This is easily one of the best historical films I've seen, just from a purely story-telling standpoint. You're right about Nolan making this an "experience" instead of just a "story" with exposition after exposition like you're sitting in a lecture and everything is spoon-fed to you. Nolan clearly respects the audience's intelligence and showed a great respect for the people involved in that project without turning it into a propaganda piece.
I've heard (firsthand and from other reviewers) quite a bit of complaining about the lack of showing the aftermath in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on screen. For me personally, the way it was handled in the film was much more impactful. Having relatives who were killed in or who saw the city in the weeks after the bomb and having been to Hiroshima when I was much younger, the film brough back the stories that my grandmother recalled throughout the years and striking images of how the horrors are represented in Japan at Peace Park near the epicenter of the blast. I know that I'm in a very small niche of the audience, but I really appreciated how Nolan handled that moment in a tasteful but effective manner, especially for those of us who could contextualize it a bit more.
spoilers i guess? honestly - i liked that even more, because it showed prospective of Oppenheimer and sceintists in Manhetten project. "you have done your job, now bomb is ours" and then while Oppenheimer is worried on it's use and results and actively tries to contact military to know if it set off, they find out as all others - from president's speech
Been waiting for your initial reaction, I loved the film and didn't feel the length so much so that I'm going to see it iMAX again. Can't wait for Charlie and your breakdown. Just a small point we saw briefly during Oppenheimer's haunted visions of victims of the bomb - I think it was a recreation of the mother and child which I've seen before. The test was was exquisite and beautifully shot, what I loved most was the almost immediate reaction from Oppenheimer of 'what have I done?' - Cillian Murphy was fanstastic. Love this channel.
This movie has a touch of Kurosawa's Rashoman in it too. We see a the same scene from different perspectives each with their own different conclusions drawn. We see the scene from each characters perspective and then black and white shows us the truth.
I will eagerly await your full break down. I was in awe of the movie, and have been hungering for conversation with history buffs on this movie. The growing amount of people who fail to properly understand the historical context of the atom bombs is really draining intellectually.
Yes - I don't why , but historians fail to point out the Potsdam Declaration makes it clear that Truman and his advisors wanted to remove Japan's Military Gov for all time , and bring in democratic and human rights . In other words , change Japan's Constitution . Hence the reason why the " Big Six " rejected it . This is why the prerogative and authority of the Emperor is so important . Snake oil historians will say " All they wanted was to keep their Emperor . " Had the status of the Emperor remained , he could over rule any attempt by the US to change Japan's Constitution . While under US occupation , Japan's Constitution was changed in 1947 . .
Husband and son saw this as part of a boys day out. They came home raving about how good it was. I will wait for it to be streamed/dvd as back pain stops the cinema experience for me with long films.
The movie is a boring incomprehensibly convoluted slog of gimmicky pretentious arbitrary timeline shuffling ad nauseum. It doesn't know it needs to succeed as a narrative story first. 😴
@@NeX322 I can understand when I'm watching the desperate novelty of shoddy structure disguised under an insecure blanket of pretentious noise. Can you? Easily gullible toward gimmicks.
@@donaldshotts4429 A periodically lost audience constantly having to reorient where they're supposed to be in a bafflingly discombobulating timeline is about the most boring scheme to keep them involved in an otherwise tedious narrative.
They did a great job of capturing the personalities involved. You can recognize the major players from Richard Rhodes' books on the subject, as well as others. They provided some technical details but I would have liked a bit more.
Movie was a powerhouse of man's genius After he met Truman film went on toooo long about the congressional hearings (this dragged on needed about 15 min cut here) Ending with Albert was the best theme to end If I go to a Halloween party, my costume will be Oppenheimer with hat, suspenders, coat, pipe
Wow. Just stumbled into your channel a week ago. I see your from Altoona. I am a 1972 Grad from Altoona High. Love that area, too cold for winter. Just visited Gettysburg a month ago. Live in Georgia now. Retired Navy. Keep up the good work. 🎹🎷🎸🎤😀
@@ReelHistory Men of Honor would be a good movie review. True story of Carl Brashear first African American Navy Diver. Many stars in this movie. 🎹🎷🎸🎤😀
Good, perceptive points. My self criticism is that I should have read more about Strauss before viewing. RD Jr. delivered a jaw dropping performance. I worked in and around DC for ~6 years and can confirm that his performance captures the personality. His "look" is perfect.
I agree with you about Strauss. I haven't seen the movie yet, and the only thing I knew about Strauss was this one-dimensional character whose only existence was to destroy Oppenheimer. In reality, reading the Wikipedia article about him, Strauss was a great public servant with a difficult personality. He won many awards both for humanitarian service as well as public service dating back to WW1. On the other hand, Oppenheimer was a great public servant, but really only for the Atomic Bomb. And he also had a difficult personality.
5:02 As soon as you said "both men lose" I immediately thought of War Games 😆 Thanks for the review... hearing great things about this movie, gonna try and watch this later this week
One of the reasons I liked it was it showed the kernel of truth upon which McCarthy operated. The USG [State Dept, White House, Manhattan Project] was RIFE with communists in the 1930s and 1940s and I'm glad Nolan portrayed it as something other than "INSANE right wing demagogues see commies in their soup and DESTROY innocent people who just wanted labor and civil rights..." Groves overlooked RJO's known associations/affiliations during wartime because he was one of the few people on the planet who could devise the bomb, but later on his character said he would not clear him now- which would have been the correct decision. Hell, he should've reported Haakon Chevalier to the FBI; he made an OVERT offer from the NKVD to pass along state secrets!
I love the fact that its 3 hours. I grew tired of getting excited to see new blockbuster hits only to find out theyre like an hour and 10 minutes long excluding the credits. 3+ hour movies tend to really get your brain inside of the story and they also feel a lot better in terms of quality. Definitely going to buy it on prime video when it releases. Dont plan on going to the theaters but it seems like a good movie from what I have heard.
McCarthy "witch-hunt"? As a history professor, I hope you are familiar with the Venona papers. Government and academics were filled with "fellow travellers"
Witch hunt refers to the persecution without consideration to the effects on people as well. Exagerating facts to favor one's own point of arguement. The McCarthy Era was absolutely a witch hunt. Even when directed at someone who had sympathy for Communist thought. Or an academic interest.
The tactics of a witch hunt use words as a shorthand for a wide number of unpopular characteristics. Such as using Communist to equate with anti-American, untrustworthy, or a traitor. You can be a Communist, especially before ww2, and still be trustworthy, and love one's country. Except to those who lead a witch hunt
I feel like the only person in the world with this opinion. I found it jumpy and not well structured. I think a lot of people will find it hard to follow. The acting though was super.
Thanks for the thematic insights, Jared. Makes my decision to wait for some feedback before watching the movie a wise decision. Looking forward to it very soon. Side note, hope you got that chance to visit Patton's grave site.
I had an idea about a time travel movie with a WW2 theme about 15 years ago. Sort of a Terminator ripoff where an American from the future tries to off Hitler while a German from the same time loop tries to off Churchill. I envisioned Ryan Gosling as the charming German and Gary Oldham as Hitler. Oldham has that ability to almost foam at the mouth in fury and I think he could pull off Hitler. Kind of funny that Oldham went on to play Churchill and now Truman
I heard the black and white scenes are meant to depict the more concrete facts that there are records of while the colored scenes are interpretations/dramatizations of what happened. So black & white = this happened. These people said these things. Color = this could have been what happened.
I just have a question, was the hydrogen bomb, proposed by Edward Teller, in which the story was depicted in Oppenheimer, the same one detonated in the Soviet Union in 56? In your field of work, would anyone of mankind think to release this type of weapon, or is it a show of force?
I concur with your review it is a great film. Christopher Nolan is a great director and I think the fact that he is a British American helped in that he was able to keep away from the flag waving patriotism that some WW2 movies have and instead showed the positives and negatives of the time. I look forward to your in depth appraisal as no doubt it will be v interesting. One quick question behind your left shoulder partially obscured is a picture with the name Stewart on it. Can I ask what the picture is of? Thanks Jared
Hello. I am new to your channel, and find your reflections interesting. However, today, I was reading a review of the film by the English journalist, Peter Hitchens, who summarised the film as being “bad”. One of criticism that he made was that the narrative endorsed the conventional belief that the two atomic bombs brought the Tokyo authorities to accept unconditional surrender. However, Hitchens cites recent research by a Japanese academic, which claims that Japan accepted defeat by America, because she greater feared the consequences of invasion by Stalin’s Soviet Union. I wonder if you have heard this viewpoint?
I'm encouraged to go and see this on the big screen now, when it's usually my preference to wait until I can get my hands on a shiny thing, so thanks for that. I haven't followed it after the first episode because it uses a lot of time jumps backwards and forwards, but there's a new series on TV in the UK called A Spy Among Friends, which is a dramatisation of the Kim Philby affair, starring Guy Pearce as Kim Philby and Damian Lewis as his friend and recruit Nicholas Elliot, who was questioned by MI5 after Philby defected, so anyone interested in that era of people who thought the United States should not be the only superpower on the planet with atomic technology might want to check that out. I also find the use of the term "witch hunt" in relation to socialism a bit of a head scratcher considering the absolute swamp both of our countries are now in politically.
I watched it here in the UK last Friday and really enjoyed it. There was a report in a local paper about people watching barbie in the next screen who complained as when the bomb explodes the sound totally overwhelmed the sound of the barbie movie 😃 I must say I’ve never heard sound as loud in a movie as in Oppenheimer and the visuals were excellent too imo. Cillian Murphy was excellent but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him give a bad performance. He even manages to master the Brummie accent in Peaky Blinders unlike most actors who over do it. The supporting cast were v good as well imo and I would like to see a film about Teller’s career as he to was a fascinating man a genius but not too likeable from what I know of him.
So many characters in the movie deserve to have their own stories told. Hans Bethe, for example, not only played a critical role in development of the hydrogen bomb, but also was key to unlocking stellar processes to liberate astrophysics and led the scientific voice to oppose the arms race and Reagan's Star Wars program and also drafted the Salt 1 strategic arms limitation treaty for Carter. He became the man Oppenheimer was prevented from becoming.
I met a Brit every time I went to Dealey Plaza to study the JFK assassination. It's sad that foreigners have more intellectual curiosity about our history then Americans do. Side note:. John Wayne played Ghengis Khan in a movie, ridiculous as it seems, in generally the same area in New Mexico and most of the cast including Wayne died of cancer. Radioactive particles float around for God knows how long? We're still doing it with depleted uranium artillery shells. Tens of thousands of birth defects in Iraq? Now they're debating sending them to Ukraine. Some people never learn
I'd love to see this at an IMAX theater. Unfortunately that's a long plane ride so I may be stuck watching at my local theater. I can't imagine any historical movie that doesn't include alt-facts for current appeasement will win any awards, best one can hope for are some token nominations.....
I've just got home from seeing it and first thing was to get onto RU-vid and get Jared's slant on the movie. I agree with your point that all historical movies have inaccuracies - you've pointed out the 50 stars on the Stars and Stripes. The only ones that annoyed me were the ivory plastic light switches and the IKEA furniture in the boardroom. This is a vast improvement on previous movies - possibly Nolan has learnt from all the flak he copped for the Spitfire with the never-ending ammo supply and broomstick engine in Dunkirk?
I think they all or differently struss and Oppenheimer knew after was ended it would come back at them and struss wouldn’t take the blame. My thing is I look up struss v Oppenheimer really there wasn’t a lot yea there’s some back lash jibbers but sounded like this heat rivalry in movie I looking up other RU-vid or general these two didn’t have that kind of heat. Unless was enough information possibly rumor info Christmas Nolan took that used in the film and obviously made struss bad guy cause these kinds of movies need villains. Idk Christian Nolan dug deeper or Hollywood fashion how true or not rivalry between them
The acting was brilliant, without a doubt, and Murphy and Downey, Jr. absolutely deserve Oscars for their portrayals. This was definitely a Christopher Nolan movie, too, and one vastly better than his "Tenet." Did I mention that it was a Christopher Nolan movie? Maybe about 30 to 40 minutes too long, in other words. As far as Oppenheimer the man goes, I will say that I was glad his security clearance was restored, though there's now debate that Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm really didn't have the authority to do so. In the end, his dalliances with Communism and associations with avowed Communists proved too much for his undoubted contributions to the U.S. war effort to overcome. I feel, though, that Leslie Groves deserves some of the blame, as it was he whose laxness with security background investigations -- in his rush to get a working device into existence -- allowed more than a few suspected Soviet spies among scientists and workers to infiltrate Los Alamos and Oak Ridge. (The debate among physicists and chemists as to which was the better way to get the fissile materials and then create the devices was also fascinating... and the chemists actually proved to be right, though Groves went the much more difficult route recommended by the physicists, as it turns out.) Additionally, I have a feeling that opinion about the movie in the more center-left to left ranks of movie critics won't be overwhelmingly approving, mostly because Nolan did exactly as you say: He delivered an evenhanded examination of the man (Oppenheimer) and the Bomb and the before and after of both. Scientists like Oppenheimer were dealing with forces they barely understood and they did the best they could, but in the end it wasn't the scientists' place to determine whether nuclear weapons were to be used, as we all well know. It was the political leadership's decision to make, and Truman and the others did (this is why Winston Churchill used to say that "scientists should be on tap, not on top"). Nolan's evenhandedness is what will likely anger critics, and maybe even prevent Murphy, Downey, Jr. et al. from winning much-deserved awards. The director -- in his most "Kubrickian" film to date (it was a series of anti-climaxes, really) didn't use the movie as a vehicle to examine the suffering of the Japanese after Fat Man and Little Boy were dropped, for example. No, it's clear that Nolan made a movie about J. Robert Oppenheimer, with a clever narrative framing employed by him to get at the man himself (the before and after, I mentioned -- though the Los Alamos sequences were, to me, the most riveting). Should Fat Man and Little Boy have been used against the Empire of Japan? I will say that historians have noted, from examination of broken Japanese codes, that the Japanese were preparing for a significant defense of the home islands, and that the defense was set for the fall of 1945. I'll also observe that historians have additionally noted that the Japanese -- as wedded to the Bushido code -- sometimes known as the Way of the Samurai and also called "the soul of Japan" -- as they were, not only did not surrender after the Hiroshima bomb, but that militarists and their partners in the industrial complex (the zaibatsu) staged an internal coup (the Kyūjō incident) to try to prevent the surrender even after Nagasaki. I have to say this: Oppenheimer did shoulder an immense burden, but the man who shouldered the most immense burden of all was Harry Truman -- who didn't even know, as vice-president, that the Manhattan Project existed and who was presented with the fact of U.S. nuclear weapons only upon assuming the presidency. Truman alone -- as Commander in Chief of the armed forces -- had the final decision as to whether or not thousands upon thousands of Japanese civilians would die in a massive fireball, which he weighed against the prospect of 500,000 or more American military casualties that might be needed to subdue the Japanese home islands (one read-through of "With the Old Breed," by Eugene Sledge -- who capably described the Battle of Okinawa -- clearly illustrates Japanese tenacity, which was part of a culture in which surrender was considered a shameful act, after all. It's worth noting, as well, that Harry Truman eventually became so exasperated with Oppenheimer and his hand wringing after the fact that he told his aides never to let that "sonofab*tch" come near him again. He said he couldn't stand the man's "Indian mysticism" and that "He (Oppenheimer) didn't drop the Bomb. I dropped the bomb." Lastly, we know that both Germany and Japan were in pursuit of their own nuclear weapons, though at the time the Allies were uncertain of just how far along they'd gotten in terms of actual production. Here's a look at the Japanese effort to develop an atomic bomb. It's from the Atomic Heritage Foundation entitled "Japanese Atomic Bomb Project." ahf.nuclearmuseum(dot)org/ahf/history/japanese-atomic-bomb-project/
Watching this a second time after seeing the movie earlier today. I really enjoyed it. Lots of familiar faces in this movie. I love Florence Pugh aka Yelena Balova. Really looking forward to the in depth analysis of this movie. Highly recommended to whoever reads this comment if you haven’t seen it yet.
Just managed to endure an 11pm showing in full IMAX 70mm. Be sure to reference T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land" as the poem bookends the beginning and ending of the film.
Conversational movies/tv is generally my thing, but I wasn’t as impressed with the film as most people seem to be. I really hoped they would explain the science more and get into the philosophical element of Oppenheimer’s reflections on the bombs. I also didn’t really feel like they made Oppenheimer a particularly interesting person (but maybe he was just not that interesting as a person in reality). Part of my issue with that is with the lack of philosophical reflection, I guess. I’m used to dealing with big ideas, because I work in philosophy, so I didn’t really think it was as interesting a discussion of morality or responsibility as it could have been. I think it would have been better to cut down the politics and focus on the more cerebral elements.
Looking forward to your future in depth video on the film. I was bothered that the nuts and bolts procedural on how the bomb was made are severely truncated in the movie. The aspect that gets the most attention seems to be the accumulation of Uranium and Plutonium (as represented by the marbles in the snifter and the gold fish bowl. Much of the rest just materializes seemingly without effort. I was very annoyed by the sound mix. Too much of the dialogue gets burried by Ludwig Goranson's epic music. And I was bothered by the little blips of visuals that are spliced in when Oppie goes into 'deep think' about various scientific ideas. The visuals don't really illustrate the concepts that efectively. They're too abstract to be of ant story telling use.
Concur with the sound mix issues. I saw it at a standard theater and missed chunks of dialogue 3-4 times. That was frustrating. Maybe when I view it a second time (probably IMAX) it will be better. I'm not sure this film will overall be that much better in IMAX format.
Absolutely loved it. Only one part I found cringeworthy...The Truman encounter. It was awful. The representation of Truman was just over the top and what he said in earshot of Oppenheimer never happened. He supposedly said something to that effect to aides at another time...But not there at the meeting. It was such a bad, Cringeworthy scene
That's a typical example of 'situation condensed for dramatic effect'. The same with the scene where Oppenheimer is told that the atom had been split, he explains mathematically why that's impossible and right away he is presented with experimental evidence that it really works. All this happened, but not in the exact same moment. But that's how you transform a real-life event into a narrative: You have to condense. I was rather impressed how accurate the movie was regarding the events and how few events and people were condensed together - very differently from most other biopics, where often whole episodes or characters are made up by the screenwriter.
@fruzsimih7214 Oh there is no denying it was done for dramatic effect. Condensed? The scene could have been left out and it would have been better. Then the entire movie is shorter and one less cringeworthy scene. Just as the Niels Bohr with the apple. Almost as cringeworthy. Not as cringeworthy as the Truman scene but almost... and totally unnecessary. The scene you described as Condensed concerning splitting the atom is central to the story. The Truman scene and Bohr with the apple is pure Hollywood garbage the hurt the film.
The last hour of the film was a slog. Who really cares about Lewis Strauss? Terrific film, but could have used less Strauss. And a lower mix on the music.
Jared.....when you go to the movies do you get popcorn? I am just picturing you rounding the corner holding a popcorn and pop and seeing 100 people and mouthing to yourself "wtf". And the bigger question for I guess everyone....**Twizzler or Red Vines?**
It's a very flawed film with some brilliant moments of which we expect from Nolan. But building a film around a series of inquiries and hearings didnt quite work. The sound mix was awful per usual with Nolan films and at times unnecessarily bombastic. It's ok to have some quitter moments (without even a score) to actually get to know the characters. It's ok to not obsessively tell every store with a schizophrenic need for time jumps and manipulations that take half a film to latch on to.
Well people don't like to admit it, but a commune or communism is very beautiful and noble in theory. The problem is people are not noble in reality and it was all a scam, but did they know that back then?
Worth watching, but I really wish the studio would've wrangled in the Nolanisms ALOT! There are so many other important interesting historical facts and events that could've been used while still being very entertaining... Many things that could've built more tension in real time instead of relying on imaginary time jumps and vfx hysterical illusions 🤦♂️ It's a solid movie, but with some reigning in of Nolan and more input from experts it could've been an all time great historical biopic... 🫤🤷♂️ I still reccomend watching it to people, definitely great acting by everyone (i mean look at the cast list), although seemingly often limited by the script at times not talent...
