The longer I live, the less I tend to join in on the big pop cultural moments. But I was among the “Barbenheimer” hordes on the big opening weekend – avoiding the crush with a Sunday 10:45 AM matinee – to catch Christopher Nolan’s magnificent three-hour film about Robert J. Oppenheimer, the man who led the World War II crash effort to develop the atomic bomb.
“Oppenheimer” is hardly the first film around the subject. “Fat Man and Little Boy,” with stars like Paul Newman, John Cusack and Laura Dern, kneaded Los Alamos facts into middling big-screen melodrama dough. Roger Ebert’s unsparing take on the1989 movie also, interestingly, provides insight into Nolan’s uniquely brilliant achievement. “The story of the birth of the bomb is one of high drama, but it was largely intellectual drama, as the scientists asked themselves, in conversations and nightmares, what terror they were unleashing on the Earth. ‘Fat Man and Little Boy’ reduces their debates to the childish level of Hollywood stereotyping.”
A three-hour studio movie is almost always some kind of epic. And a majority of today’s big hit films are action-packed. “Show don’t tell” is all but a film maxim. Especially if you want to hold the attention of viewers for three hours. That usually calls for big action and lots of it.
Nolan has made is a monumental epic movie to rival any other. Yet there’s only one significant action scene in “Oppenheimer:” the Trinity atomic bomb test. Like the rest of the film, it brims with period realism; it feels to me like you were there and can share the feelings of its witnesses. The stunning segment brims with suspense – will the bomb set off a chain reaction that destroys the world? – fear, danger, surprise, visual wonder and ultimately triumph. But compared with the big moves and stunts so common in many “event” movies today, it’s rather mild. And seems almost arcane, which underscores its resonant sense of historical authenticity. Yet it’s still as potent as nuclear fission.
Otherwise, the movie is largely powered by basic dramatic building blocks that in fact predate cinema: fine actors embodying their very human characters and incisive dialogue that drives the story along – no mean feat. Especially as a elemental subject matter is the complex high science of quantum physics, which is made comprehensible. In a way, “Oppenheimer” feels very Shakespearean; its story unfolds like a championship chess game or tournament bridge – complex and precise, yet remarkably dramatic.
Its marketing headlines it as “A Film by Christopher Nolan” rather than utilizing the allure of such marquee names as Cillian Murphy (who achieves his rising career high as Oppenheimer), Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Kenneth Branagh, Rami Malek, Casey Affleck and Josh Hartnett as its draw. Which is fitting, as the actors all subsume themselves into the people they play.
Nolan’s top-billing denotes an auteurist vision of filmmaking. Yet at the same time it’s a tribute to the collaborative nature of movies. Its cinematography is florid yet with a moody tonality that imbues a sense of the story’s era, and seamlessly flows from color to black & white (and B&W with a single tint). The set design, quite simply, makes the settings feel almost documentary real. Be it costumes, the score or story structure – largely linear, yet with smooth time shifts – every element of this gorgeous cinematic tapestry that it’s all but a must to see on a big screen conjoins into a whole far greater than any sum of its parts.
Ultimately, it’s a story about people and not the bomb. And about cooperation and competition, love and betrayal, the richness of shared support and the corrosive effects of petty jealousies – just about the whole range of emotion, especially the conundrum of developing a weapon with a newly massive killing power in order to save lives. And how one man can go from obscure academic expert to hero to outcast as the sands of time, political currents, ego, agendas and small-mindedness mistakenly slay greatness.
It’s immensely gratifying that such an artful film was, in tandem with “Barbie,” part of a one-two punch that resulted in the third-highest-grossing movie opening weekend ever. And, it would seem, drew people out of the ripples of post-pandemic torpor back into theaters. It gave me hope that among such potential threats to the art of great movies as AI, and the current prevailing nature and tastes of today’s filmgoing audience, a cinematic landmark can still triumph.
Populist Picks
Documentary Film: “The Ventures: Stars on Guitars” – This loving look at the best-selling instrumental band of all time was made by Ventures guitarist Don Wilson’s family, and makes the case well for the significance of the group, aided by commentary by those they inspired and influenced, such as Jimmy Page, John Fogarty, Randy Bachman, Mark Farner and others.
Standup Comedy Special: “Sarah Silverman: Someone You Love” – The smart, mischievous humor of Silverman may never go for the big belly laugh. But her latest special kept me chuckling throughout with a few hearty guffaws with a comedic perspective like no one else.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, September 1, 2023
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