Film Journal 2023: Oppenheimer

Film Journal 2023: Oppenheimer
Directed by Christopher Nolan

Every so often a film comes around that feels impossible to describe in its details but also feels subsequently monumental in its presence. Oppenheimer occupies this space, with the only true certainty I could glean from it being that I was in the presence of something profound and excpetional.

To suggest that this should come as no surprise given the pedigree of its Director is to sell this film short as arguably Nolan’s best work to date and, in other ways, a return to form. By which I mean his inention to dial things back, which feels like an oxymoron given the pure scale of Oppenheimer’s story, and focus on the conversational and dialogue driven nature of the script rather than the visual spectacle. In truth, this actually makes the visual direction on display here stand out all the more with its allegiance to large screen Imax format, black and white/color contrasts, and a subtle visual storytelling approach. Where this perhaps gets the most mileage is in the way he manages to weave a universal, cosmic narrative reach with the intracacies of and its interest in demythologizing a larger than life character, ultimately locating the intimacies of such world shaping moments. Every ounce of this not only feels relevant and important to our present moment, translating across different scenarios and premises big and small, it feels meant to unsettle individual complacency concering conceptions of good and evil.

So much of this also feels like a throwback to an older cinematic style where the simple, barebones and grassroots level backroom drama carries the films undeniable charge and tension on its shoulders. The sort where it is easy to feel transported to a world ripe with a ferevent anticipation and optimism colored and cloaked by a heavily disguised sense of fear. In Oppenheimer, to say that the world hangs in the balance is to feel all the push and pull of its titular stars personal and familial crisis. That is what makes it so powerful as an experience.

Structurally speaking, which is one of Nolan’s greatest attributes and strengths, the films narrative finds a way to weave its 3 hour runtime into a fascainting fusion of narrative contrasts. On one hand a good section of this film is narrowed in on the progression of events that lead to the successful testing of the atomic bomb. This features and culminates in some of the most invigorating and edge of your seat cinematic moments in recent memory. The third act then revists this sequence of events from the perspective of an unfolding and working political thriller/mystery. Suddenly all the sublte work the film has been doing to build and establish the handful of characters as layered and dynamic and complex comes to fruition, effortlessly lending its ground work to an even more explosive finale. It might feel or seem like a daring move to structure the film in this way, but the true magic of the narrative structure comes from the way Nolan has been using a well formed set of moral and even spiritual questions to build out an overarching thematic interest, binding these two sections together with a powerful adherence to the moral quandry at its heart and its appeal to not simply the philosophical questions but to the relevance of such questions to its assumed human responsibility. A responsibility to ask the right questions. A responsiblity to see how these questions play out in the different aspects of our lives.

And let me just say, the film is chalk full of great performances, and everything in this film should be challenging for their respective Oscar categrories in 2024, from score to cinematography to script to production. But is there anything more memorable here than the handful of scenes between Oppenheimer and Einstein? The film reaches moments of transcendence throughout, but it was in these moments that the astounding nature of this achievement really struck me with full force.