If you’re looking for a two-second review, here it is: Oppenheimer is a masterpiece. A visceral, poignant experience, the work of a filmmaker at the very top of his craft. End of story. But is so much more than that.
Oppenheimer is not casual viewing by any stretch of the imagination. It is a weighty investigation of the human psyche, of truth and consequence, of agency and guilt, of altruism and calculation, of high politics and bleeding-edge science. The three-hour film is in roughly three acts, viewed through the lens of two framing devices: “Fission”, the perspective of J. Robert Oppenheimer himself, and “Fusion”, events as seen from the point of view of Lewis Strauss, chief of the Atomic Energy Commission. Both “Fission” and “Fusion” are hearings — one a kangaroo court designed by Strauss to destroy Oppenheimer’s credibility, and the other, a confirmation of Strauss’ cabinet appointment by the world’s most exclusive club (as John F. Kennedy once put it), the United States Senate. Told simultaneously, they are easily distinguished by Nolan’s use of color film for “Fission”, and black and white for “Fusion”.
It is fair to say Oppenheimer insists upon itself, and with good reason. The dual framing devices are complex, not easily understood at first glance. But they are necessary in order to establish the two lead characters, both incredibly ambitious, but polar opposites in almost every other respect — Oppenheimer, the flawed but ultimately moral genius; and Strauss, the consumate amoral political animal. The two represent, in many ways, the two anima that drive men forward — morality and power — and the lenses in which Oppenheimer and Strauss’ respective actions can be viewed.
Yet despite the importance of Oppenheimer’s life as a whole, Oppenheimer’s legacy is, and must be, defined primarily by one singular achievement: “Trinity”, Alamogordo, New Mexico, July 16th, 1945. And though the film encompasses much more than just that road to unleashing the power of the atom, this journey is absolutely pivotal to understanding the man, and therefore, the film.
But as a student at Oxford, and especially as a PPEist, it is so much more than an exploration of the human psyche, or of one of the key moments of human history. It is a film that raises deep questions about what we do here at one of the world’s greatest universities, and what we owe it to ourselves to do, both here, and beyond. This, in other words, is a film for all of us students, no matter our dispositions, and no matter our course — a film for us to reflect on, to ponder, and in doing so, to act on.
The tall, thin American journeying “lonesome through Europe seeking physics or sex or soup” (to misquote Allen Ginsburg), the young J. Robert Oppenheimer bounces through the universities of Cambridge, Göttingen, and Leiden, learning from the very best minds of the “new physics” of the 1920s: Neils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, and Patrick Blackett. Here we see a man that is in many ways quite similar to us university students, searching for knowledge, meaning, mission — Oppenheimer, the Seeker.
Upon returning home in 1929, he establishes America’s leading department of quantum physics at Berkeley. In contrast to his Berkeley colleague and best friend Ernest Lawrence, who concentrates on the practical, Oppenheimer is a man of theory. Charming, cavalier, and brimming with self-confidence, Oppenheimer is a dilettante, enjoying the allures of theory, in every sense of the word — whether in physics, politics, or women.
It’s this dilettantish attitude that leads him to dally with Communist associates (and those which are more than associates…); despite never joining the Communist Party, he does more than his part to spread his left-leaning ideals on Berkeley grounds. But so long as his physics and his political allegiances remain theoretical, a dilettante seeking theory is nobody’s business — until it isn’t.
1939: two events shake the world of physics — Oppenheimer’s world — and with it, eventually, the world entire. The first is the achievement of nuclear fission by Hahn, Strassmann, and Meitner. Upon hearing the news, Oppenheimer immediately realizes its military implications — a weapon the likes of which the world has never seen — implications that are forced by the second shock of the year, the onset of World War II, prompting Einstein to write his famous letter to Roosevelt urging him to develop nuclear weapons.
With this in mind, Oppenheimer becomes, as Lawrence puts it, “not just self-important, but actually important”. With its entry into the war inevitable, America concentrates its efforts on developing the bomb. With his Communist flirtations, Oppenheimer is not only not invited to take part in the project, but is in fact viewed as potentially dangerous by the FBI — an entirely reasonable suspicion given the USSR’s tight control of international Communist parties through Comintern.
But here is where Oppenheimer steps beyond being a mere scientist. His ambition leads him to places few would dare go: he wants to build the bomb, knows it is being built, and is willing to do what’s necessary to get on the project. Therefore, he (mostly) shears himself of his Communist associations, and allows himself to be recruited by Uncle Sam as the Manhattan Project’s director in 1942.
Thus, the man becomes Oppenheimer, the Conjuror. Previously, he travelled Europe, seeking out the very best minds from whom to learn; now, he compiles a who’s who of the world’s greatest physicists to work on the ‘Gadget’: Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Edward Teller, Richard Feynman, Ernest Lawrence, Isidor Isaac Rabi, and many more — a veritable jungle of European accents! All of this talent, concentrated in one remote town in the middle of the New Mexico desert, backed by practically unlimited money and resources from the US government — it is with this that Oppenheimer plans to “deliver this miracle” of untold devastation, using his unique talent for leadership, organization, and direction.
Thus, ‘Great Science’ is born — massive government-led efforts into the bleeding edge of possibility, with an explicit practical, applied-science objective, epitomized by both the atomic project and by Project Apollo two decades later. Yet with government backing comes government influence — from security clearances and background checks to the nefarious Col. Pash, who portends interrogations “in the Russian fashion”.
The clashes between scientists and the government come to a head around the issue of compartamentalization and the use of the ‘Gadget’. Science is best done with a free exchange of ideas and concepts, whether between teams or states (read: the Soviets), yet the requirements of national security dictate secrecy — a debate we see reflected in the contemporary debate within the United States whether to share information on Covid with China. And with regards the ‘Gadget’, the scientists, including Oppenheimer, would prefer their work not be used at all, and if it must be used, only for demonstation purposes, and certainly not to be stockpiled for a new arms race. However, as history shows, the government certainly had other plans with regards atomic weaponry…
But the scientists at Los Alamos are political naïfs. They simply do not understand that their usefulness has an expiry date, or that other states have an interest in their work. When Oppenheimer is approached by a Communist friend urging him onto treason, he only belatedly recognizes it as espionage, and refuses to name his friend to military intelligence. And as the scientists debate what ought to be done with the bomb, even running into Oppenheimer’s resistance as he tries to keep the project on track and well clear of conflicts with the government, they seem to believe that they will continue to have influence over the ‘Gadget’ and its deployment once it’s finished.
Yet while the bomb remains uncompleted, this all remains theoretical. But as the film ticks towards that fateful July night, recreating the leadup to the Trinity test, Nolan takes us on an absolute tour-de-force of the cinematic art. A gale of Ludwig Göransson’s whirling strings accompanies the visual spectacle of ultra-wide shots depicting the gradual establishment of the White Sands Proving Ground, a sustained tension that drains the audience’s focus, mirroring the scientists’ strain and anticipation for a moment that will define both their lives and world history. But this moment is ultimately Oppenheimer’s: as he ascends the ‘shot tower’ where the bomb is placed, coming face to face with the armed and ready ‘Gadget’, like Dr. Frankenstein awaiting the birth of his Creature, so too does Oppenheimer gaze upon his work with a mixture of fear and wonder, nearly pressing his head against its cold metallic surface.
And when the moment arrives, on that cold, wet, July morning, the tension builds to a breaking point, as we, along with all the assorted mad scientists of the Manhattan Project, await history as it is made, destiny itself. The electric-orange numbers are counting down; Göransson’s strings are nearly screaming. It is almost too much to bear.
The flash, brighter than a thousand suns — and a stunned silence throughout the cinema. We marvel in horror at the scale of the inferno as it rises through the darkened heavens, a pillar of fire curving in on itself, black smoke spreading like a rash throughout its hellish surface.
“What have I just seen?”
And then — the boom. Roaring like a tsunami crashing, sand flying everywhere on screen, scattering almost as if in your eyes. But only for an instant. Then, the quiet of the early morning desert, again. Except the world will never be the same; the demonic blackness fills the horizon: “death, the destroyer of worlds”.
“What have I just seen?”
Oppenheimer reacts to his terrible achievement, at first, with ecstatic celebration, standing before an jubilant crowd, American flag waving in the backdrop. But even as he celebrates, his “progeny”, the ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’, are already being loaded up, en route to Tinian, where a whole squadron of specially modified B-29s awaits…
He still, even at this stage, believes that he can exercise some influence over their deployment, requesting that the military keep him in the loop. He started this project wishing that his labor be used to end wars forever, not to fuel new conflicts. Yet he, and the rest of Los Alamos, only learns of Hiroshima — 100,000 people killed in an instant — via Truman’s address via radio. Science has been subsumed entirely by politics.
The reaction for most is a grim satisifaction, mixed in with heavy realization of responsibility. Yet Oppenheimer, the ‘father of the A-bomb’, now an American hero, is tortured. As he tells President Truman, “I have blood on my hands”. And so he uses his new status as the prophet of the atom to advocate for arms control, for negotiation with the Soviets, for the non-development of ever more advanced nuclear weapons.
Doing this with his typical charm and verve, Oppenheimer, in sticking to his belief in the inherent rationality and goodness of man, ignores the dangers of poking the bears of the military and political establishment — the ‘hard men’ of Washington, like Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Secretary of State James Byrnes. Labelled a “crybaby” by Truman and others, Oppenheimer is no international relations scholar, and lacks a grasp of the new realities of nuclear warfare and of the nascent Cold War — unlike those who would come after him, like Kissinger and McNamara. Yet in his crusade, he goes so far as to not only run up against deeply held interests, but inadvertently humiliates one Lewis Strauss.
Strauss is the anti-Oppenheimer. A creature of Washington, adept at working back-channels and playing the long game, he is devoid of any sense of duty to country or mankind, believing all men are power-hungry, ambitious, and vindictive. Through his lens, we understand what Strauss perceives Oppenheimer to be — a dastardly new enemy, one power-hungry enough to bring the atomic project to completion, who craves and commands the fame and the limelight to command the public’s attention, and who possesses the ruthlessness to rout and humiliate even a seasoned political player like Strauss.
Yet Oppenheimer is not what Strauss believes him to be at all. And in his naïveté (once again), he fails to perceive that his past Communist flirtations leave him politically vulnerable. Once again believing in man’s inherent rationality and goodness, that he who has done so much for his country could never be failed by it, he falls straight into Strauss’ machinations, winding up before a kangaroo court in 1954, forced to watch his friends and colleagues — Groves, Lawrence, Teller, and even his wife — testify against him one by one.
Stripped of his security clearance, discredited, and disowned by his closest associates, he is a broken man. But clinging to his naïveté, he welcomes the scourging— a penance for his sins, and a penance that, hopefully, he can bear for all those who participated in opening the Pandora’s Box of the atom: Oppenheimer, the Martyr.
Yet Oppenheimer’s immolation is not how this film ends. Indeed, several years later, in 1959, Strauss faces a hearing of his own, that of his confirmation to Secretary of Commerce. Facing it with his usual preparation and command of back-channel influence, he feels quite certain he will be confirmed this day.
Yet Strauss is surprised when a certain Dr. David Hill appears to testify on Capitol Hill. This same Dr. Hill, whose pleas to sign a petition urging Truman to warn the Japanese before a nuclear attack were rudely put down by Oppenheimer all the way back in 1945, informs Congress of Strauss’ dastardly tactics in pursuing Oppenheimer, torpedoing his confirmation.
But why? Strauss is absolutely incredulous — why would someone who has been, in a sense, humiliated by Oppenheimer, defend him, even when coming up against a seasoned and powerful political force? Maybe — just maybe — there are people who are willing to do the right thing, because it is the right thing to do. Perhaps Oppenheimer, in the end, was not quite so naïve after all.
The film closes with a reflection on the future. Oppenheimer is rehabilitated, with President Lyndon Johnson presenting him with the Enrico Fermi Award for achivement in nuclear energy in 1963. Yet despite this, Oppenheimer remains haunted, haunted by the specter of the genie he has let out of the bottle, the power for man to destroy itself — a specter we continue, and must continue, to live with today.
As students at Oxford, at one of these institutions that can turn out a a physicist like Oppenheimer, a foreign policy practioner like Stimson, or a political animal like Strauss, we bear a special responsibility. We are blessed with power, whether potential or actual, and therefore the possibility to shape the world in immense ways, whether for good or ill.
When we see Oppenheimer’s studies in Cambridge, or observe Heisenberg’s lectures in Göttingen, it is unavoidable that we notice our own potential part to play in a very similar drama. Around us, in Oxford, we too have our friends who are destined to scientific and technical greatness — to become, in some sense, potential Oppenheimers. The point is driven home by the scene in which Bohr lectures at Cambridge, within a room quite like our own lecture rooms in Exam Schools: small, oak-panelled, gilded with stained-glass windows, packed dense with students. What we do here at Oxford, what our friends do — the potential contained therein — is important, as Oppenheimer will later realize, when his colleague Heisenberg later helps spearhead the Nazi nuclear weapons program.
Yet Oppenheimer could not have successfully managed the incipient Cold War, Stimson could not have built the ‘Gadget’, and Strauss could not have inspired men to fight and die for their country. We each have our role to play, one that cannot be performed by others — as much as we would like it to be otherwise.
What we do here matters — because it starts us upon our paths and destinies, because it equips us with what we need to shape the future. But beyond that, we must ask ourselves what sort of world we want to create. To quote John F. Kennedy, “man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life”. Yet whether we do so, or even ought to do so, depends on who we humans are — perched somewhere between morality and amorality, naïveté and calculation, altruism and ruthlessness. And it is ultimately within this greyness that we must live, struggle, and die — hopefully giving a little light, atomic or otherwise, along the way.
