Christopher Nolan Talks INTERSTELLAR Ending and Plot Twist
Obviously the following article is going to contain SPOILERS as it includes parts of an interview in which Christopher Nolan talks about the end of his sci-fi film Interstellar.
The most powerful aspect of the film is the message that it delivers about love. Love is a central theme of the story, and it plays a role in the pivotal moment at the end that brings everything together. Of course, the story also highlights the dark side of humanity. Especially when Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) and his team arrive on Dr. Mann’s planet, lured there by the promising data the they received. When they arrive and wake Mann (Matt Damon) up, we learn that the bastard faked the data so that he could get rescued. Mann eventually attacks Cooper and leaves him to die, so that he can initiate “Plan B”.
In an interview with The Daily Beast, Nolan offered some more insight into Mann's motivations, saying,
"It’s very straightforward: selfishness and cowardice. It’s very human, and I love what Matt did with that; he found the reality of it. It’s the kind of sequence where you loathe the guy because he’s doing something that you feel you might wind up doing in a similar situation. It’s very logical, but the rationalization of it is extraordinary—the way he was able to rationalize his own cowardice into a positive thing. Loneliness and desperation will make us do crazy things."
It was a really awkward moment in the film when Mann turned on Cooper, but it's one of those things that I felt was going to happen as I was watching the movie. Things just didn't seem right, and the guy was shady from the very beginning. Nolan continued,
"[Mann is] not exactly crazy. It’s weirdly logical, but appallingly selfish. The only outcome to the mission for him was [a colony]. I think, and it’s something we talked a lot about — and it’s something he says in the film — that there was no doubt in his mind that his was going to be the planet, his was going to be the mission. So whatever the risks, he felt very confident. And when he’s confronted by the bleak reality of just dying out there alone, it all starts to unravel."
When asked to about the ambiguous, psychedelic ending of the film, where Cooper is sucked into the black hole and the events that followed shortly after, he wasn't willing to explain it. This is what he said, though:
“No way, man! You’re just going to have to go back and see it again. It’s there for you to make what you make of it. People do always have radically different interpretations of things I put in there, but I know what I think and I don’t like it to have any more validity than the experience you have watching it.”
That's a great answer. I love that he lets the ending mean whatever the audience wants it to mean.