For an even more extensive discussion on the work of Christopher Nolan, check out my 3-part series covering his entire filmography: Part 1: A Director Begins th-cam.com/video/tJJaNIX_OUY/w-d-xo.html Part 2: The Breakout Year th-cam.com/video/5gPMoEG7i8s/w-d-xo.html Part 3: Road to Oppenheimer th-cam.com/video/bmgH-P1uRZM/w-d-xo.html
I read the book, American Prometheus, after seeing the movie. The changes Nolan makes are subtle and minor, done with honesty and clearly in service of telling Oppenheimer’s tragic story in a cinematic way. In both the book and the movie, the audience is likely to conclude, as I did, that, “Oppie,” was fatalistic toward his persecutors because he genuinely vacillated in his own mind about whether he was a good or evil man: whether he had done a good or evil thing in creating the A Bomb: whether history would judge him kindly or cruelly: and whether he needed to be punished. We even see clues that he may have had a slightly masochistic tendency (as many powerful people do) and the book delves deeper into his benighted relationship with his, “dipsomaniacal,” wife, as he once described her. Putting up with her outburst and scenes with stoicism and patience. There was certainly an element of self-martyrdom about his run in with the Strauss gang and their Security Clearance hearings. But, I think he just needed to see for himself what people really thought of him and his endeavours, and believed that this crisis would reveal the truth about all those he new and trusted, as well as the country he loved. It was as much an intellectual and even aesthetic decision, to just allow his fate to fall into the hands of his enemies, as it was for him a moral one. But, ultimately, much of him remains opaque to the fascinated outsider, looking in. And I think he he liked it that way.
BTW, that bit about the single Japanese city being excluded from the atomic bomb targeting list, just because a senior politician likes the town, was actually the most made up part of the movie. It didn’t happen in real life, and no such thing comes up in the book. It would have been reacted to immediately in real life, as an egregiously inappropriate manner of prioritising and an abuse of power. It is forgivable, as the movie needs to truncate so much of that major, prolonged discussion and make its point, about the arbitrary nature of targeting an innocent, none-combatant population. But a movie must do in moments what a book can dissect for pages, so it works well, without necessarily soiling the, “good name,” of the character who was meant to articulate such a self serving point of view, given all we know about him now.
@@mgariepy42 : If you’re talking about my last comment, I was referring to the decision to exclude Tokyo from the target list. In the movie, an influential politician (I can’t remember which one now, if it was the president or not?) says that he and his wife honeymooned in Tokyo and he wanted to exclude it for that reason. He adds that there are countless historically valued sights, etc. No such discussion occurred in real life. It would not have been tolerated. That was a fiction added by the script writers, to make the audience ask themselves the question: On what basis would I decide to bomb innocent civilians during a war? Could I make such a choice? Is there any justification for such a choice? Etc, etc.
The best thing I’ve seen about the end of this movie was a tweet asking if there was a post credits scene. Someone replied and just said, “you’re living in it, baby.”
@@tykjenffs it hasn't been all that long really, and it hasn't been all that peaceful either. There just has not been total war between major countries since.
@@asraarradon4115 Proportionally speaking it means a lot. And that is thanks to nuclear deterrence ^ Id rather have it like this than the alternative. Some people just take their existence for granted because they have no perception of time.
can I just say that, for me one of the biggest thing was to see people like einstien and bohr and heisnburg in person and not as constants or theoroies. So much of our knowledge about these people come from the ideas they presented to us and so little is known about them in the process. One often forgets that they were people once. People like us who had hopes and fears
With idols, as always, we as humans love to put these people up on pedestals without showing us their human sides and that, at the end of the day, all men are fallible and prone to human emotions and fears. We love hero's but we neglect and often fail to empathize but rather treat them like gods, creatures to look up to and worship as being above normal humans in some altruistic manner.
@@emmanuelbecerra7173You know I used to think like you, I used to "correct" people constantly, obsessively even. But then I realised - who am _I_ to dictate the evolution of the English language? Who is _anyone_ to dictate such a thing?! The idea that some ivory-tower university academics should have control over the spelling, syntax and semantics of English is totally undemocratic and patently absurd (and no, I'm not anti-academic at all, far from it). Languages evolve organically, adapted to suit the purposes of a given context. As long as the most important aspect - the meaning - is clear, then everything else should be entirely up to the speaker. There is fundamentally no correct or incorrect way to speak or write a language. Sure, standardised language is incredibly important in technical contexts, but in conversation it doesn't matter in the slightest, except on the elementary level of "these words have a coherent meaning when said in this order". Embrace the evolution of language, or end up an embittered pensioner yelling at kids, it's your choice (ok it's not _that_ binary but still 😂). TL;DR: Cheese should be illegal and anyone who eats it should be violently rounded up and incarcerated indefinitely.
When I left the theater, I couldn't help but visualize the surrounding area being razed. It's such a sobering film because we are living in the aftermath of Oppenheimer's decisions.
Good this movie is out and gets people to think like that. I dug deep into technology and strategy of nuclear weapons about 25 years ago and it winds me up tremendously that everybody is just oblivious to the threat.
Lbr the chain reaction really started when men invented war as a way to solve conflicts, millennia ago. Humanity was always doomed to this - Oppenheimer, Groves, Einstein, Heisenberg, Truman, these figures are just mediums through which the chain reaction’s been perpetrating itself. The real tragedy, to me, is that there is no real way to control any of this. It’s all been an avalanche out of control since the start. And also, nobody has any real freedom of choice, because we all lack the knowledge of what our choices will result with. Control is only a delusion we believe in to keep on telling ourselves that it’s someone else’s fault, never ours, and that we’re in some way better than someone else. It’s just narcissism, basically.
I did the barbie/oppenheimer double feature with a bunch of friends and after the first part ( oppenheimer ) i kind of felt like the only person who was so deeply troubled by it at the end. I don't usually cry in movies and I don't think I was supposed to cry but the final scene had me so morbidly distressed that i was tearing up and seeing that nobody else seemed to have that reaction made me feel like such a freak ... but hearing that this movie was expected to affect ppl in different ways makes it better
first time i saw it i was by myself and i left the theater and just stood on the street, it was about 1 am, and felt completely dissociated from myself and everything around me, and had the thought that, this all could get wiped out with the push of a button at any moment.
I felt so uneasy coming out of this film. I almost immediately went back to find a clip of the final scene. In my mind i was scrambling for some kind of tangible conclusion to the events. I couldn’t. I think that was the point, to leave you with an uprooting sense of uncertainty that terrorizes you and plagues you with a will to find some redeeming truth in it all. A familiar disassociation falls over me and i’m left with the question; What will i do now?
I spent a whole afternoon just chewing on it afterwards. My face was blank, my eyes just... dead. That afternoon I read a whole theory about how Truman was only aware of the extent of the devastation after the bombs dropped, based on the very visible shift in language describing the bombs, and his policy afterwards.
I think, my friend, that's its helpful to consider the line in "Oppenheimer": "We imagine a future, and our imaginings horrify us." Oppenheimer was brilliant and humanist but also a product of his time, that is to say, a time of war. Can you imagine if these atomic discoveries were made in a time of peace? Perhaps we could have left fossil fuels long behind and be on our way to Mars now! What you do now, my friend, is, and always will be, up to you. But whatever you do, I would hope it's not from a place of fear, but one of peace and love. ❤
The ending of the movie back when I watched Oppenheimer in the cinema, there was no clapping, wooing, or scream positive, but silence as I exit the cinema. Truly terrifying uneasy event.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt dread, I felt the weight of it all on my shoulders, I walked out of the cinema and felt like a zombie, it took me the hours and hours to feel like myself. The Human race is just so, so evil.
One small point in the book on which the film was based, that was not in the film, but which adds wonderfully to the pettiness of Strauss, is that Oppenheimer's security clearance (as were everyone's) was periodically renewed, and was set to expire one day after the "trial" ended. In other words, if the trial hadn't taken place and no one had done anything, then Oppie's security clearance would have expired naturally (as countless others' had) and no one would have blinked an eye. But Strauss wanted to have it *revoked*. Just to make a point.
during the film, I was very struck by Oppenheimer's wife asking him was he was not defending himself, why he was playing a martyr. And it wasn't just himself, the investigation hurt his wife and friends deeply. But, I think he reassured himself that these people in the US government and military were going to invent nuclear weapons AND use them. It was obvious the Nazis would have done it, but would the US have done it without his work? And it wasn't about Hiroshima, he wasn't particularly guilty about that (at least in rl interviews, although he wouldn't totally justify it, either). It was the Cold War itself, and I think he satisfied himself that these vicious bureaucrats were always going down this road,.It was a type of reassurance, the more vicious and ugly accusations against him, the more obvious it was, the more he may have felt redeemed. I'd also add to those who think his naivete obvious, The Geneva Gas Protocol was signed in 1925, banning poison gas. The world had come together to ban a weapon of mass destruction. It wasn't so naive to think it might happen again with nuclear weapons. One more thought, concerning the last video about showing the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, even using real footage; that would have made the film more about those particular bombings and their morality, while this movie, and Oppenheimer himself, was more concerned about the future. The moral questions in the wake of the attacks on Japan. It's the questions we are still faced with in this day. By keeping nukes around, aren't we just making it inevitable that they will be used someday? This includes India, Pakistan and North Korea now, too.Will we ever stop collectively holding a gun to our heads?
Both The US and USSR continued to research and build bio and chemical weapons well after 1925. There is no magic putting these genies back in the bottle once the technology is discovered.
At some point in the film, Oppenheimer the man becomes Oppenheimer, Nolan's creation. We don't know when, but certainly by the last quarter of the movie what had previously been vetted for accuracy, word for word and often from multiple sources, becomes much more speculative in nature. The book 109 Palace Avenue explains exactly how isolated the Los Alamos scientists were kept. They knew ONLY what the government wanted them to know, but they must have had some inkling that the Nazis were nowhere near achieving a working Bomb for want of refined uranium. What they might not have known was that the Japanese were already casting about for favorable surrender terms. And they had to have realized that after the war, the world would be left, for the first time ever, with two politically, economically, and ideologically- opposed Super-Powers. Though the real Oppenheimer never came right out and accused the government of duplicity, I think he had to have felt badly used and deceived. Truman wanted a big, splashy, "rockets' red glare" ending to the war so that the American people, overcome with awe and joy, wouldn't be bothered with such inconvenient questions as that of the morality of the Bomb's use. Above all, Truman wanted to show the Russians that we had this thing and weren't afraid to use it. Oppenheimer's (and almost ALL the other scientists') greatest contribution to mankind was not the Bomb or even atomic energy. It was the establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission to keep the Bomb from becoming the exclusive plaything of the US military.
Oppenheimer and his team have full moral responsibility of creating a weapon that may end the world. Teller was nowhere close to developing a fusion explosive, and by the time he did, the world would have been a different place. The whole cold war was fueled due to the US's zeal for developing nuclear weapons. Had the leading researchers held back, knowing that Germany was no closer to developing a weapon and that it had already tapped out, the time of bloodlust would have passed, and the need for weapons may have waned. But such was not to pass. Oppenheimer, being fully aware of his role as a primer for the destruction of the world, knew that there was no forgiving his deed. Being a dabbler in Indian Philosophy, he may have understood that his only judgement was a Prāyascitt, to go through the consequences of his action without complaining, to achieve detachment from the fruits of his deed. While that is commendable, it did not absolve him . That said, it was kind of rich of Oppenheimer to quote Vishnu's Krishna Avatar while overseeing the beginning of the destruction of the world, considering Vishnu incarnated multiple times on this Earth to stem the tide of destruction . Speaking of which, India had no choice but to arm itself, considering both China and Pakistan had armed themselves with respectively an indirect and direct cooperation of the United States.
The war destroyed so many people- even our heroes came back cursed. My great grandfather was a B29 pilot, he told me stories about what it was like in the pacific theater. After the bomb dropped, he said he felt a feeling that he could never describe- feeling relief and also feeling like he returned from the dead. My grandpa was a very kind and warm man, but he always felt distant. It was something I could never explain; he was at peace but he also felt like he hid things (which was strange because he told me all the stories about the war that I asked). Now that I’m older, it seemed he paid a penance for what he was involved in and what he saw- the stories were as a warning for my future.
I’m probably older than you, my Dad served in the Pacific Theater on a PT Boat. One day we were watching TV when I was maybe15 or 16 years old in the 1970’s, it was a documentary on dropping the two bombs in Japan. I can’t remember exactly what I said to him, but it was something to the effect of how terrible those bombs were. He looked me coldly in the eyes and said, “You wouldn’t be here if they didn’t drop those bombs”. I believe him. Estimates were of a potential 1 million casualties if the Allies invaded Japan to conquer it. But the bombs did what they were intended to do, thus saving countless lives. And that is a fact. And…….so far……MAD has worked as a deterrent.
The ending of this movie left me mentally distressed. I specifically saw it again with other friends so i could experience it again. The thought of nuclear armageddon has always been a dark thougt in my mind but this movie actually visualized it. Shook me to my core and i feel like i was the only one of my friends who felt this way. A masterpiece of filmmaking. I hope this never becomes a reality but you just never know...
Funny because what we could do to ourselves is A DROP IN THE BUCKET compared to the raw and relenting power the forces of our universe (and even our own solar system and galaxy) could do to us. It just takes one asteroid, one gamma burst ray, one supernova from wiping everything clean (INCLUDING THE PLANET WE ALL LIVE ON). Just live your life and dont worry about shit you cant possibly control.
@@thalasowo3373I saw a quote one time, I forget who from and the exact wording, but paraphrasing, I remember it as something like: I cannot say for sure what weapons world war 3 will be fought with, but world war 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.
I have never seen a movie that made me feel this way and I don’t think I ever will. The sense of existential dread that I felt leaving the theater. The underlying anxiety that never felt like it came to a climax and there was no resolution to it. Unlike most movies that create fear or anxiety there is usually an ending to it. The slow realization that I was living the next part of the movie didn’t allow my anxiety to go away.
Movies like this are so rare now. Leaving the theater and thinking about it for hours and days later. So powerful. Thank you for this essay, which allowed me to self reflect a bit more about the reasons why.
You want to talk with a survivor . I lost both ears an eye 4 finger, a foot and I had to be castrated as a survivor was not allowed children for fear of the stories they would have to burden.
True, but it’s not like I don’t see why. People generally go to movies as a form of escapism, to temporarily forget about the unpredictable tortures of life and leave feeling a little better about everything and being more confident about facing those challenges, as opposed to being reminded of how powerless we truly are in the grand scheme of things.
The thing that resonated the most with this movie was seeing Nolan embracing surrealism for the first time in his entire career. While he has been a mostly realistic filmmaker, this movie was half of it surrealist. And he is SO GOOD AT IT. Most times its directors at their youngest years that go surrealistic but Nolan went surreslistic in his early middle age. Thst's fascinsting. Its as if the older he gets the younger he is as a filmmaker. This movie is the kind of movie a 25 years old would do, not a 53 years old man.
Vent post: I did 8 years of DoD work despite being significantly against the MIC. 6 years Active Duty and 2 years as a contractor. I enlisted for the reasons most people do (college didn't work out, I was in a ton of debt, I needed something to give me career experience to prevent sliding into the poverty that pervades my family). I was an IT guy in the Navy, so most of my time was spent making emails work and setting up servers for people that make decisions, I never really "made" or "shot" anything. I was more so the grease in the gears of the war machine that outdates us all. But in the last year I had a real moral dilemma where I didn't wanna be part of it anymore. I was lucky, I don't have any major physical or mental injuries, and I had enough skills and stability provided to me by my service and work to transition to higher education IT work, where now I support students instead of MIC executives and Generals fighting for a political appointment. There's still a guilt there where I can't shake that my comfortable middle class life is drenched in blood. And it is, there's no shaking that, but I struggle with whether whatever distance I interpret from that blood is selfish or realistic. Sometimes I think of the times where I put my foot down on my morals regarding simple things, like privacy, the health and wellbeing of the sailors who worked under me, calling out leadership etc. But the reality of the things I was part of only get worse. The ships get more deadly and the bombs become more profitable. It feels ridiculous the amount of familiarity I felt watching Oppenheimer, and that final scene was so powerful I bawled my eyes out in the theatres while the credits rolled. Maybe I'm a moron for being so conflicted in a way that anyone could've predicted. Maybe my guilt is just a shield from responsibility. Maybe I'm a overly-sensitive dork for equating my participation in the War Machine as an E5 and computer guy with the creator of the Atom bomb, but this is at least a commentary for how good Nolan was at capturing those feelings that I don't think tons of people go through.
What a beautifully deep and transparent sharing. I hear you and honor your awareness. As I have come to see the world, it’s such awakenings that you’re describing (time and again) that our soul wanted to experience - and you are. When we know better and do better, we’ve done all our soul ever wanted to experience. Now for the collective and breaking from the shackles of the sickness perpetrated by unfathomably corrupt forces… I think we got that too. It’s so hard but the time has come and the shift is happening. Best wishes to you!
I don't watch films. Like, ever. But this one intrigued me and I went to see it with two friends at the cinema. When I came out, I didn't even feel like the same person anymore. This movie both resonated with me, made me scarily conscious of what we have and how it could all disappear in the blink of an eye and made me pensive like nothing ever had before. I could barely sleep the night after seeing it, picturing what the world would look like if we hadn't gotten lucky, if it had all gotten out of control. I felt really strange that my friends seemed to have had a chill experience whilst I could barely hold my tears back the entire car ride home, it was truly one of the best stories and pieces of media I've ever consumed in my entire life.
Great video and your takeaways are really interesting. My experience of the was a bit more… « meta »… I walked away from the theatre with the feeling of experiencing a chain reaction from the inside. The shipping of the bomb was Oppenheimer’s domino falling. All others were outside of his sight and control. Becoming irrelevant as the chain reaction was now sustaining itself without him.
Three times in my life (so far) I've burst into tears as end-credits begin rolling. Oppenheimer successfully built an inexorable tension between what happened and what we wish would not have happened, and watching the protagonist do what he had to but what we wish he wouldn't have done is terrible. "The lens between wishes and fact" is turned upon us as the audience as it seems to have done to him. The film builds with great genius an emotional tension, using beautiful audible and visual effects to allow us an insight into the magnificence of particle physics (I'm an accountant, but I am in love with the sciences) that we can't help but ride the train of consequence with him. Devastating. Brilliant. Art at its best. (and thank you for bringing Satantango to my awareness)
I saw Oppenheimer for a fourth time today. This film deeply affected me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for weeks. Devastating, captivating, a masterpiece. I hope Oppenheimer wins as many Oscars as it deserves (and gets acknowledged for its superiority after the barbie hype dies down lol)
@@crimsonpearl4686 wow are you really hating on me for loving something and wanting to see it more bc it makes me happy? lmao 😂 I will probably watch it four times more once the dvd arrives
I could be wrong but I love Jean and oppenheimer's relationship. I interpret it as a sort of coinciding story that majorly foreshadows oppenheimer's loss of control and destroying worlds, like jean's world. Again with the dilemma of "how much was he in control of that?" and "how much is he to blame." It makes a lot of sense to me why she would be the one to bring up the line "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" when they start their relationship. When Jean dies and Oppenheimer starts freaking out the loss of control of that relationship hit him like a truck. Kitty still says "your country needs YOU" basically and he still had control of his life work.
I loved what Ludwig Göransson did for "Destroyer of Worlds" in that it mimics "Can You Hear the Music" but that it has a far more sinister and foreboding tone. Whereas "Can You Hear the Music" has an optimistic, almost uplifting quality, the companion piece we hear in the final scene fills the listener with such dread. We have been brought into the Great Unknown that is the Quantum Realm, and it is terrifying.
I've never had a movie leave me feeling the way this one did. I got to the end and I was just shaking and almost crying. I haven't seen it a second time yet and it keeps coming back in my head
I saw it opening weekend in IMAX about 6 weeks ago or so and it just stuck with me for so long… so today I decided to go back and see it at the regular theater and it was just as thrilling. Man. Master filmmaking from the auteur director.
Coming out of the cinema, i had an hour busride home and i just kept asking myself, why do we want to destroy ourselves so much? Not just because of nuclear weapons existing, but destroying the climate, wars, the gap between rich and poor, turning a blind eye on crippling world hunger, the housing crisis, the cost of living crisis, the drugs epidemic, inequality in general. We as a humans are absolutely set to destroy ourselves, one way or the other. It might be by the bomb, or just because we're the most selfish, idiotic species on this planet.
Not the most selfish. It's about us and ours, always has been. Most animals aren't soical enough to raise their own children, let alone form a community.
@@orangenostril I don't think you realize how many animals there are in the world, most of which aren't mammals and birds, it's mostly bugs and fish. And the vast majority of them don't raise their young.
He actually probably bought humanity a couple additional generations. It was going to get built anyway, but if it was after WWII, its power would not be appreciated so would've been used at the START of WWIII, after a slew of countries already had it. We owe our existence to this man.
Between the lives saved stoping a mainland invasion of japan and a demonstrating its power and devistation leading to MAD he saved far more lives then he feels he destroyed. Being at the table early to shape negotiations and treaties and policy saved generations thats for sure.
@@sirken2there’s proof that suggests a mainland invasion of Japan was never going to happen. The movie even addresses that directly, when Oppenheimer says that Japan was on the verge of surrender when the bombs were dropped, and there’s direct quotes from high ranking military personnel at the time that supports this. The idea that killing hundreds of thousands of civilians was “necessary” for bringing back US troops or even saving Japanese lives is basically an idea cooked up to save face, more likely the main incentive for the bombings was as a display of the US’ nuclear might leading into the Cold War. Yes Imperial Japan was evil of the highest order, but the mass genocides at Hiroshima and Nagasaki still shouldn’t be excused as necessary.
Nothing compares to that sense of overwhelming dread I felt, walking out of that cinema, it almost makes everything else feel pointless, it made myself feel pointless, walking out, and I stare around me- a feeling like what now? What matters, when there is this unsolvable, inevitable doom in front of all of us? What now?
Great video and your build up videos to the movie really helped me as well As a vivid watcher of Nolan, and analysing the man and his movies. His perception of time, consequences and the fabrique of humanity with his films is something I'm thankful we get. This story and the first person script, and the choosing of Cillian the star in this movie, and everyone supporting him and his act are such great choices because it's all served for the greater goal of the movie - the greatest tragedy of all - the exploration of the human capability to cruelty in the name of dominance, and nolan's magic ability to capture it all and the personal affects or had on oppenheimer and the world. The atomic bomb is a life changing event for the human race, and the race for arms in the world is forever changed after that. I hope people will be able to capture from this movie the importance of understanding the real consequences of your actions and thinking ahead.
All non-franchise films that he wrote himself are time-related. It's as if his life mission is to teach about non-linear time through the medium of cinema.
After reading a particularly infamous piece of media in my teenage years, non-linear storytelling no longer confuses me as it used to. The narrative structure of said infamous piece of media is perhaps the single most complex timeline ever devised.
I'm glad I watched it at IMAX with friends, it was such a good movie, even though I feel like the "Now I am become death" quote was misused. And the casting? Cillian, RDJ, Einstein, Matt Daemon, even Jack Quaid who is literally just a doppelganger of Richard Feynman
@@Zarakendog He translates the sanskrit while having sex with his lover instead of saying it when he said it, during a recording of him after the first Trinity test.
The timing of the quote was more of a foreboding cinematic element, which as a device would have worked in either scenario but I get the impression that Nolan wants the sequence of events to remain non-linear. If I understand correctly, the quote is from the Bhagavad Gita. It is from a verse in which Arjuna must fight against family members in a civil war and goes on to explain to Lord Krishna that he is conflicted about this. Lord Krishna transforms into a horrible creature that scares him. After that Lord Krishna proclaims “now I have become Death, destroyer of worlds”. This quote, however, is significant because this allows Arjuna to understand that he must fight because it is his duty, regardless of what he may view as good or evil. Oppenheimer too understands that this is his duty as a “warrior”, fighting the greatest evil the world has ever seen, and just like Arjuna, he understands that the bomb is an inevitability and must carry out his duty, regardless of what he views as good or evil. However, unlike Arjuna, once Oppenheimer realizes what he has truly done, he cannot remain pragmatic. This is probably due to the fact that Arjuna simply has to fight and kill his family, Oppenheimer carries the weight of having opened the door to the destruction of humanity and all life on earth on his shoulders. His torment here begins and never ends. That’s why the Prometheus quote comes before anything and is at the beginning of the film, because Oppenheimer suffers the same fate; chained to the rock (in his case is his consciousness, forever tormented) for giving fire to man
Incredible filmmaking throughout. Especially the speech scene will get Cillian Murphy the oscar he deserves, maybe also Nolan for best director. RDJ also stole every scene he was in.
RDJ was great but since Einstein showed up on screen with Strauss I wondered "will Einstein get screen time?" and every scene he was on screen was such a delight.
couldn't disagree more. so many terrible choices. 1 hour dedicated to some security clearance bs. florence pugh being naked just because. i could go on and on and on. and yet tons of people say its great. i feel like im taking crazy pills.
@@ray-mc-lsex scenes were jarring for me, but otherwise I felt really satisfied by the movie. Practically whole cast was great and I didn't get that funny feeling that an actor or actress was there for paycheck.
@@ray-mc-l You're not alone! I though the movie was going to end quite shortly after that disappointing explosion, but it kept going on and on and on with "you're a communist!", "no I'm not a communist!", "oh yes you are", "no I'm not", "yes", "no", "yes" etc etc, with some typical Nolanish fast editing and annoyingly stressful and overdramatic music for no apparent reason. And then that ending scene with a "twist" you saw coming from miles away with an Einstein that ignored Strauss for no reason at all that seemingly was the big deal why Strauss even went after Oppenheimer (yeah I know there was more, but this is what the movie made it out to have happened). But yeah sure Cillian did a good job, might win an Oscar and I wouldn't complain about it, but Nolan does not deserve it for this movie, he kept on overdoing whatever he have been overdoing for years now.
@@ray-mc-l security clearance was not the point. Him seeking to be punished in order to find redemption very much was. The movie isn't called "The Bomb". It's called "Oppenheimer". It's not period drama, it's a biopic. Oppenheimer was compared to Prometheus a lot and that's an analogy that needed to be established. Ending the movie when Prometheus steals the fire wouldn't tell the whole story of Prometheus either. Now, is it an apt analogy? That's a different point. Oppenheimer was certainly hoping to be a Prometheus. That would have given his life at least the status of a warning sign. There is no redemption in obscurity. The sex was jarring alright, but that was completely on point. The scene in the hearing room was overwhelming in a good way. I've never seen a better description of jealousy/feeling of betrayal.
The scene when Oppenheimer gives the speech to the Los Alamos team. The sound design in this scene entire, it’s amazing! It perfectly encapsulates the shock and almost trauma of the enormity of what they did, of what he did 👏 it shook me. But But, the sweeping gut punch, the almost dread I felt when Strauss’s aide points out Oppenheimer & Einstein weren’t talking about him. 🥺 the almost trauma I felt, the sinking dread, of these two otherworldly intelligent men, who realise, who grasp what has been done. Then you look back & see Kenneth Branaghs character, he knew too. They were burdened, knowing what would happen. How he was Prometheus. Giving such terrible power to stupid and arrogant men. The super closeup on Truman’s face is almost gross, terrifying in its way. And then you think of it. That I, born in 1984 have never breathed air or walked on land not tainted by the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima & Nagasaki. But the thing that left me sitting in silence after the film ended was that we can never go back 😢
That scene in the first part where they finally test the bomb followed by complete silence for the next minute+ had me silently crying. Just being aware of its impact and what it meant really hit me. it was an overwhelming feeling of dread that had me thinking about that moment for a long time after.
I didnt understand the "Prometheus gave the humans fire, and was punished by the gods" at first, but then at the ending... Slowly everything flew together and it all made sense. He did what the Government wanted, he delivered it, and after that... He was useless for them again, so they threw him away like a disposable razor.
For me, the fact that even though it is a 3 hour film, by the end, you want more. The story-telling is so engaging that you lose yourself in time, you're just there, experiencing everything before your eyes, every second counting. You don't feel it like 3 hours. You don't feel that by the time we get to Trinity Test, it's 2 hours 20 minutes.
Nolan has this approach to endings where a definite answer is not provided, but one that is ambiguous enough to invite analysis and opinion from the viewer. And that ambiguity complemented by the viewers own impression, personal opinions and even personal bias actually leads to one original opinion, that can be or might not be the real ending Nolan was aiming at. In the end I think its brilliant how he does things. We are carrying his art forward when we try to understand, disseminate and complete his endings!!! Thats my 2 cents!!
I cried almost for the whole 3 hours. The context of the 20. century coming up all the time was brutal. The film was visually also very beautiful and truly touching.
Talking about the "change of heart" of Oppenheimer regarding national security issues, I think the key point is his discussion with Truman. Before that discussion he also rejected to sign the petition for Szilard and Hill, which is a little controversial with his future decisions. That's because after talking with Truman, who was clearly pictured as a burocrat that doesn't even remember the name of the second city that was nuked and did not care at all about scientific matters, he clearly changed his mind. So at the end of "fission", when the lawyer asked him why he had changed his mind in that regard (underlining his suspects of Oppenheimer's bonds with communists), he couldn't answer properly because he clearly disagreed with Truman point of view and a declaration like that could really put himself in a bad position in front of the commission (they could have pictured him as a traitor or something like that). So is this the key turning point in Oppenheimer's opinion or maybe is simply his last meeting with Einstein in 1947 which is also the last scene of the movie?
A systematic destruction of chaos was the intention until the prison of his [Oppenheimer] ambition gave birth to a new era chaos of mankind. Unleashing the power within the atom is only matched by the force of human emotion. Time falls away when this happens. Scientifically and narratively, Nolan’s work obsesses between this relationship.
Nolan's fracturing of time helps people who cannot contain the immensity of the themes and quandaries those involved in these events faces to face them themselves, to feel them, and to understand that no answer or resolution is even possible.
I'd usually chalk it up to my autism...but honestly this movie has been stuck in my mind since it's release....and honestly its been a long time since I've seen a film that felt like art in this modern age.
I guess being a military brat and son of a missilier all the feelings folks have about the depression the images of such destruction have been already left me. Learning from your Father rather early on that " the places we live you wouldn't even see a bright light" and " you never would have to know the horrors or nuclear fallout" just hits diffrent. I remember being given a shirt that said x location number one thought on Russian missles minds. There is some solace knowing everywhere I have ever lived would be completly and utterly devastated and I wouldn't feel or see a thing was oddly comforting when you think of MAD.
Driving home from the theater after seeing this movie with my one friend whom I went to see it with, we were quite for a few minutes of the ride. Then I said I'm thinking about the last line, and he replied with same. It's gets you thinking about the huge change the invention of the atomic bomb had and still has on the world. The surrealism of what could be possible with this bomb. I never thought about it that deeply when learning about it in school, and the film helped me realize that. One of the reasons why I love cinema is that it can give a great understanding of history.
I’d strongly recommend two books for anyone who likes this video and ponders over the movies ideas: Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked it All Up by Tom Phillips & But What if We’re Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman
You are an exceptional story teller, sir. I actually ponder life more deeply because of what you share. I often wind up exploring film (and myself) after absorbing your content. It all resonates and provides much more texture to these works of art. Nolan is gem. He and Terrance Malik are my favorite. I’m going to register for the trial to Mubi - really looking forward to experiencing Santantango - one sitting. Thank you.
The fear of atomic annihilation has been the one thing that has stuck with me from things that frightened me as a child, because of all the monsters that I could imagine in my closet and under my bed, this one was the only one that I still know there is a non-zero chance of happening.
Wonderfully informative brilliantly visual essay. Best film I’ve seen in decades and your analysis of it is perfect. Thank you for not oversimplifying or dumbing down the complexities of both the man and the director and for zeroing in on the significance of what is the Atomic Age.
I haven’t watched the Oscar’s in 25 years! I will be watching this year! I believe that they should be awarded every Oscar that they are nominated for. Brilliantly executed and captivating!
I went to see this movie alone, I was away on business and bored so I went to see the movie to pass the time. I have a deep passion for history and I also have a deep understanding of science as I spent 8 years in university studying science. I love learning science history, so this movie was a must see for me! When the credits rolled I sat there for ten minutes in shock by the last line of the movie!! Of course he was right; our ego's are too powerful, humans are after all animals, and animals must be true to their purest nature. Our species' nature is play nice when not threatened, but; when threatened all bets are off. Eventually, inevitably someone will come to power who's ego is so over-inflated and so unwilling to be questioned that they will commit any act, I repeat any act to not be exposed as weak and powerless and will commit any atrocity to protect their self-image, including pushing the button that will bring about the demise of all of humanity! Two people currently in the spot light spring to mind just now! Hmmmmm, I wonder who that might be?
Damn. I feel like this whole movie was made just for this review and your insights. You my friend are so thoughtful. I wish I could do justice to art as you do.
The conversation between Oppenheimer and Groves hits harder at the ending. The chance that the Trinity nuclear detonation creates a chain reaction which will set ablaze the entire Earth is "near zero", yet as Matt Damon's Groves puts it, we would like it better if it was just "zero".
As an engineer, when I finished the movie, I started to question my morality, as an engineer I did a lot of things, from building simple toys to building weapons. Where is the line drawn? Where helping people will result in killing people. I don't know, and I will continue to do my job. But, a reminder always be in my mind, to do the right thing, even if the world will burn me.
Thank you. You have a duty to yourself. I’m the kind of asshole, who thinks novelty items are listen… Because I use resources to create something that will give a chuckle or two and then head to the landfill. Is it possible to overthink things? Sure. If we thought about the consequences of our reaction, we would never get out of bed. But… As has been sad… If we consider the consequences of our actions down to the seventh generation… That’s a good place to begin.
Idk about anything or how much it was intentional, but i liked how in the end, Strauss destroyed Oppy, and Oppy - in a way, by having a friend who stood up for him in the senate - destroyed Strauss. Mutually assured destruction, much pike what they talked about at the table.
Great analyses as always. One thing made me wonder though. You say it's naive of Oppenheimer to think this bomb would create world peace. While I think the point of the movie is that there's no conclusion as to whether that's true or not true. Because the atomic bomb has in fact created more world peace then ever before while at the same time it created a potential devestating worldwar never seen before. You can see Oppenheimer struggling with this contradiction without solution
I think it's one of a very small number of films which end with a bleak, devastating, and overwhelming reflection on the world as it is to the viewer. And viewing it ten, twenty, thirty years from now will have the same impact, because nuclear weapons more than likely will still be seen as a threat. To me it feels like, in both the film and the real world, that the Trinity test brought upon the world a complete paradigm shift, changing it permanently. The fiery beginning of the atomic age. So in a sense, the timeline of Oppenheimer skips to the frame of reference of the viewer, which is in this case, 2023. And as you say, it prompts the viewer to reflect on other contemporary crises and threats the world faces.
The ending reminded me of a workshop I was part of with a bunch of experts in nuclear arms control a couple of years ago. They made it abundantly clear then that the state of arms control is dire, arguably as bad as it has been since the height of the cold war. What little arms control we have had between the two great nuclear powers has been damaged, and we are on track to have a third large nuclear power (China) unbounded by arms treaties. Unless we act, especially people in the US, Russia, and China, we will be racing to a catastrophic nuclear war.
Well made. I was bereft at the end of this film. The tension built the whole way through, clarifying consequences. Based on everything I’ve seen from humanity since the 1940s, it feels like it’s just a matter of time. Will we find a way before that happens or will we have to rebuild in the aftermath? We’ll see…
It is insane… always liked Nolan’s films but never loved them. They always felt like they were trying too hard, and were too serious and didn’t quite strike the balance of serious/grand and realistic/human that Oppenheimer strikes so masterfully. The bomb scene, the speech scene, the Truman scene and, of course, the epilogue are some of the perfectly directed, acted and written scenes I’ve ever seen in my life. What a movie, man lol.
I watched this a few days ago with a friend. I was left feeling exhausted after the film. Then the ending hit me about an hour later like a ton of bricks. I need to watch this again
This is by far the best essay on Nolan's masterpiece I've seen. Only quibble: not his only tragedy, FOLLOWING, MEMENTO, and THE PRESTIGE are tragedies. (cough will not stoop to a Dark Knight Rises joke cough)
Im Japanese and as you know it only came out in Japan in March 2024 and I finally got to watched it. Whether for good or bad we live in a world thats forever changed. I cannnot explain why but I cried watching this film.
Life is a flat circle, much like a vinyl record on replay. Each time the record is replayed, there is an unrecognized minuscule variation in the sound it transmits. The end of each play, like the end of each of our days, becomes the new normal
Oppenheimer hoped to create something that could end all wars, but instead created something that could end humanity, his intentions were pure, but underestimated the people who had the finger on the trigger, the innate drive of humans to be with conflict with each other, giving every superpower a weapon that could threaten everyone, everywhere.
My uncle was a physicist who worked on the project so I had his point of view decades ago. It was a sobering view but Edgar felt he had to help because we had to develop nuclear power before our enemy did.
I dont want to tear down one thing just to elevate another, but the contrast between the two big "history" movies that came out this year is striking. One of them handled the true history with a certain amount of respect and still managed to make what is arguably one of the best written, directed, acted, and filmed movies of the century so far.. The other one was Napolean. Watch them back to back.. You'll think Oppenheimer is the single best thing ever filmed in the history of movies lol (tbf it is really really damn good)
For an even more extensive discussion on the work of Christopher Nolan, check out my 3-part series covering his entire filmography:
Part 1: A Director Begins th-cam.com/video/tJJaNIX_OUY/w-d-xo.html
Part 2: The Breakout Year th-cam.com/video/5gPMoEG7i8s/w-d-xo.html
Part 3: Road to Oppenheimer th-cam.com/video/bmgH-P1uRZM/w-d-xo.html
😴
I read the book, American Prometheus, after seeing the movie. The changes Nolan makes are subtle and minor, done with honesty and clearly in service of telling Oppenheimer’s tragic story in a cinematic way. In both the book and the movie, the audience is likely to conclude, as I did, that, “Oppie,” was fatalistic toward his persecutors because he genuinely vacillated in his own mind about whether he was a good or evil man: whether he had done a good or evil thing in creating the A Bomb: whether history would judge him kindly or cruelly: and whether he needed to be punished.
We even see clues that he may have had a slightly masochistic tendency (as many powerful people do) and the book delves deeper into his benighted relationship with his, “dipsomaniacal,” wife, as he once described her. Putting up with her outburst and scenes with stoicism and patience.
There was certainly an element of self-martyrdom about his run in with the Strauss gang and their Security Clearance hearings. But, I think he just needed to see for himself what people really thought of him and his endeavours, and believed that this crisis would reveal the truth about all those he new and trusted, as well as the country he loved. It was as much an intellectual and even aesthetic decision, to just allow his fate to fall into the hands of his enemies, as it was for him a moral one.
But, ultimately, much of him remains opaque to the fascinated outsider, looking in. And I think he he liked it that way.
BTW, that bit about the single Japanese city being excluded from the atomic bomb targeting list, just because a senior politician likes the town, was actually the most made up part of the movie. It didn’t happen in real life, and no such thing comes up in the book. It would have been reacted to immediately in real life, as an egregiously inappropriate manner of prioritising and an abuse of power. It is forgivable, as the movie needs to truncate so much of that major, prolonged discussion and make its point, about the arbitrary nature of targeting an innocent, none-combatant population. But a movie must do in moments what a book can dissect for pages, so it works well, without necessarily soiling the, “good name,” of the character who was meant to articulate such a self serving point of view, given all we know about him now.
@@ashroskell It does come in in the book. Oppenheimer says he didn’t understand why they dropped one in Nagasaki, it was totally unnecessary.
@@mgariepy42 : If you’re talking about my last comment, I was referring to the decision to exclude Tokyo from the target list. In the movie, an influential politician (I can’t remember which one now, if it was the president or not?) says that he and his wife honeymooned in Tokyo and he wanted to exclude it for that reason. He adds that there are countless historically valued sights, etc. No such discussion occurred in real life. It would not have been tolerated.
That was a fiction added by the script writers, to make the audience ask themselves the question: On what basis would I decide to bomb innocent civilians during a war? Could I make such a choice? Is there any justification for such a choice? Etc, etc.
The best thing I’ve seen about the end of this movie was a tweet asking if there was a post credits scene. Someone replied and just said, “you’re living in it, baby.”
Physical chain reaction is over, but the chain reaction in human society is yet to finish.
Humanity is now living in what is called "The Longest Peace" - Thank you Oppenheimer ^
@@tykjenffs it hasn't been all that long really, and it hasn't been all that peaceful either. There just has not been total war between major countries since.
@@asraarradon4115 Proportionally speaking it means a lot. And that is thanks to nuclear deterrence ^ Id rather have it like this than the alternative. Some people just take their existence for granted because they have no perception of time.
The person who wrote that tweet needs to stick with the MCU movies.
The fact that the last scene connects the two timeline is genius level filmmaking
Indeed, Nolan is really good with endings. Almost every single one of his movies has a goosebump inducing ending
Nolan is peak storytelling via editing and writing
Creepy cult member A.I. comments here.
He has done this in Memento. Oppenheimer is essentially Nolan throwing his entire toolbox into a movie.
@@ADifferentVibe yup
can I just say that, for me one of the biggest thing was to see people like einstien and bohr and heisnburg in person and not as constants or theoroies. So much of our knowledge about these people come from the ideas they presented to us and so little is known about them in the process. One often forgets that they were people once. People like us who had hopes and fears
With idols, as always, we as humans love to put these people up on pedestals without showing us their human sides and that, at the end of the day, all men are fallible and prone to human emotions and fears. We love hero's but we neglect and often fail to empathize but rather treat them like gods, creatures to look up to and worship as being above normal humans in some altruistic manner.
bro can't spell
bro conveyed his point what does it matter
@@emmanuelbecerra7173redditot spotted
@@emmanuelbecerra7173You know I used to think like you, I used to "correct" people constantly, obsessively even. But then I realised - who am _I_ to dictate the evolution of the English language? Who is _anyone_ to dictate such a thing?! The idea that some ivory-tower university academics should have control over the spelling, syntax and semantics of English is totally undemocratic and patently absurd (and no, I'm not anti-academic at all, far from it).
Languages evolve organically, adapted to suit the purposes of a given context. As long as the most important aspect - the meaning - is clear, then everything else should be entirely up to the speaker. There is fundamentally no correct or incorrect way to speak or write a language. Sure, standardised language is incredibly important in technical contexts, but in conversation it doesn't matter in the slightest, except on the elementary level of "these words have a coherent meaning when said in this order".
Embrace the evolution of language, or end up an embittered pensioner yelling at kids, it's your choice (ok it's not _that_ binary but still 😂).
TL;DR: Cheese should be illegal and anyone who eats it should be violently rounded up and incarcerated indefinitely.
When I left the theater, I couldn't help but visualize the surrounding area being razed. It's such a sobering film because we are living in the aftermath of Oppenheimer's decisions.
OMG I had exactly the same visualization.. scary!
Good this movie is out and gets people to think like that.
I dug deep into technology and strategy of nuclear weapons about 25 years ago and it winds me up tremendously that everybody is just oblivious to the threat.
Lbr the chain reaction really started when men invented war as a way to solve conflicts, millennia ago. Humanity was always doomed to this - Oppenheimer, Groves, Einstein, Heisenberg, Truman, these figures are just mediums through which the chain reaction’s been perpetrating itself.
The real tragedy, to me, is that there is no real way to control any of this. It’s all been an avalanche out of control since the start. And also, nobody has any real freedom of choice, because we all lack the knowledge of what our choices will result with. Control is only a delusion we believe in to keep on telling ourselves that it’s someone else’s fault, never ours, and that we’re in some way better than someone else. It’s just narcissism, basically.
Not his decisions. That came from the US Government. If not Oppenheimer they would have gotten someone else.
@@trottheblackdog"If the US government didn't, someone else would've." You can obfuscate anything that way
I did the barbie/oppenheimer double feature with a bunch of friends and after the first part ( oppenheimer ) i kind of felt like the only person who was so deeply troubled by it at the end. I don't usually cry in movies and I don't think I was supposed to cry but the final scene had me so morbidly distressed that i was tearing up and seeing that nobody else seemed to have that reaction made me feel like such a freak ... but hearing that this movie was expected to affect ppl in different ways makes it better
Your not alone believe me.
first time i saw it i was by myself and i left the theater and just stood on the street, it was about 1 am, and felt completely dissociated from myself and everything around me, and had the thought that, this all could get wiped out with the push of a button at any moment.
You're the sane one
The freak thing is that your friends weren't distressed
@@almasakic1148I felt exactly the same, kind of an existential crisis
I felt so uneasy coming out of this film. I almost immediately went back to find a clip of the final scene. In my mind i was scrambling for some kind of tangible conclusion to the events. I couldn’t. I think that was the point, to leave you with an uprooting sense of uncertainty that terrorizes you and plagues you with a will to find some redeeming truth in it all. A familiar disassociation falls over me and i’m left with the question; What will i do now?
I spent a whole afternoon just chewing on it afterwards. My face was blank, my eyes just... dead.
That afternoon I read a whole theory about how Truman was only aware of the extent of the devastation after the bombs dropped, based on the very visible shift in language describing the bombs, and his policy afterwards.
How did you just describe my experiment post watching Oppenheimer
The Answer is in the film, "We imagine a future and our imaginings Horrify Us ", i guess it has worked very well considering ur state of mind now
wow
what drugs were you on?
the film is crap
I think, my friend, that's its helpful to consider the line in "Oppenheimer": "We imagine a future, and our imaginings horrify us." Oppenheimer was brilliant and humanist but also a product of his time, that is to say, a time of war. Can you imagine if these atomic discoveries were made in a time of peace? Perhaps we could have left fossil fuels long behind and be on our way to Mars now!
What you do now, my friend, is, and always will be, up to you.
But whatever you do, I would hope it's not from a place of fear, but one of peace and love. ❤
The ending of the movie back when I watched Oppenheimer in the cinema, there was no clapping, wooing, or scream positive, but silence as I exit the cinema. Truly terrifying uneasy event.
Everyone painfully aware that we are living in the aftermath of the ending.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who felt dread, I felt the weight of it all on my shoulders, I walked out of the cinema and felt like a zombie, it took me the hours and hours to feel like myself. The Human race is just so, so evil.
@@007Julie Maybe go live with the aliens then.
FACTS
That one guy in back: WELL FUCK
One small point in the book on which the film was based, that was not in the film, but which adds wonderfully to the pettiness of Strauss, is that Oppenheimer's security clearance (as were everyone's) was periodically renewed, and was set to expire one day after the "trial" ended. In other words, if the trial hadn't taken place and no one had done anything, then Oppie's security clearance would have expired naturally (as countless others' had) and no one would have blinked an eye. But Strauss wanted to have it *revoked*. Just to make a point.
The book honestly made Strauss out to be even more unhinged and paranoid and petty. He felt toned down and humanized by the performance of RDJ
Wow! Thank you dear Sir!
I thought they addressed that in stating that the so-called hearing was just a ploy to get everything on record. Super petty.
I can't not think of Caboose: "Time... line? (scoffs) Time isn't made out of lines. It is made out of circles. That is why clocks are round."
Caboose being brought up on a video about Oppenheimer wasn't something I expected
But it is something I should've seen coming
Someone once told me that time is a flat circle.
What’s scary is that Caboose is right, time does repeat in a manner of speaking.
double negative there? But yeah... I woudl never expect Red vs Blue in a Oppenheimer video
I do, they used a bomb to 'travel in time' in S3 lmao
during the film, I was very struck by Oppenheimer's wife asking him was he was not defending himself, why he was playing a martyr. And it wasn't just himself, the investigation hurt his wife and friends deeply. But, I think he reassured himself that these people in the US government and military were going to invent nuclear weapons AND use them. It was obvious the Nazis would have done it, but would the US have done it without his work? And it wasn't about Hiroshima, he wasn't particularly guilty about that (at least in rl interviews, although he wouldn't totally justify it, either). It was the Cold War itself, and I think he satisfied himself that these vicious bureaucrats were always going down this road,.It was a type of reassurance, the more vicious and ugly accusations against him, the more obvious it was, the more he may have felt redeemed. I'd also add to those who think his naivete obvious, The Geneva Gas Protocol was signed in 1925, banning poison gas. The world had come together to ban a weapon of mass destruction. It wasn't so naive to think it might happen again with nuclear weapons. One more thought, concerning the last video about showing the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, even using real footage; that would have made the film more about those particular bombings and their morality, while this movie, and Oppenheimer himself, was more concerned about the future. The moral questions in the wake of the attacks on Japan. It's the questions we are still faced with in this day. By keeping nukes around, aren't we just making it inevitable that they will be used someday? This includes India, Pakistan and North Korea now, too.Will we ever stop collectively holding a gun to our heads?
I feel he was not defending himself enough because quite simply he thought it was due punishment for what he did.
Both The US and USSR continued to research and build bio and chemical weapons well after 1925. There is no magic putting these genies back in the bottle once the technology is discovered.
At some point in the film, Oppenheimer the man becomes Oppenheimer, Nolan's creation. We don't know when, but certainly by the last quarter of the movie what had previously been vetted for accuracy, word for word and often from multiple sources, becomes much more speculative in nature. The book 109 Palace Avenue explains exactly how isolated the Los Alamos scientists were kept. They knew ONLY what the government wanted them to know, but they must have had some inkling that the Nazis were nowhere near achieving a working Bomb for want of refined uranium. What they might not have known was that the Japanese were already casting about for favorable surrender terms. And they had to have realized that after the war, the world would be left, for the first time ever, with two politically, economically, and ideologically- opposed Super-Powers. Though the real Oppenheimer never came right out and accused the government of duplicity, I think he had to have felt badly used and deceived. Truman wanted a big, splashy, "rockets' red glare" ending to the war so that the American people, overcome with awe and joy, wouldn't be bothered with such inconvenient questions as that of the morality of the Bomb's use. Above all, Truman wanted to show the Russians that we had this thing and weren't afraid to use it. Oppenheimer's (and almost ALL the other scientists') greatest contribution to mankind was not the Bomb or even atomic energy. It was the establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission to keep the Bomb from becoming the exclusive plaything of the US military.
@@pricklypear7516your analysis and writing are brilliant
Oppenheimer and his team have full moral responsibility of creating a weapon that may end the world. Teller was nowhere close to developing a fusion explosive, and by the time he did, the world would have been a different place. The whole cold war was fueled due to the US's zeal for developing nuclear weapons. Had the leading researchers held back, knowing that Germany was no closer to developing a weapon and that it had already tapped out, the time of bloodlust would have passed, and the need for weapons may have waned. But such was not to pass.
Oppenheimer, being fully aware of his role as a primer for the destruction of the world, knew that there was no forgiving his deed. Being a dabbler in Indian Philosophy, he may have understood that his only judgement was a Prāyascitt, to go through the consequences of his action without complaining, to achieve detachment from the fruits of his deed. While that is commendable, it did not absolve him . That said, it was kind of rich of Oppenheimer to quote Vishnu's Krishna Avatar while overseeing the beginning of the destruction of the world, considering Vishnu incarnated multiple times on this Earth to stem the tide of destruction .
Speaking of which, India had no choice but to arm itself, considering both China and Pakistan had armed themselves with respectively an indirect and direct cooperation of the United States.
The war destroyed so many people- even our heroes came back cursed.
My great grandfather was a B29 pilot, he told me stories about what it was like in the pacific theater. After the bomb dropped, he said he felt a feeling that he could never describe- feeling relief and also feeling like he returned from the dead.
My grandpa was a very kind and warm man, but he always felt distant. It was something I could never explain; he was at peace but he also felt like he hid things (which was strange because he told me all the stories about the war that I asked). Now that I’m older, it seemed he paid a penance for what he was involved in and what he saw- the stories were as a warning for my future.
I’m probably older than you, my Dad served in the Pacific Theater on a PT Boat. One day we were watching TV when I was maybe15 or 16 years old in the 1970’s, it was a documentary on dropping the two bombs in Japan. I can’t remember exactly what I said to him, but it was something to the effect of how terrible those bombs were. He looked me coldly in the eyes and said, “You wouldn’t be here if they didn’t drop those bombs”.
I believe him. Estimates were of a potential 1 million casualties if the Allies invaded Japan to conquer it.
But the bombs did what they were intended to do, thus saving countless lives. And that is a fact. And…….so far……MAD has worked as a deterrent.
The ending of this movie left me mentally distressed. I specifically saw it again with other friends so i could experience it again. The thought of nuclear armageddon has always been a dark thougt in my mind but this movie actually visualized it. Shook me to my core and i feel like i was the only one of my friends who felt this way. A masterpiece of filmmaking. I hope this never becomes a reality but you just never know...
Funny because what we could do to ourselves is A DROP IN THE BUCKET compared to the raw and relenting power the forces of our universe (and even our own solar system and galaxy) could do to us. It just takes one asteroid, one gamma burst ray, one supernova from wiping everything clean (INCLUDING THE PLANET WE ALL LIVE ON). Just live your life and dont worry about shit you cant possibly control.
An asteroid hitting Earth is far worse than a bunch of nukes, we humans are giving ourselves so much credit.
@@AdinaIspas we're most likely to die by our own hands rather than some big rock that would take a million more years to make an impact.
Watch the 1984 film "Threads" if you really want to see an existential crisis-inducing film about nuclear war.
@@thalasowo3373I saw a quote one time, I forget who from and the exact wording, but paraphrasing, I remember it as something like:
I cannot say for sure what weapons world war 3 will be fought with, but world war 4 will be fought with sticks and stones.
I have never seen a movie that made me feel this way and I don’t think I ever will. The sense of existential dread that I felt leaving the theater. The underlying anxiety that never felt like it came to a climax and there was no resolution to it. Unlike most movies that create fear or anxiety there is usually an ending to it. The slow realization that I was living the next part of the movie didn’t allow my anxiety to go away.
There's a possibility that everyone will denuke. But death is certain anyways, why does it matter how?
Movies like this are so rare now. Leaving the theater and thinking about it for hours and days later. So powerful. Thank you for this essay, which allowed me to self reflect a bit more about the reasons why.
You want to talk with a survivor . I lost both ears an eye 4 finger, a foot and I had to be castrated as a survivor was not allowed children for fear of the stories they would have to burden.
True, but it’s not like I don’t see why. People generally go to movies as a form of escapism, to temporarily forget about the unpredictable tortures of life and leave feeling a little better about everything and being more confident about facing those challenges, as opposed to being reminded of how powerless we truly are in the grand scheme of things.
The thing that resonated the most with this movie was seeing Nolan embracing surrealism for the first time in his entire career. While he has been a mostly realistic filmmaker, this movie was half of it surrealist. And he is SO GOOD AT IT. Most times its directors at their youngest years that go surrealistic but Nolan went surreslistic in his early middle age. Thst's fascinsting. Its as if the older he gets the younger he is as a filmmaker. This movie is the kind of movie a 25 years old would do, not a 53 years old man.
kinda like Picasso lol. I love your observation
The persistence of memory
@@ddp5406 one of my top favorite paitings ever. Got the opportunity to saw it for real. It's actually pretty small, much to my surprise.
Vent post: I did 8 years of DoD work despite being significantly against the MIC. 6 years Active Duty and 2 years as a contractor. I enlisted for the reasons most people do (college didn't work out, I was in a ton of debt, I needed something to give me career experience to prevent sliding into the poverty that pervades my family). I was an IT guy in the Navy, so most of my time was spent making emails work and setting up servers for people that make decisions, I never really "made" or "shot" anything. I was more so the grease in the gears of the war machine that outdates us all.
But in the last year I had a real moral dilemma where I didn't wanna be part of it anymore. I was lucky, I don't have any major physical or mental injuries, and I had enough skills and stability provided to me by my service and work to transition to higher education IT work, where now I support students instead of MIC executives and Generals fighting for a political appointment. There's still a guilt there where I can't shake that my comfortable middle class life is drenched in blood. And it is, there's no shaking that, but I struggle with whether whatever distance I interpret from that blood is selfish or realistic.
Sometimes I think of the times where I put my foot down on my morals regarding simple things, like privacy, the health and wellbeing of the sailors who worked under me, calling out leadership etc. But the reality of the things I was part of only get worse. The ships get more deadly and the bombs become more profitable. It feels ridiculous the amount of familiarity I felt watching Oppenheimer, and that final scene was so powerful I bawled my eyes out in the theatres while the credits rolled.
Maybe I'm a moron for being so conflicted in a way that anyone could've predicted. Maybe my guilt is just a shield from responsibility. Maybe I'm a overly-sensitive dork for equating my participation in the War Machine as an E5 and computer guy with the creator of the Atom bomb, but this is at least a commentary for how good Nolan was at capturing those feelings that I don't think tons of people go through.
What a beautifully deep and transparent sharing. I hear you and honor your awareness. As I have come to see the world, it’s such awakenings that you’re describing (time and again) that our soul wanted to experience - and you are. When we know better and do better, we’ve done all our soul ever wanted to experience. Now for the collective and breaking from the shackles of the sickness perpetrated by unfathomably corrupt forces… I think we got that too. It’s so hard but the time has come and the shift is happening. Best wishes to you!
One thing I like about the final shot is the firestorm going across the earth also looks like thousands of nuclear missiles traveling across the globe
I don't watch films. Like, ever. But this one intrigued me and I went to see it with two friends at the cinema. When I came out, I didn't even feel like the same person anymore. This movie both resonated with me, made me scarily conscious of what we have and how it could all disappear in the blink of an eye and made me pensive like nothing ever had before. I could barely sleep the night after seeing it, picturing what the world would look like if we hadn't gotten lucky, if it had all gotten out of control. I felt really strange that my friends seemed to have had a chill experience whilst I could barely hold my tears back the entire car ride home, it was truly one of the best stories and pieces of media I've ever consumed in my entire life.
This is why real cinema is not just “content”, it’s an experience, it can change your life.
well you dont watch films so of course it's one of the best. But it's actually a good film.
Great video and your takeaways are really interesting. My experience of the was a bit more… « meta »… I walked away from the theatre with the feeling of experiencing a chain reaction from the inside. The shipping of the bomb was Oppenheimer’s domino falling. All others were outside of his sight and control. Becoming irrelevant as the chain reaction was now sustaining itself without him.
The Oppenheimer and Dr Manhattan parallel was spot on
Dr Manhattan was based on him
@@kristinaant6239 yes i know
@@user-uo8mx3cv5k then..it should not be a surprise..
Is ozymandias also kind of based on oppenheimer
Three times in my life (so far) I've burst into tears as end-credits begin rolling. Oppenheimer successfully built an inexorable tension between what happened and what we wish would not have happened, and watching the protagonist do what he had to but what we wish he wouldn't have done is terrible. "The lens between wishes and fact" is turned upon us as the audience as it seems to have done to him. The film builds with great genius an emotional tension, using beautiful audible and visual effects to allow us an insight into the magnificence of particle physics (I'm an accountant, but I am in love with the sciences) that we can't help but ride the train of consequence with him. Devastating. Brilliant. Art at its best. (and thank you for bringing Satantango to my awareness)
I saw Oppenheimer for a fourth time today. This film deeply affected me. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it for weeks. Devastating, captivating, a masterpiece. I hope Oppenheimer wins as many Oscars as it deserves (and gets acknowledged for its superiority after the barbie hype dies down lol)
4 times?? Really? What is wrong with you??
@@crimsonpearl4686 wow are you really hating on me for loving something and wanting to see it more bc it makes me happy? lmao 😂 I will probably watch it four times more once the dvd arrives
weirdo! Get a life, its only a damn movie.@@booksandmanga5978
It's an older movie but I also recommend the movie Fat Man and Little Boy.
@@raphmaster23 thank you for the recommendation! I will definitely check it out!
I could be wrong but I love Jean and oppenheimer's relationship. I interpret it as a sort of coinciding story that majorly foreshadows oppenheimer's loss of control and destroying worlds, like jean's world. Again with the dilemma of "how much was he in control of that?" and "how much is he to blame."
It makes a lot of sense to me why she would be the one to bring up the line "I am become death, destroyer of worlds" when they start their relationship.
When Jean dies and Oppenheimer starts freaking out the loss of control of that relationship hit him like a truck. Kitty still says "your country needs YOU" basically and he still had control of his life work.
I loved what Ludwig Göransson did for "Destroyer of Worlds" in that it mimics "Can You Hear the Music" but that it has a far more sinister and foreboding tone. Whereas "Can You Hear the Music" has an optimistic, almost uplifting quality, the companion piece we hear in the final scene fills the listener with such dread. We have been brought into the Great Unknown that is the Quantum Realm, and it is terrifying.
I've never had a movie leave me feeling the way this one did. I got to the end and I was just shaking and almost crying. I haven't seen it a second time yet and it keeps coming back in my head
I saw it opening weekend in IMAX about 6 weeks ago or so and it just stuck with me for so long… so today I decided to go back and see it at the regular theater and it was just as thrilling. Man. Master filmmaking from the auteur director.
Coming out of the cinema, i had an hour busride home and i just kept asking myself, why do we want to destroy ourselves so much? Not just because of nuclear weapons existing, but destroying the climate, wars, the gap between rich and poor, turning a blind eye on crippling world hunger, the housing crisis, the cost of living crisis, the drugs epidemic, inequality in general. We as a humans are absolutely set to destroy ourselves, one way or the other. It might be by the bomb, or just because we're the most selfish, idiotic species on this planet.
Because we are blind
Not the most selfish. It's about us and ours, always has been. Most animals aren't soical enough to raise their own children, let alone form a community.
We are the dumbest smartest animal on the planet
@@kingofhearts3185"Most animals aren't social enough to raise their own children" except for like, birds, mammals, etc. lol
@@orangenostril I don't think you realize how many animals there are in the world, most of which aren't mammals and birds, it's mostly bugs and fish. And the vast majority of them don't raise their young.
He actually probably bought humanity a couple additional generations. It was going to get built anyway, but if it was after WWII, its power would not be appreciated so would've been used at the START of WWIII, after a slew of countries already had it. We owe our existence to this man.
That is a good point.
Not only after multiple countries made them, but after they got much more powerful
And yet now here we are on the threshold of global nuclear war and the government rushing towards it like a runaway freight train.
Between the lives saved stoping a mainland invasion of japan and a demonstrating its power and devistation leading to MAD he saved far more lives then he feels he destroyed. Being at the table early to shape negotiations and treaties and policy saved generations thats for sure.
@@sirken2there’s proof that suggests a mainland invasion of Japan was never going to happen. The movie even addresses that directly, when Oppenheimer says that Japan was on the verge of surrender when the bombs were dropped, and there’s direct quotes from high ranking military personnel at the time that supports this. The idea that killing hundreds of thousands of civilians was “necessary” for bringing back US troops or even saving Japanese lives is basically an idea cooked up to save face, more likely the main incentive for the bombings was as a display of the US’ nuclear might leading into the Cold War. Yes Imperial Japan was evil of the highest order, but the mass genocides at Hiroshima and Nagasaki still shouldn’t be excused as necessary.
Nothing compares to that sense of overwhelming dread I felt, walking out of that cinema, it almost makes everything else feel pointless, it made myself feel pointless, walking out, and I stare around me- a feeling like what now? What matters, when there is this unsolvable, inevitable doom in front of all of us? What now?
Oh I have to admit, the ending got me. That exact moment when the screen went black before the credits roll.. I shed one or two. Fantastic!
Great video and your build up videos to the movie really helped me as well
As a vivid watcher of Nolan, and analysing the man and his movies.
His perception of time, consequences and the fabrique of humanity with his films is something I'm thankful we get.
This story and the first person script, and the choosing of Cillian the star in this movie, and everyone supporting him and his act are such great choices because it's all served for the greater goal of the movie - the greatest tragedy of all - the exploration of the human capability to cruelty in the name of dominance, and nolan's magic ability to capture it all and the personal affects or had on oppenheimer and the world.
The atomic bomb is a life changing event for the human race, and the race for arms in the world is forever changed after that.
I hope people will be able to capture from this movie the importance of understanding the real consequences of your actions and thinking ahead.
Nolan is an all time hack
films for idiots that do not realize they are idiots ... are you one of them?
My brain melted me and my friend drove home completely silent after this movie…I just wish I could watch it for the first time again
All non-franchise films that he wrote himself are time-related. It's as if his life mission is to teach about non-linear time through the medium of cinema.
Everything is time related? It's the medium we all go through.
@@zaidlacksalastname4905"All movies are atom-related, since everything's made of atoms"
After reading a particularly infamous piece of media in my teenage years, non-linear storytelling no longer confuses me as it used to. The narrative structure of said infamous piece of media is perhaps the single most complex timeline ever devised.
Lolr❤r
@@joshuafischer684 Which piece of literature? I'm curious. A hint will suffice.
I'm glad I watched it at IMAX with friends, it was such a good movie, even though I feel like the "Now I am become death" quote was misused.
And the casting? Cillian, RDJ, Einstein, Matt Daemon, even Jack Quaid who is literally just a doppelganger of Richard Feynman
Why was the quote misused?
@@Zarakendog He translates the sanskrit while having sex with his lover instead of saying it when he said it, during a recording of him after the first Trinity test.
Lmao you're absolutely on the money on the Quaid/Feynman. Brilliant casting there.
@@diegowushu Indeed, once I began looking for the side by sides I was a bit baffled about it.
The timing of the quote was more of a foreboding cinematic element, which as a device would have worked in either scenario but I get the impression that Nolan wants the sequence of events to remain non-linear.
If I understand correctly, the quote is from the Bhagavad Gita. It is from a verse in which Arjuna must fight against family members in a civil war and goes on to explain to Lord Krishna that he is conflicted about this. Lord Krishna transforms into a horrible creature that scares him. After that Lord Krishna proclaims “now I have become Death, destroyer of worlds”. This quote, however, is significant because this allows Arjuna to understand that he must fight because it is his duty, regardless of what he may view as good or evil. Oppenheimer too understands that this is his duty as a “warrior”, fighting the greatest evil the world has ever seen, and just like Arjuna, he understands that the bomb is an inevitability and must carry out his duty, regardless of what he views as good or evil. However, unlike Arjuna, once Oppenheimer realizes what he has truly done, he cannot remain pragmatic. This is probably due to the fact that Arjuna simply has to fight and kill his family, Oppenheimer carries the weight of having opened the door to the destruction of humanity and all life on earth on his shoulders. His torment here begins and never ends. That’s why the Prometheus quote comes before anything and is at the beginning of the film, because Oppenheimer suffers the same fate; chained to the rock (in his case is his consciousness, forever tormented) for giving fire to man
Incredible filmmaking throughout. Especially the speech scene will get Cillian Murphy the oscar he deserves, maybe also Nolan for best director. RDJ also stole every scene he was in.
RDJ was great but since Einstein showed up on screen with Strauss I wondered "will Einstein get screen time?" and every scene he was on screen was such a delight.
couldn't disagree more. so many terrible choices. 1 hour dedicated to some security clearance bs. florence pugh being naked just because. i could go on and on and on. and yet tons of people say its great. i feel like im taking crazy pills.
@@ray-mc-lsex scenes were jarring for me, but otherwise I felt really satisfied by the movie. Practically whole cast was great and I didn't get that funny feeling that an actor or actress was there for paycheck.
@@ray-mc-l You're not alone! I though the movie was going to end quite shortly after that disappointing explosion, but it kept going on and on and on with "you're a communist!", "no I'm not a communist!", "oh yes you are", "no I'm not", "yes", "no", "yes" etc etc, with some typical Nolanish fast editing and annoyingly stressful and overdramatic music for no apparent reason. And then that ending scene with a "twist" you saw coming from miles away with an Einstein that ignored Strauss for no reason at all that seemingly was the big deal why Strauss even went after Oppenheimer (yeah I know there was more, but this is what the movie made it out to have happened).
But yeah sure Cillian did a good job, might win an Oscar and I wouldn't complain about it, but Nolan does not deserve it for this movie, he kept on overdoing whatever he have been overdoing for years now.
@@ray-mc-l security clearance was not the point. Him seeking to be punished in order to find redemption very much was. The movie isn't called "The Bomb". It's called "Oppenheimer". It's not period drama, it's a biopic. Oppenheimer was compared to Prometheus a lot and that's an analogy that needed to be established. Ending the movie when Prometheus steals the fire wouldn't tell the whole story of Prometheus either.
Now, is it an apt analogy? That's a different point. Oppenheimer was certainly hoping to be a Prometheus. That would have given his life at least the status of a warning sign. There is no redemption in obscurity.
The sex was jarring alright, but that was completely on point. The scene in the hearing room was overwhelming in a good way. I've never seen a better description of jealousy/feeling of betrayal.
The scene when Oppenheimer gives the speech to the Los Alamos team. The sound design in this scene entire, it’s amazing! It perfectly encapsulates the shock and almost trauma of the enormity of what they did, of what he did 👏 it shook me. But
But, the sweeping gut punch, the almost dread I felt when Strauss’s aide points out Oppenheimer & Einstein weren’t talking about him. 🥺 the almost trauma I felt, the sinking dread, of these two otherworldly intelligent men, who realise, who grasp what has been done.
Then you look back & see Kenneth Branaghs character, he knew too.
They were burdened, knowing what would happen. How he was Prometheus. Giving such terrible power to stupid and arrogant men. The super closeup on Truman’s face is almost gross, terrifying in its way.
And then you think of it. That I, born in 1984 have never breathed air or walked on land not tainted by the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima & Nagasaki.
But the thing that left me sitting in silence after the film ended was that we can never go back 😢
That scene in the first part where they finally test the bomb followed by complete silence for the next minute+ had me silently crying. Just being aware of its impact and what it meant really hit me. it was an overwhelming feeling of dread that had me thinking about that moment for a long time after.
Everyone of his movies & videos are amazing and thought provoking, Nolan's and LSOF.
I didnt understand the "Prometheus gave the humans fire, and was punished by the gods" at first, but then at the ending...
Slowly everything flew together and it all made sense.
He did what the Government wanted, he delivered it, and after that... He was useless for them again, so they threw him away like a disposable razor.
Echoes of True Detective and Rust Cohle resonate in the design of Oppenheimer. Time is a flat circle.
For me, the fact that even though it is a 3 hour film, by the end, you want more.
The story-telling is so engaging that you lose yourself in time, you're just there, experiencing everything before your eyes, every second counting. You don't feel it like 3 hours. You don't feel that by the time we get to Trinity Test, it's 2 hours 20 minutes.
Nolan has this approach to endings where a definite answer is not provided, but one that is ambiguous enough to invite analysis and opinion from the viewer. And that ambiguity complemented by the viewers own impression, personal opinions and even personal bias actually leads to one original opinion, that can be or might not be the real ending Nolan was aiming at. In the end I think its brilliant how he does things. We are carrying his art forward when we try to understand, disseminate and complete his endings!!!
Thats my 2 cents!!
Often times the greatest art doesn't give us the right answers, it makes us ask the right questions.
This is probably the best philosophical analysis of Oppenheimer on the web
I never knew I would, but I cried on that last part. That realization hit and oh god I prayed again
One of the most haunting and horrifying ending of any film. This film is such a masterpiece.
I cried almost for the whole 3 hours. The context of the 20. century coming up all the time was brutal. The film was visually also very beautiful and truly touching.
Talking about the "change of heart" of Oppenheimer regarding national security issues, I think the key point is his discussion with Truman.
Before that discussion he also rejected to sign the petition for Szilard and Hill, which is a little controversial with his future decisions.
That's because after talking with Truman, who was clearly pictured as a burocrat that doesn't even remember the name of the second city that was nuked and did not care at all about scientific matters, he clearly changed his mind.
So at the end of "fission", when the lawyer asked him why he had changed his mind in that regard (underlining his suspects of Oppenheimer's bonds with communists), he couldn't answer properly because he clearly disagreed with Truman point of view and a declaration like that could really put himself in a bad position in front of the commission (they could have pictured him as a traitor or something like that).
So is this the key turning point in Oppenheimer's opinion or maybe is simply his last meeting with Einstein in 1947 which is also the last scene of the movie?
A systematic destruction of chaos was the intention until the prison of his [Oppenheimer] ambition gave birth to a new era chaos of mankind. Unleashing the power within the atom is only matched by the force of human emotion. Time falls away when this happens. Scientifically and narratively, Nolan’s work obsesses between this relationship.
Nolan's fracturing of time helps people who cannot contain the immensity of the themes and quandaries those involved in these events faces to face them themselves, to feel them, and to understand that no answer or resolution is even possible.
I'd usually chalk it up to my autism...but honestly this movie has been stuck in my mind since it's release....and honestly its been a long time since I've seen a film that felt like art in this modern age.
I guess being a military brat and son of a missilier all the feelings folks have about the depression the images of such destruction have been already left me. Learning from your Father rather early on that " the places we live you wouldn't even see a bright light" and " you never would have to know the horrors or nuclear fallout" just hits diffrent. I remember being given a shirt that said x location number one thought on Russian missles minds. There is some solace knowing everywhere I have ever lived would be completly and utterly devastated and I wouldn't feel or see a thing was oddly comforting when you think of MAD.
Driving home from the theater after seeing this movie with my one friend whom I went to see it with, we were quite for a few minutes of the ride. Then I said I'm thinking about the last line, and he replied with same. It's gets you thinking about the huge change the invention of the atomic bomb had and still has on the world. The surrealism of what could be possible with this bomb. I never thought about it that deeply when learning about it in school, and the film helped me realize that. One of the reasons why I love cinema is that it can give a great understanding of history.
I’d strongly recommend two books for anyone who likes this video and ponders over the movies ideas:
Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked it All Up by Tom Phillips
&
But What if We’re Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past by Chuck Klosterman
The beyond Prometheus section was very moving. Great video!
You are an exceptional story teller, sir. I actually ponder life more deeply because of what you share. I often wind up exploring film (and myself) after absorbing your content. It all resonates and provides much more texture to these works of art. Nolan is gem. He and Terrance Malik are my favorite. I’m going to register for the trial to Mubi - really looking forward to experiencing Santantango - one sitting. Thank you.
The fear of atomic annihilation has been the one thing that has stuck with me from things that frightened me as a child, because of all the monsters that I could imagine in my closet and under my bed, this one was the only one that I still know there is a non-zero chance of happening.
Wonderfully informative brilliantly visual essay. Best film I’ve seen in decades and your analysis of it is perfect. Thank you for not oversimplifying or dumbing down the complexities of both the man and the director and for zeroing in on the significance of what is the Atomic Age.
This is the absolute best video on Oppenheimer and I have seen a lot of them. Just phenomenal analysis. Wow, great video. Liked and subbed
I haven’t watched the Oscar’s in 25 years! I will be watching this year! I believe that they should be awarded every Oscar that they are nominated for. Brilliantly executed and captivating!
Another wonderful video. I love how you connected it to our present
I never leave comments on videos, but this was excellent! Fantastic video!
The quote you play from Memento is exactly the idea of the end of Oppenheimer ⭐️
To misquote a different movie, "Just because we could doesn't mean we should."
I went to see this movie alone, I was away on business and bored so I went to see the movie to pass the time. I have a deep passion for history and I also have a deep understanding of science as I spent 8 years in university studying science. I love learning science history, so this movie was a must see for me! When the credits rolled I sat there for ten minutes in shock by the last line of the movie!! Of course he was right; our ego's are too powerful, humans are after all animals, and animals must be true to their purest nature. Our species' nature is play nice when not threatened, but; when threatened all bets are off. Eventually, inevitably someone will come to power who's ego is so over-inflated and so unwilling to be questioned that they will commit any act, I repeat any act to not be exposed as weak and powerless and will commit any atrocity to protect their self-image, including pushing the button that will bring about the demise of all of humanity! Two people currently in the spot light spring to mind just now! Hmmmmm, I wonder who that might be?
I left the movie with the same somatic feelings I experience during acute overwhelming stress events, what I feel is pure anxiety.
Damn. I feel like this whole movie was made just for this review and your insights. You my friend are so thoughtful. I wish I could do justice to art as you do.
The conversation between Oppenheimer and Groves hits harder at the ending. The chance that the Trinity nuclear detonation creates a chain reaction which will set ablaze the entire Earth is "near zero", yet as Matt Damon's Groves puts it, we would like it better if it was just "zero".
I hope somebody makes a biopic of Richard Feynman ( as a TV series) and re-hires Quaid to play the part
A line that is so in the past and yet still looms over us even to this day, that the dominos might still be falling. It's terrifying.
As an engineer, when I finished the movie, I started to question my morality, as an engineer I did a lot of things, from building simple toys to building weapons. Where is the line drawn? Where helping people will result in killing people. I don't know, and I will continue to do my job. But, a reminder always be in my mind, to do the right thing, even if the world will burn me.
dont build weapons
Thank you. You have a duty to yourself. I’m the kind of asshole, who thinks novelty items are listen… Because I use resources to create something that will give a chuckle or two and then head to the landfill. Is it possible to overthink things? Sure. If we thought about the consequences of our reaction, we would never get out of bed. But… As has been sad… If we consider the consequences of our actions down to the seventh generation… That’s a good place to begin.
Idk about anything or how much it was intentional, but i liked how in the end, Strauss destroyed Oppy, and Oppy - in a way, by having a friend who stood up for him in the senate - destroyed Strauss.
Mutually assured destruction, much pike what they talked about at the table.
Great analyses as always. One thing made me wonder though. You say it's naive of Oppenheimer to think this bomb would create world peace. While I think the point of the movie is that there's no conclusion as to whether that's true or not true. Because the atomic bomb has in fact created more world peace then ever before while at the same time it created a potential devestating worldwar never seen before. You can see Oppenheimer struggling with this contradiction without solution
When I saw Oppenheimer's ending, the music alone made me cry.
I need to watch so many of these on some of my favorites. This is some top notch content
I think it's one of a very small number of films which end with a bleak, devastating, and overwhelming reflection on the world as it is to the viewer.
And viewing it ten, twenty, thirty years from now will have the same impact, because nuclear weapons more than likely will still be seen as a threat. To me it feels like, in both the film and the real world, that the Trinity test brought upon the world a complete paradigm shift, changing it permanently. The fiery beginning of the atomic age.
So in a sense, the timeline of Oppenheimer skips to the frame of reference of the viewer, which is in this case, 2023. And as you say, it prompts the viewer to reflect on other contemporary crises and threats the world faces.
now this is cinema
The ending reminded me of a workshop I was part of with a bunch of experts in nuclear arms control a couple of years ago. They made it abundantly clear then that the state of arms control is dire, arguably as bad as it has been since the height of the cold war. What little arms control we have had between the two great nuclear powers has been damaged, and we are on track to have a third large nuclear power (China) unbounded by arms treaties. Unless we act, especially people in the US, Russia, and China, we will be racing to a catastrophic nuclear war.
Well made. I was bereft at the end of this film. The tension built the whole way through, clarifying consequences. Based on everything I’ve seen from humanity since the 1940s, it feels like it’s just a matter of time. Will we find a way before that happens or will we have to rebuild in the aftermath? We’ll see…
To quote W.H. Auden: "We are all lived by powers we pretend to understand."
Another masterpiece, excelent movie, 10/10.
It is insane… always liked Nolan’s films but never loved them. They always felt like they were trying too hard, and were too serious and didn’t quite strike the balance of serious/grand and realistic/human that Oppenheimer strikes so masterfully. The bomb scene, the speech scene, the Truman scene and, of course, the epilogue are some of the perfectly directed, acted and written scenes I’ve ever seen in my life. What a movie, man lol.
I can barely remember this movie, but I do recall leaving with the impression that the movie sugarcoated who Oppenheimer was to a sickening degree.
I haven’t watched this yet because I don’t have time right now, but I’ve never hit ‘save to watch later’ more quickly in my life.
The fade from global temps to the firestorm was a good edit!
This is the best video essay about Oppenheimer I’ve seen
I watched this a few days ago with a friend. I was left feeling exhausted after the film. Then the ending hit me about an hour later like a ton of bricks. I need to watch this again
I love your analysis style, so deep not just the superficial usual review. Thank you!
Always a pleasant surprise to see a new upload from you. Appreciate your work homie
I read one of Richard Feynman’s books several years ago where he speaks about his time at Los Alamos, very insightful.
This is by far the best essay on Nolan's masterpiece I've seen. Only quibble: not his only tragedy, FOLLOWING, MEMENTO, and THE PRESTIGE are tragedies. (cough will not stoop to a Dark Knight Rises joke cough)
Im Japanese and as you know it only came out in Japan in March 2024 and I finally got to watched it. Whether for good or bad we live in a world thats forever changed. I cannnot explain why but I cried watching this film.
Life is a flat circle, much like a vinyl record on replay. Each time the record is replayed, there is an unrecognized minuscule variation in the sound it transmits. The end of each play, like the end of each of our days, becomes the new normal
Hands down, This is by far the best video you made and the best film Nolan made. 🙌
14:00 In some versions, Prometheus wasn't tortured for eternity.
Heracles would eventually remove his chains.
Youth is full of ambition and achieving goals. Senior years are full of regrets or what ifs.
Moral of the story: Be careful of what you wish for.
Oppenheimer hoped to create something that could end all wars, but instead created something that could end humanity, his intentions were pure, but underestimated the people who had the finger on the trigger, the innate drive of humans to be with conflict with each other, giving every superpower a weapon that could threaten everyone, everywhere.
My uncle was a physicist who worked on the project so I had his point of view decades ago. It was a sobering view but Edgar felt he had to help because we had to develop nuclear power before our enemy did.
I dont want to tear down one thing just to elevate another, but the contrast between the two big "history" movies that came out this year is striking.
One of them handled the true history with a certain amount of respect and still managed to make what is arguably one of the best written, directed, acted, and filmed movies of the century so far..
The other one was Napolean.
Watch them back to back.. You'll think Oppenheimer is the single best thing ever filmed in the history of movies lol (tbf it is really really damn good)
Glad you finally understand, in the podcast you seemed dissapointed...