Posted on: Saturday, July 29, 2023 – 8:40 PM | Last update: Saturday 29 July 2023 – 8:43 PM
• Nolan creates his most important cinematic masterpiece in exploring the world’s worst weapons without filming his victims
• The physicist said to Truman: My hands are stained with blood.. And the American president replies: History will only remember the one who decided to throw the bomb
• Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey are close to the Oscars with their strong performance
• The film presents a complex story with its scenes, characters, and dialogues.. and thorny questions about the relationship of science to politics, loyalty, betrayal, and guilt.
The construction of the film was smooth and intelligent in its narration, photography and dialogue full of information at an uncompromising pace.
After the end scene of the amazing autobiographical movie “Oppenheimer”, I asked the 18-year-old who was sitting next to me: What do you think of the movie, and he replied: “Honestly .. I do not know.” with it. Yes, Oppenheimer’s story is complex with its scenes, images, characters, dialogues, and case, although director Christopher Nolan excelled in his best work with his exploratory vision of creating the worst weapon that ever existed, “the atomic bomb” and the world that “J. Robert Oppenheimer” made, with a careful examination of morals, values, ego, and exploration. scientific, and the price and consequences of telling the truth to power, which makes the audience think about many questions about the relationship between science, politics, war, loyalty and betrayal. My daughter Farah, who was excited to watch the movie with me, told me that she was waiting for the work to include scenes of the reality of the tragedy of “Hiroshima and Nagasaki” people after the bomb was dropped, so that the message of the film would be completed according to her vision. Certainly, she was curious to see what happened on the screen, but Nolan admired the aesthetics of his narration style and thought. I prefer to move away from that point, with a richer image and drama that simulates scientific gasping, political greed, and the euphoria of victory, as well as a belated awakening of the rebellious conscience against all action, as if it presents all options and balances between enthusiasm for evil and regret for it. Nolan was awake when he showed the effect of a nuclear explosion in the last experiment. The sound of the flame was majestic, and it remained on the screen even after the image disappeared..which was repeated after the bomb was thrown. Those scenes are very powerful and came without using the bodies of the Japanese people to illustrate the violent destructive effect of the bomb on a body. Human.
In one of the greatest scenes of the film, Oppenheimer, “Cillian Murphy”, brought together Oppenheimer and US President Truman. The first said that his hands had become contaminated with blood by making the atomic bomb and showing its results. Truman gives him his handkerchief stuck to the jacket in sarcasm to wipe the hand, then looks at him and says with a half smile: The world will not remember. Who made the bomb, but rather who ordered its use, and who did it!!
In his charming work, Nolan focused on attracting the ambition of the physicist Robert Oppenheimer to make a bomb that would stop the threat of Nazism during World War II, and how the political community interacted with it and the conflicts within the decision-making rooms before Germany was defeated and the rudder turned to Japan. The most important was the atmosphere of the genius Oppenheimer making the atomic bomb, as he examines the life of this extraordinary personality in history that pushed humanity into the nuclear age, and also tells about the repercussions of making it in the midst of his own life.
But how did the story begin?
During the height of World War II, theoretical physicist Robert Oppenheimer is recruited by the United States government to oversee the “Manhattan Project,” a top-secret operation aimed at developing the world’s first nuclear weapons. After getting acquainted with the project manager, Major General Leslie Groves, Oppenheimer and the general came to an agreement that the best place to carry out such a project was the vast desert of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Having brought many other scientists and their families to this secret site, Oppenheimer works tirelessly around the clock to build this weapon of mass destruction before the Nazis can create their own. With the raging war and the escalation of personal problems, Oppenheimer continues to push himself to his limits, but he soon suffers the consequences of his devotion, not on a psychological level, but the accusations surround the father of the atomic bomb, especially communism.
In the circle of conflict stand out the reflections and clashes of Louis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.). While Oppenheimer was the physicist behind the bomb, Strauss was a businessman involved in early nuclear energy and head of the US Atomic Energy Commission.
Without a doubt, the artistic epic comes with all its three-hour vocabulary. It is Nolan’s most character-driven work, and it is also the simplest of his works in understanding, which we realized by following the watch, despite the complex science. It takes us through the beginning of Oppenheimer’s career as a professor and the time he spent building the bomb at Los Alamos.
In parallel stories, we also see Oppenheimer’s security clearance hearing a decade later, in which communist associations are used to keep him out of the conversation about nuclear energy, and Strauss’ confirmation hearing for the cabinet, which becomes a public battleground for both Strauss’ and Oppenheimer’s reputations.
The atomic bomb was not an ordinary invention. It took a team of brilliant scientists, but not everyone in the scientific community agreed to unleash this power in the hands of governments. As Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh) says in the film, “This isn’t a new weapon, it’s a new world.” Niels would know this, because he was the Danish physicist who won the Nobel Prize for breakthroughs in understanding atomic structure and quantum theory.
Nolan does a commendable job of calculating what it means artistically by depicting the creation of such a devastating weapon without showing its victims at all, focusing instead on the psychological effects on its creators and the way in which it has opened up a slew of new problems about government collaboration with scientists.
The film also shows how the Red Scare destroyed the careers of scientists (along with actors, politicians, and people in nearly every profession), many of whom were associated with the American Communist Party in the years leading up to World War II. Oppenheimer himself had many connections—family, friends and colleagues—to the party and refused to keep his politics entirely out of academia as a university professor. During the war and through the 1950s, the government used him against him, keeping him out of certain things, while hanging his knowledge of his association with communism on his head as a threat.
Each part of this biography allows the audience to immerse themselves in the story and travel through time. Nolan does a great job of making the complex aspects of nuclear science accessible and understandable to the public. I especially liked the beginning of the film when Oppenheimer was young in Europe as a student discovering, learning and loving knowledge at its core. This part of the movie was the most romantic. I loved immersing myself in the process of learning and discovery as a kind of love story.
With a cast as large as Oppenheimer came in, many actors getting only a few minutes of screen time, most actors probably don’t get the chance to deliver great performances. But many characters starred and excelled in acting and excelled ably, starting with Matt Damon in the character of General Groves, who represented the military authority in persuading Oppenheimer and achieving the dream and supporting him without limits. Damon dealt with Groves more than just a military figure, but rather an important figure that seizes the opportunity to use Oppenheimer’s talents to his credit. We watch as Groves forms an unlikely alliance with the physicist, often questioning the theoretical implications of the nuclear power experiment, and his ignorance of Oppenheimer’s vast scientific knowledge allows the audience to learn with him as he explains the details of the bomb. To that end, Benny Safdie as Edward Teller with his sinister wit, and Alden Ehrenreich as a senator aide who works for Strauss while overhearing his sarcasm, his character is also one of the few morally uncomplicated characters in the film. and Rami Malek, who has small scenes but you’ll never forget them.
But there are two stars who really deserve an Oscar nomination for their performance in the movie. Robert Downey Jr. finally gets the role many of us have been waiting for years to see him play, after his series of roles with Marvel. It’s a vibrant reminder of his abilities as an actor because with his professionalism he makes the audience guess what the true motives of his character are.
And the role of the Irish inspirational Cillian Murphy, who excelled and was more than ready for the task in front of the camera, comes. You cannot take your eyes off him when he is on the screen and he transmits every moment with truth and disappears in the role. Where he showed Oppenheimer’s anxiety and tension in his physical movements and through the look of terror in his annoying blue eyes. The role of Al-Omar presented the character of the atomic scientist between his twenties and the end of his fifties, that “explosive” performance, full of details and emerging from its depths.
And let’s not forget the scene of Oppenheimer’s festive speech after the use of the atomic bomb, as it perfectly illustrates his inner turmoil, as he had already begun to question the ethics of the weapon he had invented.
And one of the scenes shows Oppenheimer with his mistress, Jane Tatlock, as she opens a copy of a Hindu religious book, and asks him to read to her. Murphy reads, “I am now death, the destroyer of worlds,” which is the quote Oppenheimer quotes when the atomic bomb is detonated.
While there are female characters intertwined with the events with amazing dramatic performances, we see three main women who know Oppenheimer: his girlfriend Ruth Tolman (Louise Lombard), his wife Kitty Oppenheimer (Emily Blunt), and his lover Jane Tatlock (Florence Pugh). All the women make the most of their short time on screen, especially Emily and Florence who have shown their acting ability although neither would be allowed a fully integrated character opportunity like the male characters.
Emily does somewhat better, especially in the powerful scene she gets at the end of the film despite her being reduced to a complete lack of interest in being a mother and her drinking problems, while Nolan presents Jane’s suicide as something that makes Oppenheimer feel guilty — he couldn’t have been by her side during His work on the Manhattan Project because of its connection to communism (not to mention his marriage to Kitty). In fact, Jane’s death was the result of a lifelong struggle with depression and other mental health problems. In the suicide note her father found, Jane wrote, “I think I would have been a burden all my life—at least I could unburden a crippled soul from the world of combat.” The construction of the film was smooth and intelligent in its narration, photography, and information-filled dialogue at a relentless pace, jumping continuously to different times in Oppenheimer’s life, and his exceptional acting that made him reach the height of your senses without making watching an exhausting experience. The screenplay is dense and multi-layered and accurately captures the time period specified in it. Like a holy book, he combines his well-known visual mastery with the deepest scenario, immersed in a character in the history of modern American cinema.
Also, the decoration design that moved from the forties and fifties of the last century, as it recreated everything from the city of Los Alamos to the Oval Office in the White House. Also, the cinematography is stunning and the soundtrack is terrifying by Ludwig Göransson.
Oppenheimer – without a doubt – is worth watching twice. It will be one of the best films in history. I may consider myself lucky to have enjoyed watching Christopher Nolan’s works that dazzle us over the years.
