Depression. The survivors, however, are as entirely tangible as their stories, and their retroactive participation inInterstellarsignificantly bolsters its effectiveness. “Those are real people,“Nolan toldStephen Colbert. “We drew it from Ken Burns' documentary on the Dust Bowl, which he very kindly let me use some excerpts from, because, even though it’s a science fiction film, I wanted the feeling of dread, the feeling of imbalance between the human race and the planet to be real and credible.”
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It’s the first instance ofKen Burns' extensive filmographybeing licensed for another project.The Dust Bowl writer,Dayton Duncan,toldThe Washington Postthat Nolan’s ambition when proposing the deal won them over. “Here he was, hearing in [the survivors] the universality of their circumstance, and how contemporary that was. What he was doing, you could hear the ambition in his voice.” However, two crucial conditions had to be met.Paramount had to acquire each survivor’s express permission,and Burns and Duncan wanted to read the script beforehand. In line with Nolan’s usual secrecy and protectiveness, a producer personally brought a copy of the script and waited while it was read. Burns and Duncan then promptly agreed.
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Floyd Coen, one ofThe Dust Bowl’s subjects mentioned earlier, was interviewed for the documentary alongside his brother,Dale Coen. Together, they spoke of their family’s resilience and devastating hardships. Seven brothers and one little girl,Rena Marie, filled their small, semi-underground home built by their father and mother to withstand the harsh conditions. One night, a terrible fever suffered by Rena Marie became too severe, andshe passed away from dust pneumonia at just two-and-a-half years old.
Of course, specifics like these didn’tmake their way intoInterstellar. The excerpts largely focused on the overwhelming conditions and the adaptation required. However, they’re fully present in spirit. In the film, NASA has a Plan A and a Plan B. The latter involves restarting humanity with a supply of frozen embryos should Earth’s population perish. Plan A is solving the problem of intergalactic travel and saving everyone on Earth. The real people — the survivors who shared their stories — are the reason for Plan A.
Interstellaris available to watch on Paramount+ in the U.S.
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Interstellar
When Earth becomes uninhabitable in the future, a farmer and ex-NASA pilot, Joseph Cooper, is tasked to pilot a spacecraft, along with a team of researchers, to find a new planet for humans.
