Invite half of the Hollywood stars just to give this "rookie" a supporting role? I misunderstood Nolan

In recent years, a phenomenon has emerged in the domestic film and television circle, called "accompanying the prince to study".

The film side will find a large number of powerful actors and old drama bones to match, just to hold the little-known protagonist.

And the protagonist is often the relationship that everyone crams in the mouth.

Sun Honglei participated in such a movie back then.

He later admitted that the other party's promise (as long as he came to act) the salary was not a problem.

Unexpectedly, this phenomenon also appeared in Hollywood.

And the one who did this was Nolan, the great director who filmed "Inception" and "Interstellar".

In the new film "Oppenheimer", he found half of Hollywood's big names.

Among them, there are Robert Downey Jr., Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and other top-paid A-list movie stars.

In order to be able to appear in Nolan's new film, they did not hesitate to reduce their price, only took a salary of about 4 million, and also filmed Nolan's "rainbow fart".

We are familiar with "Iron Man" Downey.

He said reading the script for Oppenheimer was like taking a trip, and when Nolan finally invited him to star, he felt hypnotized.

And Matt Damon.

He promised his wife that he would take a break for a while, unless he received a call from Nolan.

Then the phone really rang.

Emily Blunt personally ran to Los Angeles to meet Nolan.

After only an hour of talking, Nolan made up his mind, and Blunt's heart raced and he read the script in fascination.

The number of A-list movie stars Nolan invited is enough to make a table.

But these big names can only play supporting roles in this film, but the protagonist is Clian Murphy, who has the lowest coffee position in it.

Killian Murphy, like Tom Hardy, is Nolan's favorite actor.

Nolan jokingly calls them his "muse."

Tom Hardy starred in Nolan's "Inception", "The Dark Knight Rises" and "Dunkirk";

Clarian Murphy has also followed Nolan from the "Batman" trilogy to "Inception" and "Dunkirk".

But unfortunately, although the two have appeared many times, their sense of existence is not strong.

Tom Hardy is either wearing a mask (The Dark Knight Rises) or a face covering (Dunkirk) in Nolan's films.

Many people didn't even know that he starred after watching the movie, and Nolan even ridiculed himself that "only I can see his face".

And Killian Murphy is even more down.

From the scarecrow in "Batman" to the rich second generation in "Inception", he can only play supporting roles forever.

Many people even ridiculed him for not having a protagonist face, and could only be a Nolan relationship and make a familiar face in the movie.

This pair of "unlucky duos" is a typical example of celebrities not being popular.

When many people see them, they will encounter the embarrassment of "as if they have seen it in any play, but they can't name them".

We all know the story that followed.

Tom Hardy quickly became a first-line male star with the "Venom" series.

In vain Murphy was secretly sad.

Murphy often says "meaty love words" to Nolan in public or in private:

"As long as Nolan's movies, I'm on call, I don't mind the size of the character at all, but deep down I really want to be his male lead."

Nolan understood.

In fact, in his heart, Murphy has never been the sycophant who only pleases.

He described Murphy's eyes as burning like nothing else in the actor.

It's not that Murphy can't be the protagonist, but he just couldn't wait for that opportunity.

Later, when Nolan was writing the script for Oppenheimer, a bunch of keywords popped up in his head.

Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, atomic bomb explosion, burning sensation.

Isn't this role tailor-made for Murphy!

For a bottle of vinegar, wrap a meal of dumplings; Picked up a mouse pad and equipped with a computer.

Nolan found a big name from Hollywood to match his rookie brother and made this "Oppenheimer".

And this time, "green leaves with red flowers" actually shot a magical effect.

"Oppenheimer" was released overseas and mainland not long ago, showing two completely different trends.

Overseas, it can be described as a double harvest at the box office and word of mouth.

In terms of box office, it has now exceeded $770 million, ranking fourth in the world.

It is only one step away from Nolan's highest-grossing "Rise of the Dark Knight".

In terms of word of mouth, its Imdb score is as high as 8.6 points, and its MTC score is 88 points.

Foreign film critics praised "this is the most thought-provoking film about World War II".

But at home, it is not well received.

Its Douban score was as high as 8.6 points, and it rose to 8.9 points just a few days after its release, the first of all Hollywood movies this year, and many people said that Nolan was once again a god.

But compared to the fanaticism of Nolan fans, passers-by fans are generally not interested in this film.

Maoyan's final box office forecast was also lowered from 500 million+ to 450 million.

Compared with "Desperate Bet" and "The First Part of Fengshen ", this result is really not enough.

In today's Hollywood decline, even Nolan cannot reverse this decline.

Pico went to the theater to see the film for the first time, and also felt polarized.

Some people sleep soundly while watching the movie, while others chat while watching the movie;

Some people leave the scene halfway, and some people don't want to leave for a long time after watching the movie, just to wait for no Easter eggs.

In fact, there are three main reasons for polarization.

First, "Oppenheimer" is a 180-minute biopic.

Although Oppenheimer is the "father of the atomic bomb", he is not well known in China.

▲ Elderly Oppenheimer

This length of time plus this theme dissuaded most people.

Second, the film not only tells the process of making the atomic bomb, but also talks about the intertwined character relationships and historical background behind it.

When it comes to nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, liberal arts students frown;

And when it comes to McCarthyism, science students frown.

It is similar to "Green Book", using a scalpel to cut a section of American social problems, but it is difficult for domestic audiences to empathize.

Third, the film is a biography of Oppenheimer, but it does not shy away from showing his moral flaws.

Such as trying to poison a mentor with a poisoned apple, cheating, and being smooth in relationships.

Under the current domestic public opinion, "Oppenheimer" tells the story of "a scumbag destroying the world", and female audiences are easy to feel bad.

In this regard, the film has turned away more than 90% of female audiences.

But these objective factors aside, Oppenheimer itself is a good enough work.

To sum it up in one sentence, this is a love letter that Nolan handed to Oscar.

Nolan is the god in the hearts of many audiences, and he can always transform abstract concepts of time and space into dazzling visual effects.

In "Fragments of Memory", he cuts the main and flashback stories into 25 cross-plays;

In "Inception", he stripped the dream into four layers for the audience to see;

In "Interstellar", he shows the wonders of the five-dimensional world;

But Nolan moved the heavens and earth, but he couldn't move the Oscar judges, and he has been hanging zero on several mainstream director awards.

Because in the eyes of the professional judges, Nolan is a skilled craftsman.

All the bells and whistles of time and space concepts and non-main narratives he plays with are essentially show-offs and lack touching humanistic care.

Moreover, he himself has a "professional stain" suspected of plagiarizing "Red Hot Chili Peppers", which makes it seem that he can only become a successful commercial film director.

The closer he is to business, the farther away he is from the Oscars.

Nolan's path to showmanship goes to extremes in Creed.

In this movie, he conceptualizes first, applies the "law of increasing entropy" in physics, but tells a mediocre story, and the audience does not buy it.

And this time to Oppenheimer, he went to the other extreme.

"Oppenheimer" was originally an excellent commercial theme, nuclear fission and atomic bombing, these two concepts alone can be played by Nolan.

The audience can even make up a visual feast just by looking at the title.

Nolan is too simple if he wants to go the business route.

In recent years, Japan's discharge of nuclear sewage has attracted much attention, and anti-Japanese sentiment has been rising internationally.

Nolan only needs to film the detailed process of the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japan during World War II, and he can make a lot of money with this wave of popularity, and the final box office can earn at least 200 million US dollars more.

But he was extremely restrained and chose to shoot a slightly obscure biopic.

Among them, the history of "atomic bomb bombing Japan" was not filmed for a second.

Nolan's restraint is first reflected in the special effects.

The atomic bombing was supposed to be the movie that needed special effects the most, but he used only 200 special effects in the entire film.

Among them, the "atomic bomb explosion" did not use CG technology, and "live-action shooting" was adopted.

A foreign UP owner even restored how Nolan filmed this big scene.

Throughout Nolan's films, the number of his special effects has declined year by year.

From 700 in "The Dark Knight" to 200 in "Oppenheimer", I want to distinguish my movie from the word "showmanship".

An interesting detail is that Oppenheimer's special effects team has 150 people, but Nolan only has 30 people's names at the end of the credits, which shows how much he doesn't want to see movie special effects now.

Second, he maintains restraint in his narrative.

Nolan abolished his martial arts this time, abandoned the bells and whistles narrative style, and returned to tradition in narrative.

The simple summary is the syllogism: "before the atomic bomb was built", "during the atomic bomb", and "after the atomic bomb was built".

But don't think it's a flat ledger, it still adopts a non-linear narrative, with obvious Nolan traces.

The whole film goes hand in hand with three lines, and the main line is Oppenheimer's "growth line".

The two secondary lines are the "censorship line" (dyed gray hair on the style) when Oppenheimer was investigated in his later years;

and "Villain Line" played by Downey.

Oppenheimer's life is pieced together in direct and indirect ways, which draws on the film history classic "Citizen Kane".

And in each narrative, Nolan still maintains his own style, with many small designs.

For example, the use of green apple transitions reminds people of the gyro in "Inception";

For example, the scene of Oppenheimer's hearing is displayed from a perspective, creating a looping effect.

Of course, there is also the "villain line" made into black and white effects, which makes people dream of "Memory Fragments".

While restrained, Nolan is desperately working hard in other areas.

For example, sound effects.

The film's 3-hour length is all with a background soundtrack.

These soundtracks are not accessories, but actively participate in the narrative.

In many scenes (hearings, speeches, research arguments) even the audience is agitated and uneasy.

Nolan uses sound effects alone to let the audience enter the anxious inner world of the protagonist.

On the display of the atomic bomb explosion, Nolan is also a madman of science, knowing the truth that "the speed of light is greater than the speed of sound".

The mushroom cloud was first shown, and then after a moment of silence, the violent explosion was belated.

And through this "setback", the psychological state of the characters is revealed.

A similar technique was also used in "Slam Dunk", which was released some time ago, when showing the killing moment.

Like lines.

Yes, Nolan showed off his skills this time, not the structure, not the concept of time, but the lines.

The amount of lines in the film is extremely large, and the amount of lines from two other people's movies is said in one movie.

He just wants to bombard the audience's ears with dense lines.

This also creates a difference in perception among everyone.

Viewers who don't watch it will feel that the chatter is very noisy;

The audience who entered the play was holding their breath, for fear of missing a word.

Nolan's work usually has a dramatic climax, when a team works hard to achieve a grand goal.

According to common sense, the climactic scene in this film is that the atomic bomb becomes a reality.

But strangely, after Oppenheimer successfully built the atomic bomb, the film still has more than half an hour in length.

He did not leave the climax for the atomic bomb explosion, but for the later literary play.

After Oppenheimer became famous, he tasted the taste of birds and dead rabbits cooked.

He soon fell into a moral dilemma that destroyed the world.

When President Truman received him, Oppenheimer revealed his heart, but was snubbed by Roosevelt.

Before he could go out, Truman said to the people around him, "Don't let me see this fool again." ”

Oppenheimer was then subjected to political persecution.

When McCarthyism was prevalent, Oppenheimer was secretly interrogated for his identity as the American Communist Party and suffered physical and mental torture.

He witnessed the betrayal of his friends and had to confess his cheating experience, and was finally taken back from his security clearance and reduced to a civilian.

This encounter is the climax of the whole film, and it is also the core of the second half.

Nolan constantly stacks emotions with lines.

In the last half hour, we could clearly feel the change in the rhythm of the lines.

At first mediocre and lengthy, many viewers just saw that this place fell asleep.

But as the emotions advance layer by layer, the "interrogation line" and the "villain line" are intertwined, and finally reach the climax of the drama.

The lines of several protagonists are like machine guns and shots hitting the audience's ears, and the pleasure is incomparable.

This half-hour drama is an outburst for Nolan and the key to his competition for the Oscar.

It is recommended that you go to a theater with good audiovisual effects to feel the charm of the lines and sound effects.

And when Nolan is ready for everything, our rookie protagonist Murphy appears there, bringing a shocking performance.

We don't analyze his performance, just by looking at his appearance, we can feel that it is so appropriate.

The burning sensation in his eyes and the devil's cloud exploding behind him complemented each other, reaching the hearts of the audience.

I believe that after watching the film for many years, you may not remember the plot, but you must remember Murphy's burning eyes.

Oppenheimer in the film is by no means perfect.

He is not a good father, not a good husband, not even a good leader.

His hypocrisy is slippery and slippery, and it is difficult to make the audience feel good.

But Murphy has his own way of performing, he performs anxiety, and with the help of sound effects, lines, and lenses, the audience can empathize with his entanglements and struggles.

This film gathers big coffee, and all the acting skills are online, but in front of several big coffee, Murphy's protagonist scene has not been snatched away.

It's all thanks to Nolan's directorial skills.

Murphy's 10,000-year-old supporting role has always been ridiculed as not having the life of the protagonist, and how many people have been punched in the face this time.

In other films, Nolan likes to shoot the back of the protagonist at the end of the film.

But at the end of the film, he gave Murphy a positive close-up.

On the positive and negative side, Nolan is both a chance for his love to bloom and a demonstration of his transformation, and he really did it.

If there is a pity, Oppenheimer does have one.

In the original version, Oppenheimer and Jean have three bed scenes, and the shots are more realistic.

In the introduction version, these scenes were dealt with.

For example, the adjustment of the content of the frame, such as the technical "filling gaps" such as putting on skirts for the characters.

Regret is regret, fortunately, it does not particularly affect the understanding of the film.

Finally, having said all this, "Oppenheimer" has a good reputation, but after all, it is a 180-minute movie.

And the threshold for viewing movies is high, and even resources have flowed out of the Internet, is it worth going to the theater to watch?

For Nolan powder, it can be brainless.

For fans who like character biographies and literary films, Pico is also recommended to watch it.

But if it's just Tu Yile, Pico doesn't recommend it very much.

It's likely that your family will wake up and complain after watching it.

Text/Pippi Film Editorial Office: A Chicken

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