Arguably two of the most important events in 20th century US history were the invention of and use against an enemy of the atomic bomb in 1945 and the assassination of president John F. Kennedy in 1963.
Writer-director Christopher Nolan has covered the first rather well in Oppenheimer (2023) while Oliver Stone did a wonderful job with mostly disproved theories in JFK (1991).
Both are great thrillers based on outcomes which most cinema goers know well.
The USA did invent the atomic bomb and its government did drop two of them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, thankfully still the only two times in 78 years in which a nuclear bomb has been exploded on humankind.
Kennedy was gunned down in Dallas in 1963 and conspiracy theories have raged for 60 years as to whether his accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, or even fired the shots. To add to the conspiracy, Oswald was murdered two days later inside Dallas county jail so his protestations of innocence did not make a courtroom.
Oppenheimer and JFK have a lot of similarities but one hopes the resources from which the first sprung – ‘American Prometheus: the Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer’ – has a more factual base than Jim Garrison’s ‘On the Trail of the Assassins’ and Jim Mars’s Crossfire: The Plot that Killed Kennedy’, the sources of the second.
Nolan and Stone wrote the screenplays from the work of these authors.
Historian Martin Sherwin worked for two decades on what would become ‘American Prometheus’ before writer Kai Bird pieced all his research together. The two shared the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for biography/autobiography as co-authors of this work.
In a swift-moving three hours, Nolan has created a movie which has all the elements of a thriller because Oppenheimer isn’t just about the man overseeing the project which created the atomic bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico. It is also about his post World War II humiliation when he was seen as a security risk because of his lukewarm attitude to the planned hydrogen bomb and concerns his government would create an arms race against its possible foes.
He wanted it to be a deterrent rather than a weapon.
Unfortunately for him, Klaus Fuchs, one of his team at Los Alamos, had leaked the knowledge to the Soviet Union and the world knew one wrong step by one erratic leader could lead to that world’s oblivion. Another argument was that both sides having the knowledge gave hope that neither felt under armed and therefore at the mercy of the other.
So, as JFK recounted the story of what happened after the president’s assassination, using an ensemble cast (Kevin Bacon, John Candy, Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, Gary Oldman, Joe Pesci, Sissy Spacek, Donald Sutherland) playing real people with the occasional composite and told through flashbacks and courtroom scenes, so too does Oppenheimer.
Casey Affleck, Emily Blunt, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Conti, Matt Damon, Robert Downey jun, Josh Hartnett, Rami Malek, Cillian Murphy and Gary Oldman provide cameos and star turns playing characters who were there – in Oppenheimer’s student and teaching life; at Los Alamos; and at the ‘courtroom’ scenes. These are in fact a hearing requested by Oppenheimer (Murphy) to challenge his security refusal (1954) and the confirmation senate hearing to approve the presidential appointment of Lewis Strauss (Downey jun) as Secretary of Commerce (1958).
Like JFK, some of the scenes were shot in black and white to capture the reality of what Americans would have seen on that era’s televisions.
Strauss had been chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, created post-war to manage what Oppenheimer and his team had created. He and the physicist were close.
Telling more of the story would ruin the drama.
Suffice to say, the creation of Los Alamos and its very deadly weapon are well told without bogging the viewer in the science. The recreation of the first test is well handled and its outcome has vastly different reactions from some of its creators. While proud of their scientific achievement, many are not ready for what its use will mean; others understanding but expecting it to be a one-off; still others rejoicing in that it will bring a certain end to seven (in their case four) years of war.
Oppenheimer himself is stricken and utters to himself the most-famous line from the Hindu text, the ‘Bhagavad Gita’: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” The quote also gets a mention during a seduction scene earlier in the film.
<See: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/manhattan-project-robert-oppenheimer for a more nuanced reference to this quote.>
The talented Murphy, so well-known as Tommy Shelby, the charismatic gangster in Peaky Blinders, gives a fine performance in the titular role; Downey jun is superb as Strauss (although occasionally slipping back into lippy-Downey jun mode); Blunt plays Kitty Oppenheimer with her usual aplomb and Damon, looking like he’s had quite a few corned beef sandwiches since being Jason Bourne, is another top-level player at the top of his game as Lieutenant-General Leslie Groves.
Not as good as Dunkirk (2017) but Nolan is that rare film maker: whatever he releases has to be watched.
FOOTNOTES:
- In Stephen Romei’s review of Oppenheimer in The Australian newspaper, he referred to an unrecognisable Gary Oldman playing US president Harry S. Truman. Oldman is a favourite of mine but I had forgotten this reference when Truman came on screen. I sat well forward to see who was playing the role (I thought it was someone famous but had no idea).
- Some genius coined the phrase “Barbenheimer” when Barbie and Oppenheimer were both released theatrically on 21 July, 2023. Without labouring a probably poorly-made point, Barbie had a serious message but I thought it preached to me. Oppenheimer too had a very serious message but I did not feel I was preached at.
4.5
I WRIGHT 