Oppenheimer

 SPOILER ALERT. The plot will be discussed.

Oppenheimer (2023), winner of the Best Picture Oscar, is based on the book entitled America Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist who helped create the atomic bomb in 1945. In mythology, Prometheus defied the gods and gave fire to humanity. For his transgression he was tortured by having a giant bird chew at his liver while he was in chains. It is a rich metaphor for daring to defy the order of things by reaching above the human realm. (A similar theme is in the tale of Icarus and Daedalus). Oppenheimer harnessed the basic power of existence and for that he suffered psychological punishment through guilt and the persecution of the political system when he advised against developing and using the weapons he helped to create.

The first image in the film is water rippling on the ground in the rain. That shot combines with depictions of atomic particles and an explosion due to atomic fission as Oppenheimer stares with a frightened look at the metaphorical consequences of his work. The result is the suggestion that there can be an escalating chain reaction once humans tamper with the building blocks of the universe. The water image repeats in the film as a reminder of consequences.

The film jumps to when Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy, in his Oscar-winning role) undergoes scrutiny for his past political associations with communism. This great scientist receives praise for his achievements for America and then, as if needing a scapegoat for the destruction the United States unleashed, his country blames him for being unpatriotic. (Murphy’s gaunt appearance – he lost weight for the role – and his voice trying to stay steady, along with subtle facial changes transform the actor, and he is totally convincing in this performance).

The film then focuses on Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr, receiving the Best Supporting Oscar for this role. He is great at presenting surface calm with anger simmering below). Strauss was a leader on the Atomic Energy Commission. He is talking with an aide in connection with his nomination for a post with the Eisenhower Administration. He appears reluctant to be associated with the Congressional investigation into Oppenheimer. We get an immediate insight into Strauss’s personality when he corrects the aide by stating he should be addressed as “Admiral.” As we see he is negatively impacted by what he considers slights.

As he testifies before a committee, Oppenheimer states that when he was studying in England, he was troubled by images of a hidden universe, possibly a precognition of the awe and danger of the nuclear world. Christopher Nolan (Winner of the Best Director Oscar for this work) depicts shifting time periods and is adept at cutting to Oppenheimer’s viewpoint here, with visions of the atomic world, which he depicts in color. He said it was to stress the scientist’s point of view, which was subjective and the camera is closer to Oppenheimer, making the face a landscape, according to the cinematographer. The screenplay was in the first person, a very unusual technique, to stress Oppenheimer’s take on things. Strauss’s scenes are in black and white, supposedly an objective viewpoint, at least as Strauss sees the facts, and the camera shoots farther away to suggest objectivity. Nolan said, despite the back and forth shifting of time periods, structured it first as an origin story, then a kind of suspense film in making the bomb, and then a trial sequence. Nolan combines old school with new school technology. He does not prefer CGI, and still uses film, but IMAX has visual resolution superior to digital photography. This film is the first to do black-and-white in IMAX.

Back in time, Kenneth Branagh plays famous scientist Neils Bohr, who advises Oppenheimer to leave Cambridge since Oppenheimer is not great at lab work and should delve only into theory. Bohr says that to truly understand the science he must not only read the music he must “hear the music.” Oppenheimer says he can. The musical score in the film echoes his ecstatic insights and the deeper tones of those revelations.

Oppenheimer poisoned an apple for his demeaning professor but stops Bohr from eating it. The apple has Biblical references, showing that knowledge kills innocence and can lead to a fall from grace. It also shows the darkness inside of Oppenheimer that here manifests in a personal manner and later in a global one.

He throws glasses into the corner of his room as if the broken, dangerous shards mimic what happens when matter is fractured. He stares at a cubist painting which depicts various sides of reality in the same viewing, which is what Oppenheimer sees as he considers the totality of existence.

Back at the confirmation hearing, Strauss notes he first met Oppenheimer for a position at Princeton University. He corrects Oppenheimer by saying his name is pronounced “Straws,” another example of Strauss’s wish for proper recognition. He says that no matter the pronunciation, “they know I’m Jewish,” which may accurately stress a reason for his insecurity. (Oppenheimer was also Jewish, although his parents moved away from the religion toward a more secular belief system). Strauss asks why Oppenheimer didn’t recruit Albert Einstein (Tom Conti), who also is at Princeton, for the Manhattan Project which initiated the research to develop the atomic bomb. Oppenheimer says that Einstein was the best scientist of “his time” for his theory of relativity published many years prior. Oppenheimer seems superior in his manner here. When he asks Strauss if he was a physicist the latter says he was a “self-made man,” implying the scientists had an unfair advantage in life. He says he was a shoe salesman. Oppenheimer says the successful Strauss was once a “lowly shoe salesman.” Strauss takes offense at the adjective and corrects by saying, “just a shoe salesman.” Oppenheimer has an unheard conversation at this point with Einstein near a pond on the campus. Afterwards Einstein walks past Strauss as if oblivious of the man being there. Strauss later says to the Congressional Committee that Oppenheimer must have said something which caused Einstein to “sour” his feelings toward Strauss. Also, the fact that Oppenheimer is not jumping at the position offered at Princeton irritates Strauss. All these details about what Straus perceives as slights show how he will eventually undermine Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer met Isidor Rabi (David Krumholz) in Holland. Rabi is amazed at Oppenheimer’s brilliance because he learned Dutch sufficiently in six weeks to give a lecture in the language. (He also knows German and Sanskrit). They are both New York Jews but are very different. Oppenheimer seems aloof and formal, whereas Rabi knows Yiddish and is down-to-earth. He asks about prejudice against Jews, but Oppenheimer says where he works the scientists are all Jewish, so he didn’t sense bigotry. That statement also shows how Jews were exploited for their intelligence but also were subject to bigotry outside of the academic community. It is interesting that unlike Rabi who is connected to his Jewish New York roots, Oppenheimer takes positions at Cal Tech and Berkeley and there is a place in New Mexico that his brother owns. Oppenheimer is a traveler who seems rootless in his scientific quests except for a longing to return to the United States when away.

He starts out with a class with just Rossi Lomanitz (Josh Zuckerman) and more students then attend the study of quantum mechanics. However, political issues infiltrate the academic world. Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), working on practical applications such as a particle accelerator, warns Oppenheimer to keep political views, like being against the fascists in Spain, out of the classroom. The flashforward to the investigation into Oppenheimer’s life notes that the FBI had a file on the scientist before he even worked on government projects. Strauss testifies that there was suspicion about Oppenheimer’s left-wing views. Downey said that Nolan saw Strauss as a type of Salieri figure in Amadeus, jealous of someone who was considered a genius, like Mozart.

Oppenheimer, who declares that he is not a communist, talks about the dying of stars at a gathering of communist sympathizers. He says that when a star cools it collapses and the “gravity gets so contracted, it swallows everything.” His description of a black hole could symbolize his own rise and fall from public and private grace. At the party he meets Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh) who wants him to become engaged more in practical solutions instead of theories, but he resists dogma. They become lovers. She has him read from one of his books which are the words of the Hindu God, Vishnu, who says “and now I am become Death. The destroyer of worlds.” She is having sex with him while he speaks. Dying and sexual climax are joined in often in poetry, and the scene is effective here in that aspect, and how Oppenheimer eventually sees himself in the same light as Vishnu.

The scene switches to a dark, desolate landscape in the howling wind in New Mexico which is a nice follow-up to the apocalyptic vision in the Sanskrit text. Oppenheimer and his brother Frank (Dylan Arnold) camp out. Oppenheimer says that when he was young, he thought that if he could combine physics with New Mexico his life would be good. He reaches that goal at Los Alamos, where his ideal situation also becomes the birthplace of enormous destruction.

Prior to the above time, there was no thinking of developing a bomb. But at Berkeley there is news that the Germans split an atom by bombarding it with neutrons. Oppenheimer says the math doesn’t show it’s possible, but Luis Alvarez, (Alex Wolff) working with Lawrence in the practical engineering department, replicates the German experiment, showing, as Lawrence says, that theory only takes one so far, and it doesn’t always predict reality. The fact that energy is released with fission points to the possibility of making an atomic bomb.

Oppenheimer is trying to live in the world of science along with elements of romance and politics to show some connection with Jean. He is not successful combining these parts of his life. She is unhappy with his lack of attention. He shows up with Alvarez to union meetings and argues with Lawrence about unionizing professors, which brings backlash from the university. On September 1, 1939, he co-publishes an article on black holes, a scientific breakthrough. It is in the theoretical world, divorced from the practical one, where he is most fulfilled.

The Nazis invade countries outside of Germany and the looming possibility of perverting pure science encroaches on Oppenheimer’s life. A quick shift to his interrogation shows that he did not like the communist view of noninvolvement toward the Nazi menace and did not join the Communist Party. He mentions that his wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt), was a communist a long time ago for a period because of her prior marriage. The committee tries to exploit the pasts of himself and those of others he was involved with.

We then shift to his meeting Kitty, and her rejection of the Party because of what to her was the senseless death fighting the fascists in Spain. They become lovers, she becomes pregnant, and both end their prior romantic involvements. But Kitty experiences the same detachment from her new husband as Jean did with her lover. Oppenheimer is not there as a husband or a father as his home is in the world of science.

Lawrence, being the practical one, which fits his engineering application job, warns Oppenheimer that his attachment to unions that are “filled with communists” alienates him from the Federal Government and inhibits his fight against the Germans who may develop an atomic bomb, as Einstein warned. So, Oppenheimer said his association with unions would not interfere with working on a nuclear deterrent to the Nazis. At that time, he was not persecuted, but when the McCarthy era began, his past came back to haunt him.

Strauss later says, “Genius is no guarantee of wisdom. How could this man who saw so much be so blind.” Again, Oppenheimer may see the unseen world, but it obscures his vision of the overt one. He can visualize the chain reaction of atomic particles, but not the cause and effect of his social actions.

However, he shows he can apply his scientific mind to making an atomic bomb before the Nazis developed one. He convinces the dubious head of the Manhattan Project, Major General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) that he can coordinate the development of a nuclear weapon and run the lab at Los Alamos. (Damon has a small mustache, like the real Groves, but here it reminds one of Hitler’s, and one scientist calls him “Generalissimo,” referencing Spain’s fascistic Franco, so there is authoritarianism present to a degree here, too). Groves tries to question Oppenheimer’s resolve by implying that nobody will receive a Nobel Prize for making a bomb. The scientist wittily responds that Alfred Nobel invented dynamite, which suggests the two sides of the coin that can come from inventions. Groves, however, does try to protect Oppenheimer from persecutions in the future. Oppenheimer knows that Groves can leverage him because of his left-wing past. Oppenheimer says that one thing they have going for them is “antisemitism,” implying the great scientists who are under Nazi rule are Jewish, and that might alienate the scientists and Hiter from each other.

Oppenheimer recruits American scientists, saying the government needs them, but as Alvarez notes wisely, “until they don’t.” We have here Oppenheimer’s dismissal of how politics works. Rabi does not want to join. He sees the bigger picture. He says, “You drop a bomb and it falls on the just and the unjust. I don’t want the culmination of three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction.” However, the immediacy of the problem wins him over. As Oppenheimer says, they might not be wise in the use of the atomic bomb, but he knows that the Nazis can’t be trusted with it. In this case, Oppenheimer is being realistic about the threat of Nazi world domination.

Edward Teller (Benny Safdie) hypothesizes that the detonation of a nuclear bomb could create a chain reaction that is unstoppable, destroying the world. Oppenheimer consults with Einstein. Einstein says that if widespread destruction is possible, then they must share the findings with the Nazis, because they would not want to obliterate what they want to conquer. After running through theoretical possibilities that world destruction was near zero the practical Groves says, “Zero would be nice,” an understated sarcastic statement given the horrific potential involved.

Another incident that haunts Oppenheimer at the investigation involves his friend, Haakon Chevalier (Jefferson Hall) who wanted the physicist to pass on information about the atomic bomb project to the Russians, who were our allies in WWII. Oppenheimer notes that act would be treason, but he did not report it as a security problem at the time, as he was caught between loyalty to his friend and his country.

The investigation attacks Oppenheimer, as he was warned by fellow scientists would happen. The government used him and when they were done, they went after him because of ties he had with others who were communists at one time. He had another liaison with Jean and Nolan puts in a stylized shot of a naked Oppenheimer making love to her while at the committee hearing which shows us what is going on in Oppenheimer’s mind. A livid Kitty watches as he admits to the one-night-stand. The image suggests that he is being exposed for not realizing how his past would resurface in his future. Later Jean commits suicide and Oppenheimer is plagued by guilt, here on a personal level, and later on a much wider scale.

The film shows several nasty individuals who saw the opportunity to better themselves at Oppenheimer’s expense after the scientist was no longer useful. One is Boris Pash (Casey Affleck) described by Groves as a man who has threatened to kidnap, interrogate, and kill possible allies of Russia. There is Roger Robb (Jason Clarke) who spearheads attacks in the committee questioning Oppenheimer’s loyalty. An example is his asking why Oppenheimer brought his ex-communist brother to Los Alamos, a politically naïve act on the part of the scientist. Another is William Borden (David Dastmalchian) who gets a hold of Oppenheimer’s classified file and accuses the physicist of helping Russia.

Bohr is able to escape to America. He says that Heisenberg is now working with the Nazis, which shows how dangerous the blooming nuclear age will become. Bohr is not there to help but to look beyond the current situation and urges Oppenheimer to use his influence to warn the U. S. Government that the world has moved into a frightening phase. He calls Oppenheimer a Prometheus figure. That image stresses the cause and effect of how discovering powerful tools can be used for terrible reasons. Maybe to convince himself, Oppenheimer repeats what Bohr said to him earlier by now saying, “You can’t lift the stone without being ready for the snake that’s revealed.” Bohr meant it as a warning, but Oppenheimer uses it as a natural consequence for the need to open a Pandora’s Box.

With the hydrogen bomb researched by Teller, there is the possibility, later realized, of a device a thousand times more powerful than an atomic bomb. As the scientists along with Strauss and government official Vannevar Bush (Matthew Modine) argue the need or danger of developing a hydrogen bomb, we get an intense subjective view from Oppenheimer’s perspective. The resounding sound of stomping feet resembling soldiers marching off to war echoes in his ears. He urges restraint in further development of nuclear arms and says that there should be restriction of an arms race with Russia, who has replaced Germany as an enemy. The implication here is that there will always be a foe to justify the further development of weapons. However, metaphorically, he is trying to defuse an explosive after he has already set it to go off.

Back to the Los Alamos lab, Oppenheimer uses a quote from John Donne who said in a sonnet, “Batter my heart, three-personed God.” So, he names the test “Trinity” to see if the A-Bomb will work. The reference is full of contradictions. The poem is a plea by a person who states the only way he can be saved is through force from a supreme being. Oppenheimer’s naming the test suggests that he sees salvation from evil (Nazism) only through submission to a greater power (atomic).

However, the Allies defeated Germany and Hitler was dead. The question is whether it is necessary to drop the fury of atomic bombs on Japan. Oppenheimer, along with Bush and Groves, meet with the Secretary of Defense Henry Stimson (James Remar) concerning this decision. Oppenheimer wants to backtrack now since the Nazis are no longer a threat. Why not show the Japanese the force of the bomb before dropping it? A lame excuse is that it might fail and that will reveal our plans. That would assume that Japan could somehow prepare for an atomic attack, doubtful at best. The military members there and the Secretary talk about the many thousands that will die in abstract terms. Stimson says he took the city of Kyoto off the list because he went there on his honeymoon. He is playing God with innocent lives based on nostalgic memories. A merciless Groves wants to drop two bombs to show the effectiveness of the blast and then to force a surrender. This strategy is based on the nonempirical conclusion that the Japanese will never surrender otherwise.

Nolan takes his time to depict the Trinity test detonation, building suspense by focusing on the different roles of those involved. The furious sound of violins on the soundtrack adds to the tension. Teller only uses a pair of sunglasses and sunblock on his face while he sits outside in a beach chair, as if he is watching for his own amusement a fireworks display. It shows his apocalyptic tendency, which is frightening in its cavalier attitude toward this event. IMDb notes that he resembles Dr. Strangelove, the mad scientist in the Stanley Kubrick film. Nolan does not give the audience the sound of the explosion here, only the fireball looking like a hellish inferno which ends in the dreaded mushroom cloud. The emphasis instead is on the breathing of those that developed this monstrous creation. Afterwards, there is cheering and applause, which is understandable given the intense work over three years to which the large group committed themselves. One who does not feel elated is Rabi, who was reluctant to participate on the project.

After all the intellectually detached scientific work, what they have made is a tangible weapon, and as it rides away on a military transport, the harsh reality of that fact sinks in as Oppenheimer hopes that the terror of the atomic bomb will stop all wars in the future. History has shown that although the far more destructive hydrogen bomb became the nuclear weapon of choice, there has been no use of it so far because of fear. But wars still rage on, and the potential for mass destruction looms over them.

After the bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, we then meet up again with the sound of those stomping feet in celebration now at Los Alamos. Oppenheimer says, “The world will remember this day,” but will it be in celebration or in infamy? That question is what exists inside of Oppenheimer’s mind. The background shakes and he gets a vision of the patriotic cheering of the project’s workers and their families turning into one of melting corpses. Oppenheimer concludes that he has become, like Vishnu, “Death. The destroyer of worlds.”

Oppenheimer meets with President Harry Truman (Gary Oldman) who acts like the Russians will not get the atomic bomb despite Oppenheimer’s belief that an arms race is possible and should be prevented. Oppenheimer wants nothing else to do with developing weapons and says they should give Los Alamos “back to the Indians.” Instead, despite the President’s position about the lack of the Russian nuclear capability, the administration wants to expand the New Mexico town to pursue the making of a hydrogen bomb. When Oppenheimer says that he feels he has blood on his hands, a dismissive Truman gives him a handkerchief as if he should wipe the blood off. He says that the use of nuclear weapons was his choice and its not about Oppenheimer. He then says to an aid to not let that “crybaby” back in his office. Truman here seems callous about the horrific effect of nuclear war and the emotional toll that weighs on those that contributed to it.

Scientists and those associated with Oppenheimer who were against further use of nuclear technology paid the price for their views. Oppenheimer’s brother was blacklisted by all the universities in the country and Lomanitz wound up laying track for the railroad. Chevalier went into exile most likely because of the shift to anticommunism in the United States

But Oppenheimer pushed for arms control instead of pursuing development of the H-Bomb, trying to compensate for that blood on his hands. The movie depicts Oppenheimer as a conflicted man, trying to navigate the morality of helping to create monstrous weapons for the immediate Nazi problem while at the same time advising against their construction in the future.

Strauss tells Oppenheimer that Klaus Fuchs (Christopher Denham), a scientist at Los Alamos, was providing information to the Soviets. Once there was confirmation of a spy at the test site, the FBI stepped up surveillance on Oppenheimer. The view here is that people can become guilty by association, not by fact.

Some of those government officials who supported Oppenheimer now try to bury him in the public view. Secretary of Defense Stimson now says the bomb was developed for an enemy that was already defeated. Strauss uses the press to step up his positive publicity by sending out the message through a reporter that Strauss fought Oppenheimer and America “won.” It turns out Borden, who lies when he says he had no contact with anyone from the AEC, received Oppenheimer’s private personnel file from the inferiority-complex-ridden AEC ranking member Strauss, who devised the way the scientist would be ruined. Borden, in a letter to J. Edgar Hoover, accused Oppenheimer of being a Russian undercover agent. Strauss didn’t want to give Oppenheimer a platform to be a “martyr.” He wanted a closed hearing in a small office, with no burden of proof needed to be established and no discovery of evidence for the defense, since the committee is not charging the physicist with a crime. The committee revokes Oppenheimer’s secret clearance, thus labeling him as a threat to United States security. Kitty knows it is Strauss behind the conspiracy, labeling him as being vindictive for perceived slights, and admonishes her husband justly for not fighting enough. He even shook Teller’s hand after Teller said he thought Oppenheimer was not a good security risk. All the while, Strauss, the proverbial snake in the grass, acts like he is helping Oppenheimer navigate the attack Strauss devised.

At Strauss’s Senate confirmation hearing regarding his nomination as Commerce Secretary, he is concerned he will be tainted by his connection to Oppenheimer. He makes sure he lets the Senate know that he disagreed with Oppenheimer about letting President Truman know about the possibility of a hydrogen bomb. Strauss also says that the Russians wouldn’t have known how to make an atomic bomb if there wasn’t a spy at Los Alamos, another attack on Oppenheimer because the physicist was the leader at Los Alamos.

However, Dr. David Hill (Rami Malek) testifies that American scientists, who rally around Oppenheimer, would like Strauss not hold any government position. He says that Strauss led the attack against Oppenheimer when the latter opposed the sale of isotopes to Norway in a manner that seemed to humiliate Strauss. Hill reveals that it was Strauss who had the hatchet man Robb appointed as the interrogating attorney. The confirmation hearing on Strauss ironically becomes the same type of defamation panel that Strauss concocted for Oppenheimer, with no burden of truth needed and no official trial administered. When Strauss thought that Oppenheimer said something negative about him to Einstein the truth was that they were not even talking about Strauss. The film implies that a person like Strauss who thinks everything going on is about them is very selfish in their insecurity. The Senate denies Strauss’s confirmation, with Senator John F. Kennedy being one of the deciding votes against Strauss.

The film ends as it began with that conversation by the pond with Einstein. He was telling Oppenheimer that government officials persecute you for their own guilt and years later give you an award to ease their consciences. We get a flash-forward of that scene as Oppenheimer, now an old man, receiving in 1963 the Enrico Fermi Award from President Lyndon Johnson. What shook Einstein into silence at the pond and his ignoring of Strauss was that Oppenheimer said to him that they had put into motion the chain reaction that would cause the inevitable destruction of the world.