The Gravity of Love; Transcendence of Time & Space

(Narrated Version of the Article)

 (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!)

 Introduction

After seeing Interstellar (2014), I can quickly and comfortably say it is now one of my all-time favourite movies. I went into the film knowing that it was about space. That was simply all I knew about it, and I was content with that. However, what I got versus what I knew held such a huge difference and made a much larger impact than I thought it would.

If you read my last article, you’ll know I am someone who eats up a good conversation about love. I am usually the advice best friend for most of my people…regardless of if I cannot find it for myself (different story, different time). I think that it is vital to establish that there are different kinds of love. In Interstellar, we see virtually all kinds of love: self-love (a…twisted and darkened version of self-preservation), parental love, spousal love, longing love, and more.

Interstellar stood out to me for that specific reason. Because I’m a writer and just such a romantic and loving guy, I want to talk about Interstellar through that lens. Sure, there is the transcendence of time and space; this usually would involve questions like, how did Cooper travel into the blackhole without-

- taking place?

(this is literal verbiage from NASA’s website—I’m not joking!) 

 

At the same time, how did that blackhole lead to reality where all outcomes and possibilities for time are observable? Was he hallucinating? Was he already dead at this point? Is the ending of the movie just a last-minute dream? We know he blacks out and wakes up after his ejection from The Endurance…was that blackout a tip-off to the loss of his life? The argument is that Cooper survived long enough before being completely engulfed in the singularity…but that doesn’t really do it for me.

Regardless, I’m getting off point. I want to talk about love and the necessity of surviving for it. As always, I will pose questions to you, as the reader, to make you think about it. I can’t guarantee that I will answer any of them. I have many questions myself. Even though I’ve seen it more than once, I guarantee I will generate more questions than I will answer. That’s okay.

I want to look at specific instances and appearances of love in Interstellar. I want to section it out into roughly 3 parts: self-love, also known as self-preservation (specifically Mann’s selfishness), parental love (Murph and Coop’s interdimensional connection; the “Tesseract”), and longing love (Brand and her connection to Wolf Edmunds), and what this all means in the greater context of the Interstellar universe.

 

Part 1 – Parental Love

Part 2 – Longing/Separational Love

Part 3 – Self-Love/Self-Preservation

Part 4 - Conclusion

 

 Part 1 – Parental Love

            This will probably be one of the most horrifically organized articles you read from me, and for good reason. When you are involved in anything with time and space, controlling how your story will fall in and out of order becomes infinitely more complex. By about 40 minutes into the movie, we’re already receiving building blocks for what would be happening almost an entire hour and a half later—and it pertains to this exact category (shocker)!

            Regardless, I will do my best to put together what I think are different, concrete examples of where we see these various kinds of love. I mean, look at the gentle and compassionate love of Coop and Brand toward Romilly. There is an unspoken genuineness to the connection between these individuals. Is it because they were in hyper-sleep together? Alone together for what felt like endless years? Who knows…I don’t.

            Still, I want to examine this close connection between Murph and Coop. During Act 1 of the film, when Murph is still young, it is seen that she almost idolizes Coop, looking up to him and wanting to follow in his scientific footsteps. As with any father-daughter relationship such as this, Coop lets his overprotective nature get in the way. Past-Coop (Cooper in the house with Murph) stands between Present-Day Coop (the one in the Tesseract) and the solution of literal gravity, space, and time.

            You’ve got all of your standard acts of love here: Coop presenting patience and a more attentive nature to Murph over Tom, Coop joking around when Murph hides out in the car once he returns to the house, and, no anger, but rather a mutual curiosity when Murph leaves her window open during the dust storm…all of these smaller moments make up the patient and endearing part of their love. But, how about the scene where Coop presents the watch to Murph—to measure how long he will be gone for and to compare time once he returns? Her outburst and Coop’s neglect of her brilliant solution, “S-T-A-Y” (thanks Past-Day Coop), seem contradictory to this understanding. There does not appear to be a gentle, patient, or understanding bond between these characters.

            Well, you have to understand that Murph is only 10 at this point, working with physics—one of the world's most complex, scientific, and analytical research fields. Naturally, when it comes to her father leaving—the only person she’s exceptionally close to in the family (because it’s definitely not Tom…), it's understandable that she’d be upset. This is one of the complex facets of love in this movie: love through anger.

            Another example of this love through anger can be seen in the early half of Act 2 from adult Murph and adult Tom. They have a sense of love for their father that has spanned over the 23 years that he's been gone. Coop told Murph directly that he would return, but he never gave her a timeframe. This means his kids were forced to continually guess which day would be the day he’d return. That disappointment—especially after Tom loses his first son, Jesse—leads to a turnover and denial of Coop, which makes it even harder to see the love between these characters. They rebuke him and let him go, realizing that his lack of communication can only mean one thing: he has died.

            This is the gold here. This specific kind of love is not something you can experience here on Earth. The closest thing you can experience is a relative that you used to be close to disappearing, not being heard from for 23 years. They have every right to be angry at Coop for his decision to leave. At the same time, they are partially at fault for failing to acknowledge the various reasons communications might not be active an entire galaxy away.

            So, what does this all mean? I have all of these talking points floating around in the air, leaving them up there as if someone will walk by and answer them for me. The truth is, I have no idea what it means! I mean, I haven’t even touched on the somewhat manipulative relationship between Dr. Brand and Amelia (his daughter). It’s a completely flipped situation between Coop and Murph. Father went to space, and daughter stayed back; daughter went to space, father stayed back. I mean, there is a lot of ambiguity here.

            But let us peel back some of those layers of ambiguity. Is that transcendence of love—the very title of this article—the reason Coop was able to live and see Murph again? The whole purpose of covering these different kinds of love is to represent the “gravity of love” and how, as Amelia said, it is one of the two things that can travel through space and time freely. So, isn’t it fair to say that—even though Murph had no idea when her father would come back—her waiting for him, going into cryo-sleep (for crying out loud), and realizing the true meaning behind the S-T-A-Y code are different forms of transcendental love?

            Well, I would argue that…yes, they are. Parental love is a strong force. The bond between a parent and their child should never be taken for granted; I would even argue that it’s more potent than the bond between partners. The ideal example of that transcendent love is Coop entering the tesseract and his LITERAL fiddling with time to communicate with Past-Coop and young Murph. It has gone beyond space and time into the 5th dimension. He helped adult Murph realize that he was even still alive. His dedication and promise to Murph guided and directed his love through time…what an insane concept.

            In the greater context of Interstellar, Amelia was ultimately spot on with the premise of love. Love is not bound to time and space, nor is it calculable and manipulable to only hit certain people at certain times. Love changes, develops, breaks, fixes, grows, lessens, warps, and tears, but it is never dissolved with space and time (unless it’s someone you hate, of course, then it dissolves with time). Genuine love goes beyond the existence of space and time; it exists in the souls inhabiting the bodies of the individuals who share this connection. Love is involved and wraps itself so profoundly in Interstellar’s plot that it is impossible to say it isn’t a key theme impacting the story. Which leads to my next focus.

 

Part 2 – Longing/Separational Love

            A less fleshed-out plot point is the previous love affair between Amelia and Wolf Edmunds. The funny thing about this relationship is that we never even see Edmunds on the big screen—not once! The only references we have to him are through Coop, Romilly, and Amelia—especially Amelia. One of the first times Edmunds is mentioned is right before the crew settles down for the 2-year hyper-sleep. Coop asks about Edmunds, to which Amelia explains he is a particle physicist whose planet shows roughly equal promise as Mann’s planet.

            Apparently, Edmunds—10 years prior—had a love for Amelia that she still holds onto. At this point, she doesn’t know that he has died and believes that the interplanetary love she has for him is warning her or even guiding her to the right path. This is where the analysis gets really fun. Towards the end of Act 2, when the crew realizes they no longer have the resources to travel to Mann’s planet and Edmunds’s planet, they have to decide. Naturally, Amelia is drawn to the idea of visiting Edmunds’s planet in the hope that he is still alive, waiting for them to rescue him.

            The funny thing about this situation is that Coop is against following “love” across the galaxy to visit a planet that may be their last. Even when she lists the possible benefits of visiting Edmunds’s planet over Mann’s, he still ignores her choice and plots a course for Mann’s planet—an ultimately regrettable decision. But why is that interplanetary sense of longing the deciding factor here—why does it even matter?

            In all situations in this film where love is involved, the plot's outcome is directly changed as a result. Coop loved his family and the Earth so much that he left it behind to find a new possibility for them to continue living on. Dr. Brand loved his research so much that he was willing to try even when he knew his plans were faulty. Amelia loved Edmunds, and the connection between them would’ve brought the plot of Interstellar a completely different direction. If they had chosen Edmunds’s planet sooner, it is possible Coop wouldn’t have even needed to enter the Tesseract. Even the next part of this focuses on Mann, which revolves around the idea of love and how dependent the story is on love.

            So, is the lack of connection between Coop and Edmunds what possibly skewed this outcome? Maybe. However, we must remember that this decision comes after they lose Doyle. Tensions are already running high, and Coop has a lessened sense of trust for Amelia because of her actions on Miller’s planet. For Coop—a man of science, as he explicitly tells young Murph—to trust in an invisible, somewhat undependable interplanetary love…it was out of the question.

            But this just makes me think…if it was Murph in cryo-sleep on a different planet, like Edmunds…would he go there? Would he put everything on the line to risk it for his child, who he doesn’t even know is alive? It’s hard to say, but I want to say that he would. We already know he’s doing it for the chance to save the Earth—on top of saving his children. That interplanetary love exists between Coop and Murph, too, in a different way. Would it be strong enough for him to place a gamble—such as this one—on love? I don’t know.

            What I do know is that Coop’s negative response to Amelia’s love is what changed the entire course of the film, in what would ultimately lead to Romilly unfortunately dying, the explosion of part of the Endurance due to Mann’s ignorance to pressurization (thanks T.A.R.S), and nearly losing Coop due to Mann’s desperate attempt of self-love also known as self-preservation and cowardice.

 

Part 3 – Self-Love/Self-Preservation

            After their conversation, Amelia storms off, but Coop ignores her vote and goes to Mann’s planet anyway. Now, Mann’s piece of this article is interesting. It probably isn’t going to be as long as the other two, which is fine. You may even be wondering, Jordan, why didn’t you talk about the connection between Amelia and Dr. Brand? Or—why didn’t you talk about Murph and Tom and how—as siblings—their love is entirely different?

            Because all those pieces tell a different story in a similar way. Mann’s exploitation of the kindness of humans and his absolute desperation to survive no matter what is not something we have seen so far in this movie. Only two characters aim to attempt self-preservation (in my opinion), and that is Dr. Brand and Mann. You can see it with Dr. Brand and how he continues his research long after Coop and Amelia stop responding. He knows exactly what the problem is and that no solution is lingering in a different galaxy. Yet, to preserve his image and the love of his daughter and study, he continues, forging his way through science.

            Mann’s entire story is built around humans and their love. As soon as he is removed from cryo-sleep, he appears to be a gentle man of good nature, but at the same time, it feels like he is hiding something. Even when watching the movie for the first time, I was suspicious of Mann. The way he phrased things put me off in multiple ways. One of the first things he says is that the days are 67 hours and cold, same with the nights…this made me question how we could modify this terrain and handle this atmosphere regarding crops. I’m no farmer, but…67 hours of continual cold, even if the snow and rain squalls blow over quickly, can still damage crops. This does not sound like a planet with longevity, regardless of the quality the “surface” may have.

            Soon enough, we discover that Mann focuses only on the mission. He does not want to get home; he wants to complete the mission he set out to accomplish. Whether it was in honor of Dr. Brand or not, Mann was afraid of anyone who found him, finding out that his planet was a failure. Perhaps out of fear or worry that he did not perform well enough, he rigged K.I.P.P to blow—ultimately killing Romilly—and attempting murder on Coop.

            He wanted to preserve his self-image and his life—not wanting to be seen as a quitter before the mission was over. At this point, all the present characters know Coop wants to go home. After hearing from Murph that it was all a lie, he set out to do this. Mann knew this and tried to stop him from taking the ship back to the Endurance, limiting the chance that he would be able to go home.

            Mann does not feel much pity for Coop and Amelia when they discover the truth about Dr. Brand. Instead, he tries to apply objective logic to a subjective subject (ha-). At the end of Act 2, Mann's actions are based on an extreme form of self-preservation. I’m choosing to look at this from the perspective of self-love. He loves himself enough to know he does not want to leave without finding another habitable planet. He ignores factual evidence from the other crew members and tries to find a way that works for him, ultimately leading to his death. His “love” through his self-preservation creates multiple plot-altering events that change how the characters interact with the world of Interstellar. This is why I brought his perspective about love into this article. It’s untraditional, unorthodox, and not something you’d think love would have any effect on.

 

Part 4 – Conclusion

            It’s everyone’s favourite time again! At the end of the article, I leave you with a bunch of unanswered questions, and this time, we have a bunch of unanswered questions relating to situations I didn’t even talk about (I told you this would get messy).

            There are so many other kinds of love in this movie—Murph’s love and compulsion to take care of Tom’s family, adult Murph, and 120+ year-old Cooper, as well as the bond between Amelia and Cooper. I could write another article about their love for humankind and their appreciation of nature.

            I wanted to look at love in the context of this movie and how it was used as a vehicle for the plot to progress. As I mentioned earlier, this film often uses love as a reason for making a decision. Love has a lot of power that goes beyond human comprehension and understanding. As Amelia said, and as I quoted earlier, it is one of the only things next to gravity capable of transcending time and space, not limited by the universe's boundaries.

            These three specific examples and instances are the ones that led to the most significant changes in the story. I wish I had addressed more of the relationship between adult Murph and Present-Day Coop and how including that extra layer of the story adds more value to our understanding of love. The progressive mending of their relationship through his absence, his unrelenting nature in attempting to communicate with her through the books…all of it is such a beautiful touch that truly brings this movie to life.

            If I want you to take anything away from this article, it's that love is something we can never measure or even hope to reason with. Love will literally go through time and space attached to someone in the hopes that one day, it will be received by someone else. If our Earth needs anything more than ever, it’s the kind of love that is genuine, authentic, and capable of crossing time and space. We must be willing to love each other relentlessly and follow our hearts toward our love when we hear it call out to us from somewhere else. It’s out there…waiting for your arrival. You must take the risk, follow your heart, and find it.