“They won't fear it until they understand it. And they won't understand it until they've used it. Theory will take you only so far.” J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy)
The “it” is the atomic bomb, for which Oppenheimer was called “The Father.” Writer/director Christopher Nolan has adapted the authoritative 2005 bio “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Nolan, surveying Oppenheimer’s life and especially his leadership of The Manhattan Project, has crafted a harrowing story deeply embedded in our history as Oppenheimer developed the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that helped end WWII.
Yet, this film is not really about the making of the bombs—it is rather about the turmoil surrounding Oppenheimer with such weighty questions about killing tens of thousands of civilians with the bombs, whether that would force Japan to surrender, and whether or not he was a Communist.
Nolan keeps it favorable to history only now and then emphasizing interactions that cannot be verified such as conversations with his wife, the alcoholic Kitty (Emily Blunt), and his mistress, Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh). Murphy underplays masterfully Oppenheimer’s struggles while he carefully considers each challenge, like the scientist he plays. Just as upending are the anti -Communist attacks that dogged him through his professional life.
Along with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Nolan captures the vast loneliness of the new Mexico desert using 65 mm film projected in 70mm. As in Dunkirk (2017), Nolan uses the process to mirror the magnitude of the subject and the intellectual excitement following Einstein’s 1915 publishing of his theory of general relativity—it’s the chalkboards that announce mankind’s precipitate changes and provide the intellectual excitement eclipsing even that of the bomb itself.
Nolan’s mixing black and white and then color helps to relieve the monotony for some of the film’s three hours but mostly shows the upheaval of his life, especially the last third in black and white, where the antisemitic Red Scare threatened his legacy as scientist and humanitarian.
His turn as critic of nuclear war toward the end of his life was not without attendant compromise of his achievements. Perhaps his thoughts as he saw the first test mushroom cloud said it all about how his research for the bomb changed him and the world:
“Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” “Oppenheimer” is the best movie of the year so far and one of the great war movies of all time.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts NPR’s It’s Movie Time and hosts Cinema Classics as well as podcasts Back Talk and Double Take out of WCBE 90.5 FM. Contact him at JohnDeSando52@gmail.com
