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There are SPOILERS in this article.
Thought it may be of interest.
I have yet to see the film, so I can’t say whether this critique is on the ball or not (but he echoes all my fear about Nolan):
http://scriptshadow.net/
Going off on a slight tangent here, but that made me think of Terry Gilliam when he complained about Schindler's List, because, to paraphrase him somewhat, it was a story with a (relatively) happy ending, set in a historical context that was tragic-- Gilliam's point being that such a story didn't capture the essence of the Holocaust, and was typical Hollywood. Though I don't quite agree with Gilliam's complaint in this particular case, I do extract the valid idea that art is in constant risk of being neutered when subject to business realities. In my opinion, despite its uplifting story, the film of Schindler's List does show the tragic human consequences of the Holocaust, from beginning to end, and furthermore, it was made in a context in which lots of artistic works had already been produced on that subject, so it didn't have to carry the burden, so to speak, of representing the Holocaust as a whole. I don't know if the same considerations apply to the film Oppenheimer, but it's an interesting thought to consider.
I think Stanley Kubrick originally said that about Schindler's List with Gilliam agreeing (straight after the former tried to make his own film about the Holocaust too).
Aside from me being nit picky it is a very interesting thought, and it's something to consider when you have movies which tackle such subjects. I might be seeing Oppenheimer today so it's something I'll keep in mind.
That review is 100% spot on! I could not agree more. You come out of that film feeling cheated. Nolan certainly didn't deliver what audiences expected, and didn't really strike home the important message of how f*ked up nuclear warfare is.
Watching Nolan's `masterpiece' is exactly like watching Schindler's List but Spielberg deciding to remove all scenes showing the horror of the holocaust, and instead focus purely on Schindler's life story. It would lose all impact and meaning, exactly like what Nolan has done here.
I can understand people's criticisms of it. It's very cerebral and it's structured in a very non-linear way (which is a bit odd at times admittedly, and the last portion of the film, while very interesting, feels like it starts to lose itself a bit). Some of the dialogue is a bit overdone and comes off as a bit hammy to me, but this is a problem with Nolan's films in general.
On the whole I was pleasantly surprised. It has more technical competency than Nolan's later work (no odd sound mixing for example). Still not sold on him doing a Bond film, but what will be will be I guess.
https://screenrant.com/christopher-nolan-star-wars-movie-plays-coy/
When you put it like that, it doesn't sound good. I was mildly interested in the film before it came out. I've since decided I'll wait until after its theatrical run to watch it (if I feel like watching it at all).
I think for a depiction of the bombings of Japan, it should be stories that center on the Japanese people. That’s their story, not Oppenheimer’s. And as President Truman says “I dropped the bomb on them, not you”.
Unfortunately the dropping of the bombs on Japan is a huge part of the Oppenheimer story, whether you like it or not, or whether it would be `tasteful' or not.
This film should have had the effect of scaring the hell out of every living person who sees it (including politicians) to ensure we never hit nuclear warfare. It needed a few shocking, sickening images to strike the message home, and a few captions at the end too before the closing credits.
Nolan has captured a global audience, and so he should have used it effectively and responsibly, instead of sending the audience to sleep for the last act of the movie, by indulging in something that only he was interested in seeing.
Try going into the movie without your own preconceived notions of what it "needs" to be successful. You got something else, not necessarily something bad. Nolan is just another artist, he's not the final say on the bombings and he's not the grand authority of it. I believe Nolan assumes the audience is aware of all of that, and he's telling one part of a bigger story. That's justified for a movie, you don't always have to do the bigger story.
Sometimes a subject matter becomes bigger than the story itself, rather like Schindler's List. Spielberg isn't a grand authority on that subject either, but he delivered the right message home to the audience. Nolan fails to do that here.
Don't get me wrong, there is still a lot to admire about the film. The acting is superb (Murphy should hopefully bag the Oscar next year), the direction, is top notch. Where this film desperately lets itself down is the script, particularly the last act.
Bingo.
A trend in film criticism I don’t like these days is when someone criticizes a film for being what it’s not, rather than judge the film as it is and if it successfully accomplishes its own goals. A Bond example is when a subset of fans back in 2006 complained about the lack of a Moneypenny and Q in CASINO ROYALE, because that’s what those fans expected to see. Or DAF not being a proper sequel to OHMSS, when the entire point of the film is that it WAS NOT INTENDED a follow up to OHMSS.
Basically, this has always been my point of view. Now I'm wondering if there are certain cases where this logic doesn't apply that well. In certain contexts, focusing on telling a story from a certain point of view can feel like a safe choice, like avoiding an issue. Of course, a more charitable view could be that addressing that story from any point of view at all is healthy.
This is a general reflection, however, not specifically tied to Oppenheimer, which I haven't seen.
Nevertheless, a fascinating movie that raises lots of interesting questions, if only tangentially. For example, might the Nazis have gotten the bomb first if not inherently anti-Semitic?
And of course, was there really any justification for their deliberate use on concentrated population centres, surely in the very definition of terrorism, especially given the firebombing of Japanese cities in the several months leading up to the end of the war. The future Sec. of Defence, Robert McNamara, who was a statistician in the USAAF during the war said that he and others were the moral equivalent of war criminals because of this .... And anyone who's seen wartime Hollywood films will know just how routinely the Japanese were dehumanized in the crudest ways imaginable, which may help demonstrate the wider racist context in which such strategic bombing decisions were made.
Once the usual OTT hype and praise has died down on a film release such as this, I'm sure the critics and fans alike will start to realise the many flaws of the film and do a U turn.
This isn't the 100% perfect masterpiece we are led to believe, but because we are so desperate to see a film at the cinema that isn't a super hero Marvel garbage flick, or another exhausted franchise movie, we are gushing out with ridiculous praise on something that doesn't really warrant it.
Top marks to Nolan though on getting this type of film made in Hollywood these days, and for getting great performances out his actors too. Credit where credit is due.
I'm not expecting dancing girls but it's a very cold movie with no warmth to balance the darkness. If you look at "13 Days", for example, a horribly bleak and desperate time in our history but there are lighter and positive moments (perhaps it's a reflection on Nolan?) Thankfully, Rocky 4 was on the TV when I got home - restored the balance :-)
PS reminded me of The Imitation Game which is a great script but hampered by a small budget. Nolan (and his wallet) could have done a great job on that.
https://variety.com/2023/film/news/christopher-nolan-directing-bond-movie-failed-howard-hughes-biopic-1235675429/
Agreed. Hughes is such a bigger person, and I wouldn't give up The Aviator for Nolan's version any day.
The Aviator was like an old fashioned, glamorous Hollywood film, colliding with the horrors of mental illness… An unbeatable bio-flick lensed by a visionary.
But what makes it feel like a suitable subject for Nolan, as opposed to say doing a biopic of Hughes, is Nolan's intrinsic interest in science, as I understand it (ok, there is aviation in the case of Hughes): especially something like quantum physics in relation to the titular figure.
There were a few moments in the film I found quite funny, as when General Groves tells Oppenheimer about a scientist that's left the project, 'Don't worry, we'll have him killed.' Or when Oppenheimer recites his famous line ("Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds") from the Bhagavad-Gita while copulating with the Florence Pugh character. OK, admittedly, the latter may not have been intended as such!
Couple this with the fact that Nolan copped out on showing the true devastation of the bomb being dropped on Japan. I know this wasn't the narrative because the whole movie stays with Oppenheimer throughout (he never saw the blast either), but knowing Nolan's wizardry of telling a story, he could have found a way to make it work.
That would have been far more shocking, interesting, horrifying, devastating, than 45 long drawn out minutes of finding out Oppenheimer doesn't have security clearance anymore because of a silly ego spat with Downey. Seriously! Very bad creative choice.
As if that is more important and significant to focus on and show to the audience, rather than the aftermath horror in Japan.
I feel like there's a lot of criticism of what the film isn't rather than what is is, here. We know the devastation that the bombs caused in Japan. The film isn't a biopic of the story of the bomb, it's a biopic of the man who built it. Nolan's focus on Oppenheimer as a man is reflected in all the silly media jargon that he's come out with about "writing the script in the first person" to get into Oppenheimer's head.
So of course, staying with the lesser known story of the man rather than the story of the bomb and its aftermath in Japan was probably more interesting for him.
Oppenheimer was only one man, a very important one, but the US was still going to build that bomb, with or without him. And it's perhaps his singular misfortune to have become the public face most closely associated with it. But as the film makes clear, he and the other scientists were very clearly motivated by the fear that Nazi Germany would get to it first.
And the film also makes clear that once built, Oppenheimer and the other scientists had literally no influence on how it was going to be used. All men of great ego, they were dumbfounded emotionally when their invention was taken away from them. This is the very point of the "crybaby" humiliation scene with Truman. It was Truman's decision when and how to use the bomb, not Oppenheimer's. He had nothing to do with it. It's also worth recalling that many hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians had already been killed by conventional American bombing in the year before Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
But having said that, the Japanese themselves were hardly an innocent party to all of this. They killed millions of Chinese in Manchuria and elsewhere ... not to mention Koreans and other Asians. So much so, it's still a problem today between Japan and its neighbours.
Oppenheimer was just one man, and arguably somewhat delusional about his godlike intervention in the world. Nolan's film is merely a [very good] biopic about him. Not everything else ....