"Oppenheimer" Film: A Compelling Story of A Reluctant American Prometheus

August 16, 2023

I recently watched the Christopher Nolan biopic "Oppenheimer," which was based on the book "American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer," by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. It was visually stunning and artistically compelling despite its 3-hour duration. The film centered on how Robert Oppenheimer's new weapon, which split the atom into a frightening, powerful bomb, changed the arc of world history.  It was a sobering movie about how scientists working in secret for the Manhattan Project ushered the human race into the nuclear age at the end of World War II, with devastating consequences that would cause humanity to ponder its future.

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The Christopher Nolan-directed biopic was expertly cast, with Irish actor Cillian Murphy in the lead role, and solid supporting roles provided by Emily Blunt as his wife, Kitty, Robert Downey, Jr. as his friend and rival Lewis Straus, Matt Damon as Manhattan Project leader Lt. General Leslie Groves and Florence Pugh as his former flame, mistress and avowed communist Jean Tatlock.  There were eye-catching minor roles with notable actors such as Kenneth Branaugh as Niels Bohr, Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence (of Lawrence-Livermore Labs fame), Matthew Modine as Vannevar Bush (first presidential science advisor), Oscar Winner Rami Malek as fellow scientist David Hill, and with Gary Oldman as President Truman.  

The film has two parallel tangents going at the same time.  One, titled, "Fission" chronicled Oppenheimer's coming into his own in the 1920s, where he built a stellar scientific research reputation, forged in Europe initially, then teaching at Berkeley, where he met Ernest Lawrence, a well-respected professor and scientist who invented the particle accelerator, a groundbreaking device at the time. They bonded through their love of new theories in physics and his expanding circle of scientific friends. The film touched on his affair with Jean Tatlock, a sympathizer of communist ideals, and finally marrying his future wife, Kitty Harrison. The movie detailed his insistence on building the guarded, temporary city where the world's brightest minds would create the bomb in the isolated hills of New Mexico at Los Alamos.  He chose this location because it was in close proximity to the region where his love of the outdoors and riding horses grew as a young man. Lieutenant General Groves was a little skeptical of Oppenheimer because of his sympathies with the communists during the Spanish Civil War and his personal associations.  I did not personally believe he was a communist.  Like any good scientist, he was simply inquisitive of the egalitarian theories of Karl Marx that were later disproven. 

"Fusion" is shown in black and white (contrasting with "Fission"), and focuses on the Senate confirmation of his rival and former friend, Lewis Straus.  The intense and compelling hearings, which were meant to confirm Mr. Straus to the position of Secretary of Commerce in the Truman Administration, were a lifetime goal for an ambitious man. After his life-altering work, public sentiment began to turn against Mr. Oppenheimer. It was encouraged and leaked strategically by Mr. Strauss, as a result of being embarrassed by Robert Oppenheimer publicly many years ago, and which appeared to be the primary motivation to destroy the character and reputation of the "Father of the Atomic Bomb." The public was swayed mostly due to his opposition to the newer and more powerful hydrogen bomb, which Straus allegedly conveyed that Robert did not want to pursue so the Soviets could equal the United States with nuclear weapons capability to bring about restraint on all sides. This was later countered by his colleagues (specifically David Hill) in the scientific community who defended his good name and life's work as a good way to close out the film. 

To me, one of the film's most important messages was that while the U.S. government and society at large may celebrate anyone for personal or professional achievements, they can also tar and feather them if and when they feel like it when people are no longer of use to those in power.  Robert Oppenheimer was excited to put theories of physics to actual, empirical tests, but once those ideas had shown their great power, he was reticent to participate in moving the world closer to its own destruction. As an avid reader, he was familiar with the famous text of the Bhagavad Gita, and the famous sentence, " Now I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds."  He realized his creation gave credence to this in real life, and it caused him pain throughout the remainder of his life. Because of this, he was shamed by a select few, and his ruined professional credentials were eventually restored due to a vigorous campaign with the respect and support of those who knew him best. His revoked security clearance was given back to him posthumously, a little too late to restore his integrity for history.  Most Americans, and for that matter in the world, unless they saw the movie,  probably were not unaware of this, and that is indeed a shame.

The other main lesson to take from the movie is that the world's population has become numb to the dangerous levels of nuclear proliferation.  At the time of the first test of the bomb in 1945 (codename Trinity), many more nations now possess nuclear weapons: Soviet Union/Russia, China, India, Pakistan, England, France, Israel, and North Korea. Thousands of nuclear bombs, primarily with the American and Russian arsenals, sit idly by. While Robert Oppenheimer realized the path he created for the world, which gave the human race the ability to destroy itself, as mentioned by Neils Bohr in the film, the Department of Defense and successive presidential administrations did not share their fears.  The fact that the United States was the first and only nation to use the bomb against another says more about the morals of those in power in the past, who knew what fighting a nuclear war entails, as opposed to those around the world now, who would threaten the use of nuclear weapons in a flippant, less cogent manner.

The film showed the wonder of bringing theoretical ideas to life, but at the same time, implied that humans must think twice about what our creations can bring forth, which can include our destruction.  Robert Oppenheimer was a tortured genius and found out too little, too late that before creation, we must first determine if we should.