'Oppenheimer' is Old-Fashioned Movie-Making at its Best...Here's Why
Director Christopher Nolan decides NOT to use CGI For The Trinity atomic bomb test explosion because it wouldn't been horrifying enough
I just saw “Oppenheimer” in an IMAX presentation theatre at The Grove 14 in Hollywood.
The three-hour running time passed by in a flash, no pun here.
As the credits unfolded, I sat in my seat awash with the sentiment that I had experienced an epic motion picture from a master storyteller.
Master story telling, to be sure, since Christopher Nolan directed his own screenplay based on Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin’s 2005 biography, “American Prometheus: The Triumph and the Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.”
The film has grossed over $440 million, at present, which is astounding considering its R rating and three-hour duration.
“Oppenheimer” has garnered near universal critical plaudits with particular praise for the cast, screenplay and visual drama.
The ensemble cast is astonishing and the performances are stunning. The film is peopled with gifted screen actors everywhere you look, from principal roles to featured and cameo-like appearances by Oscar winning players.
It has already been ranked among the all-time best biographical films ever made, such as ”Gandhi”, “Schindler’s List”, “Goodfellas”, “Amadeus”, “Braveheart”, Patton”, “The Elephant Man” and '“Malcolm X.”
For me, a delicious part of the ‘Oppenheimer” experience is discovering actors you know beneath their make-up and wardrobe.
Cillian Murphy is blazing as Oppenheimer. Emily Blunt’s performance as Kitty Oppenheimer is zealous and intense. Matt Damon as Lieutenant General Leslie Groves is military perfection. Florence Pugh is a spirited Jean Tatlock.
Kenneth Branagh, Casey Affleck, Gary Oldman, Tom Conti, Rami Malek, Josh Harnett, Matthew Modine, Tony Goldwyn and more than a dozen other actors are luminous.
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Robert Downey, Jr., is absolutely riveting and dazzling as Lewis Strauss, former Atomic Energy Commission Member and Oppenheimer’s arch nemesis. It is such comfort to see him free from 15 years in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, not that I wouldn’t heartily welcome another “Iron Man” movie and watch his clever, charming Tony Stark do away with evil doers.
We shouldn’t be surprised at all, remembering “Chaplin” (1992, for which he was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar), “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” (2005) “Zodiac,”(2007) “Tropic Thunder,”(2008) and his captivating sleuthing in two extremely successful “Sherlock Holmes” pictures (2009,2011) for Director, Guy Ritchie.
During my Orion Pictures career, Robert Downey, Jr. appeared in “Back To School” (1986) as Derek Lutz, the best friend to Rodney Dangerfield’s on-screen son played by Keith Gordon. The film was a critical and box office success, with a global gross of over $108 Million.
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He was Anthony Michael Hall’s high school pal, Leo Wiggins, in “Johnny Be Good” (1988) which “introduced ”Uma Thurman, however, it did not fair well critically or financially.
Critics felt Hall, the 80’s movies supreme teenage “geek,” was dreadfully miscast as a high school football hero. The Washington Post reviewer declared the film, “Crass, vulgar and relentlessly brain dead.”
On a personal note, Downey surely must have sensed that the picture was ill-fated, for when I spoke to him on the phone to ask if he would consider joining his co-star and very close friend, Hall, at a press junket to promote the film, he politely declined.
I am confident Downey will be nominated as Best Supporting Actor for “Oppenheimer” and that he will very likely win that highly coveted eight-and-a-half-pound golden statuette this coming March 10, 2024.
I am also expectant that “Oppenheimer” will receive over a dozen Academy Award nominations including, Best Picture, Best Actor-Murphy, Best Supporting Actress-Blunt, Downey, Best Supporting Actress-Pugh, Best Adapted Screenplay, Director, Editing, Visual Effects, Production Design, Cinematography, Costume and Sound.
“Oppenheimer” is totally what the traditional “Old School” precinct of the Academy (of which I am a proud member) craves in a big budget movie.
It is reminiscent of a Metro Goldwyn Mayer picture at the very pinnacle of its storied history when it was Hollywood’s most prestigious film studio with its roster of famous, charismatic actors as contract players. “More Stars Than There Are In Heaven”.
By-the-way, if you look carefully, there are five Oscar winning actors in the star-studded “Oppenheimer” cast - Casey Affleck, Kenneth Branagh, Gary Oldman, Rami Malek and Matt Damon.
Nolan’s powerful film, tracing the development and reverberations of the Atomic Bomb in 1945, and the true story of its architect, the brilliant American theoretical physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, he elected not to employ, CGI or computer generated imagery.
Nolan did not feel that CGI could represent the terrifying connotation of an atom bomb explosion for the Trinity Test sequence on the plains of the Alamogordo Bombing Range in New Mexico.
He, the films visual effects supervisor, Andrew Jackson, and special effects supervisor, Scott Fisher, leaned on an old movie machination noted as “forced perspective.” They actually built their own “atom bomb” fueled by petroleum and created a smaller version of a nuclear explosion which was filmed up close.
Other ingredients including propane, aluminum powder, magnesium, black powder combined to generate the power, flash, red plumes, mushroom clouds and the quaking of an atomic explosion. Ultimately all the filming, cinematic frames and footage of the explosion were turned over to the film’s editor to layer the film clips and create an accurate frightening reproduction of an atomic detonation.
Nolan told the Hollywood Reporter that CGI wouldn’t feel real enough to scare the audience because it’s “comfortable to look at.”
“This can’t be safe,” he said. “It can’t be comfortable to look at. It has to have bite. Its got to be beautiful and threatening in equal measure”.
The New Times observes, “We do see the traditional rising plumes…It’s turned into an IMAX size wall of flame… It’s a fearsome sight.”
Nolan was right.
Charles Glenn is the former worldwide head of marketing for Paramount, Universal, and Orion Pictures. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Screen Actors Guild.