# Tenet Sound Mix



## Michael Antrum (Aug 29, 2020)

I’ve just been to the cinema for the first time since Covid to see Tenet, and I’m sorry to say that I walked out in the middle of the film.

The sound mix was absolutely appalling. I could barely understand any dialogue unless it was in a quiet scene. I found at times I was trying to lip read. The sound was so loud I had a banging headache by the end of the first hour and it looked like such an interesting film, that I didn’t want to spoil it, so I left. My head is still ringing now...

Initially I thought there was a fault with the theatres audio system, but I’ve since discovered it seems I am not alone in this view....

I have to say that I think it is bordering on unprofessional to present a movie with such disrespect for the audience. Nolan movies are cerebral at the best of times, but it may as well have been dubbed into Klingon.

I have heard from someone that they saw it in both an IMAX and a non IMAX screening, and they said the sound in the IMAX presentation was far clearer. But I’m really saddened as I was so looking forward to this film.

I suppose I’ll have to wait until it comes out on disk where at least I’ll have some control over the audio levels.

I just don’t understand how this can happen with such an important release. I know he is an A list director, but does no-one have the courage to say, ‘Chris me old China, take it down a notch.....‘

I'm looking forward to the disk release, as it looks like the kind of film that is right up my street....


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## jonathanparham (Aug 29, 2020)

I've read in interviews he mixes some sections of films intentionally 'hot.' I watched Inception twice in theaters and there are action parts that I cannot understand what's being said. For interstellar he said during some sequences he's not expecting dialogue to be heard.


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## AdamKmusic (Aug 29, 2020)

I saw it in IMAX last night, definitely way too loud some of the dialogue was very noticeably clipping & yeah quite hard to make out some of the dialogue. I don’t know if it was just the cinema I was at or the general mix but it was quite muddy & mid heavy. Hopefully the blu ray release will be a bit better


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## rudi (Aug 29, 2020)

It's sad when you get a film mix that has a lot of "mumble and rumble" at the same time...


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## Zedcars (Aug 29, 2020)

Chris Stuckmann’s review also mentioned the dialogue being mixed quieter than the FX and music. He said it is common for Nolan to do this. No idea why, seems like it should be the most important. If you can’t hear the dialogue then what’s the point?


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## SvenE (Sep 3, 2020)

Interesting: https://variety.com/2020/artisans/news/christopher-nolan-tenet-sound-problems-audio-mix-1234755898/


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## gst98 (Sep 3, 2020)

I've seen it at a normal viewing (its a good cinema) and at IMAX now. Yeah its very loud, but its the same volume as every other Nolan film. Lots of people didn't like how loud Interstellar and Inception were either. Even though it was loud it didn't bother me at all tbh.

I thought it sounded great, the low end was enormous. bassier and bigger sounding than anything than I can recall but it never got resonant or at any point didn't I think it was too much. It sounded really fun to me.

I understand the complaints about the dialogue. I found there were just _some _bits were hard to hear during the action scenes, although others have said they could barely understand _everything_. At this point I don't mind though becuase every Nolan film is like this - I've always taken it that if Nolan wanted us to hear it, we would. I know how long they spend on the sound of these films and they have great mixers working on them. He has always said he would rather have the background sound effects be at a realistc volume that would make you struggle to hear the dialogue because it sounds more realistic.


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## darkogav (Nov 3, 2021)

I am a late bloomer on this one; but a big Nolan fan. I finally got around to watching the film on BR. The soundtrack/score is really great and I really liked it. The film itself and the story is a mess though. It reminded me of Inception meets James Bond, but gone all wrong. I guess it's the kind of film one needs to watch multiple times to really get what is going on; as long as one is willing to keep devoting 2.5 hours of one's life to re-watching something you don't really like that much in the first place.

The score itself I really liked and I totally get now how they are using synths and modular to integrate with the reverse time on screen. I also loved that Branagh performance. He's my favorite baddie now.


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## KEM (Nov 11, 2021)

Just came across this thread and I know you all know me around here as “the TENET guy” so I’m sure this won’t come as any surprise to you but I really think TENET has the best mix I’ve ever heard in a film!! I saw the film in theaters 15 times (only once not being in IMAX) and I never had any complaints, if you can’t hear the dialogue in a scene I think that’s definitely intentional on Nolan’s part, I think it’s really cool that Nolan is willing to do that because sometimes in real life you can’t hear what people are trying to say because stuff in the background is too loud and Nolan brings that into his films which I think is a nice effect. And I never understood the criticism of the music being too loud, I mean come on, who doesn’t like loud music?! TENET is basically just a giant music video for Ludwig’s incredible music and I wouldn’t have it any other way, and I hope him and Nolan continue to push the boundaries even further and make their upcoming films even more compressed, limited, and much louder!!


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## Rossy (Nov 12, 2021)

I didn't go to the theater to see it but bought it on Blue ray, after multiple viewings, the score did grow on me but the mix, to me, was awful and inconsistent, I read the above link provided and the general consensus seemed to be that it must be good because Nolan had award nominated mixers and sound engineers. This does not grantee a good mix, you can add highly regarded people to a project and it can still come out crap and I am sure Nolan had the last say, and he's the director, not the sound guy.
My opinion?


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## Mr Frodo (Nov 12, 2021)

Rossy said:


> I didn't go to the theater to see it but bought it on Blue ray, after multiple viewings, the score did grow on me but the mix, to me, was awful and inconsistent...


I missed its cinema run, but after watching it on Blu-ray I feel the same. Yes, I appreciate that Nolan hires some of the best, award-winning experts - and I understand that inaudible dialogue can be realistic and an artistic choice - but as a humble viewer I find his approach somewhat self-defeating. 

Surely the point of storytelling is to convey an interesting story to your audience. They might not grasp every idea or twist, but they should at least be able to hear your characters. Those characters and their lives/arcs should be more important than visuals/FX every time. If I was a director I would rather have an audience go away talking about my heroes, villains, etc., than saying, "I couldn't hear Kenneth Branagh, but it all looked nice."

Still, the music was impressive.


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## darkogav (Nov 12, 2021)

Rossy said:


> I didn't go to the theater to see it but bought it on Blue ray, after multiple viewings, the score did grow on me but the mix, to me, was awful and inconsistent, I read the above link provided and the general consensus seemed to be that it must be good because Nolan had award nominated mixers and sound engineers. This does not grantee a good mix, you can add highly regarded people to a project and it can still come out crap and I am sure Nolan had the last say, and he's the director, not the sound guy.
> My opinion?


My (neophyte!) interpretation of the film’s sound is, Nolan and his crew approached the sound editing and scoring so it’s more in line with the time inversion elements in the narrative of the story in the film. The time inversion got translated across to the spectator better in the score than it did in the sound editing. I got the feeling, the time inversion is just a very complex topic and hard to grasp, so larger group of audience just chose to interpret the film based on the elements that they do understand better; the on screen action, the familiar character types and so on. So the scenes in the film that do contain the muffled dialogue come across as strange choices, as the audience is interpreting the film as a standard action film, so they are focusing less on the ideas of what sound in time inversion world should (or could?) sound like and are just seeing an action film with very strange sound mix choices where they can’t hear what the some of the words the characters are speaking. As long as one accepts the fact that, you don’t need to hear and understand all the dialogue during the time inversion scenes, you just need to understand what is happening in the story, it’s all fine.


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## Rossy (Nov 12, 2021)

darkogav said:


> My (neophyte!) interpretation of the film’s sound is, Nolan and his crew approached the sound editing and scoring so it’s more in line with the time inversion elements in the narrative of the story in the film. The time inversion got translated across to the spectator better in the score than it did in the sound editing. I got the feeling, the time inversion is just a very complex topic and hard to grasp, so larger group of audience just chose to interpret the film based on the elements that they do understand better; the on screen action, the familiar character types and so on. So the scenes in the film that do contain the muffled dialogue come across as strange choices, as the audience is interpreting the film as a standard action film, so they are focusing less on the ideas of what sound in time inversion world should (or could?) sound like and are just seeing an action film with very strange sound mix choices where they can’t hear what the some of the words the characters are speaking. As long as one accepts the fact that, you don’t need to hear and understand all the dialogue during the time inversion scenes, you just need to understand what is happening in the story, it’s all fine.


Fair explanation but that's not how I interpreted the scenes with very loud music and dialog. I personally don't see the movies content as far as it's interpretation on time travel? having any bearing on the mix. If the dialog is second to the sounds, why even have it there? I am certainly not the only person with this opinion but, if that's Noland style then.........
After all, it's his movie.


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## Rossy (Nov 12, 2021)

Rossy said:


> Fair explanation but that's not how I interpreted the scenes with very loud music and dialog. I personally don't see the movies content as far as it's interpretation on time travel? having any bearing on the mix. If the dialog is second to the sounds, why even have it there? I am certainly not the only person with this opinion but, if that's Noland style then.........
> After all, it's his movie.


Absolutely


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## darkogav (Nov 12, 2021)

Rossy said:


> Fair explanation but that's not how I interpreted the scenes with very loud music and dialog. I personally don't see the movies content as far as it's interpretation on time travel? having any bearing on the mix. If the dialog is second to the sounds, why even have it there? I am certainly not the only person with this opinion but, if that's Noland style then.........
> After all, it's his movie.


The muffled dialogue is there in those scenes because there are characters there in those scenes who are speaking. What is being said is being presented to you, as the spectator, from the POV of a protagonist who has found herself in an unfamiliar reality. Hence, the dialogue makes no sense and doesn't need, because what matters in those scenes is that you, in the POV of the protagonist, is currently stuck in unfamiliar terrain/reality and are off balance and you need to return to somewhere where you can find your bearings again. If Nolan placed the spectator in the POV of the Branagh baddie character, the dialogue would probably have been clear and discernible, because he is a character in those scenes that is not in unfamiliar terrain and in control of what is happening. 

That's my interpretation anyways.


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## Rossy (Nov 12, 2021)

darkogav said:


> The muffled dialogue is there in those scenes because there are characters there in those scenes who are speaking. What is being said is being presented to you, as the spectator, from the POV of a protagonist who has found herself in an unfamiliar reality. Hence, the dialogue makes no sense and doesn't need, because what matters in those scenes is that you, in the POV of the protagonist, is currently stuck in unfamiliar terrain/reality and are off balance and you need to return to somewhere where you can find your bearings again. If Nolan placed the spectator in the POV of the Branagh baddie character, the dialogue would probably have been clear and discernible, because he is a character in those scenes that is not in unfamiliar terrain and in control of what is happening.
> 
> That's my interpretation anyways.


I appreciate your explanation but I have been watching movies for over 45 years and never come across dialogue thats important to a plot not being audible. I understand the movie (as best as anyone can) and without sounding rude, I honestly don't need an explanation on the content of the dialogue. I understand the need for realism but it shouldn't be at the cost of understanding the plot, especially if its important to the storyline. Nolan can do and justify whatever he wants, its his movie but if he wants other people to enjoy it, he has to consider the criticism not only Tenet but other movies he has directed. As I said before, its his gig so he can take criticism or not.


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## darkogav (Nov 12, 2021)

Rossy said:


> I appreciate your explanation but I have been watching movies for over 45 years and never come across dialogue thats important to a plot not being audible. I understand the movie (as best as anyone can) and without sounding rude, I honestly don't need an explanation on the content of the dialogue. I understand the need for realism but it shouldn't be at the cost of understanding the plot, especially if its important to the storyline. Nolan can do and justify whatever he wants, its his movie but if he wants other people to enjoy it, he has to consider the criticism not only Tenet but other movies he has directed. As I said before, its his gig so he can take criticism or not.


No worries. I don't think your post was rude at all. We are just discussing theories as to why Tenet is the way it is. It's just different theories. I don't think there is ever a right or wrong interpretation of art or film. It's just different interpretations.


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## AudioLoco (Nov 12, 2021)

I saw it with subtitles... understanding the dialogues doesn't improve this useless mess of a film...


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## KEM (Nov 12, 2021)

I think you guys might be looking into it too much, Nolan probably just realized that he had the greatest score ever written on his hands and he wanted to make sure it was heard properly, after all louder is always better


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## timprebble (Nov 30, 2021)

relevant?








Here's Why Movie Dialogue Has Gotten More Difficult To Understand (And Three Ways To Fix It) - /Film


/Film spoke with several Oscar-winning sound designers, editors, and mixers to learn why it has become tougher to understand what characters are saying.




www.slashfilm.com


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