Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan’s instant classic is his most autobiographical film yet

Starring Cillian Murphy as the American theoretical physicist best known as the ‘father of the atomic bomb’, Oppenheimer is one of the decade’s most magnificent films, and the best Hollywood studio feature since Damien Chazelle’s Babylon last year. Watching it in IMAX is a unique sensory experience. Dense, dialogue-heavy scenes are more thrilling than most action movies, more is communicated by the lines on Murphy’s face than by the ones he’s reading off the page. The pulse-pounding Trinity test sequence, on the other hand, is so visceral that movie theatres might want to consider having a doctor on-site, in case an audience member or two faints out of sheer stress. But beneath the big screen bombast, there is a more personal, introspective story.

By most accounts, Oppenheimer wasn’t politically inclined in his youth as a student of physics. It was only after he witnessed the rise of the Third Reich in Germany and the Civil War in Spain that he began taking an active interest in these matters. In an early scene, he seems unconvinced that his ‘abstract’ work could have any meaningful impact on the world. This is a dilemma that most artists and filmmakers could conceivably find themselves wrestling with, especially in times of great strife. What is the value of movies and books and music in this harsh world? Can it change mindsets, save lives? Nolan certainly seems to think so. He is also acutely aware of the flip side of this power; of how art, in the wrong hands, can be used to spread hate. But if there’s one sweeping statement that Oppenheimer makes, it’s this: propagandists are imminently disposable once they’ve outlived their use, regardless of their intellect and skill. Nolan most definitely isn’t kowtowing to autocrats, but he must certainly understand what it feels like to be at the mercy of corporate overlords who can launch petty attacks such as scheduling a movie against his magnum opus out of pure spite.

Few people alive, however, take cinema as seriously as he does; during the film’s promotional tour (which itself could’ve made for a Nolan-esque ticking time bomb thriller set against the backdrop of a looming strike), the filmmaker needed no excuse to launch into an effusive soliloquy about IMAX film, irrespective of whether he was speaking to physicist Brian Cox or an upside-down Robert Downey Jr in a particularly playful mood. But in spite of the often overwhelming self-seriousness of his films, this is the first time that Nolan has equated himself with someone that he recently declared as ‘the most important person who ever lived’. As one character tells Oppenheimer in the movie, “You’re not just self-important, you’re actually important!”

The scenes in Los Alamos, where Oppenheimer begins to shape the Manhattan Project, can often feel like a behind-the-scenes making-of documentary that Nolan might commission for one of his own movies. Los Alamos is the set, the US government is the movie studio, the no-nonsense Lt General Leslie Groves (played by Matt Damon) is the producer whose entire job seems to be to keep Oppenheimer, and the ‘film’, on track. Oppenheimer is described as the ‘founder, mayor, and sheriff’ of Los Alamos, and his cult leader personality is alluded to on at least one occasion. Not only is he ‘directing’ the project, he is also managing various departments, resolving conflicts, and more than once, requesting Groves to allow his former communist brother Frank to join them. Nolan, of course, has collaborated with his brother Jonathan on several films, including the Dark Knight trilogy and Interstellar. But did you know that he has a third brother with a supposedly sketchy past?

Despite his ability to attract the world’s best talent both in front of and behind the camera — nobody else, for instance, could lure three Best Actor Oscar winners for single-scene cameos — Nolan remains an auteur. His movies feel like a personal expression, and not a committee-driven venture. And he brings some of that subjectivity to Oppenheimer as well.

Because the movie is essentially a peek inside Oppenheimer’s mind, and not necessarily a traditional drama about the events he was involved in — often, Nolan’s camera is mere inches away from Murphy’s piercing blue eyes — the movie can’t be criticised for not offering a bird’s eye view of everything that happened. We don’t, for instance, see the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because Oppenheimer didn’t see it either. If it seems like he wasn’t thinking about the consequences of his actions, it’s only because, at least for some time, he wasn’t. Like Nolan, who presumably isn’t visualising lines around the block to buy tickets to one of his movies when he’s directing a scene, Oppenheimer was dedicated completely to the job at hand.

Contrary to convention, the movie doesn’t simply end after that thrilling Trinity test sequence — one of the best stretches of cinema you’re ever likely to experience in a movie theatre — but it proceeds towards an extended epilogue of sorts; a fifth act. Having already felt the first shivers of guilt during the test, Oppenheimer is utterly overwhelmed by remorse in the aftermath of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, when he has a vision of death and decay. This might be the closest that Nolan has come to directing a horror sequence since a couple of Scarecrow bits in Batman Begins, which, incidentally, also featured Murphy.

But what unfolds next is more haunting than anything the film has shown us already. Oppenheimer is put through a deposition of sorts, in an effort to effectively silence him from voicing his strong opinions about the regulation of nuclear energy. He is targeted because of his vocal opposition to the government’s efforts to create a hydrogen bomb — a bigger ‘sequel’ of sorts to the warheads that he helped build in Los Alamos. Oppenheimer isn’t forced to sit through this humiliation, which sometimes takes a very literal form; he chooses it. We are often reminded that this isn’t a trial, and that Oppenheimer is being willfully mocked by a kangaroo court in proceedings that are revealed to have been orchestrated by the Salieri-esque Lewis Strauss (played by Downey). But he elects to face this punishment because he is guilty; this is penance for his sins.

Nolan can probably relate, having himself introduced the world to the industry-altering era of superhero movies that we’re still surviving to this day. One can almost imagine him staring in awe at the final cut of The Dark Knight, and having a vision of the future, like Oppenheimer does of a world engulfed in flames. In his vision, he’s probably watching people line up for X-Men: Apocalypse, and whispering ominously under his breath, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”