With “Oppenheimer”, Christopher Nolan has once again proven that he can create complex worlds on the big screen and that one of the strongest weapons a film has to offer does not always have to be just moving images, but can also be dialogue. In fact, the actors in “Oppenheimer” engage in impressive verbal battles that drip with historical facts and scientific expertise. To embrace this verisimilitude, Nolan mainly dissected Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s biography “American Prometheus: The Triumph And Tragedy Of J. Robert Oppenheimer” about the father of the atomic bomb, but did not do his research here and let it end .
Now Jada Yuan describes how deeply Nolan dug the history for “Oppenheimer” in her book “Unleashing Oppenheimer: Inside Christopher Nolan’s Explosive Atomic-Age Thriller.” This reveals an interesting aspect about physicist David Hill, who was involved in the Manhattan Project and would later become a key ally of Oppenheimer in the Senate hearing against Lewis Strauss.
The one in the movie Rami Malek During the historic hearing, the embodied scientist held a cinematic debate against Strauss, accusing him of being vindictive towards Oppenheimer.
Nolan discovered a movie-worthy statement from physicist David Hill that Oppenheimer’s biography overlooked
Nolan only found this statement during his intensive research into the files, as he now explains in ‘Unleashing Oppenheimer’ (via ): “When I found David Hill’s statement standing up before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the entire nation and telling the truth about Lewis Strauss, it was an extraordinary moment. His testimony was devastating because it spoke to Lewis’ vengeful nature. These things usually don’t happen in real life. Usually this is a trick.”
Deeply impressed by his find, Nolan included David Hill’s speech word for word in his film, rewriting a piece of history that was missing from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s comprehensive biography “American Prometheus.” Because when he sent Bird the script to talk to him about a few details, he had no idea what role David Hill would have played in the hearing.
But as can be read in ‘Unleashing Oppenheimer’, Bird was delighted with this development: ‘I thought it was fantastic. This showed that Nolan also did his own research and addressed something we found, but didn’t elaborate further. It was amazing.”
You can read how complex the shocking ending of “Oppenheimer” is in our explanatory article: