What’s Going On?

As World War 2 rumbles on the American government recruits brilliant physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer to build an atomic bomb, a weapon made possible by recent scientific theories. Nazi Germany is also working on this weapon and had a huge head-start over America. Oppenheimer brings together every resource America has to achieve the impossible against an ongoing backdrop of political turmoil, internal conflict and managing a team of brilliant but at times extremely difficult scientists.

In Front Of The Camera

The role of Oppenheimer is played by Cillian Murphy; an actor who has been giving consistently great performances for over 20 years, whether it’s as a charismatic gangster in 1920s Birmingham or a survivor of a zombie apocalypse. Murphy has worked with Nolan before in the Dark Knight series, Inception and Dunkirk. Matt Damon plays Leslie Groves, the military man tasked with getting Oppenheimer what he needs and ensuring this is done in the correct way. Emily Blunt plays Kitty Oppenheimer, wife of the title character, Blunt has played everyone from Mary Poppins to Mech-armour wearing war hero Rita to Fizzelpop Berrytwist. The cast is packed with great actors – Kenneth Branagh, Robert Downey Jr, Florence Pugh, Rami Malek…the list goes on and there is no way to talk about them all here.

Behind The Scenes

Christopher Nolan is one of the most successful directors working today, he has made what is considered by some the greatest superhero film ever made, The Dark Knight as well as brilliant lower-budget films like Memento or The Prestige. He is known for his exacting standards and work ethic, being one of the few directors who can make blockbuster films that aren’t simply formula-driven franchises. The film is based on the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.

Does It Work?

Oppenheimer is a great film. The film is structured around two courtroom-esque scenes – Oppenheimer appealing the decision to revoke his security clearance and the Senate approval of Lewis Strauss as position as Commerce Secretary. These are courtroom-esque as neither are trials nor in courtrooms, as is repeatedly made clear. As Oppenheimer is questioned about his past and Strass defends his own actions on his involvement with Oppenheimer. The audience sees Oppenheimer’s life play out starting at university; he studies in Europe (the best place to study quantum mechanics) and then returns to America to teach it. Through the 30s and 40s, the political turmoil of the time is always in the background – the rise of fascism, communism on university campuses and more. Then the central aspect of the film is the Manhattan Project itself, recruiting scientists, getting the resources and building a whole town to house the team. Then there is the aftermath, both Oppenheimer dealing with what he has done, his fame, as an advisor on atomic weapons and the battles over his suitability to advise the government. The film does not have a linear narrative, jumping back and forth between different periods, sometimes seemingly being instigated by questions asked of Oppenheimer or Strauss.

It is shown many times that Oppenheimer is a theoretical physicist, his laboratory work is atrocious, he likes to think about these things, study the theories and data and come up with his own theories. When news reaches the university that German scientists have split the atom Oppenheimer starts working on the mathematics, while a colleague rushes to replicate the results with their equipment. After checking the maths Oppenheimer is reassured it cannot be done, moments later his colleague returns announcing he’s just done it. And this man is put in charge of a truly immense project to turn theory into a practical device that will work in the real world. As mentioned in the film, Einstein wrote a letter to President Roosevelt spelling out the potential of a weapon along the lines of an atomic bomb, and how something as abstract as E = mc2 can lead to such a weapon. A lot of the film is about the interplay of these theoretical concepts, whether it be quantum mechanics or socialism and how they hit the real world.

Murphy is perfectly cast as Oppenheimer and carries the film well, being able to convey the myriad complex motivations of science, politics, love, family, sex, war, and apocalypse that are running through his head at all times. Damon is perfectly fine as Graves, filling in a role seen many times over. Blunt seemingly has little to do with much of the film but has moments, especially in the final third of the film, of blistering strength and courage. There are many great performances, some very minor in terms of screentime, Tom Conti as Albert Einstein, Kenneth Branagh as Niels Bohr, one that is particularly interesting is that of Josh Peck as Kenneth Bainbridge, a physicist who is the person who actually presses the button in the first test of the atomic bomb.

One of the key parts of the film – perhaps the key part- is the moral question about the atomic bomb. Should America build it and then use it? When the question is who should be the first to have one – America or the Nazis – that is Oppenheimer and most of the scientists are comfortable thinking it should be America. But when things become less clear, when the enemy is less obvious, or when thoughts about what bomb comes next, disagreements arise. The whole cast does very well in displaying the competing narratives going on in their heads, especially Murphy, and it is infuriating when characters later in the film interrogate characters about what they were thinking.

Nolan spent a lot of time working on the explosion caused by the atomic bomb, Nolan is well-known for the extreme lengths he will go to for physical effects. Along with this Nolan’s use of sound has been commented on a lot and actually is perhaps more affecting in Oppenheimer than the visuals, a recurring stamping rumbling noise that troubles Oppenheimer, that seems to overwhelm him is incredibly effective.

Oppenheimer could be the film that gets Nolan his first Oscar and it would be well deserved. It is an epic film about an extraordinary life.

Rating: (4 / 5)

Also Read: The Anatomy of a Christopher Nolan Film

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The director announces they only get one take, it’s the most expensive shot of the film and they’re using real acid – cue inevitable disaster. This was made in the 90s today The Simpsons may have thought the director would use CGI instead. SFX is broadly split into two groups – practical effects – mechanical/physical effects, things that really exist, the other use post-production techniques like CGI. Once all SFX were practical effects but over the decades CGI has become far more prevalent.

Christopher Nolan is a great filmmaker in many ways and one of the ways he stands out from his contemporaries is that he still relies on practical effects a lot of the time. One of Nolan’s most famous uses of practical effects is in the film Inception, notably “The Hallway Fight”. Not to get too into the details but two characters are fighting over a gun while the hotel they are in is spinning round, the characters are tossed around as the hotel flips. One character utilises this quite effectively, adjusting his movements to better keep his balance, walking on the floor, then the wall, then the ceiling. This brilliant scene is done with practical effects. Nolan created the corridor set, then built a cylinder around it and a frame that could rotate the corridor. Essentially, the corridor is indeed being flipped over, it is not a camera trick.

Nolan will often just destroy things rather than use CGI. In Tenet that is a real plane that is destroyed and in The Dark Knight a real lorry that he flips over. Obviously doing such things is expensive and dangerous and possibly can only be done once – film studios are not made of airplanes for Nolan to destroy. Apparently in Nolan’s new film, Oppenheimer, a scene depicting the blast of an atomic bomb was made using practical effects and not CGI.

Mad Max: Fury Road is another great example of practical effects. CGI is used, for example in the dust storm, but if something could be done in reality, it was. At least 75 cars were destroyed in the making of the film. MM:FR does bring up a brilliant use of CGI alongside practical effects – it removed things like seatbelts and other safety features, digitally erasing these things that kept actors safe yet would not be present in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The benefits of practical effects are real – first and foremost, so often the audience can tell. The lorry flip in The Dark Knight felt real, whereas many people have commented on the “weightlessness” of CGI battles that never fully convey the impact of what is supposed to be happening. Often practical effects help actors – having seen behind the scene footage of sci-fi blockbusters where an actor is simply on a green screen stage having “real” items can help their performance.

There are some things that CGI is better suited for. First and foremost, it is usually cheaper. Cult sci-fi film Monsters used CGI to create many of it’s effects (as well as just finding weird real-life places to shoot) and was largely done by the director on his home computer. The fact that small filmmakers can create scenes that could cost millions is great for cinema. Next is that there are simply some things that can’t be done with practical effects, or would look so obviously unrealistic as to defeat the purpose. The recent version of The Jungle Book by Disney was created almost entirely with digital effects, with the actor playing Mowgli essentially being the only real thing on screen – and the thing is correct as it wasn’t just the talking animals that were created but every single tree, rock and blade of grass. Now the thing is – talking animals aren’t real, and doing it with practical effects – puppets and animatronics probably wouldn’t look as real. There is also a great deal of flexibility with using CGI – say Nolan changed his mind and didn’t want to flip a lorry but a bus instead. Nolan would have to redo the entire scene, using CGI it would be far easier.

Practical effects still very much have a place in cinema and ideally a clever combination of all available techniques is likely to give the best results, rather than rigidly sticking to one method. While Nolan used practical effects in Inception there is also a lot of CGI, directors can pick the right tool for the job.

Also Read: The Anatomy of a Christopher Nolan Film

Your contribution to Big Picture Film Club will allow us to continue to produce content. No matter the amount your contributions are greatly appreciated.

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Warning – spoilers ahead for Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar and Dunkirk

Ambition

I don’t mean this as a theme in the storytelling or characters, it’s part of Nolan’s work. Few directors have the scope and vision that he has. Even with Memento, one of his earliest films, he was pushing the boundaries of storytelling with a disjointed non-linear masterpiece that demands to be watched more than once. He took the burgeoning superhero blockbuster genre and not only made the films that in my opinion are the high watermark of the genre in terms of action but also storytelling – and breaking open the elusive worlds of the Oscars. When we come to something like Inception it’s hard to even begin describing it and it’s hard to imagine another director who could pull it off. The resources poured into making a film that could accurately portray the landscape of dreams – the whole world exploding or streets bending back on themselves.

Time

What is the beginning? What is the end? Many of Nolan’s films play with time. The narrative of Memento is confused from the start of the film, in Inception dream time moves so much faster than real life offering the wonderful/terrifying prospect of spending a lifetime in a dream and Interstellar dealt with the mind-blowing ramifications of time with space travel. Dunkirk has a brilliant structure – three stories set around the Dunkirk evacuation. One from the perspective of soldiers on a beach, one from a RAF pilot providing cover and one from someone sailing their little ship to help. The soldiers are on the beach are there for a week yet the pilot’s story is over in one hour and all the stories mix together.

Obsession

Nolan’s first big success came with Memento, a film about a character suffering from anterograde amnesia – a condition that means you can access old memories but you can’t make new ones. Leonard is obsessed with his final memory – the murder of his wife. This obsession leads Leonard to take huge risks with his safety – and that of others – in that he is someone who really needs round the clock care but instead embarks on a mission of revenge. The Dark Knight trilogy has a number of characters driven by obsession, most notably Wayne with the murder of his parents, but often the villains as well – none of whom are driven simply by desire for money or power. The Prestige features two characters obsessed with each other, obsessed with defeating their opponent and quite simply obsessed with being better. Both Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale’s characters go to extreme – even insane – lengths to simply be the better stage magician.

Lying And The Truth

A lot of lying goes on in Christopher Nolan’s films. The plot of Memento hinges on several big lies and how in Leonard’s condition he is very vulnerable to dishonesty. Indeed Leonard lies to himself. At the heart of the Dark Knight trilogy, there are several important lies, the first being the obvious deception that Bruce Wayne is Batman but more importantly the lie told by Batman and Gordon regarding the truth about Harvey Dent, with both believing it was better for society to be lied to. Likewise, The Prestige is a film about magicians who “trick” their audiences but just about every relationship and important event in the film is a lie upon lie upon lie, you are never sure of a person’s loyalty, the accuracy of memory, about exactly who is who and how far do you let a lie dominate your life. The Prestige even lies to the audience. Interstellar shows a society that lies to itself in the hope of moving forward as it is judged necessary to rewrite history so the Apollo moon landings were faked by the American government. Cobb’s life in Inception is destroyed by a lie he tells his wife. You could say that Nolan has been telling us for a long time – don’t trust anyone, not even yourself.

Tenet

Christopher Nolan has a new film coming out for 2020 – Tenet. A trailer was just recently released but it’s still hard to say exactly what the film is about; spying and time travel seem to be the big plot points. The film stars John David Washington (son of Denzel Washington and star of BlackKKlansman), Robert Pattinson (of Twilight fame) and Elizabeth Debicki (probably best known for Widows). The trailer is typical for a Nolan film, with it not giving much away, looking very impressive and having tense and booming music. But does the trailer really matter? For me, Nolan is a director who I would see without a trailer or any prior knowledge of a film – not all of his films have been classics but they’re always worth watching.

More: The Many Faces of Andy Serkis

Also Read: For Your Consideration: Sci-Fi, Comedy & Oscar Snubs

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