It's Barbenheimer Week!
Aug. 14th, 2023 11:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cjlasky7Yes, I'm giving into the hype and seeing both Oppenheimer and Barbie, hoping to gain some insight into the collective mind of the movie-going public and maybe the zeitgeist in general. (I caught Oppenheimer with shadowkat on Saturday in Manhattan; I plan to watch Barbie in Brooklyn on Wednesday. So call it a time-delayed Barbenheimer.)
Anyway, on to serious matters:
I. Oppenheimer: In Theory
I can't be objective about this movie, not entirely. The events presented are not some abstract discussion of world history 75 years past; these events directly shaped my family, and continue to shape me and my family today. So with that in mind, let's dive in. To mirror Nolan's methodology, I'm going to view the same movie from two different perspectives:
a. Wave
The central event of the movie is a conversation between Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) on the grounds of Princeton just after World War Two. Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) is hanging back, just out of earshot. We don't hear what they're talking about until the very end of the film, but it doesn't matter: all three players assembled here are the basis for the entire time line of the film. Einstein is both the ghost from the past and a warning about the future; and Strauss will embody Oppenheimer's future (and ours) in all his petty grievances and apocalyptic designs.
I call Einstein a ghost from the past because even though he does not participate in the Manhattan Project, his theories start the chain reaction of events in the movie. The untold energy lying in the heart of the atom (the "e" in "e=mc2") is the hidden treasure hunted by theoretical physicists and warmongers alike. (Once that genie is out of the bottle, no amount of regret or handwringing will put it back in.) The film cascades from one brilliant discovery or catastrophe to another, the energy from one nucleus splitting the next, raindrops creating ripples on a pond--until the U.S. military decides to split the atom to make the Bomb, and have Oppenheimer make it a reality.
[This is where my personal feelings come in.
Should Oppenheimer (or any of his team) have refused the assignment (no matter what the consequences)? Because on some level, anyone involved with the Manhattan Project knew the devastating potential of atomic weapons. Looking back, the A-bomb is nothing short of a crime against humanity--the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the thousands who died from nuclear testing, not to mention the big honking nuclear sword of Damocles that's been hanging over our heads since Trinity.
But the threat of Nazi Germany was the apocalypse staring us in the face in 1940. If Hitler got his hands on the Bomb, it would have been the end of civilization as we know it. (Yes, as it turns out, the German heavy water experiments were going nowhere--but we only found out about that much, much later.) As Jews, Oppenheimer and men like Rabi knew the true scope of the horror, the possibility of Kristallnacht magnified by untold thousands, millions. Faced with what they saw as an existential threat, they agreed to the unthinkable. Given my own history, I could never judge them.]
Einstein was also a warning for the future, on both a personal level for Oppenheimer and a global level. Because Einstein knew that once political backlash died down, there would be reassessments and honors as you transition from Man of the Moment to Historical Figure. He'd done all that decades before. He also knew that once those accolades had been passed out and then stored away, all that's left for Oppenheimer is to ponder his place in the chain reaction Einstein started decades earlier--a chain reaction that continues to this day.
b. Particle
Early in the movie, Oppenheimer describes one of the peculiarities of quantum theory: that light, under certain conditions, can be both a wave and a particle. Nolan embodies this seeming contradiction in Oppenheimer himself.
Was Oppenheimer a loyal American or a communist sympathizer? Egomaniac or ultimate team player? Faithful husband or philanderer? Conscientious scientist or horseman of the apocalypse? Depends on whom you ask. For men like Strauss and Harry Truman (played with a truly nasty streak by Gary Oldman), Oppenheimer was an obstacle to both United States hegemony and personal ambitions, to be swatted aside while they pursued greater things. To David L. Hill (Rami Malek), he was a representative of all the voices cautioning against the Bomb after the war. But no matter how good Hill's speech makes you feel, neither (in my opinion) was exactly true.
[OT: Tom Stoppard covered a lot of the same territory--quantum theory as a reflection of human behavior--in "Hapgood," but I think Oppenheimer works better as a subject than Stoppard's double agents.]
The problem with a man like Oppenheimer is that he was totally comfortable in the theoretical, but he never figured how to reconcile theory with the real world. He would dabble in the Spanish Civil War, in unionizing, but he never really committed himself to the cause. He was straddling both worlds, caught in the liminal space between them. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't deal with the Uncertainty Principle very well; one of the most fascinating scenes in the movie was when a government prosecutor (a gleefully hostile Jason Clarke) forces Oppenheimer to consider his contradictory impulses simultaneously--turning the normally eloquent scientist into a babbling, incoherent wreck.
We never do get a Unified Theory of Oppenheimer.
******************************
This was one atomic explosion of a movie: beautifully shot, superbly acted, guaranteed to provoke debate--about historical inaccuracies, forgotten voices and the morality of the Atomic Age. (I have to single out the sound design and Ludwig Goranssen's score as key components in the overall aesthetic.)
If I have one complaint, it's in the final act.
We switch back and forth between Oppenheimer's post-war security clearance review (a kangaroo court) and Strauss' confirmation hearing a few years later (should be a slam dunk). Downey absolutely kills it as Strauss--his egomania, his sly manipulations, and his sheer pettiness have to remind you of politicians polluting the landscape today. But while Downey is razzle dazzling us, Cillian Murphy is scrunched into the corner of a conference room, passively listening as witnesses tear Oppenheimer's reputation to shreds. I was totally with his wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt): speak up! Fight back! DO something! Not because I cared about Oppy's security clearance all that much, but because I hate when a formerly active protagonist suddenly goes limp for a long stretch of the movie.
[I hated the last episode of Seinfeld, when the greatest TV comedy team of the 1990s literally rode the bench while the B squad testified. I hated when Henry Cavill's Superman stayed silent and struck Alex Ross poses while HIS reputation was knocked around in BvS. It just gets on my nerves....]
That one complaint aside, a fantastic movie. Go see it, preferably on the biggest screen possible.
Bonus review: The Meg 2 - The Trench
What? My wife loves Jason Statham. I had no choice.
My recommendation: pay for something else, then sneak in after the first hour. It's more fun that way. Trust me.
Anyway, on to serious matters:
I. Oppenheimer: In Theory
I can't be objective about this movie, not entirely. The events presented are not some abstract discussion of world history 75 years past; these events directly shaped my family, and continue to shape me and my family today. So with that in mind, let's dive in. To mirror Nolan's methodology, I'm going to view the same movie from two different perspectives:
a. Wave
The central event of the movie is a conversation between Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and Albert Einstein (Tom Conti) on the grounds of Princeton just after World War Two. Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) is hanging back, just out of earshot. We don't hear what they're talking about until the very end of the film, but it doesn't matter: all three players assembled here are the basis for the entire time line of the film. Einstein is both the ghost from the past and a warning about the future; and Strauss will embody Oppenheimer's future (and ours) in all his petty grievances and apocalyptic designs.
I call Einstein a ghost from the past because even though he does not participate in the Manhattan Project, his theories start the chain reaction of events in the movie. The untold energy lying in the heart of the atom (the "e" in "e=mc2") is the hidden treasure hunted by theoretical physicists and warmongers alike. (Once that genie is out of the bottle, no amount of regret or handwringing will put it back in.) The film cascades from one brilliant discovery or catastrophe to another, the energy from one nucleus splitting the next, raindrops creating ripples on a pond--until the U.S. military decides to split the atom to make the Bomb, and have Oppenheimer make it a reality.
[This is where my personal feelings come in.
Should Oppenheimer (or any of his team) have refused the assignment (no matter what the consequences)? Because on some level, anyone involved with the Manhattan Project knew the devastating potential of atomic weapons. Looking back, the A-bomb is nothing short of a crime against humanity--the deaths at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the thousands who died from nuclear testing, not to mention the big honking nuclear sword of Damocles that's been hanging over our heads since Trinity.
But the threat of Nazi Germany was the apocalypse staring us in the face in 1940. If Hitler got his hands on the Bomb, it would have been the end of civilization as we know it. (Yes, as it turns out, the German heavy water experiments were going nowhere--but we only found out about that much, much later.) As Jews, Oppenheimer and men like Rabi knew the true scope of the horror, the possibility of Kristallnacht magnified by untold thousands, millions. Faced with what they saw as an existential threat, they agreed to the unthinkable. Given my own history, I could never judge them.]
Einstein was also a warning for the future, on both a personal level for Oppenheimer and a global level. Because Einstein knew that once political backlash died down, there would be reassessments and honors as you transition from Man of the Moment to Historical Figure. He'd done all that decades before. He also knew that once those accolades had been passed out and then stored away, all that's left for Oppenheimer is to ponder his place in the chain reaction Einstein started decades earlier--a chain reaction that continues to this day.
b. Particle
Early in the movie, Oppenheimer describes one of the peculiarities of quantum theory: that light, under certain conditions, can be both a wave and a particle. Nolan embodies this seeming contradiction in Oppenheimer himself.
Was Oppenheimer a loyal American or a communist sympathizer? Egomaniac or ultimate team player? Faithful husband or philanderer? Conscientious scientist or horseman of the apocalypse? Depends on whom you ask. For men like Strauss and Harry Truman (played with a truly nasty streak by Gary Oldman), Oppenheimer was an obstacle to both United States hegemony and personal ambitions, to be swatted aside while they pursued greater things. To David L. Hill (Rami Malek), he was a representative of all the voices cautioning against the Bomb after the war. But no matter how good Hill's speech makes you feel, neither (in my opinion) was exactly true.
[OT: Tom Stoppard covered a lot of the same territory--quantum theory as a reflection of human behavior--in "Hapgood," but I think Oppenheimer works better as a subject than Stoppard's double agents.]
The problem with a man like Oppenheimer is that he was totally comfortable in the theoretical, but he never figured how to reconcile theory with the real world. He would dabble in the Spanish Civil War, in unionizing, but he never really committed himself to the cause. He was straddling both worlds, caught in the liminal space between them. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't deal with the Uncertainty Principle very well; one of the most fascinating scenes in the movie was when a government prosecutor (a gleefully hostile Jason Clarke) forces Oppenheimer to consider his contradictory impulses simultaneously--turning the normally eloquent scientist into a babbling, incoherent wreck.
We never do get a Unified Theory of Oppenheimer.
******************************
This was one atomic explosion of a movie: beautifully shot, superbly acted, guaranteed to provoke debate--about historical inaccuracies, forgotten voices and the morality of the Atomic Age. (I have to single out the sound design and Ludwig Goranssen's score as key components in the overall aesthetic.)
If I have one complaint, it's in the final act.
We switch back and forth between Oppenheimer's post-war security clearance review (a kangaroo court) and Strauss' confirmation hearing a few years later (should be a slam dunk). Downey absolutely kills it as Strauss--his egomania, his sly manipulations, and his sheer pettiness have to remind you of politicians polluting the landscape today. But while Downey is razzle dazzling us, Cillian Murphy is scrunched into the corner of a conference room, passively listening as witnesses tear Oppenheimer's reputation to shreds. I was totally with his wife, Kitty (Emily Blunt): speak up! Fight back! DO something! Not because I cared about Oppy's security clearance all that much, but because I hate when a formerly active protagonist suddenly goes limp for a long stretch of the movie.
[I hated the last episode of Seinfeld, when the greatest TV comedy team of the 1990s literally rode the bench while the B squad testified. I hated when Henry Cavill's Superman stayed silent and struck Alex Ross poses while HIS reputation was knocked around in BvS. It just gets on my nerves....]
That one complaint aside, a fantastic movie. Go see it, preferably on the biggest screen possible.
Bonus review: The Meg 2 - The Trench
What? My wife loves Jason Statham. I had no choice.
My recommendation: pay for something else, then sneak in after the first hour. It's more fun that way. Trust me.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-15 01:32 am (UTC)Interesting review. I agree for the most part.
A few comments? (OR rather my attempt to explain why Oppenheimer did not fight back and it would in fact have been out of character and wrong from Oppenheimer's perspective to have done so.)
1. The bit about needing to make it before the German's did - helped me to understand why Oppenhiemer and the others did participate in the Manhattan Project - they were legitmately worried about Germany getting it first. In fact there's a great line - where he tells Toller that "the difference between you and me, is that they are my people who are at risk here not yours." And another great line, again Oppenheimer - "Our one advantage against Heinsberg's team, is anti-semitism - that will keep them behind. Hitler hates Jews so badly, he won't let them on the team." Almost all of the scientists on the Manhattan Project were Jewish - Oppenheimer was a New York Jew from Brooklyn, along with his friend.
2. The first bit is important - because this is the justification that Oppenhiemer uses throughout to do the unthinkable - create an atomic bomb. (And honestly, I'm right there with you - I can't fault him for that - Germany getting the bomb first is worse - because Hitler would have used it in ways that no one else would.) Oppenheimer was legitmately terrified of the Nazi regime and hated it with a passion - he left Germany for the US because of it. (That's subtly hinted at.) Anyhow, there's an interesting conversation between Oppenheimer and Einstein - where Oppenheimer shows Einstein the bit of paper - where they've made the calculations for the atomic bomb. Einstein states - "okay, stall as long as you can, then share this knowledge with the Nazis or whomever the opponent is - that way neither of you will use it." (This comes into play later - with what the scientists and Oppehniemer want to do with Russia and why. But it's telling that Einstein is so afraid of the bomb - he wants Oppehnheimer to share it with the Nazis...I did a doubletake when I heard that.)
3. Okay, keeping in mind that Oppenheimer has been using the whole the Germans can't get it first as his motivation (along with the science of it) - which I completely get - Nolan did a brilliant job of getting that across. If I were Oppenheimer - I'd have done the same things. There's a sudden plot twist in the third act - which I should have seen coming but I don't remember my history that well.
By the time they figured out the atomic bomb - Germany was about to surrender, and in fact kind of did. They were in negotiations with Russia on how to divide the territory at that point. The scientists were like - oh, okay, they surrendered, we've won? Now what? While the government was - full speed ahead, we still have the Japanese to worry about. (It's important to remember that the US. entered WWII because of Japan and the War in the Pacific and the threat to US soil and territory, not because of Germany. So from a US (non-Jewish, non-humanitarian perspective) the real War was with Japan. And the Japanese did not want to surrender easily. (They had suicide bombers.) )
But from Oppenheimer and his team's perspective - when Germany surrendered - it was kind of over?
They reluctantly kept going, but at this point they began to question what next? And that's important in regards to what happens later. There was a petition that Hill passed around - to tell Truman not to drop the bomb. (It wouldn't have mattered one way or the other if Oppenheimer signed it - Truman was going to drop that bomb regardless as Truman tells Oppenheimer himself. But from Oppenheimer's perspective it mattered.) And it comes up in the hearings later. Oppenheimer didn't sign - mainly because he didn't see a point, and because it could get him kicked out of the program. But he does try to make motions towards having the Russians know about it at least (although he didn't personally tell them, he protected those who did to a degree, but not quite enough from his perspective.).
What's important to remember - is the color portions of the film are in Oppenheimer's perspective only. First person close. Not third person. And he's devastated by the Trinity Test. His people are safe. At the point the Trinity Test happens - Germany had already surrendered. And he knows...KNOWS with absolutely certainty that this thing he has created will be used to kill millions. He doesn't want to know it. In fact they ask - and Hill says: "So, it's just a test right? You're not going to actually drop it on anyone?" Grossman: "No, no, we'll do it on an unihabitated island somewhere, and
show them the footage - do it as a test, that should be enough."
4. Nagaski and Hiroshima. Dear god. Can you imagine what it would be like to be Oppenheimer and learn that this bomb you created was dropped on those two cities? In the interrogation with Jason Clark - Oppenheimer knows the exact number of people killed on both islands, the exact number of casulaties, the exact number injured. He has the statistics and data at his fingertips, and he is trembling as he quotes it. Barely getting it out.
In the scene with Truman, he states that he feels he has blood on his hands.
His people were safe. He had no personal beef with Japan. He didn't hate the Japanese. And truth be told as badly as he hated the Nazi's - he'd never have wanted them to drop the bomb on Germany. He wanted it first - as a deterrent, it didn't occur to him at the time - they'd actually use it - and he doesn't quite understand why it didn't. That tears him up inside.
I think it would be very hard to live with the deaths of over 250,000 people on your conscience, most of which are women and children, all civilians. To know that something you had a hand in creating and brought to fruition - destroyed them.
Oppenheimer isn't a sociopath. Nor were the other scientists in that room. But they had signed the petition, and they hadn't spearheaded the Manhattan Project, and they weren't credited with being the father of the atomic bomb.
Clark goes after him about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, about dropping the bomb. And that's when he begins to crumble. It's not the politics that makes him crumble - it's the overwhelming guilt over those two bombs being dropped.
He has to crumble under the weight of that guilt. That's in character. My mother told me that in real life Oppenheimer was said to have been wracked with guilt over what happened, and been diminished by it, he was almost skeletal by this point. He was never able to get past the guilt. I know it's hard to understand - but I get it. To have the weight of over 250,000 souls on my conscience would have me crumbled in a ball as well. He was being honored for creating a weapon that could kill millions and destroy the world. How do you reconcile that? That's the question Nolan is asking here.
It would have been out of character for him to have fought back.
I think the desire to see a strong protagonist undercuts the true power of the film. I'm not sure how to put this exactly? We want strong protagonist's who fight back and come out ahead. But that's not how life works. It's not real - that's the fantasy. That's Meg 3: The Trench - where Jason Stratham defeats the killer shark! But it's not what happens in reality, nor should it. It's this expectation for the strong male lead, full of testosterone and toughness. We see Lewis Strauss fight back - but he's the opposite of strong. And the temptation is to want Oppenheimer to do so as well...but -
for Oppenheimer to have reacted the way you wished - would have gone against the very thread of the story and been grossly out of character, also unrealistic. He's supposed to do the opposite of Strauss. Nolan by contrasting the two - asks a question, which Barbie also asks, what makes someone strong and someone else weak? Was it a bigger show of strength for Oppenheimer not to fight or to fight here?
At any rate, it's not what he did in real life. Remember, Oppenhiemer orchestrated the creation of a bomb that destroyed the lives of thousands, with long-lasting and catastrophic consequences. That's not something you just brush off. They didn't have to do it. It did not save the life of a single Jew. Not one. Oppenheimer's justifications for doing it - weren't there any more - not to him. They might be to you or to someone else, but not to Oppenheimer. How can you fight back on anything - when you feel responsible for the deaths of over 250,000 people? When their burnt remains haunt your dreams?
I honestly don't think he could have acted any differently than he did. And I don't think his decision not to fight back - was weak. That guilt had to be crippling. Also - Nolan foreshadows this scene with an earlier one - he's crumbled on the floor of the desert against a rock, after Imogene has committed suicide. His wife finds him, and smacks sense into him. Stating: "You don't get to commit a sin and then expect everyone to feel sorry for you for committing it." It's a metaphor in a way for the US - a commentary, if you will, oh so you committed a sin, you don't get to expect us all to feel sorry for you for having done so.
***
PS: A co-worker told me that she had the privilege of visiting Los Alamos for a job interview a while back. She didn't take it - because she has issues working in defense, creating weapons. Los Alamos is still working in the development of nuclear weapons. It never stopped. It most likely never will.
PPS: Robert Oppenheimer died of Cancer at the age of 62.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-15 01:33 pm (UTC)I'd just rather not spend $18 to see him in theaters; I can wait for his movies to show up on FX (where they belong).
**************************
It's not that I thought Oppenheimer's (non-)reaction to the tribunal was out of character; I realize he was crushed by guilt and he'd collapsed like a black hole. My objection is that the scenes were dramatically inert.
Which brings up the question: how do you portray that sort of crushing guilt in a dramatically satisfying way? Maybe intercut scenes of Oppenheimer reading reports on Hiroshima? Or Oppenheimer arguing with scientists who want him to take a more active role in nuclear disarmament? (Or maybe a couple of shots of a black hole sucking light past the event horizon?)
But then, what we saw is probably exactly what Nolan wanted: Oppenheimer's paralysis contrasted with Strauss' Machiavellian maneuvers. I just didn't find paralysis all that interesting to watch.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-15 04:18 pm (UTC)I found it fascinating to watch - how guilt devoured him whole. The emotional impact of watching him sink into himself - really moved me. What you describe would have put me to sleep and it would have destroyed the film.
no subject
Date: 2023-08-15 05:51 pm (UTC)Hmmmm... you might be right. But personally, I feel I needed a little more.
BTW, your point on Strauss being Nolan's stand in for modern politicians was so good I decided to borrow it. (Hope you don't mind....)
no subject
Date: 2023-08-16 01:15 am (UTC)I mean - I felt the contrast between Strauss description of this towering hero/protagonist who is gloating and doing so well and has everything and the reality of Oppenheimer passively sitting there just taking the abuse, but a shell, not the man he once was at all. Having lost so much weight. (Murphy lost over 30 pounds or more for the role.) Also I needed to see his remorse, taking accountability for it.
Oh - mother asked an interesting question last night: "What if Japan surrendered and Germany hadn't, would we have dropped the bomb on Germany?" (I've been tossing that question over in my mind all day long. And if the US had - what would have been the consequences?)
Oh, regarding Strauss as a stand in for modern politicians? Don't mind at all. Although I felt both hearings kind of are?
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2023-08-16 01:33 am (UTC)Considering that the U.S. (with Great Britain) bombed Dresden, killing at least 25,000 civilians, the idea of wiping out a German city with an A-bomb is not so far-fetched. So....Essen? Leipzig? Dusseldorf? All tempting targets.
We all know Truman had absolutely no qualms about dropping the bomb. And there might be less resistance from the scientific community if we were bombing Hitler, not Hirohito.
AU fic, anyone?