Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer releases this weekend and I thought it prudent to do some background on the real person. Historical fiction walks a fine line in Hollywood, it is either very well adapted and humanized so it feels closer and more personal to the audience, or it is a bastardization of actual events and doesn’t even resemble the real thing. Normally the good adaptations add a love story (Titanic, Pearl Harbor) and keep all historical details the same. Now Nolan strikes me as a director that does his research and so the historical accuracy of this film doesn’t necessarily concern me, especially considering that there are 32 pages of production notes. So here we go, how much effort and research went into the Hollywoodized version of Oppenheimer?

Robert J. Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, was the most important person in history according to Nolan.

“It’s an extraordinary moment in human history. I wanted to take the audience into that room and be there for that conversation and then be there when the button is pushed. It’s just the most incredible moment if you think about it. The risk of it. The relationship between science, theory, intellect-the things we can imagine-versus the practical nature of bringing these abstract ideas into the real world, dealing with them as concrete realities, and all their consequences”.

Nolan’s fascination with the story only bodes well for how it is portrayed. It seems that Nolan really wanted to get into the psychological aspects of Oppenheimer and the team that surrounded him. We can expect this film to be very cerebral, and everything film bros are going to be annoying about for the next decade.

We as the audience should also be prepared for a story told from two different perspectives in two different ways. The parts of the story that center around Oppenheimer himself will be told from first person and in color, the parts that center around Lewis Strauss, the commissioner of the Atomic Energy Commision, will be told in black and white.

Ruth De Jong was Nolan’s production designer and they worked very hard together to keep the film’s authenticity intact.

“Our process was to see the real thing, understand its essence, and then divorce ourselves from its form and go make our picture.”

I appreciate this approach because it means that the research was done but they didn’t get so close to the real story that they were unable to tell the story properly. Often as a writer if you get too emotionally attached to a story the audience can tell. The characters will sound forced, and it will be clear that the writer is holding back. It doesn’t appear that this will be the case for Oppenheimer.

Something that has been spectacular across all of Nolan’s movies is his cinematography. He’s an expert at hiring photography directors that understand the scale and scope of his vision so that no matter the quality of the story, the images the audience sees are beautiful. Now with a story this powerful, this grandiose, the cinematography is arguably the most important part of the story. And Nolan never disappoints in that aspect.

To be completely honest, I wasn’t super excited to see this movie (I mean it's three hours long). However after reading the production notes and seeing Nolan’s thought process and attachment to the story I am very excited to see what he does with this story. We are waiting to see the film on the IMAX 65MM screen and I can’t wait to see the film how Christopher Nolan truly intended it to be seen.