MOVIE NEWS – Kai Bird hopes that the general public will be as impressed by the film Oppenheimer as he is a distinguished historian, who wrote the large-scale biography of Oppenheimer published in 2005 with the since-deceased Martin J. Sherwin – the book became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize – believes that Christopher Nolan’s film will make many people think, primarily due to its emotional power.

“I’m completely blown away and I’m still trying to pull myself together emotionally,” Variety magazine quoted Bird as saying. – We are dealing with an amazing artistic achievement, I feel that after this, the whole of America, even the world, will talk about the things that Oppenheimer was a bitter advocate of. That is, how to live in the shadow of the atomic bomb and how to think in a system like the McCarthy era. What does it mean to be a patriot, what is the role of a scientist in a world permeated by technology in an unprecedented way?”

Physicist Robert Oppenheimer is regarded by history as the father of the atomic bomb, he led the Manhattan Project, which aimed to develop the world’s first weapon of mass destruction. However, the scientist and his team – including Hungarian-born Edé Teller and Leo Szilárd – were plagued by doubts about the use of nuclear energy in war, and they could not come to terms with the fact that their invention was being used for political purposes, ultimately for murder. Oppenheimer was dragged in during the most tense phase of the Cold War, when in America Senator McCarthy led a veritable campaign against prominent persons suspected of being communists. A long investigation was conducted against him, at the end of which he was essentially banned from practicing his profession.

In the story of the scientist, Christopher Nolan (Batman trilogy, Origins, Dunkirk) saw the possibility of an extraordinary drama, in which the threads of the thriller, gangster film, courtroom drama, western and even science fiction genres are intertwined. And since the director-screenwriter’s primary goal is meaningful entertainment, the complex, serious message is made really attractive by a huge parade of stars. On the side of the title character Cillian Murphy, selected Hollywood greats will perform: Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Rami Malek, Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Michael Angarano, Josh Hartnett and Kenneth Branagh. Nolan also made sure that the extras were also authentic, so for example, in the scenes set at the Los Alamos experimental nuclear plant, real physicists play alongside the actors.

(Oppenheimer – domestic presentation: July 20, 2023.)

Source: UIP Dunafilm