Oppenheimer (3 paragraphs)

[August1991]

This movie is a mess. I saw it because of good reviews but IMHO, it is awful. It has too many short scenes. Too many cuts. It moves between the past and the present quickly. It is sometimes in B&W and sometimes in colour. It has two women at various times - it is not clear which woman is which. Matt Damon is critical in this movie: he made the story sort-of make sense. (Credit to Damon, not Dolan.)

This movie shows scientists inaccurately. I strongly advise people to check YouTube for Richard Feynman's description of Los Alamo. More important, Feynman's description of a visit to Tennessee. This was the true Manhattan Project: after Chicago and Fermi, figuring out a way to filter uranium/plutonium isotopes. True, there were spies and leftists - in the 1940s, everyone smoked!

While watching this movie, I thought of David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia. This was released in 1962 - about 50 years after the events. Nolan's movie is about 70 years after a similar enigmatic character. Nolan's movie has too much music in the wrong places.  

 

[Dougie93]

I've never found Robert Oppenheimer to be a particularly compelling character

the father of the Manhattan Project was rather Albert Einstein

Oppenheimer was more a technocrat than a visionary

in terms of nuclear scientists,

the far more interesting characters were always Edward Teller & Andrei Sakharov

[August1991]

On 9/9/2023 at 11:47 AM, Dougie93 said:

...

the far more interesting characters were always Edward Teller & Andrei Sakharov

Disagree.

John Neumann is the character.

Born in a civilised Europe.

[Dougie93]

On 9/10/2023 at 10:57 PM, August1991 said:

Disagree.

John Neumann is the character.

Born in a civilised Europe.

I would suggest that the most influential physicist of them all was Herman Kahn

his treatise On Thermonuclear War essentially shaped policy as we know it

although it was instituted by a politician ; Robert Strange McNamara

[August1991]

Nolan is no Lean.

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I'm sorry for this facile phrase. But we sadly live in a time when ce qu’on appelle vrai est en effet faux.

Edited October 11, 2023 by August1991

[August1991]

I walked out of the cinema before the end of Oppenheimer. I have no desire to watch it again.

I have watched Lawrence of Arabia several times. By curiosity, I have been to places in Jordan.

Lean also made Brief Encounter. And Ryan's Daughter. All movies that I have watched, several times.

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BTW, Lawrence lost his entire book - The Seven Pillars - at a railway station.  He wrote it all, the entire book, again.

And according to Lawrence, he shot the guy - but not the same guy as in the movie.

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Let me finish with this final anecdote.

"I'm sitting in a railway station, waiting for my destination... "

Americans say railroad.