A few months ago, when I got to know that Oppenheimer was going to be released in 2023, I had mixed feelings. I did not want to see a movie that showed the “other side” regarding Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are others who felt the same way as me – the Japanese have delayed the movie from being screened in Japan. Yet, I remained curious, particularly since I knew about Albert Einstein and his pacifist ideas. Perhaps I could learn something from this movie too about some of the greatest physicists the world has known.
And I did learn. More from Christopher Nolan, i.e. His storytelling is compelling and engaging as ever, and I hope to read “American Prometheus”, the book on which the movie is based.
The cast is fantastic – I particularly liked Robert Downey Jr, Josh Hartnett (such a delight that he was in ‘Pearl Harbour’ too) and yes Matt Damon – all big names. Cillian Murphy worried me in parts with his thin frame. I wasn’t surprised to learn that Oppenheimer is a patient of depression and schizophrenia, and was grateful that Nolan showed this aspect in a physical sense too. I almost expected stills from J. Edgar featuring Leonardo Di Caprio to be shown in this movie. That would have been interesting to see!
“Genius is no guarantee of wisdom. How could this man who saw so much be so blind?”
The Manhattan Project is an amalgamation of what happens when Physics, Armed Forces and Politics come together. The usual call to violence – some lives lost are better than more lives being lost – is opposed by Physicists who signed the Szilard petition including David Hill (Rami Malik in a persuasive role), and they are expectedly ignored.
“You drop a bomb, and it falls on the just and the unjust. I don't wish the culmination of three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction”
It was interesting to see the portrayal of women and womanising in the movie, and how sexism is prevalent in Science and Academia. Nolan doesn’t demonise the mistress nor places the wife on a particularly high pedestal – something that other moviemakers mirroring societal norms tend to do.
“Well, a fool or an adolescent presumes to know someone else's relationship, and you're neither, Lloyd.”
In 2023, Oppenheimer is the movie I have liked the most. I was happy to see Picasso’s painting ‘Woman sitting with crossed arms’ appear in the movie. I wonder what the world would have been like if a majority group of women Physicists had worked on the Manhattan Project.
I hope my father can watch it sometime - Physics always reminds me of him. If any of you like Science and politics come together, don’t miss it!
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