‘Oppenheimer’: Inside the Mind of the Father of the Atomic Bomb

“Cinema doesn’t work well when it’s didactic and tells us what to think,” director Christopher Nolan says as he introduces “Oppenheimer,” an intense film that poses moral dilemmas while challenging audiences to “get inside the mind” of the “father” of the atomic bomb.

The real risk of causing the destruction of the planet in order to save it was the strange paradox faced by the American theoretical physicist of Jewish origin J. Robert Oppenheimer, which Nolan tried to decipher, from various angles, in his latest film, which opens on July 20 in Spain and Latin America.

“What attracted me (to the story) is complexity and the difficult questions it raises,” explains Nolan in a virtual meeting with the media.

With this three-hour film, the director says that he tried to “understand” life and legacy the renowned director of the Los Alamos Laboratory during World War II, a brilliant, complex, seductive man, full of conflict, overcome by enormity consequences Their works.

However, Nolan avoids sobering approaches in his work. In this sense, he assures that at no point did he try to “send any specific message” with Oppenheimer: “Cinematography doesn’t work well when it’s didactic, when it tells the audience what to think,” he observes.

technical effects

After “spending hours in the mind Oppenheimer“, the respected British director (the author of, among other things, the films “Inception” (Origin, 2010) or “Interstellar” (2014) says that when the shooting was over, he managed to “develop understandingabout who he really was scientist“and why did he do what he did”.

“I think the end of the story should raise some troubling questions for us and there should be things we should question about what we’ve seen and experienced,” he says.

In order to bring this plot to the big screen, Nolan was inspired by the novel “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer”by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, achieves breathtaking effects on audiences by combining IMAX technique with black and white parts of an analog photograph.

By his own admission, he knew who would play the controversial physicist when he finished writing the script, observing the “intense look” of the photo of the real Oppenheimer that appeared on the cover of the aforementioned a book.

He admits that he clearly saw then that the role would undoubtedly go to his “friend” Irish actor Cilian Murphy (“Inception” -Origin- and “The Dark Knight Trilogy”- The Dark Knight-), “one of the actors with the greatest talent there is”. and with which he wanted “the audience to get inside the head” of the physicist.

A star-studded cast

The admiration is mutual. During an interview ahead of the premiere, Murphy himself admits that when he was given the role, he felt “a bit overwhelmed, in shock” and assures that he realized at the moment that it was “one of the best scripts I’ve read” when you “have to say that”.

“Christopher Nolan he is an outstanding director in every way; He is a perfect director, a fantastic screenwriter, incredible with actors and shows films like no one else in this world can,” the actor points out.

He also claims that the British director’s films are “very challenging and assume a level intelligence on your own audience and as an actor he achieves that calmness in all his recordings”.

As for his character, he believes that deep down, outside of his controversial actions, he was a “good man” despite the fact that “his actions changed the world.”

Another of the stars of the cast, the British Emily Blunt (“The Devil Wears Prada” and “Quiet Place”), in the role of biologist “Kitty” Oppenheimer, the wife of Physički, he shows that he immediately knew that he was “on the verge of something extraordinary, revolutionary” when the script arrived.

Nolan, the “engineering brain”

The reverence for Nolan’s wit and artistry is shared by all his actors. Also Matt Damonwhich gives life to Leslie Groves, the director of the so-called of the Manhattan Project, claims without hesitation that “getting a call from Nolan is the best thing that can happen to you in this industry.”

He also emphasizes that the director is a man with “an engineer’s brain” and manages to “invent new ways of doing things”.

Other famous faces in the film include Robert Downey Jr., who plays an outstanding role as Professor Lewis Strauss of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Florence Pugh, as psychiatrist Jean Tatlock, Josh Hartnett, as nuclear scientist Ernest Lawrence, Casey Affleck, Rami Malick and Kenneth Branagh.