Midweek Update: In 'Oppenheimer', Christopher Nolan Confronts His Coldness

[I don’t really consider anything about Oppenheimer a “spoiler” since it’s all working from historical record, and it’s not like there’s a Tarantino-style historical twist, but if you want to go in cold, stop reading until you’ve seen the movie. Also, I’ve included spoilers for previous films in Nolan’s filmography]

When I think about director Christopher Nolan, I think of a watchmaker who’s incredibly excited to tell you how the watch works. The reason why his 2006 film The Prestige is so vital for understanding him is that it’s not really about dueling magicians, but about structure, science, ambition, and the stories we tell others and ourselves.

However, throughout his filmmaking, Nolan is a filmmaker who seems, while perhaps not necessarily uncomfortable with emotions, at least struggles to put them on screen without an analytical lens. Even his most emotional film, Interstellar (2014), in which a father must abandon his children in order to save them, contains an awkward scene in which Anne Hathaway’s scientist awkwardly explains how love defies rationality. His movies are also bizarrely sexless, whether it’s the dreamscapes of Inception (2010) or his James Bond riff Tenet (2020).

I’m fairly certain Nolan is aware of these critiques because I’m pretty sure he reads about himself online. I know this because in June 2020 I got a very angry call from Nolan’s publicist while I was working at Collider. We had picked up a story that ran in The New York Times (not exactly a disreputable publication known for shoddy reporting) discussing how studios were eager to get films back in theaters and Tenet would be the vanguard of that return. “In recent weeks, Warner, concerned about its ‘Tenet’ investment, was leaning in favor of postponement,” reported the Times, “while Mr. Nolan, a fervent advocate for preserving the moviegoing experience, was more eager to press ahead.”

In my article (which, to my embarrassment, I pulled after getting chewed out by the publicist because I didn’t want to deal with the ongoing headache), I chastised Nolan for wanting to press ahead. His publicist lectured me that “Chris was very upset at the notion that he doesn't care about audience safety,” and that “He doesn't tell the studio what to do.” I explained that my story came from the Times’ reporting, and she assured me she would be talking to those reporters as well, but as you can see, their reporting is still up three years later. Furthermore, I still believe that if Nolan had wanted to hold the release of Tenet and not ask people to return to theaters a few months into a raging pandemic where there was no vaccine and there had been approximately 124,000 deaths in the U.S. thus far, Warner Bros. would have obliged him to keep him happy (it didn’t work, by the way; Tenet flopped at the box office and Nolan decamped for Universal when Warner Bros. decided in 2021 that they would release all their movies during the pandemic in both theaters and on HBO Max).

I say all this not to name-and-shame, but to provide what I see as an illuminating anecdote that demonstrates a kinship Nolan clearly feels with the subject of his new movie, Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer is a lot of movie about a lot of things (a world on the brink of collapse, the fragility of human bonds, science as both savior and doom of humanity), but upon my first viewing, it felt personal in a way that Nolan rarely gets in his movies. In the figure of J. Robert Oppenheimer (played by Cillian Murphy, who has appeared in more Nolan movies than any other actor), Nolan clearly feels a kinship with a man whose brilliance belies a deep naivety about mankind. “Theory can only take you so far,” is a repeated line in the film, and here Nolan confronts himself and his fears about his legacy in a world he strives to understand but can’t always connect with.

In Oppenheimer, we can see Nolan’s fears—not just a fear of nuclear annihilation that we all share—but his own fears of obsolesce. Nolan’s movies repeatedly feature protagonists whose own work leads to celebration and then destruction. Magician Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), so eager to beat his rival Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), ends up creating a machine that duplicates Angier only to have one version live and one version drown every night. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) go so deep into their dreams that they lose all sense of reality. Even Batman (Bale), in his quest to clean up Gotham, creates a new class of super-criminal, only serving to escalate the war on crime he wanted to end. The manifestation of this escalation, Joker (Heath Ledger), then tells Batman, “They need you right now, but when they don't, they'll cast you out, like a leper!” The same could be said to J. Robert Oppenheimer in Oppenheimer.

I haven’t met Nolan, and even if I ever interviewed him, I doubt he would be particularly unguarded, but looking at his art, I’m inclined to believe he shares this fear. Christopher Nolan occupies a singular place in Hollywood and has since The Dark Knight became a sensation in 2008 only to be followed by the success of Inception two years later. By paying his dues to the superhero machine with a Batman trilogy and also landing the success of an original concept Inception, Nolan1 was given financial and creative leeway denied to pretty much every other major director. While other directors need to keep a lot of irons in the fire so they can be ready to shoot if financing comes together, Nolan names his next movie and no matter the cost or the premise, he will deliver it on time because the financial and structural objects fall away due to his reputation. The name above the title isn’t the actor; it’s Nolan’s.

Where can you go from there but down? How tenuous must your position be, especially in Hollywood of all places where you can be the toast of the town one day and a flop away from being old news? And what if your beliefs become antithetical to the popular mindset? While I don’t think Nolan is as egotistical to think that his movies are as important to humanity as the creation of the atomic bomb, he does seem acutely aware of how a rapidly changing Hollywood threatens to put him on the outside. Nolan fervently believes in not only the theatrical experience, but also shooting on physical film (another area where his rarefied position asserts itself as studios prefer when directors film on digital, which is far cheaper).

But in Oppenheimer, we see in the character of J. Robert Oppenheimer a brilliant man laid bare by his fears and doubts. The question that haunts Oppenheimer throughout the film (thanks to a framing device of a trial where his security clearance is threatened) is, “Was I so consumed with my work that I missed the human costs surrounding me?” Oppenheimer started pursuing work on the atomic bomb because he wanted to use it against the Nazis, who were not only developing their own atomic bomb with Werner Heisenberg, but were exterminating Oppenheimer’s fellow Jews. And yet, even after the Nazis were defeated and it was clear no other nation was close to America’s atomic breakthroughs, the Manhattan Project forged ahead and ultimately dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And from there, Oppenheimer tries to put the genie back in the bottle but in a world where nuclear escalation against the USSR is seen as the way forward, Oppenheimer is no longer the American hero of WWII; he’s a relic to be politely discarded at best and personally humiliated at worst.

In Oppenheimer, we see that a man who stands apart as singularly brilliant can also become alienated and forsaken for lacking the emotional intelligence to piece together the politics surrounding him. Oppenheimer, in addition to being a scientific genius, also read extensively, appreciated art, and cared passionately about left-wing causes. And yet he was so enamored of himself that he couldn’t see that the military and the government would shut him out the minute they had what they wanted. In the film, we can see that even Oppenheimer knows that his pleas to have nuclear weapons overseen by the United Nations will fall on deaf ears. He gave his superiors what they wanted, and now they don’t need him anymore. His reputation will only take him so far, and reputations can be ruined when applying the proper pressure.

And this is where Christopher Nolan is afraid of finding himself: a once-celebrated mind now part of a world that no longer needs him. From Nolan’s perspective, he’s the last man advocating for shooting on film when all his peers have embraced digital despite many films shot on digital looking poorer than those shot on film. He’s advocating for theatrical releases over streaming and shot Oppenheimer as the streaming wars hit a fever pitch. While today in the midst of two major Hollywood strikes it looks like Nolan is clearly right that streaming is fool’s gold, it may be too little, too late. Nolan, unlike Oppenheimer, may not have manifested his own landscape, but he is no less subject to its prevailing winds.

I don’t know if Nolan regrets releasing Tenet in the middle of a pandemic, but Oppenheimer is a movie about a man devoured by his regrets. If Oppenheimer were a cold, clinical mind, perhaps life would have been easier, but he’s aware of who he’s hurting, who he’s trying to protect, and his own shortcomings as a husband, citizen, and leader. Nolan’s characters repeatedly have to face the negative consequences of their actions, and perhaps for Nolan, he sees that his fervor blinded him to the bigger picture. But the portrait we see in Oppenheimer is not of a man who doubles down and says he would do it all over again, but one who’s afraid that in his attempt to save the world he only hastened its destruction. Does Christopher Nolan believe the failure of Tenet to revitalize theaters only sent audiences deeper into the arms of streaming? I don’t know, but if you ever get the chance to interview him, please ask (his publicist clearly doesn’t like me very much, so I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to ask him myself).

Nolan has spent his career arguing that he can think his way out of a problem. That while his movies may feature emotional reconciliation, the mechanics of catharsis are just as important. In Oppenheimer, he finally slows way down, and sits with the emotions of doubt and fear in a way he has never before. Human frailty is not something to be overcome or reconciled, but embraced. On a macro level, we can see the fear that humanity is coming to its end and that those in power will dismiss scientists who don’t tell them what they want to hear. But on a micro level, Nolan is clearly worried that a blockbuster landscape that only churns out films for streaming—a world of Red Notices and Gray Mans—will have no need of a meticulous filmmaker whose demands are at odds with the future of movies. That Christopher Nolan, a man obsessed with time, memory, and the passage of both, will be left in the past and forgotten.

Recommendations

First up, I’m recommending the new Substack from Millie De Chirico, who I had the pleasure of working with when we were at TCM. For me, Millie is a legend since she was the programmer behind TCM Underground, which was an essential part of TCM’s identity, and the network is lesser without her contribution. At least she’ll now be on Substack, and I’m eager to see what she publishes.

I’m also recommending the 4K of Gladiator, since it not only looks amazing, but I rewatched this film for the first time in over a decade, and I’m astounded at how well it holds up. It feels like the last of a generation of films where CGI could be used as a supporting element, but didn’t have the the center of the movie around which all other aspects orbited. That means there’s a heavier reliance on practical effects that make the action feel more immediate. Furthermore, since they’re shooting on film (35mm), the lighting and color are far more precise and powerful than you see in a vast array of films currently shot digitally. Anyway, the 4K is currently 50% off and should definitely be in your collection.

What I’m Watching

My TV viewing has slowed down a bit (I haven’t even started Season 2 of The Afterparty yet!), but I will say if you have Criterion Channel, you should check out the 1981 documentary The Day After Trinity, which provides a good primer on Oppenheimer and his work at Los Alamos.

What I’m Reading

I finished reading my dad’s book Zieglitz’s Blessing, so now I know what Joe Hill feels like if my dad were one of the best-selling novelists of all time and I were a successful novelist in my own right. Anyway, if I ever meet Joe Hill, I have a conversation opener (in all seriousness, I was moved by my dad’s book, although I admit I am slightly biased).

After reading a couple novels, I’m switching gears and picking up some nonfiction with Bad Blood. I’ve got a good feeling about this Elizabeth Holmes person. I find a grown woman doing Steve Jobs cosplay very reassuring.

In Other Reads:

• They Don’t Want Us and We Don't Need Them by David Roth [Defector] - You should always read David Roth. Few writers are equally insightful and scathing, but when Roth gets you in his crosshairs, the takedown is beautifully precise. Here, he takes on not only WBD CEO David Zaslav, but the army of greed execs who want to eliminate all workers to horde profits while delivering nothing of value to consumers. At some point we have to ask of the CEOs the Office Space question, “What would you say you do here?”

• A gay couple ran a rural restaurant in peace. Then new neighbors arrived. by Tim Carman [The Washington Post] - It’s tempting to see this story as red vs. blue with the Christian conservative family on one side warring against the gay liberal family on the other side. However, I find the conservative family, The Washers, slightly disingenuous (could be my liberal bias, but keep reading). “They’re not trying to disrupt The Plains, Melissa [Washer] said. They have no desire to change the character of the town, either. They like it the way it is.” She says her and her husband just want the rules to be applied equally. But people who are constantly filing lawsuits against their neighbors and forcing the city into overtime aren't exactly go-along-to-get-along types. Anyway, the culture wars we see across social media and cable news easily spill out into the real world.

• Director Martin Brest Revisits the Triumphs of ‘Beverly Hills Cop’ and ‘Midnight Run,’ and Reflects On His Post-‘Gigli’ Hollywood Exile (EXCLUSIVE) by Todd Gilchrist [Variety] - My pal Todd did a great interview with the reclusive Brest, who really deserves a reevaluation. I think it was easier to give him a life sentence for Gigli than acknowledge that A) it’s a bad movie but not one of the worst movies ever; and B) he may (by his own admission in this interview) have been complicit in it being bad, but wasn’t the driving force of its failure. In any case, it’s a great interview and well worth your time especially if, like Todd, you’re a big fan of Meet Joe Black.

What I’m Hearing

I finally got around to listening to this great Fresh Air interview with Bible scholar Bart Ehrman about his new book, Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End. I read Ehrman’s Misquoting Jesus in college and found him to be an insightful historian, and listening to his interview with Terry Gross here was also (no pun intended), revelatory. For instance, I didn’t know that the Rapture was basically invented in the 1830s or that insistences that we were living through Tribulations came about during Reign of Terror from British observers. Anyway, this is definitely worth a listen.

Over in hearing myself talk, I was honored to be invited onto Nathan Rabin and Clint Worthington’s podcast Travolta/Cage, where the two critics discuss the films of Messrs. John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. The two films we discussed were Criminal Activities (co-starring John Travolta) and Snowden (co-starring Nicolas Cage). The film we preferred may surprise you!

What I’m Playing

I’m technically almost at the end of Tears of the Kingdom, but as some of my friends already know, I am a completionist weirdo. While TOTK doesn’t have achievements or anything like that, I’m probably not going to try and take on Ganondorf until I’ve completed every shrine and maxed out my armor because that’s how I roll. That being said, at the pace I’m going, I’ll still probably have finished my time in Hyrule by the end of the month.