Long awaited and great film Christopher Nolan Oppenheimer now in American theaters, instead it will only arrive here on August 23, bringing the story with it J. Robert Oppenheimer and development of the first atomic bomb. Despite the fact that there is still a month left before the release of the film in our local cinemas, it was interesting to analyze one of the final dialogues for all those who, while watching foreign content, asked themselves a few more questions about some aspects of the dialogue film. ending.
Focusing more on Oppenheimer, played by Cillian Murphy, than on the bomb itself, the film is presented in a non-linear format that goes beyond his early years and his time at the helm Manhattan Projectbut also the later years and the impact they had on his personal and political life, especially as Oppenheimer came to understand what befell the world after the ordeal. Trinity.
The key to all this is the interaction between Oppenheimer AND Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) in 1947, which appears several times in the film, but which is of particular importance precisely at the end of the film, when we discover the true meaning of the moment. And this is a moment that makes viewers think about a lot.
Warning: Oppenheimer has spoilers beyond this point.
At various points in Oppenheimer’s life, we are shown excerpts from Oppenheimer’s brief meeting with Einstein in 1947, when Oppenheimer was offered a job at the head ofInstitute for Advanced Study Princeton from Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) For most of the film, the only glimpses of this meeting we get are a side view – especially from Strauss, who only sees it from a distance and doesn’t actually hear the conversation between the two scientists and therefore assumes the features are his. This suggestion is included by Strauss in a list of grievances against Oppenheimer and ultimately fuels his efforts to destroy Oppenheimer’s reputation.
However, at the end of the film, the viewer is finally shown the true nature of that conversation. One of the things that is established in the film is that much of the “younger” generation of physicists, namely Oppenheimer and his group, see Einstein as the man who put forward the idea of quantum physics but never accepted it; Einstein is presented as part of the past. However, a conversation with Oppenheimer reveals that in fact Einstein is fully aware of what his work led to and the consequences that follow from it, and clarifies to Oppenheimer that he is now an “old” scientist who also has to deal with what he brought . forward.
“You all thought that I lost the ability to understand what I started“, says Einstein to Oppenheimer, and then adds: “Now it’s your turn to face the consequences of your achievements.“.
Einstein delivers other harsh truths, telling Oppenheimer that the scientific establishment will come to praise him, give him awards and honors, forgive him and treat him well, but that, in the end, these awards will not be for him, but for them. . a kind of absolution – and indeed, viewers get a glimpse into the future of Oppenheimer’s life, and that’s exactly what we see.
But perhaps the most frightening aspect of the interaction is not what Einstein says to Oppenheimer, but what Oppenheimer says to Einstein. As Einstein leaves, Oppenheimer reminds another scientist of a time in the early days of the Manhattan Project when Oppenheimer was troubled by calculations that if they detonated an atomic bomb, they could start a chain reaction that would never end and start a fire. into the atmosphere, thereby destroying the world. When Einstein asks Oppenheimer “What’s happened?Oppenheimer responds:i think we didbefore the film ends on Oppenheimer’s face, and then cuts to an ever-growing array of images of modern nuclear missiles and nuclear explosions taken from Oppenheimer’s cataclysmic visions.
The Meaning of Oppenheimer’s Words.i think we did“not literally, but clearly. Although the Trinity test and the subsequent atomic bombs did not set off an uncontrolled chain reaction that ignited the atmosphere and instantly destroyed the world, they set off a new kind of chain reaction in which the governments of the world continue to create and develop more and more powerful thermonuclear devices with even greater and terrifying abilities to destroy life and the world.. A catastrophic chain reaction had indeed taken place, but perhaps not in the way he initially feared.
“It’s an intense experience because it’s an intense story. I recently showed it to the director, who said it was like a horror movie. I disagree“Nolan told Wired about it. “It’s interesting that you used the word “nihilism” before because I don’t think I was able to point the finger at it. But when I started to finish the film, I started to feel this color, which is not in my other films, only darkness. Eat. The movie fights it“.
Joining Oppenheimer as Cillian Murphy are Emily Blunt as Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, Michael Angarano in Robert Serber, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence, Dylan Arnold as Frank Oppenheimer, David Krumholtz as Isidor Isaac Raby, Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush, Josh Peck as Kenneth Bainbridge, Devon Bostick as Seth Neddermeyer, Matthias Schweighöfer in as Werner Heisenberg, Christopher Denham as Klaus Fuchs, Guy Burnet as George Eltenton, Danny Deferrari as Enrico Fermi, Emma Dumont as Jackie Oppenheimer, Gustav Skarsgård as Hans Bethe, Trond Faus Aurvog as George Kistiakowski and Gary Oldman in the role of Harry S. Truman.
Oppenheimer it is based on the novel American Prometheus, Pulitzer Prize-winning Kai Byrd and Martin J. Sherwin: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. The film will arrive in Italy on 23 August.