With Christopher Nolan's new movie being about
the development of the atomic bomb and more specifically the tale of J. Robert Oppenheimer,
I thought it would be interesting to briefly recap Oppenheimer's real-life story
and discuss how Nolan could potentially adapt him. It links to themes that Nolan has covered
in numerous films and I think it is a perfect fit for the auteur blockbuster
director. But before I get into it, if you want to see more updates and videos on the
work of directors like Christopher Nolan, alongside further videos in my Nolan Variations
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But without further ado, let's dive into Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer movie and the real story
behind it. “You either die a hero or live long enough
to see yourself become the villain.” This is the line by Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight
that absolutely fits the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, and it's the quote that gives
us a very good idea of what Christopher Nolan's new film is going to be about and how he is
going to approach it. And in his other projects, we see an essence of this as well. The World
War 2 survival tale, Dunkirk, highlights the heroism of the common soldier and the British
evacuation of France, showing the complications of that conflict and Memento
deals with the grief of Leonard Shelby, who deals with short term memory loss including
the death of his wife. Now his next movie, also set during WWII, is about an extraordinary
man, who never forgave himself for building the weapon that ended the war. J. Robert Oppenheimer
completely fits within the mould of Nolan's filmmaking ideas and he is someone who can
bring a new telling to the filmmaker's filmography. “I have become death, the destroyer of worlds”.
The real Oppenheimer once said these words, quoting from The Bhagavat Ghita in an interview
about creating the atom bomb and Nolan’s film will focus on the genius scientist’s
role in its development. So what is the real story of the famous man with those impactful
words? Well, as a young man, J. Robert Oppenheimer was identified as a student
under J. J. Thomson, who had been awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for detecting
the electron. After the start of World War 2, Oppenheimer was invited by the Office of
Scientific Research and Development to take over the work on neutron calculations at the
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, also known as Berkeley Lab, which was struggling
against the clock to develop an atomic bomb. As the war and development progressed, this
is where the story of Oppenheimer really began and it was learnt that the scientists needed
more space to work. President Roosevelt authorized the formation of the Manhattan Project on
December the 28th, 1942. Also known as Project Y, the Manhattan Project was formally established
on January 1st, 1943. Oppenheimer was appointed scientific director
and he directed the construction of the laboratories at Los Alamos and brought together the best
minds in physics to solve theoretical and mechanical issues. Over 3,000 people worked
on the project, including Albert Einstein, who first presented the military potential
of an uncontrolled fission chain reaction to Roosevelt in the summer
of 1939 and it all led to the first nuclear explosion being executed at a site on the
Alamogordo air base, 120 miles south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, on July the 16th,
1945. Oppenheimer named the explosion “Trinity,” and it had the explosive power of 20,000 tons
of TNT. One month later, the bomb was used twice on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan with
those nuclear explosions ending the war, but leaving Oppenheimer with mixed feelings. But
there is, after all, a physics laboratory named after him at the where Oppenheimer enrolled
in September of 1911, and the society concentrated on social justice, civic responsibility, and
secular humanism. After the war, Oppenheimer lobbied for international
arms control as an advisor of the Atomic Energy Commission and of course, the Soviet Union
detonated an atomic bomb in 1949, leading to Oppenheimer strongly being opposed
to working on developing the hydrogen bomb. It was after though that we learnt the FBI
had files on Oppenheimer, including a report of a 1943 meeting where he heard about colleagues
who were solicited for nuclear secrets by a shell oil employee on behalf of the Soviet
Union. Oppenheimer failed to report it until August and the FBI furnished Oppenheimer’s
files to his enemies. In 1953, the FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover received a letter
from the former executive director of Congress’ Joint Atomic Energy Committee, accusing Oppenheimer
of being “an agent of the Soviet Union”. This was based on “11 years of
minute surveillance" and the theoretical physicist’s phones were tapped, his office and home were
bugged, and his mail was opened. Oppenheimer’s security clearance was denied
32 hours before it was set to end in June of 1954. Edward Teller, who is known as “the
father of the hydrogen bomb,” brang up old Communist sympathies in testimony to the Oppenheimer
Security Hearing in Washington. The Army Counterintelligence knew about Oppenheimer’s associations with
Communist Party USA members, including his own wife, when he was
made director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in 1942, and when he became chairman of the
General Advisory Committee of the Atomic Energy Committee in 1947. The official cancellation
stripped the scientist of political power and made him a feared person during the height
of the Red Scare. In the fallout of his public exile from American government life, Oppenheimer
established the World Academy of Art and Science in 1960, and the scientific community never
forgave the government for its treatment of Oppenheimer, and much of the findings of the
committee were shot down under later scrutiny. The government aimed to right these wrongs
not long after, giving him awards and condemning what happened. J.
Robert Oppenheimer died of throat cancer in 1967. So with the story of Oppenheimer layed out,
you clearly see that just through the main and specific details, that this is a story
that can be adapted in a very compelling way. This is essentially lining up to be Nolan's
impactful drama film and one which can really get into the psychological feelings of the
man himself. But what we know from previous films is that Nolan likes to surprise us.
He is an extremely talented director who has never stopped taking risks, even after achieving
mainstream success. A Christopher Nolan film is like a brand, where Nolan is an auteur,
writing and controlling every aspect of his films, even if he is a good team player that
gets everyone's perspective on the production. With films like Memento, Inception
and Interstellar, he has never stopped challenging audiences, nor has he ever pandered to them
and he is one of the few directors with the guts to make a bomb at the box office and
of course, that hasn't happened yet. The filmmaker is one of the best on a large scale at telling
human stories with strong characters who are troubled by epic challenges and moral situations.
Oppenheimer challenged and second-guessed his greatest achievements until the day he
died, and seems like a natural choice to lend himself to Nolan’s
recurring series of troubled protagonists. They all deal with grief in his films and
Oppenheimer is no exception. Just like Dunkirk and
Interstellar prooved, Christopher Nolan researches everything he can to tell the most real and
human film for the story it's based on. And I'm sure with Oppenheimer, whether that's
the official title or not, will be a film that he gets as much information as possible
for. This upcoming biopic has the power to set things right, and redefine how history
paints the necessary uncertainty of scientists at war. Oppenheimer was called “the father
of the Atom bomb”, but he should have been known as the founding father of the
American school of theoretical physics. This is exactly the point that I think Christopher
Nolan is going to stress on in his movie. I think he will show how Oppenheimer felt
all the guilt that we know of, but that the even sadder thing is that he was mostly remembered
for the development of the atomic bomb and in his words, the destroyer of worlds.
It's set to be an emotional and interesting dive into the mind of that man and how the
world looked at him. We'll have to see and knowing Nolan he will most likely surprise
us, but just based on the story alone, this is
set to be something really fascinating for film fans, fans of history and those who love
the work of Christopher Nolan. But that was a brief rundown on the story
of J. Robert Oppenheimer and a few points on how Christopher Nolan might adapt his story
in his new movie. I personally love the direction Nolan is going in and a film about Oppenheimer
in World War 2 is exactly the kind of drama that I wanted to see Nolan do, giving us room
for thrilling performances, top tier filmmaking and overall intrigue into Oppenheimer himself.
I'm interested to hear what you guys have to say on all of this recent news and your
thoughts on how Nolan could adapt it, so let me know down below in the comments
section. For more updates and content on the work of
directors like Christopher Nolan, then don't forget to subscribe to the channel and turn
on your notifications. Also if you enjoyed this video remember to leave a like rating.
But anyway I hope you guys enjoyed it, I've been Cortex and as always make some noise.
