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In 1982, back when Christopher Nolan was 12, he was gripped by an existential fear.
“There was an intense debate about nuclear weapons” at the time, Nolan remembers. “My friends and I thought we would die in a nuclear Armageddon at some point in our lives.”
Fast-forward 41 years and that childhood trauma has found full expression in “Oppenheimer” (in theaters Friday), arguably the most ambitious and straightforward of the British director’s dozen works that range from “Memento” to “Inception” with a few "Batman" movies thrown in for populist measure.
In this opening salvo of 2023’s Oscar battle, Nolan has enjoined a star-studded cast for a retelling of the brilliant and haunted life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American physicist whose stewardship of the Manhattan Project led to the atomic bomb, the death of tens of thousands and the end of World War II.
It's a movie Nolan has ached to put on the big screen for decades. “In 1985, Sting came out with his song ‘Russians,’ and there’s a line in it that hit hard,” he says. “It goes, ‘How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer’s deadly toy?’"
The result of that lifelong obsession is a movie that Cillian Murphy ("Peaky Blinders"), the Irish actor who plays the titular character, calls Nolan's "magnum opus."
Seeing the completed film for the first time, Murphy says he was "emotionally winded, it grabbed me by the throat."
Who was J. Robert Oppenheimer? What to know about atomic bomb physicist's life, career, death
The draw for moviegoers: epic scale and a riveting true story
Nolan was captivated by Oppenheimer and his impossible dilemma: How do you use your beloved science to bring peace through death? In 2020, as the director was finishing the sci-fi thriller “Tenet,” he received a gift from cast member Robert Pattinson: a book of Oppenheimer’s speeches.
“In them, he’s wrestling with the consequences of this technology,” Nolan says.
On its surface, “Oppenheimer” could play like a documentary, following the scientist as he develops a passion for physics and women before being asked by Atomic Energy Commission head Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) to lead a secret bomb-making project overseen by Army Lt. Gen. Leslie Groves (Matt Damon).
In the war’s aftermath, Oppenheimer suddenly finds himself in Strauss' crosshairs. His loyalty to the U.S. is publicly challenged as the Communist witch hunt rages. His military security clearance is revoked, and his name is tarnished.
But Nolan’s faithfulness to his source material aside (the Pulitzer-winning biography “American Prometheus” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin), “Oppenheimer” is committed to making audiences share in the same wide-eyed trepidation and amazement Nolan felt as a child.
'Oppenheimer' mined a dark fear: Would the first atomic bomb blow up Earth?
Achieving his cinematic vision meant shooting in massive IMAX; building a town in New Mexico to double as the Los Alamos project site; filming scenes in Oppenheimer’s real offices and homes; and using practical effects instead of computer-generated imaging.
A fully computer-generated nuclear blast would take viewers away from the film’s intended realism, Matt Damon says in an interview conducted before the Screen Actors Guild strike.
“It’s a real philosophy of his movie-making,” Damon says. “It’s better for your actors to totally immerse them, and more importantly, for the audience, because you can never quite put your finger on why something works or doesn’t, but you can tell if it doesn’t.”
To heighten the horror, Nolan focused on a genuine if fleeting concern that gripped the physicists: the possibility that a chain reaction would literally set fire to the entire planet.
“Once I got ahold of that fact, that stuck with me,” he says.
Christopher Nolan gets 'great performances' out of his stars
For the actors in this ensemble, Nolan was the touchstone.
“He’s a hurricane of talent who understands actors, which is why in these huge, gargantuan films, he gets such great performances out of people,” says Emily Blunt, who plays Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty in a pre-strike conversation.
“Oppenheimer’s story arc is all over the place and hard to pin down,” says Murphy. “I leaned on Chris greatly to modulate what I did, turning things up and then down so I kept a great deal of ambiguity.”
Key to Murphy’s portrayal is a studied look that's uncannily similar to famous photographs. “I started from the outside in,” he says. “I wanted to get his silhouette right. The right shape and costuming and hair and makeup. It was a long process.”
Over the last two decades, Nolan had cast Murphy in five movies. This time, "I called and said, ‘This is the one, you’ll take center stage,” says Nolan. “He knew he had a lot of work to do.”
Will 'Barbenheimer' buzz boost turnout?
But one great lead actor performance does not a summer blockbuster make. And while Nolan may be an artiste, he does measure success in box office tallies. He's confident the gripping and real nature of this tale will captivate popcorn-hungry crowds.
“ ‘American Prometheus’ was the most dramatic story I’ve ever read, full stop,” says Nolan. “It’s the stuff of cinematic drama. For me, cinema means engagement, whether by horror, comedy, or love, so movies can be anything. If the story is dramatic and engaging, you can bring it to a wide audience.”
Even if it’s three hours long, a length that Nolan targeted. He believes every movie has a predetermined length, “whether that’s this movie at three hours or ‘Dunkirk’ at 100 tight minutes.”
Like James Cameron and Tom Cruise, Nolan says those who make movies must work to bring post-pandemic audiences back into the theater.
“Movies combine the subjectivity of a novel with the empathetic response of other people in the audience,” he says. “There’s no other medium that does that.”
Nolan demurs on whether that means he’ll be in line for “Barbie” (also out Friday), the other half of the so-called "Barbenheimer" double bill.
But he’s glad the marketing hoopla − which comes at a tenuous time for an industry plunged into a writers' and actors' strike − could mean more people shuffling into darkened theaters to experience escapism, including the nightmares of a 12-year-old writ large on an IMAX canvas.
“I don’t make films for myself as a creative, I make them for myself as an audience member,” he says. “As for the success or failure of a movie you make, that’s an imponderable. All I can really do is simply know I made the best film I possibly could.”
Contributing: Patrick Ryan, USA TODAY
Margot Robbie: The star never thought she'd have 'empathy for a doll.' Then she made 'Barbie.'
