I can’t find a thread for Christopher Nolan’s OPPENHEIMER so here you go

For me it was like, what if Malick made JFK? Again, I'd eat that shit up -- it's almost too squarely in my wheelhouse to totally objective.

I read a bit about Nolan wanting to distinguish between “objective” and “subjective” perspectives in this film, which immediately differentiates him from Malick with his Heidegerian, rediction-of-the-objective/subjective-epistemology, philosophical underpinning. I get the similarities based on highlighting the cosmic, but for Nolan the cosmic is always scientific (I mean just look at the subject matter of his last 3 movies bar Dunkirk), while for Malick it is philosophical/religious/spiritual/moral/human/only-scientific-tangentially.

I don’t want to be too hard on Nolan’s style in this movie, I do get the Malick comparison and appreciated it where those moments came up (the bomb testing in particular). I am put off by the politics of the movie and the sometime cringe dialogue (i am become death in the sex scene? That last scene as well? Ugh.) Jokes on me anyways, I paid money to see it

I love The Tree of Life so damn much and find Nolan misguided in his bombastic style. Have nothing against the bloke or his movies as long as he doesn’t take himself too seriously and can admit to his films being popcorn flicks that only signal at ideas worth thinking about without ever actually engaging them with much depth. But Nolan ain’t no Terrence Mallick that’s for sure. Nolan’s film have nothing transcendent in them, too scientific, too in-this-world, none of the beyond. They’re just modern Michael Bay movies written with a science professor as editor. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

But Nolan ain’t no Terrence Mallick that’s for sure.

well...that we can agree on.

like nolan, malick, struggles to make the same good movie over and over again, each time narrowly missing the mark

much as i struggle to make a clean typo free post sheesh

My #1 peeve with Oppenheimer was making him the Martyr, the good guy, the main character (I guess “The Atomic Bomb” is a less catchy name). I actually would have loved this film if it finished after the 2nd hour with the bomb testing. But the last hour had to be this morally unambiguous placing of the stakes where Oppenheimer is the good guy being martyred by his country when ummmmm, he directly contributed to killing hundreds of thousands? And this “counter view” is brought up in maybe one sentence and one scene and never considered again? If this movie went apolitical I would have considered it Nolan’s best work, instead I just left jaded that we get a hero story out of a villain. Strauss’ speech towards the end about Oppenheimer being a cry-baby that wanted to be punished to indulge his guilt without having to take it seriously was otm, sadly it was presented as the “villains view of Oppenheimer”.
I’m not American though, so maybe I just don’t get the bloke.

If Malick did this movie it would have been a Tower of Babel analogy

the real tragedy was clearly Oppenheimer losing his security clearance

I'll see this next week, but in the meantime you all have me imagining Malick making his own Oppenheimer movie.

Bomb (voiceover): Why am I here? Am I meant to be alone? It calls to me, my purpose, like a dream receding in the cloudy distance of memory ...

xp i mean is that actually the message of the film?

i can’t really speak to the criticism since i haven’t seen the film, but i think it’s more accurate to say america got to the bomb first vs america invented the bomb. once you understand how the sun works (settled by 1940) you know the theory of how to make it happen and you’re working out technical details.

for me the follow-up question to the fair point of why make oppenheimer a figure of moral conscience (aside from the real life fact that he was an actual communist, vs a lot of european scientists, like edward teller, who were generally eay more right wing) is then why single him out as the big hypocrite?

did you know the 1944 nobel prize was awarded in 1945 to otto hahn and lise meitner for the discovery of nuclear fission? to me, that real life fact is as ghastly (or more!) than nolan making a summer film about him

besides, historically he actually acted as a figure of conscience, and paid some price for it. maybe his actions are not super impressive by 2023 standards, but a lot of his colleagues were publicly arguing for unrestrained use of tactical weapons just to send a message to the USSR! plus the internet hadn’t been invented and he didn’t have the same outlets we do for 24/7 impotent moral posturing, so the fact that he did it at all is an accomplishment

finally that sex scene info is also ghastly and probably enough to put me off seeing this

The Criterion Channel is streaming an Oscar-nominated documentary on Oppenheimer from 1980 - you do NOT need an account or subscription, it's currently free to everyone (albeit for a limited time). It's only 90 minutes and the filmmakers interviewed quite a few people who are now long-dead. They do touch on a lot of moral issues that I hope the film explores. For example, once Germany surrendered, why did they continue on, especially when they knew Germany was nowhere close to developing a nuclear bomb? And amazingly, they carried on the first detonation realizing they couldn't predict what would happen, even preparing for the potential evacuation of New Mexico and speculating the potential destruction of the world if the atmosphere was blown up in the process.

Also, I wish someone here in NYC counterprogrammed Nolan's film with Kurosawa's Rhapsody in August. (For some reason you can't even stream it at the moment.)

Direct link to said documentary:

https://www.criterionchannel.com/the-day-after-trinity/videos/the-day-after-trinity

Xp the late great.

Fair points. I can understand the tragedy in Oppenheimer, my issue is more with Nolan’s painting of the situation with him as the martyred hero. I don’t know enough about oppy to know whether he thought of himself this way, but I do know it’s “a bit icky” to have the man who brought us into the nuclear age painted as a hero of sorts

I will give credit to Nolan that he gave the moment of the bombs creation and testing its appropriate weight. I was shuddering at its detonation, and appropriately pissed at the other people in the cinema making even a murmur during the silence of that scene. I really do think the first 2hr of this movie are incredible, they’re just counterbalanced by the last hour being quite literally “the real tragedy was clearly Oppenheimer losing his security clearance”

"the real tragedy was clearly hitler finding out the panzer divisions didnt repel the russians"

the only thing I'm curious about is his commie ex gf very likely got murdered by feds. I doubt Oppy meant the Bhagavad Gita quote in the way it sounds quite self-aggrandising and pretentious - I think he probably knew and would have been informed that he was an expendable part in a project that was happening with or without him. maybe a less capable physicist heading the project would meant a different timescale and - who knows - better or worse outcomes, particularly for civilians of imperial Japan. But I feel like if you already don't have any time for Nolan to start with - this will be worst possible movie to watch. Despite Schrader saying I don't normally like this idiot but oh this blows the doors off.

Time to bring up once again that LRB letter from someone who claims to have asked his brother about the "I am become death" quote and the brother said no, as far as he could remember what Oppenheimer actually said was "well, guess that worked".

But I feel like if you already don't have any time for Nolan to start with - this will be worst possible movie to watch

Amusingly, as someone who doesn't like Nolan, I was happy enough to go and see this because at least it's a real story about real people and I already knew a fair bit about it, so I felt he couldn't fuck it up too badly and at least I would know what was going on. I couldn't honestly say that the film does paint him as a martyred hero. There seemed to me to be an air of "if you're so smart, why couldn't you have seen this coming?" about it. All the other scientists are more pragmatic than he is. He sees so much, but he didn't let himself see this because he was so excited about rushing on to the exciting bits always, but life is not just exciting bits, it is a lot of boring sitting around in committee rooms, being talked at.

I swear to god if I talk myself into retrospectively liking this boring film, I will be furious.

nolan designed that as a time lapse feature

if he ever does a Bazball movie I'll torrent that one

Would definitely watch a Nolan bazball film

Redenbacher pic.twitter.com/x2H0qG1GzU

— Neil Cicierega (@neilcic) July 23, 2023

there goes the one almond a day diet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9yKZjAI5Nk

No Oppenheimer for me today as the 70mm projector was broken

If there was going to be a movie about this I'd rather it was made by an engineering geek than a nob like Nolan. Oppy didn't have the knowhow for the implosion system. The Ukrainian chemistry prof in charge of the explosives dept had to engineer a perfect implosion for the Trinity test to work. Even a tiny air bubble in some of the dynamite could have upset the balance. So this mad person is drilling faults out of individual pieces of dynamite with a dentist drill. Not that I'm an apologist - just find outstanding engineering feats more interesting than some dickhead who just wants to enhance rather than interrogate some questionable mythological bullshit for the sake of a movie.

maybe you might enjoy richard rhodes’ “dark sun” and other books

this topic (nuclear chem) is what my undergrad degree was in so i generally don’t like semi technical stuff (would either read history or science, not so into pop science) but it’s basically what you’re describing

i think there was an american public television series?

“making of the atomic bomb” is the manhattan project one that gets into how current nuclear energy works (including dept of energy)

“dark sun” takes off from there and gets more focused on ppl like edward teller and the real life dr strangelove arms race story. you will also learn a lot more about how this stuff applies to astrophysics (my personal interest, or at least it was 25 years ago)

i can confidently say neither book is going to satisfy anyone who is more interested in the humanitarian questions

actually, i should say it won’t satisfy anyone who is *looking at this book* for answers to humanitarian questions. it’s not a strength of this particular book

Redenbacher

I thought those stills were from "Real Genius" for a second.

To be fair, I think the argument for the tragedy in the last hour of the movie is less about him merely losing his security clearance, but that he lost it in the context of criticizing and urging caution. Whatever his mistakes were, and whatever his personal motivations were, there's at least some tragedy in the silencing of a voice of caution given the very dangerous nuclear arms race that happened next.

cheers LG, like the sound of dark sun

looked great in 70mm but i'd advise anyone over 50 to avoid drinking a very large coffee just before this bladder busting movie. the last hour was particularly challenging on that front.

so i watched “man who wasn’t there” again instead of this and i was thinking that if i did a story about mccarthyism i’d also put an idealistic, naive and curiously blank david byrne looking dude at the center, who just plows his way through fate on the strength of his convictions until he can’t anymore (i also finally watched eggers “northman”, lol, which is no more about mccarthyism than “man who wasn’t there” is)

i think oppenheimer himself gets blown out of proportion because if you make a movie about, say, fermi, you’re not really making a movie about america. all of his work at univ of chicago was a continuation of work from italy, with some of the same characters in the same roles!

it would be an immigrant story, like the godfather. it’s a great story - with the rise of fascism he and his small research group divvy up between axis and allies. there are some hair raising escapes, and there’s one weird young semi mystical physicist who maybe drowns at night when a boat sinks near gibraltar, or maybe he escaped to central american jungles, under an alias … but was never seen again!

and with the hat and his looks and time/life magazinems help oppenheimer was photogenic, not just recognizable but memorable (see also gandhi) in a way that resonated with usa wide open west cultural mythology bs … oh which brings me back to how much i really love “man who wasn’t there”, hopefully at least the b&w in this film looks as nice

also maybe nolan sucks but there’s still space for movies about mccarthyism, right? or did jack nicholson put that to rest w/ “a few good men”?

"i think oppenheimer himself gets blown out of proportion"

he was undoubtedly brilliant but only just a slightly a bigger dot than all of us are next to a big military warfare state that is reaching peak level.

one thing I heard was at first he thought he could do this project with a small bunch of physicists and unlimited dosh in a few months. But it proved you needed so many new departments building and so many different experts that the idea of nominating one person as the "architect of the nuclear bomb" seems ridic

as far as he could remember what Oppenheimer actually said was "well, guess that worked".

joss whedon's oppenheimer

the real tragedy was clearly Oppenheimer losing his security clearance

this is (or is related to / synecdoche for) the real tragedy tbf! hiroshima and nagasaki aren't tragedies; they're crimes. a tragedy looks like this:

There seemed to me to be an air of "if you're so smart, why couldn't you have seen this coming?"

(even the horrible bathos is a classic feature: i mean who rly cares how antigone and kreon feel about anything anyway? the city is surrounded by bodies)

i haven't seen this and have always been a nolan hater but i mean... i do like we-never-came-home-from-the-war! the-popular-front-betrayed! stuff (prob too easy a sell on it in fact) and then everyone keeps invoking the editing style of jfk so like... i should probably see it

yes the gradual building of the while town itself is an interesting story that gets a good treatment in those rhodes books and elsewhere … i find it fascinating because my mom grew up with white americans in one of those project towns. my grandfather was “lead geologist / native geotechnical engineer” for a california company doing a massive project in the iranian desert

yeah, a ufo hangar. you heard it hear first ppl

does this movie feature leo szilard prominently? he's the most central person in "making of the atomic bomb". that book is great for how it describes the rapid succession of scientific breakthroughs leading up to the bomb.

he's around in all the scientist crowd scenes, but his views and actions aren't strongly characterized

there’s a book called “the martians” about the great hungarian physicists (szilard is the voice of conscience figure from that group which also includes teller). i could have sworn that was a movie too but i guess not. the cold war is obviously prominent but that’s definitely got a wider scope than atom bomb stuff

i’m posting this because in general i agree that a lot of the people and their stories are a lot more interesting than both oppenheimer and the usa military’s ambitions

lots of biopics get made tbf

admittedly all things considered id rather they focused on the later years after he became dr manhattan but i guess nolan is using that known outcome as background to impregnate the "how did Oppenheimer become dr manhattan" aspect with foreboding like he did with his movie about joaquin phoenix becoming batman

To be fair, I think the argument for the tragedy in the last hour of the movie is less about him merely losing his security clearance, but that he lost it in the context of criticizing and urging caution. Whatever his mistakes were, and whatever his personal motivations were, there's at least some tragedy in the silencing of a voice of caution given the very dangerous nuclear arms race that happened next.

― fajita seas, Monday, 24 July 2023 6:24 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

True.

One other mild sticking point for me. I am not convinced Ben Safdie was the right man for his role and was distracted in most of his scenes. I kept thinking the scientist he was playing was sounding a lot like the character he played in Good Times, which was a funny thought in itself and gave some nice levity.
There were definitely some Safdie-esque “stress scenes” that went far beyond Nolan’s previous levels. Big fan of those

this was not a great film, I’m afraid

To be fair, Oppenheimer does seem like a faultless hero when you compare him to a vile sociopathic ghoul like Teller.

I have agreed to portray the first person ever to talk about someone's mom while doing the dozens. 'YoMommaHeimer' will be in theaters in January.

— George Wallace (@MrGeorgeWallace) July 24, 2023

maybe the saddest part of this movie was when they read from the hearing transcripts and it was less stilted than all the other dialogue

Oh no not this again.

Any means of forcing Japanese surrender would have killed incredible numbers of civilians, the guilty parties are the imperial officials who insisted on continuing a hopeless war.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) July 23, 2023