'Oppenheimer' Provides A Sophisticated Insight Towards A Complicated Man
Bold and relentlessly paced, Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is one of his most complicated and rewarding films yet. Oppenheimer is a master class in film editing and structural design where even at a long three hours, the film feels brisk as it demands your attention. The movie forces you to keep pace with the weaving narrative that splits apart like atoms. Oppenheimer plays like one big montage. If you're not focussing, you can miss something important.
The film's stunning 70mm presentation helps engross the viewer making it easy to get caught up in the plot, even if some of its lectures on nuclear theory can confuse the average idiot like me. Yet that's the idea. Like most Christopher Nolan films, repeat viewings reward the viewer. We're not supposed to grasp or understand every bit of information—only the major parts so we can retain more the next time we see the film.
Oppenheimer may be Christopher Nolan's most stylistic film since Memento. The narrative cuts between Oppenheimer being questioned by a private committee and the Trinity Project. For those unaware, the Trinity Project is the creation of the nuclear bomb. It was held at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and carried out the results that could be our potential destruction. There was a theory that the world could be destroyed once the nuclear device was dropped. Although the theory proved to be wrong, everyone working on the project decided to drop the bomb regardless of the risk. Oppenheimer is a cautionary tale of power. What happens when man is given too much of it and how he decides to use it is a terrifier.
The picture's beginning plays as a vision of our destruction through Oppenheimer's eyes. It's a series of Atoms splitting apart, generating fission while Ludwig Göransson's score blares through the speakers providing an idea of the terror Oppenheimer was aware of. The score is one to behold as it plays a simple two-string note that produces inspiration. It shows how the creation of the atomic bomb was a marvel in science. It also plays like an explosion marching toward a destination point.
Göransson score is a click track for the film's weaving narrative that can feel dizzying in all its information that flies at the audience at a rapid pace. It's a fitting ensemble to Nolan's editing that's as smooth as butter. Nobody in Hollywood can quite edit the way Christopher Nolan does. He's Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless on crack. The usage of the jump cut is so frequent yet slick that it's unnoticeable, as Nolan bathes us in the film's atmosphere.
To add to the hypnotizing style is Hoyte Van Hoytema's cinematography. Seeing the film on 70mm print in IMAX is understandably a difficult task. Most theaters project only in digital, and the size of the print alone is massive. The IMAX canvass is a goliath of a medium that only exists in remote parts of the country. Living in a major city like Chicago, I'm lucky to have seen such a print. As a cinephile, I can say it's undeniably the best way to see the movie. But the average moviegoer might not have the same experience in their local theater, which is disappointing.
From the opening frame, the film flashed with a number indicating this, indeed, is celluloid. You can see the image flickering on the walls in the frame, especially during the black-and-white sequences, which had its own black-and-white film stock made for this film. The result is impressive. Unfortunately, most of America will see Oppenheimer on a digitally projected screen. In that case, the work done behind the camera is impressive enough to be appreciated on a regular movie canvas.
The film's structure is impeccable as Christopher Nolan weaves between multiple timelines as separate plots play against each other. In the film's A plot is J. Robert Oppenheimer's rise from being a student at Harvard to developing the A-bomb. The B plot is Oppenheimer's private hearing, where his integrity is questioned. Both plots intertwine with one another.
By the end, all threads come together as one tragic tale of a man I can't entirely feel bad for but can understand. Christopher Nolan doesn't hide the fact that Oppenheimer continued to work on the bomb after Germany was defeated and Japan was on the verge of surrender. The destroyer of worlds didn't cease research that could have saved more lives than it took. Oppenheimer is a sophisticated look at a complex man. Was Oppenheimer a monster for making the bomb? Is his guilt enough? Neither Snake nor Saint J. Robert Oppenheimer is a man haunted by the monstrosity he created.
To bring Mr. Oppenheimer to life on screen is Irish-born long-time collaborator Cillian Murphy. Having worked since 2005's Batman Begins, Oppenheimer marks this as Cillian Murphy's sixth collaboration with Christopher Nolan and first starring role. Murphy is up to the task. He has a distinct speech pattern that sounds slightly similar to J. Robert Oppenheimer's, where it's not an impersonation.
Does Murphy look entirely like Oppenheimer? No. Does he sound like him? Not really. But what he gets is the sense of measure and restraint a brilliant man like J. Robert Oppenheimer contained. Murphy elongates his speech in a soft-spoken way, similar to the infamous moments when Oppenheimer referred to himself as death, the destroyer of worlds when reflecting upon his sorrow for making the bomb.
To accompany Murphy is Matt Damon, who plays short-tempered General, Leslie Groves Jr., who headed the Manhattan Project. Movie director and actor Benny Safdie, plays Edward Teller, a strict and straight-to-point Hungarian theoretical physicist, and Robert Downey Jr. is impressively sneering as Lewis Strauss, a condescending founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission.
One can't go without mentioning a scene-stealing moment when Emily Blunt playing Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer, who comes to her husband's aid. The picture also features Florence Pugh, Matthew Modine, and a key scene featuring Gary Oldman. The cast isn't wasted, as almost everyone has a memorable moment. There are even some surprise cameos from actors who've worked with Nolan before. Spoiler! It's not Michael Caine.
Oppenheimer is an intoxicating tale that's part thriller, part character analysis. It's so brimming with detail that the film warrants repeat viewings to absorb more information on each matinee. For fun summer viewing, it's safe to go with Barbie, but for a fascinating time at the cinema, seek Oppenheimer. It's one of the reasons we go to the movies.
Christopher Nolan is a filmmaker who never cheapens his audience with sentiment (no matter what some people say about Interstellar). He's an earnest artist that challenges his audience. Whether it be telling a story backward or lecturing the audience in theoretical physics, he's a man who knows how to keep the crowd's mind engaged. Oppenheimer is a film worth seeing, then seeing again, for it's one of the year's best pictures that won't leave your mind after it ends.
