Voices September 12, 2023
Oppenheimer a brave effort that suffers from trying to do too much
By Alan Charlton
Anyone familiar with Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s meticulously researched and lengthy American Prometheus will recognize what a daunting task Christopher Nolan faced when writing the script for his bio-pic movie Oppenheimer. Inevitably, much of the book had either to be omitted or sketchily referenced in the film.
While Nolan has managed to preserve the general narrative curve of the physicist’s life, much that made the book both informative and captivating he had to deal with only cursorily. Thus, the physicist’s childhood and adolescent years are barely hinted at, including his wealthy background, unusual education, and his many ventures on holidays into New Mexico. His amazing erudition, his wide reading – especially the works of Tolstoy and Chekov – his mastery of several languages, and even his dabbling in socialism get scant coverage.
Understandable as all of this is, what Nolan presents is done in a fashion which often confuses rather than clarifies and is shown in a veritable jumble of scenes.
Nolan does, in fact, concentrate on two key episodes in Nolan’s life: the development of the atomic bomb and the subsequent investigation by the Atomic Energy Commission as to his trustworthiness. The rest of the film is a series of tangled impressions.
It is true that Oppenheimer engaged with numerous people – scientists, artists, political activists – over his life. In a copious written biography all of these can be introduced with some clarity; in the movie version, characters appear, frequently with no introduction, disappear, and reappear in a manner which is often bewildering.
A glance at the star-studded cast list will indicate just how many people figure in the film, some more important than others, but few known to most filmgoers with the exception of Albert Einstein and President Harry S. Truman.
It should also be noted that Oppenheimer had a complicated relationship with women, and scenes that could easily have been managed without nudity do little to clarify this aspect of his life.
In his narration Nolan, however, rather than vainly try to include everything, wants viewers to concentrate on the moral dilemma faced by Oppenheimer regarding the development and use of nuclear weapons.
Oppenheimer, who headed the Manhattan Project which led to the development of the atomic bomb, clearly had mixed feelings about his work. At first he was dubious whether the atom could actually be split. Later, he consented to heading the project in large measure because as a Jew (an aspect of his life which really needed fuller treatment in the film) he was concerned that Hitler and the Nazis would develop and use the bomb before the Allies.
Later he was torn between hoping that development of nuclear weapons would pose such a threat to the world that it would force a ban on their use and fear that such a ban would prove to be ineffective, leading to the destruction of the planet.
All this is played out against the background of the McCarthy Communist witch hunt. Indeed, it is in the final section of the film that Nolan represents a clear narrative of the persecution to which Oppenheimer was subjected because of his background, including his past association with Communists. His concerns regarding nuclear weapons were thought by many to be “un-American.”
It is here that Nolan shows the injustice to which Oppenheimer was subjected, especially by the ambitious AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss (an essential figure who needed fuller introduction). Nolan not only shows his sympathy toward Oppenheimer but also clearly lays out his moral concerns. Sadly, Oppenheimer’s later restoration to proper recognition is barely hinted at.
Nolan’s Oppenheimer is a brave effort that despite its jumbled approach is always fascinating and ultimately disturbingly challenging. It is marvelously well acted under the direction of a superb filmmaker who clearly hopes to bring to audiences a recognition of a brilliant scientist’s patriotic work and remind them of the dangers that sadly still exist in a world with countries that have the power to destroy the earth with the push of a button. Whether the world will ever be able to agree to effectively end the threat sadly remains to be seen.