Oppy

Hold on to your hat, I’m writing two days in a row! I want to get back to that being the expectation.

Two weeks ago, I had my interview for my new teaching position. I wanted to make the best use of my trip to the City, so I decided to see Oppenheimer. I read that you should, if at all possible, see it in IMAX 70mm. There’s only one AMC theater in the city that has. That. I have a gift card to AMC so that’s the chain I use. I went to buy my ticket on my phone and discovered that it was sold out for the day. It was also sold out for the next day, and the next. The upshot was that the first time I could get a ticket for a seat that wasn’t down front all the way to one side was yesterday, and only for the 10:30 AM showing. I bought it. So yesterday I had to leave the house early to make the show. I didn’t have time to make breakfast, so I picked it up at the bodega. That proved to be a mistake. I had such a long wait that I arrived at the theater 5 minutes late. Good thing the movie didn’t actually start until 10:47.

Before I go into the film you need to know a bit about me. I grew up wanting to be a physicist. My heroes were scientists. I started as a physics major in college and would have stayed one if the faculty was better. Instead, I changed to math. I never lost my love of physics. I regularly attended the Physics lectures at the New York Academy of Sciences. In doing so I heard speak, and even met scientists who played an important role in the film or worked on the Manhattan project. Most significant in the film were Edward Teller and I.I. Rabi. I was in the room while they argued politics. They were in no way my friends, but I know them and Oppenheimer and Einstein well from either hearing them speak or reading their writings or reading about them. That means that I went in knowing a good deal about the people and events in the film. Even though not named I knew Richard Feynman because he had several scenes playing the bongos. That can lead to two outcomes, appreciating the film more as I already care about the characters, or being so struck by the liberties it takes with the truth as to ruin it for me. The latter happens far more often in the former. Film and TV writers usually do a poor job of writing about mathematicians and scientists.

I had no need to worry. Did I have some quibbles? Of course, but for the most part I became totally absorbed in the story. The characters were real people. The flow of events was captured. The people were both brilliant and idiots, just like all geniuses. The actors so became their characters that it took me a long time to realize that Strauss (pronounced straws) was portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. Matt Damon is way too good looking for General Leslie Groves, but he fit everything I had read about him. How were we able to start from scratch to have an atomic bomb in four years? Because General Grove cut through all the bullshit and red tape and hired the best people for the job, especially Oppy, even if others in the government considered them security risks. Oppenheimer’s brother and wife were both at one time, card carrying communists. Enrico Fermi, an Italian citizen, was technically an enemy alien. In a time of blatant anti-Semitism half of them were Jewish. No matter, they could get the job done.

Oppenheimer is a difficult person to capture in one film. He was a mass of contradictions. He was a genius but not quite up to the level of the Nobelists and future Nobelists working under him. He had strong moral convictions, but many moral failings. Did he make a Faustian bargain? Yes? No? Maybe? The film does not try and answer the unanswerable. Oppy himself could never resolve it.

The moral aspects of building the Bomb were heavily dealt with. It’s something I have trouble talking about with many people as they are unwilling to face the complexity. The film explored more angles than I can count. Oppenheimer accepted, perhaps even relished being the father of the atomic bomb, but it also haunted him.

Then there was the treasure hunt, solving the intellectual challenge of actually building the bomb. From the moment nuclear fission was discovered by Hahn and Meisner the possibility of the Bomb was obvious to everyone that knew nuclear physics. The possibility was obvious but now how to do it. That took many intellectual leaps by some of the most brilliant minds on the planet. It took tons of hard work on the parts of thousands. It took organizational genius. It took knowing when to break the rules. Even though we know the terrible consequences we find ourselves rooting for them to succeed.

Then there is heart of the film, the Trinity Test. This was not the climax but in the middle. This is where you need to see the film in IMAX. I’m sure I would have loved the film seen anywhere but it would not have reached into my gut without feeling like I was there in person. The explosion is not a matter of an instant. It unfolds in time. Nolan directed it perfectly. The emotional impact matched that of the explosion. I don’t want to tell you my favorite artistic choice as I don’t think it would have the same effect if I knew it was coming. This scene is right up there with the D-Day scene in Saving Private Ryan. It is all consuming, overwhelming your senses. Awe is the perfect word. I will tell you Oppenheimer’s words as they are famous, and I have known them since childhood. It is from the Hindi sacred text, the Bhagavad Gita, that Oppy read in the original Sanskrit: “I Am Become Death Destroyer of Worlds.” Oppenheimer’s language ability also led to several funny lines. How good was he with language? He learned enough Dutch to give a lecture on Quantum Physics in it in six weeks.

I walked out of the theater knowing this film is a classic. It will probably be my top film of the decade. For me it will be the film that defines the decade. Of course, that happened to me twice in the 90s with Pulp Fiction and Goodfellas. I don’t take it back; they are each the best film of the decade. See Oppenheimer and if possible, see it in IMAX 70 mm. Perhaps it isn’t necessary but don’t take the risk that it is.