I have to admit, I had my doubts when I first heard that Christopher Nolan was planning to make a film about Jay Robert Oppenheimer, the physicist who led the research to develop the first atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project. After all, this is one of the best-documented periods in 20th century American history, and there have been so many books, films and TV series about the pursuit of the bomb, of varying quality (let me mention Manhattan, the stellar fiction series that was tragically cancelled after two seasons). So what could Nolan add to this well-developed material with his own vision?
But there was no need to worry. Thanks to Oppenheimer, Nolan has given us a truly unique, unflinching, nuanced portrait of the enigmatic, complex man who led the Manhattan Project and later faced the McCarthy-era redlining policies. Technically, this is a biopic, but it doesn’t feel like one. It looks more like Nolan has carefully selected the various threads that run through Oppenheimer’s life and woven them into a richly textured tapestry. The result is pure visual poetry.
WARNING. Below are spoilers, although this is a very well-documented story.
Nolan’s film is largely based on the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus by Kai Byrd and Martin Jay Sherwin. The trailers, of course, focused on the drama surrounding the creation of the atomic bomb that led to the Trinity Test, but I was hoping that the film would generally follow the book’s plot and include Oppenheimer’s subsequent fall from grace. And so it is. In fact, this later, darker part of Oppenheimer’s life serves as the lens through which Nolan’s film views his earlier successes.
There are two main storylines in the film, and the film moves back and forth between them. Nolan has never been one to strictly adhere to a timeline. “Split is shot in colour and follows Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) through his early years as a graduate student and college professor, his leadership of the Manhattan Project, culminating in the Trinity Test, his simultaneous triumph and anguish after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and his eventual loss of his security clearance, largely due to his early communist connections and outspoken opposition to the development of the hydrogen bomb.
Shot in black and white IMAX analogue tenology, Fusion follows the 1959 Senate confirmation hearing of Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, who – as the film gradually reveals – played a crucial role in revoking Oppenheimer’s security clearance five years earlier, sparking outrage among many in the physics community. The black mark on Oppenheimer’s name was only completely removed in December 2022, around the same time as the first trailer for Oppenheimer was released.
Nolan has assembled a stunning cast. David Krumholz is almost unrecognisable as E.I. Rabi, and Benny Safdie is perfection as Edward Teller, who sharply disagrees with Oppenheimer about the hydrogen bomb and eventually betrays him during a security hearing.
Emily Blunt shines in a relatively small role as Kitty Oppenheimer, who suffered from depression and had a volatile relationship with her philandering husband but remained fiercely loyal to him (she actually refused to shake Teller’s hand when Oppenheimer was awarded the Enrico Fermi Prize in 1963). But ultimately, the film belongs to Murphy and Downey Jr, both of whom played Oscar-worthy roles. Their mutual antagonism is arguably the heart of the film.
Physics fans will enjoy recognising the various luminaries of physics who appear in short episodes, such as Richard Feynman (Jack Quaida), Werner Heisenberg (Matthias Schweighofer), Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), Leo Szilard (Mate Haumann), Enrico Fermi (Danny Deferrari), Luis Alvarez (Alex Wolf), Hans Bethe (Gustav Skarsgård), Vannevar Bush (Matthew Molineux), Kenneth Bainbridge (Josh Peck) and the infamous Klaus Fuchs (Christopher Denham).
Nolan achieves an impressive level of historical accuracy by not resorting to a slavish recitation of facts, but by sprinkling the film with a multitude of interesting details and characters, like an ornamental flower. For example, the truth about whether the young Oppenheimer actually injected cyanide into an apple intended for one of his professors (the future Nobel Prize-winning physicist Patrick Blackett) is a hotly debated topic among historians, but it was not invented for the film. Oppenheimer’s mistress, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), committed suicide, and there is a conspiracy theory that she was murdered and her suicide was staged – which is barely hinted at in the film, but still present. There was some shock online about the nudity and sex scenes between Murphy and Pugh, but I think they were carefully crafted and not in the least bit gratuitous – especially the touching scene after intercourse, where the couple just sit naked, having a moving intimate conversation.
President Truman called Oppenheimer a “crybaby” (though not to his face) when he met him after the war and confessed that he could feel blood on his hands. It is also true that Oppenheimer has never publicly expressed regret for his role in creating a bomb that killed between 100,000 and 200,000 people (the exact number is still a matter of debate.) As he says in the film, he thought he wanted to make the dropping of the first nuclear weapon so horrific that no one would ever want to use it again.
The dialogue during Oppenheimer’s openly hostile interrogation at the security hearings was taken almost verbatim from the official transcripts – and delivered to dramatic perfection by Nolan’s outstanding cast. One of the most powerful scenes is the (verbatim) testimony of physicist David Gill (Rami Malek) during the Senate confirmation hearings for Strauss as Eisenhower’s Secretary of Commerce.
Strauss hoped that Hill, who was then head of the Federation of American Scientists, would speak in his favour. Instead, Hill said that “most scientists in this country would prefer to see Mr Strauss out of the government altogether” and went on to scathingly criticise Strauss, citing his arrogance, lack of integrity and personal vindictiveness, particularly towards Oppenheimer (Nolan himself unearthed the transcript from the Senate records).
Strauss was not approved – it was the first unsuccessful nomination for a Cabinet member since 1925 – and this rejection effectively ended his political career. He was bitter about it for the rest of his life. Some might call it karma. However, this is not a documentary, and of course they took some liberties. In particular, the powerful final conversation between Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein (Tom Conti), which refers to a previous conversation they had in the past, is completely fictional.
The focus is also not on physics itself, as Nolan is much more interested in exploring issues of power, politics, patriotism and personal inner paradoxes. Nevertheless, the film aptly captures the world of physics and physicists. For example, in one scene, Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) asks Oppenheimer about the possible risk of igniting the atmosphere and destroying the world when they press the detonator button for the Trinity test. “The chances are close to zero,” Oppie replies. – “What do you want from a theory? Groves replies: “Zero would be nice.”
Christopher Nolan has described the internal reaction of some people who have seen his latest film, “Oppenheimer”. “Some people come out of the cinema absolutely devastated,” Nolan said of the pre-premiere screenings in a new interview with Wired magazine, “They can’t speak. I mean, there is an element of fear that is present in the story and at the heart of the film. But the love for the characters, the love for the story is as strong as it’s ever been.”
The 52-year-old British-American director added: “It’s an intense experience because it’s an intense story. I recently showed it to another director and he said it was a horror film. I don’t mind that.” Nolan even admitted that he was “relieved to be done with the project” because of the emotional experience it brought him. Earlier, the historian who wrote the 2005 biography on which “Oppenheimer” is based said he was still “emotionally recovering” from watching the film.
Clocking in at three hours, with most of its scenes of a group of white men just sitting around talking about physics and defence strategy, “Oppenheimer” is the antithesis of what is usually considered a summer film. However, Nolan’s storytelling skills are such that it never feels boring. No wonder audiences are flocking to cinemas to see this film. “Oppenheimer” has far exceeded initial box office forecasts and has already grossed over $550 million worldwide. It is currently my pick for the best film of 2023.
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