Bleak, beautiful Oppenheimer tells us about our apocalyptic future
CBC
There are few figures in American history as mythologized as J. Robert Oppenheimer — in no small part due to the man himself.
So building a cohesive story about him — the physicist who helped define an entire scientific field so new and arcane it was called "boys' physics"; the precocious child-genius who delivered a scientific lecture at 12; the prideful, self-promoting father of the atomic bomb; the financial supporter of both communists and Jewish victims of the Nazis; the forgetful and rude philanderer whose first media attention came from leaving a woman stranded in a car on a mountain peak as he walked home and went to sleep — is, if nothing else, a feat of economy.
American Prometheus, the biography upon which Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is based, took 25 years and 600 pages to describe it all. If you asked Nolan, he'd probably be proud he cut it down to three hours.
The way he achieves it is a testament to that story, as well as to what the dying world of Hollywood can produce when championed by an auteur.
Because as it follows the harried physicist (played by Cillian Murphy) through his early days of self discovery, a successful career in quantum physics, to his management of the Manhattan Project and eventual pillorying by the government, Oppenheimer doesn't concern itself with a classically satisfying character arc.
Instead, it uses Oppenheimer as a static and ultimately tragic beacon to examine how hopelessly doomed the nuclear age has left us.
That both elevates Oppenheimer into something more than just another biopic and threatens to make it difficult to access. Because while Oppenheimer will likely be remembered as one of the best popular films of the decade, the careful and incisive character study is worlds apart from the Dunkirk-style, visual war-spectacle it's been billed as.
Complicated by its incredible fidelity to historical fact, slightly hurt by an overabundance of stars and triumphant in its performances, Oppenheimer is an extraordinary movie both because of and in spite of its morose complexity.
When it comes to deciding whether Oppenheimer is deserving of attention, though, the first question is practical. Ever since his Dark Knight trilogy, Nolan has long had an affinity for filming in the Imax format, leaving audiences struggling to decide which of the various screenings his movies warrant.
Unfortunately, there are only six theatres in Canada capable of screening Oppenheimer in the Imax 70mm format Nolan made the movie for. While the director recommends a 70mm screening if you can't find an Imax 70MM one, and Imax recommends seeing it in any Imax format possible, it hasn't stopped debate between fans over which is best. And as that debate grows, it only serves to fuel the misconception that Oppenheimer is a typical WWII movie held up by fantastic visuals.
While there are beautiful, Tree of Life-esque moments showing particles and waves, most of Oppenheimer is told in boardrooms, laboratories and parks. Depending on which format you watch it in, you may feel more immersed — but those who expect to feel the full power of Saving Private Ryan's beach storming scenes, or are just excited for a big Imax boom, will likely feel let down.
Instead, Oppenheimer works almost as a diptych — an artwork split into two halves that, while separate, inform one another. Here, it feels like two movies with two messages. The first is the more typical: the tortured genius enlisted into a secretive government project to win the war by Matt Damon's gruff Lt.-Gen. Leslie Groves.
Damon is only the first of a host of familiar faces to pop up in the background. Everyone from Casey Affleck, to Josh Peck, to Josh Hartnett to Florence Pugh show up in the dust-whorled backgrounds to, at times, break the immersion.
The beginning of the movie operates more as a clip show than establishing sequence, as we spend nearly 45 minutes following a flatly affected Oppenheimer, dutifully detailing the early events of his life without much character development.
