“He who saves one life saves the world entire”- Quote Itzhak Stern Schindler’s List. Going by this logic, all it takes one man, mind to destroy the world. How do you depict the life of this man? How do you take the audience directly into the mind of a man whose every second, every moment, every act feels like an inevitable, fated step towards a catastrophic explosion. You may be thinking that the grand explosion is that of the atomic detonator. Or of the horrific event that laid waste to hundreds of thousands of lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Except that Oppenheimer isn’t as much a tale about a grand cosmic chain of events that led to the ruin of an entire civilization, as much as it is about the moral and psychological implosion of one man. Who do we truly define as genius? From the outset, it often appears to be the ‘chosen’, ‘gifted’ ones whose work does not have any parallel. Yet look closer and what truly defines a genius is a mind that is in unison with the universe. When the beats of a song or an algorithmic equation stem into your mind as if straight from the word of God. When the world of quantum entanglement and the stars, the music of Beethoven and your imagination of the grand celestial universe collide to create or discover something completely new.
Christopher’s Nolan’s trick lies in showing you the mind of a troubled, tortured genius through the perspectives of the time and the mind. Time and the mind. Time and the mind: the two dimensions of life that inextricably chart the trajectory of your life, having the capacity to propel you to the heights of achievement while also bring you down to a crashing low. What Nolan does expertly in Oppenheimer is depict a window into the man’s soul through these two devices. Christopher Nolan in multiple interviews has spoken about the necessity for having told this tale subjectively. Upon watching the movie it becomes evident why this was the best way to tell the story. We often view time as extending over a linear series of events that affect the course of our life.
There is a sense of chronology, of intended efforts and outcomes that define our life and as a consequence, the passage of time is an indicator of progress or a marker of decay. Yet Nolan presents an incredibly varied take on time in this movie. What if with time, your own perception and interpretation of past events in your life play differently? In other words imagine if the story of your life is the same, but the movie being played in your head as you run over the story is different. This is the curse of time and how it warps itself over the human mind, blurring the lines between existence and true reality. Take for example the scene where Cillian Murphy extols the American victory over the Japanese after atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in what appears to be a speech of triumph to all those involved in the Manhattan Project. Yet what we witness in the scene is anything but triumph. Oppenheimer develop visions in his head as he gives the speech of multiple members of the Manhattan Project coughing up blood and suffering from radiation. The popular interpretation of this scene could be that Oppenheimer is unable to deal with his guilt as he is delivering the speech. Yet another more interesting interpretation could be that Oppenheimer views the entire speech differently in retrospect. His own emotions to the events occurring in his life have changed. The mind over time has changed his perception of his life. The geniuses ticking intelligence has given way to a disassociation between reality and fantasy. Time is a concept that fascinates Nolan. A lot of his films including Interstellar, Dunkirk and Tenet have taken us into the crevices and intricacies of time. Yet, in Oppenheimer, Nolan goes a step further and takes into the mind of a genius. What defines the mind of a genius? I believe it centrally lies in their relationship with reality, and the environment they inhabit. Regular people define reality based on a mental model of their relationships, achievements, progress and work.
The boundaries of the physical world inhabit and constrict the mental models in your head, defining your version of reality. Yet for the geniuses, especially someone like Oppenheimer, reality is defined by the stars above and the subatomic particles that make up matter on Earth. That is his version of reality, and how he perceives humans. He even alludes to that in a particular scene in the movie where he explains quantum physics to his would-be girlfriend, explaining humans in context of quantum energy. It is often regarded as a positive outcome and heralded to work for a cause that is beyond yourself. When your life’s pursuits are beyond the acquisition of material possessions and mere survival, it indicates a person that is truly driven and obsessed and make a mark on this world. It almost seems as if the forces of the universe and reality have to bend to make the impossible a probability. Think about the first times a grand invention or discovery came about.
That conceptualization of the world as a heliocentric model rather than a geocentric one. Or the time that the first flying object made transportation possible in the air. Or when the time the first smartphone was launched into existence, fitting the power and information of the most advanced computers into the palm of your hand. There is a radical shift that accompanies such inventions and they soon become the foundations for further progress. Except that true discovery and inventions have the probability to completely destroy as much as they do to empower. The atom bomb could have literally set the whole world on fire. While it didn’t do that, it destroyed the life of its creator, inch by inch. It’s this destruction that the film captures. The chain reactions of the atoms, the procession of fission represented a grand possibility for Oppenheimer. The prospect of exploring uncharted territory meant taking on the unprecedent risk of putting the whole world to ruin. It mean accepting that your invention is going to lead to the ruin of lives . The reality that defined Oppenheimer’s life led to the destruction of his and the world’s humanity at large. (SPOILER ALERT) The conversation at the end of the movie where he ponders with Einstein about whether the calculations for the atomic bomb led to the destruction of the world, reinforce this idea. Oppenheimer inadvertently has sown the seeds for a nuclear war and quite literally watches the world burn. Perhaps his greatest folly was that he trusted theory alone, not realizing that the ramifications of his actions and the passage of time yields a chain reaction that is beyond himself. With theory and imagination, a dangerous device and a scientific milestone beget Oppenheimer. He was possessed by this idea. In practice and reality, it meant war, politics and annihilation. A reality that was once brought into existence by the sheer determination of Oppenheimer is now beyond the man. It’s beyond the collective grasp of a single individual. He cannot fully come to terms with what has happened and hence cannot exorcise his demons. The passage of time has stretched the consequences of the innovation beyond anyone’s control.
TIME AND CINEMA: CONNECTING OPPENHEIMER TO LARGER THEMES OF NOLAN’S OEVURE
Oppenheimer is a monumental stand-alone achievement in filmmaking, and most people who have seen the film would agree. There is a personally affecting quality to this film that renders one feeling hollow after its initial viewing. Yet, how does this as a film stand out in comparison to other films in Nolan’s oeuvre? What is the connective tissue that ties this film with his other works?
It’s the motifs of time and cinema. Nolan’s films are a prism to view the concepts of time and cinema. In Memento we get the fractured narrative that alters our perception of the protagonist. In Interstellar we have time as a metaphysical entity. In Dunkirk, we have alternate timelines all converging to one seminal moment. In Inception, times perception is completely altered, owing to framework of the ‘dream-state.’
There is a deeper, fascinating perspective that Nolan’s films offer us upon close reflection. In The Prestige what one gathers is that the rules of magic and cinema are essentially the same. Every time we witness a magic performance, there is an unsaid expectation that we will be wowed by the illusion or the magic of the illusionist. We don’t believe in the fantasy world so much as we do want to be deceived. Films if done by right by the greatest of illusionists like Nolan can be the most perfect illusion done right.
Similarly in Inception, the psychology of dreams is likened to the psychology of cinema. Following the frameworks of a dream-state, filmmakers manipulate spatial geographies, the rules of physics and narrative structures to create a film. The experience of watching a movie is akin to witnessing a dream. Both the experiences are not bound by reality. Yet, while we are experiencing both of them the stakes are higher than ever. This is perhaps the reason why some of the best films and shows move us in the way reality cant. We cry, laugh and experience a range of emotions while watching films. The conclusion of a beloved TV show leaves us with a hollow void. The psychology of dreams and the psychology of cinema are the same.
So how does Oppenheimer fit in with regard to these 2 motifs? The duality of time is brought about in an incredibly interesting way. Any invention or innovation brings about a radical acceleration of progress or destruction that eventually leads to a singularity. In the film, the atom bomb is the fulcrum towards the singularity of nuclear war and destruction of the world. Drawing from the quote of the Bhagvat Gita, Oppenheimer had become ‘time: the destroyer of the worlds.” In the film, time exists beyond the realm of imagination and a physical boundary. It is ceaseless. At the end of the movie, Oppenheimer in his own head visualizes the world burn. Time is beyond anyone’s control at this point, as one can only witness the domino effect that follows.
Yet time is also cyclical. It comes back to haunt Oppenheimer. Memories are frozen forever in his head as time warps his mind, making him a prisoner of his own life. Time in a certain sense exists beyond the grasp of anyone’s reach, yet makes them a prisoner to their own life.
This bring us to the final piece of the puzzle. Oppenheimer and cinema. Just like the conceptualization of time in the film, cinema viewing is an experience that is an inescapable part of a lot of our lives. A great film yields incredible progress beyond the parameters of our predictions. Think about films like Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Toy Story, The Avengers and Harry Potter that become properties unto themselves beyond the realm of reality. They live among us as entities, even though they don’t really exist. Theme parks, merchandise, shows are built around these properties. Memories are made. A myth is born. Unlike the bomb, great art particularly cinema is more progressive and utopian in this regard.
Even as we co-exist with these entities, they extend our grasp of logic and rationale, making us surrender to pure emotion. Yet just like the cyclical nature of time portrayed in the film, as Oppenheimer revisits his conversation with Einstein, we too revisit moments of great cinema in our head. Its perhaps the reason why we keep to movies for a second or a third time. We keep coming back to the things we cant ignore. We want to witness the illusion of cinema. Great cinema like Oppenheimer.
This is the magic of the movies.
