Saw it, quite good, though my fears that they would hinge all the tension on A. Would it work, B.would it ignite the atmosphere, and C. Would it lead to global thermonuclear war, all things we know DIDNT happen (well, still time for C I suppose) were realized.
Not sure why Strauss was made to be a
and I thought the stakes of the "secret clearance hearings" were vague at best, diffusing the momentum after the trinity test.
Dat sound though, glad i saw it in IMAX because watching it at low volume with subtitles like I often have to at home is gonna suck the energy right out of the film.
I wouldn't say the tension was built around those. The film doesn't make any secret of the fact that the bomb worked and didn't ignite the atmosphere. Before the detonation scene we see various other scenes which take place after the Trinity test and refer to the bomb now being a thing. So even if we didn't know the history it would be clear the test succeded and didn't destroy the world. For me, the tension comes from the two hearings and their outcomes. Those are the focal points the other stuff is feeding into.
With the global thermonuclear war stuff, yeh clearly that hasn't broken out since that point. But for me the film seems to be making the point that this was a turning point for humanity. Science was used to develop an existential threat and rather than that causing us to pull back on weapons development and have it be a deterrent for future war, as Oppenheimer had hoped, we charged right ahead and kept creating deadlier and deadlier weapons of mass destruction. That escalation could doom us at some point because we already know pulling the trigger isn't out of the question. If that destruction does come then even if it's not from a nuclear device, it could still be a result of that school of thought.
Kitty talks about how a failed appeal for the security clearance would wreck Oppenheimer's credibility and potentially ruin his career. So I thought the stakes for the hearing were fairly clear. He was a guy struggling to hold onto some form of control, or at least have a say in the use, of the thing he created and was being pushed aside by a system that no longer had any use for him and found him inconvenient.
Eh, maybe. Strauss' moves to destroy Oppenheimers reputation felt tacked on. I didn't get a good sense WITHIN the film, of his downfall and how society viewed him to make all that stuff more emotionally resonant. The drive to develop the bomb, the somewhat callous ignorance of what it would mean AFTER the war, which was effectively won at that point, all that stuff I think deserved the focus and the last act was a reach too far.
If you're going to show the rise then they should also show the fall. And that was the hearing organised by Strauss. Strauss then having a hearing of his own puts the two in contrast with each other and gives you the framing device for the story. There's a similar character dynamic to Amadeus' Mozart and Salieri with Oppenheimer as the generational genius and Strauss the guy who has dragged himself into the position he has through sheer force of will and has held onto the various slights he's had thrown at him over the years.
I felt like we got a good sense of the downfall in the hearing itself. It's in a small, previously disused room, showing the lack of respect he now has. His friends and former colleagues are brought in to testify against him and even decent figures in his life, guys like Groves, are put in a position where they have to take the side of those opposing Oppenheimer. He's also forced to detail his affairs on the record in front of his wife. The whole thing is an incredibly isolating, humiliating experience. Sections like the part where he's sitting there naked and the overexposed section where everything is overly bright show what a vulnerable, uncomfortable situation it was to be in. It also seemed to me that Oppenheimer's lack of resistance, something Kitty points out, is this sort of act of penance on Oppenheimer's part. It's his impulse to punish himself for the thing he's done. If Oppenheimer is the American Prometheus of the book's title, having brought the fire of nuclear power to mankind, then he's chaining himself to the rock for Strauss and his people to eat his liver.
if you're interested, the other day I was listening to
a discussion of the film on this podcast that I found really interesting.
