Review of the film "Oppenheimer"
Aug. 13th, 2023 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatWatching a film, much like reading a novel or staring at a piece of artwork is largely an individual experience. Everyone sees something different. No two people see the same thing or are focused on the same thing.
Often, I'll see the phrase: "We're not watching the same show or film."
And I'll think, well, of course not. Why would you think otherwise? Our brains process the information differently.
Which is why it is so difficult to write a film review or even recommend a film - because a film that blew me away, may leave someone else scratching their noggin or bored. And vice versa.
The phenomena of Barbieheimer - fascinates me partly because of the communal response to the films as a duel event, almost as if the human conscious realized upon seeing the trailers that both films were handling the same themes, but from different perspectives and completely different ways - yet, somehow coming to similar conclusions. Although, not all of us want to nor feel inclined to see both films - mainly because one or the other may not be our trope or to our liking. Watching a film that delves deeply into science and political tactics, with mostly dialogue, and a bunch of white men in rooms talking incessantly with each other, may not be your thing. Just as watching a film in cotton candy and bubble gum flavors, satirizing male toxicity, and how it cages any and all expressions of feminity in a desert bright, pinkish bubblegum world, complete with satirical musical numbers - until ultimately that feminity break free and no longer lets itself be caged, may not be your thing. (From the trailers, haven't seen the film). Both films appear to be about breaking free of cages.
It's interesting both came out at the same time - and both have broken box office records in their own right and devoured the global and domestic box office - showing a hunger for that thematic structure, if nothing else.
But again, going back to my original point, or the first paragraph of this meta or review, it's all a matter of one's perspective. I spoke to two people about Oppenheimer after I saw it, one the individual I saw it with (movie buddy) and my mother (who'd seen it the week it first came out, and had been discussing it with me ever since). I was largely spoiled coming into it - as a result. Neither of them were.
And I saw things in that they didn't see or hadn't thought of. My mother said that she hadn't seen any of the toxic male culture stuff - but she doesn't think metaphorically, and her focus was more on what was happening and less on what the filmmaker was trying to do.
Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Cillian Murphy, Robert Downy Jr, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, and various others including Tom Conti, Josh Hartnett, Rami Malek, Kenneth Brannagh, Gary Oldman, Tony Goldwyn, Matt Modine...is much like Nolan's other films a visual and auditory intellectual puzzle box of a film.
Nolan's approach to the biopic - is not to tell it in linear fashion nor in a 3rd person perspective, as most biopics and films are told. Instead he tells it out of order and in two first person perspectives, one in black and white, and one in color. Also the focus of the film isn't really on Oppenheimer - we learn nothing of his childhood, we don't meet his parents, and there's little on his romances or his kids, who are merely mentioned but barely seen. That's a daring approach to take with a biopic. Those who are avoiding the film - because they don't like biopics or don't care to know much about Oppenheimer's life - don't. This isn't that movie. I don't like biopics - and this film I loved, because it veered away from telling the story of Oppenheimer.
Instead, it went into the why of it all. Why Oppenheimer chose to lead the Manhattan Project (which was the top secret American Government endeavor to develop an atomic bomb). Why he developed the bomb. The consequences of doing that. The complicated politics and ideologies that got in the way of the scientific endeavor and development, and prevented any discussion of stopping it.
The focus of the film is on the toxic male culture, politics, and hubris that permeates our culture then and now.
The film is at times a taught political suspense thriller - that had me on the edge of my seat, a horror movie, and a devastating portrait of a generation that came perilously close to annihilating the world. It is not a celebration of the WWII generation but an indictment of them. As they celebrate the Trinity Test, we see Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists horror at what they have created, knowing full well that this creation is about to fall into the hands of men who will think nothing of using it murder millions to achieve their own ends. And Nolan manages to get this horror across succinctly and powerfully through both surround sound and visuals. We feel as if we too are in the center of the Trinity Test. And we fell the devastating impact. The Wow moment, followed by the Uh oh, what did we do....as the sound wave rolls over everyone in the audience.
But, at the same time? It does all of this without sermonizing or preaching. Instead, Nolan shows. We jump back and forth between Lewis Strauss's Senate Confirmation Hearings, the investigation into Oppenheimer's Security Clearance (his leftist politics and that of his family and friends came back to haunt him) and Oppenheimer's scientific journey towards the Trinity Test, the actual test, and its aftermath. Following Oppenheimer through his career, with Strauss as a shadowy antagonist in the background - the metaphor for so many others.
It's easy, the film argues to condemn Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists for creating the bomb. But as Einstein states, any one of them could have, any one of them did. Oppenheimer brought them together - but who is to say it wouldn't have been someone else? Just as it was easy to accuse him of sharing state secrets with the Russians, but it turns out there was someone else on the team doing just that. And does it matter? If anything it was for the best - as Einstein states upon seeing the calculation that means a bomb can and will be created - it's best to share that knowledge with everyone, because if everyone has it, no one will be able to use it. It's not wise to let just one group have it.
And what of the culpability of the culture who pushed for it? At the time the Manhattan Project happened - they were afraid of Germany, and afraid Germany would create it first. Germany had the scientists. Their one hope was anti-semitism would prevent Germany from using those scientists, and put them behind. They really weren't initially developing the bomb to use against Japan, but to get Germany to back off. They wanted to create it before Germany did, because Germany would use it. But...then Germany surrendered two-three months prior to the Trinity Test. Japan looked like they would soon thereafter, but it wasn't clear that they would. Yet the film makes it clear from the scientists perspective they did not need to drop the bombs, just threatening to do so was enough. They even signed a petition to stop it.
And when they were...it devastated them. Oppenheimer was haunted forever afterward.
That's one part of the story. The other part is Lewis Strauss, whose hubris and ego is equally on display.
The fact that the film is mainly white men - creating death, is telling. Two women are in the movie, no three. But only two have major roles. The third is a scientist. The women have little say in the proceedings and are indeed caged by the society in which they reside, along with their ideals,
and to a degree rendered miserable. They are pushing for a free society, with free labor, free ideals, and a communal sharing of wealth, only to be caged and denied their voice - to be seen as a threat. Yet each fight in their own ways to push ahead.
And the men are no freer - also caged by the ideology of the moment. At one point, one of the scientists (Matt Modine) tells the tribunal investigating Oppenheimer - that they shouldn't be condemning a scientist for his opinions, his ideals. So Oppenheimer gave money to refugees during the War in Spain, so he pushed for a trade union for scientists and academics, and others - for fair wages - he has a right to that. It should not be labeled "Commie" and put in that cage. Conservatives are very good at putting others in cages, and don't particularly like it when they themselves are equally caged.
It's an odd film - because instead of focusing solely on the Trinity Test (which would have made a lot shorter), it focuses on the Tribunal hearings and the Lewis Strauss Senate hearings, dual hearings happening simultaneously, the point of view depending on whether we are in black and white or color. The Trinity Test is a climatic moment within the story, and the defining moment in both, but in different ways. Most filmmakers, and many indeed have - focused solely on the testing up to and including Trinity. Some more on the Trinity Test than on Oppenheimer himself (hence the reason so few people knew who he was.)
Why did Nolan choose to do that? Because Nolan is looking at what is happening now - in both the UK and US through a historical veil. Today we have hearing and trial after trial. And he's looking at all of that through the veil of what happened back then - at a turning point in our collective history. The creation of the atomic bomb changed everything, and Oppenheimer consents in a way to being put on trial for it, when in reality he's put on trial for his leftist leanings, not the bomb he created that destroyed thousands of lives, lives he knows the exact number of and how they were destroyed and is tormented by. No, they put him on trial for his political views and ideology alone. And part of him wishes to be honored for Trinity, yet he is barely recognized for it as time marches on, and new generations give him meaningless medals just as he gave Einstein before him.
This is interesting film, it plays with my head and will for some time to come. If you've not seen it - I highly recommend.
***
After the film, MovieBuddy asked if I thought Roosevelt would have dropped the bomb if he'd still been alive and President.
I said I didn't know. Although it was definitely within Roosevelt's persona to do it.
I went home and asked my mother, and she said that Roosevelt definitely would have done it. That I had to understand - back then, they had no idea what Japan would have done. It is true enough - information was harder to come by back then. It took longer, and got more garbled. And it was common knowledge that the Japanese Military and People were into fighting until the bitter end or death, resulting in a costly occupation (in both lives, time and dollars). Also, even after the bomb was dropped, the Emperor of Japan had to step forward and order them to surrender.
Yet, was dropping the bombs truly justified? This is the question Nolan's film asks us. The government told the scientists - that they just had to show a test of it, just show they had it, and that they willing to drop it - and that would be enough. Remember, this was a bomb that at the time they initially dropped it - the scientists didn't know for certain whether it would set the atmosphere on fire and start a chain reaction, detonating the world. They did not know when they did the Trinity Test - whether it would destroy the world - yet they did it anyway. And they did not know what the long term affects would be when they dropped it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet they did it anyway. They did know it would be devastating, that it would kill thousands possibly millions of women and children, yet they did it anyway.
That's toxic male hubris in a nutshell.
The quote from The American Prometheus that Nolan bookends his movie with, and has stated in the middle...Now I've become death, the Destroyer of Worlds..."
Often, I'll see the phrase: "We're not watching the same show or film."
And I'll think, well, of course not. Why would you think otherwise? Our brains process the information differently.
Which is why it is so difficult to write a film review or even recommend a film - because a film that blew me away, may leave someone else scratching their noggin or bored. And vice versa.
The phenomena of Barbieheimer - fascinates me partly because of the communal response to the films as a duel event, almost as if the human conscious realized upon seeing the trailers that both films were handling the same themes, but from different perspectives and completely different ways - yet, somehow coming to similar conclusions. Although, not all of us want to nor feel inclined to see both films - mainly because one or the other may not be our trope or to our liking. Watching a film that delves deeply into science and political tactics, with mostly dialogue, and a bunch of white men in rooms talking incessantly with each other, may not be your thing. Just as watching a film in cotton candy and bubble gum flavors, satirizing male toxicity, and how it cages any and all expressions of feminity in a desert bright, pinkish bubblegum world, complete with satirical musical numbers - until ultimately that feminity break free and no longer lets itself be caged, may not be your thing. (From the trailers, haven't seen the film). Both films appear to be about breaking free of cages.
It's interesting both came out at the same time - and both have broken box office records in their own right and devoured the global and domestic box office - showing a hunger for that thematic structure, if nothing else.
But again, going back to my original point, or the first paragraph of this meta or review, it's all a matter of one's perspective. I spoke to two people about Oppenheimer after I saw it, one the individual I saw it with (movie buddy) and my mother (who'd seen it the week it first came out, and had been discussing it with me ever since). I was largely spoiled coming into it - as a result. Neither of them were.
And I saw things in that they didn't see or hadn't thought of. My mother said that she hadn't seen any of the toxic male culture stuff - but she doesn't think metaphorically, and her focus was more on what was happening and less on what the filmmaker was trying to do.
Oppenheimer directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Cillian Murphy, Robert Downy Jr, Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, and various others including Tom Conti, Josh Hartnett, Rami Malek, Kenneth Brannagh, Gary Oldman, Tony Goldwyn, Matt Modine...is much like Nolan's other films a visual and auditory intellectual puzzle box of a film.
Nolan's approach to the biopic - is not to tell it in linear fashion nor in a 3rd person perspective, as most biopics and films are told. Instead he tells it out of order and in two first person perspectives, one in black and white, and one in color. Also the focus of the film isn't really on Oppenheimer - we learn nothing of his childhood, we don't meet his parents, and there's little on his romances or his kids, who are merely mentioned but barely seen. That's a daring approach to take with a biopic. Those who are avoiding the film - because they don't like biopics or don't care to know much about Oppenheimer's life - don't. This isn't that movie. I don't like biopics - and this film I loved, because it veered away from telling the story of Oppenheimer.
Instead, it went into the why of it all. Why Oppenheimer chose to lead the Manhattan Project (which was the top secret American Government endeavor to develop an atomic bomb). Why he developed the bomb. The consequences of doing that. The complicated politics and ideologies that got in the way of the scientific endeavor and development, and prevented any discussion of stopping it.
The focus of the film is on the toxic male culture, politics, and hubris that permeates our culture then and now.
The film is at times a taught political suspense thriller - that had me on the edge of my seat, a horror movie, and a devastating portrait of a generation that came perilously close to annihilating the world. It is not a celebration of the WWII generation but an indictment of them. As they celebrate the Trinity Test, we see Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists horror at what they have created, knowing full well that this creation is about to fall into the hands of men who will think nothing of using it murder millions to achieve their own ends. And Nolan manages to get this horror across succinctly and powerfully through both surround sound and visuals. We feel as if we too are in the center of the Trinity Test. And we fell the devastating impact. The Wow moment, followed by the Uh oh, what did we do....as the sound wave rolls over everyone in the audience.
But, at the same time? It does all of this without sermonizing or preaching. Instead, Nolan shows. We jump back and forth between Lewis Strauss's Senate Confirmation Hearings, the investigation into Oppenheimer's Security Clearance (his leftist politics and that of his family and friends came back to haunt him) and Oppenheimer's scientific journey towards the Trinity Test, the actual test, and its aftermath. Following Oppenheimer through his career, with Strauss as a shadowy antagonist in the background - the metaphor for so many others.
It's easy, the film argues to condemn Oppenheimer and his fellow scientists for creating the bomb. But as Einstein states, any one of them could have, any one of them did. Oppenheimer brought them together - but who is to say it wouldn't have been someone else? Just as it was easy to accuse him of sharing state secrets with the Russians, but it turns out there was someone else on the team doing just that. And does it matter? If anything it was for the best - as Einstein states upon seeing the calculation that means a bomb can and will be created - it's best to share that knowledge with everyone, because if everyone has it, no one will be able to use it. It's not wise to let just one group have it.
And what of the culpability of the culture who pushed for it? At the time the Manhattan Project happened - they were afraid of Germany, and afraid Germany would create it first. Germany had the scientists. Their one hope was anti-semitism would prevent Germany from using those scientists, and put them behind. They really weren't initially developing the bomb to use against Japan, but to get Germany to back off. They wanted to create it before Germany did, because Germany would use it. But...then Germany surrendered two-three months prior to the Trinity Test. Japan looked like they would soon thereafter, but it wasn't clear that they would. Yet the film makes it clear from the scientists perspective they did not need to drop the bombs, just threatening to do so was enough. They even signed a petition to stop it.
And when they were...it devastated them. Oppenheimer was haunted forever afterward.
That's one part of the story. The other part is Lewis Strauss, whose hubris and ego is equally on display.
The fact that the film is mainly white men - creating death, is telling. Two women are in the movie, no three. But only two have major roles. The third is a scientist. The women have little say in the proceedings and are indeed caged by the society in which they reside, along with their ideals,
and to a degree rendered miserable. They are pushing for a free society, with free labor, free ideals, and a communal sharing of wealth, only to be caged and denied their voice - to be seen as a threat. Yet each fight in their own ways to push ahead.
And the men are no freer - also caged by the ideology of the moment. At one point, one of the scientists (Matt Modine) tells the tribunal investigating Oppenheimer - that they shouldn't be condemning a scientist for his opinions, his ideals. So Oppenheimer gave money to refugees during the War in Spain, so he pushed for a trade union for scientists and academics, and others - for fair wages - he has a right to that. It should not be labeled "Commie" and put in that cage. Conservatives are very good at putting others in cages, and don't particularly like it when they themselves are equally caged.
It's an odd film - because instead of focusing solely on the Trinity Test (which would have made a lot shorter), it focuses on the Tribunal hearings and the Lewis Strauss Senate hearings, dual hearings happening simultaneously, the point of view depending on whether we are in black and white or color. The Trinity Test is a climatic moment within the story, and the defining moment in both, but in different ways. Most filmmakers, and many indeed have - focused solely on the testing up to and including Trinity. Some more on the Trinity Test than on Oppenheimer himself (hence the reason so few people knew who he was.)
Why did Nolan choose to do that? Because Nolan is looking at what is happening now - in both the UK and US through a historical veil. Today we have hearing and trial after trial. And he's looking at all of that through the veil of what happened back then - at a turning point in our collective history. The creation of the atomic bomb changed everything, and Oppenheimer consents in a way to being put on trial for it, when in reality he's put on trial for his leftist leanings, not the bomb he created that destroyed thousands of lives, lives he knows the exact number of and how they were destroyed and is tormented by. No, they put him on trial for his political views and ideology alone. And part of him wishes to be honored for Trinity, yet he is barely recognized for it as time marches on, and new generations give him meaningless medals just as he gave Einstein before him.
This is interesting film, it plays with my head and will for some time to come. If you've not seen it - I highly recommend.
***
After the film, MovieBuddy asked if I thought Roosevelt would have dropped the bomb if he'd still been alive and President.
I said I didn't know. Although it was definitely within Roosevelt's persona to do it.
I went home and asked my mother, and she said that Roosevelt definitely would have done it. That I had to understand - back then, they had no idea what Japan would have done. It is true enough - information was harder to come by back then. It took longer, and got more garbled. And it was common knowledge that the Japanese Military and People were into fighting until the bitter end or death, resulting in a costly occupation (in both lives, time and dollars). Also, even after the bomb was dropped, the Emperor of Japan had to step forward and order them to surrender.
Yet, was dropping the bombs truly justified? This is the question Nolan's film asks us. The government told the scientists - that they just had to show a test of it, just show they had it, and that they willing to drop it - and that would be enough. Remember, this was a bomb that at the time they initially dropped it - the scientists didn't know for certain whether it would set the atmosphere on fire and start a chain reaction, detonating the world. They did not know when they did the Trinity Test - whether it would destroy the world - yet they did it anyway. And they did not know what the long term affects would be when they dropped it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, yet they did it anyway. They did know it would be devastating, that it would kill thousands possibly millions of women and children, yet they did it anyway.
That's toxic male hubris in a nutshell.
The quote from The American Prometheus that Nolan bookends his movie with, and has stated in the middle...Now I've become death, the Destroyer of Worlds..."
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