There is often a stigma surrounding Christian movies. Unless we’re talking about The Passion of the Christ, most religious films tend to stay away from the mainstream, thriving happily within their target audience. That might be the reason why you rarely hear about notorious filmmakers working on religious movies, let alone Christian ones. Unless you are so talented in your approach to filmmaking that you can introduce a religious subtext into one of the most scientifically accurate sci-fi films ever made.
When discussing “Christian movies,” you won’t hear anyone say that Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is the gold standard. However, once you look past all the incredible scientific research Nolan did for the film, you’ll notice that he peppered this journey across time and space with subtle hints of a divine presence.
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Something about Interstellar makes the film feel magical rather than scientific. It’s not just the fact that most of the movie falls under the realm of speculative fiction, but it’s like Nolan actively made the film feel more like a religious experience than a trip across the cosmos. From the intimate character moments happening in the impossibly gigantic depths of space to the existential dread of altered time frames, Interstellar is more than your everyday space flick.
Nolan injected this spiritual undertone into everything in Interstellar, including the music. Even the most “ordinary” tracks feature grandiose arrangements and instruments, most notably, a pipe organ, usually reserved for religious music. These arrangements give Interstellar its signature “punch” – but the Christian undertones go much further than that.
A central theme in Interstellar is how connected the fates of Cooper and Murphy were from the start, even if they didn’t know it yet. The movie begins with Murphy afraid of a “ghost” that’s haunting her bedroom. Much later on, in one of the film’s pivotal scenes, we discover that this ghost is Cooper himself, sending his daughter messages from, well, the Great Beyond, so to speak.
This sets three clear characters as the emotional engine of the story: Cooper (the Father,) Murphy (the Daughter), and a mysterious Ghost or Spirit. Once you look at those three as the central pillar in Interstellar, the resemblance to the Holy Trinity suddenly turns clear as day.
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Beyond the Holy Trinity, it’s heavily implied that everything that happens in the film does so under the guidance of some sort of higher being – a Divine Intelligence if you will. This unseen force holds the secrets of the Tesseract and the fabric of creation itself and yet remains inaccessible to both Cooper and Murphy throughout their lives. It’s essentially the feeling of God guiding Jesus in fulfilling his destiny, according to the New Testament.
If any other filmmaker worked on Interstellar, I’d say most of these Christian occurrences are just coincidences; however, this is Christopher Nolan we’re talking about. Of course he noticed the similarities between the core characters and the Holy Trinity – why else would Cooper’s full name be Joseph Cooper (J.C, Jesus Christ). In Nolan’s mind, everything happens for a reason.
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Interstellar might appear, at first glance, a deeply scientific film based on speculative science and devoid of spiritual or religious inclinations. That said, once you notice the small nods at Christianity scattered all through Interstellar’s DNA, you begin to notice the real message Nolan left with this film: science and religion are both profoundly human concepts, and any epic story worth telling will include a silent, yet profound, dialogue between the tangible and the transcendent – a reminder that our journey through the cosmos is as much a leap of faith as it is a quest for discovery.
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Tell us, do you think Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar is a Christian movie?
