Redemption or destruction? Step inside Nolan's new film Oppenheimer and learn about one of the most important people of all time
The world must be destroyed before it can be saved – a moral dilemma from which Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb", failed to escape in his life. In August 1945, two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki prompted the surrender of Japan, and World War II ended, and the "nuclear fission technology" was cracked to bring peace by burying lives. Now, through the hands of director Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer's story has been put on the screen and officially released in mainland theaters on August 30, "the audience should know because he is one of the most important people of all time."
Never compromise, use job-hopping to "rectify" the film industry
Nolan describes himself as a "very old-school 'analog' filmmaker" who insists on shooting on film, preferring on-site filming in an attempt to give the actors a complete reality. At the same time, he is also fascinated by the stunning big-screen picture quality brought by IMAX, almost to the point of "madness".
In 2021, Warner Bros. Pictures, which has cooperated with Nolan for nearly 20 years, formulated the strategy of "HBO Max and theater synchronous distribution", which caused Nolan's strong dissatisfaction. He complained in an interview: "When I went to bed the night before, I thought I was working for the greatest movie studio, but when I woke up, I found myself working for the worst streaming platform." ”
After months of negotiations after "Creed", Nolan finally chose to "jump ship" and cooperate with Universal Pictures. Universal accepted the six conditions proposed by Nolan with the greatest sincerity, including providing "Oppenheimer" with $100 million in production costs and $100 million in publicity costs, giving Nolan absolute control over film creation, no other new films released for three weeks before and after the release of "Oppenheimer", a theatrical exclusivity period of more than 100 days, and priority to get 20% of the upfront box office revenue.
Oppenheimer was created against this backdrop.
Footage taken on black-and-white film recreates Strauss's hearing for the nomination of commerce minister in 1959
At the push of a button, there is a risk of destroying the world
Growing up in Britain in the 80s, Nolan received information about the "threat of nuclear weapons" from a series of social news stories from an early age, "When I was 13, my friends and I believed that we would eventually die in a nuclear catastrophe." Later, despite the shift in social focus, he believed that the danger had not disappeared.
To this day, "nuclear energy" is still a sword hanging over the heads of all mankind, when it has the power to harvest life, it is judged, and it becomes our only destiny.
How did this happen in the first place? Oppenheimer's story has been circling in Nolan's mind for many years: "Before the atomic bomb test, Oppenheimer and his team faced a very small chance that when they pressed the button for the first atomic bomb test, they could burn the entire atmosphere and destroy the world."
It is this "terrifying possibility" that has created dramatic moments in human history. "Although the chances of this happening are very small, there is no mathematical formula or theoretical basis that allows them to completely rule it out, and yet they still press the button." It was the most extraordinary moment in human history, and I wanted to lead the audience into that room, hear the conversations between the scientists, and when they pressed the button, I wanted the audience to feel as if they were there. When you think about it, it was really the most incredible moment, the risk of detonating an atomic bomb was so great. Add to that science, theory, knowledge—things we can imagine—to bring these abstractions into the actual natural environment and the real world, and then we have to bear the consequences of these abstractions becoming real reality. ”
Nolan wrote the script for Oppenheimer in the first person. "When I started writing the script, I told one of my sons and he really said to me: 'But nobody really worries about this anymore, nuclear weapons.' Two years later, he didn't say that. The world has changed again. This is a lesson for all of us, but especially for young people. The world changes fast. ”
Oppenheimer with Gene Tatlock
Reject special effects and recreate the nuclear explosion scene in real shooting
Oppenheimer is Nolan's second film set in World War II after Dunkirk, and his longest to date, with a length of 180 minutes. At Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, the crew completely rebuilt the Los Alamos Laboratory, the atomic bomb research base that year.
The atomic bomb test mentioned above by Nolan, known as the "Trinity test," took place on July 16, 1945, in the Alamogordo desert in New Mexico, USA. "From the beginning, I knew that the Trinity nuclear explosion test was going to be one of the most important images we had to try to capture." Nolan has always preferred live-action shooting, and he knew that such a scene could never present the thrilling sense of threat and shock by relying only on post-production computer special effects, so he had to find a feasible way in traditional live-action shooting.
To make the image realistic and spectacular, VFX Supervisor Scott M. R. Fisher experimented extensively, including banging ping-pong balls against each other, splashing paint on a wall, mixing glowing magnesium solutions, and many more experiments, experimenting with the imaging effect by shooting macro close-ups at different frame rates with small digital cameras. After success, the same method is used to shoot on an IMAX camera. In addition, the production team created a miniature model of the town in the style of the 40s of the 20th century to set off the nuclear explosion image.
As for how the nuclear explosion was filmed, Nolan and his team called it the crew's "top secret" and "the entire special effects team is conducting a large-scale scientific experiment."
IMAX film to achieve a picture quality ceiling
No CG, full film, became the focus of "Oppenheimer". This is Nolan's sixth shot with a costly IMAX film camera, and Oppenheimer's 180-minute final cut means that its IMAX film is 17.71 kilometers long and weighs 272 kilograms, which is the limit of what an IMAX film projector can handle.
In addition, in order to use IMAX film cameras to capture black-and-white footage, Nolan also customized a batch of 65mm black-and-white film - a specification that did not exist before and could only be manufactured in-house using advanced technology. Nolan's nitpicking made Oppenheimer achieve "the ceiling of picture quality ever". Worldwide, however, only 30 projectors meet the highest specification of projection conditions, i.e. IMAX70mm film projection.
Nolan, who has been associated with IMAX for 18 years, undoubtedly knows this shooting technology very well, and the high-resolution image quality it provides is often used to represent grand scenes, but in Oppenheimer, the capture of close-ups by IMAX film cameras shows outstanding detail in another way.
Robert Downey Jr., who plays Lewis Strauss Jr. in the film, shared a shooting scene, "I was sitting in the back seat of a Packard antique car with an IMAX camera on my lap, trying to shoot footage of the car, and I felt like I was back at the innovative film school because you knew you were really scared when the IMAX lens was so close to you."
Robert Downey Jr. plays Oppenheimer's number one rival, Lewis Strauss, in the film
Nolan believes that for those audiences who have only heard of the name Oppenheimer and only know Oppenheimer's relationship with the atomic bomb, witnessing this special historical moment through the movie "Oppenheimer", and even walking into Oppenheimer's inner world, will undoubtedly be the craziest experience.
Author Zhang Jin (exclusive manuscript of "Shanghai TV", please contact the editorial department of "Shanghai TV" for reprinting)