The premise of this film seemed to be: the bigger the better: it's three hours long with huge sunbursts whenever physics was discussed, and a very noisy soundtrack.
First, the length. It seemed to be two films squashed into one. Much of the film was a pair of linked courtroom dramas (although neither was, strictly speaking, a courtroom): one by a Senate Committee to decide whether Lewis Strauss, who had at one stage been Oppenhemier’s boss, should have his nomination for a cabinet position approved, and another by a panel seeking to approve or revoke Oppenheimer’s security clearance. These were both after WWII, during the era of McCarthyism.
The second film is a biopic, describing Oppenheimer's early career as a a physicist (he got his doctorate at Gottingen in Germany), his leftist sympathies, and the development of the atom bomb at Los Alamos, a project he headed.
These films were interwoven with lots of flashbacks and flashforwards.
The sound track was quite obtrusive and I found it really difficult to hear the dialogue for the first twenty minutes or so, until I’d tuned in. Even later in the film there were moments when a loud soundtrack overlaid a line of dialogue. There were moments when the soundtrack seemed overblown and melodramatic, as if the audience wouldn’t understand the drama on the screen without its help. Similarly, whenever they talked about theoretical physics, the special effects department went into overdrive with sunbursts and Lissajous-like strange, wandering threads.
There were also, inevitably, a lot of characters. There was Einstein (of course, even though he really didn't play much of a part, but hey, when you’re talking physics you have to have Einstein with his crazy hair) and Bohr (he didn’t do much either) and a lot of Teller and two shots of someone playing bongos who must have been Feynman because that’s all anyone knows about Feynman and Fermi (Italian accent) and a few seconds of Szilard who was the man who actually discovered the chain reaction (in London, on Southampton Row) but patented it to keep it secret because he didn’t want atomic weapons used even though his family had been forced to flee the Nazis.
But the focus was on Oppenheimer and was he or wasn’t he a lefty. I think the conclusion was that he might have been a lefty but he was an American hero and you shouldn't treat a hero like that.
The sound track was quite obtrusive and I found it really difficult to hear the dialogue for the first twenty minutes or so, until I’d tuned in. Even later in the film there were moments when a loud soundtrack overlaid a line of dialogue. There were moments when the soundtrack seemed overblown and melodramatic, as if the audience wouldn’t understand the drama on the screen without its help. Similarly, whenever they talked about theoretical physics, the special effects department went into overdrive with sunbursts and Lissajous-like strange, wandering threads.
There were also, inevitably, a lot of characters. There was Einstein (of course, even though he really didn't play much of a part, but hey, when you’re talking physics you have to have Einstein with his crazy hair) and Bohr (he didn’t do much either) and a lot of Teller and two shots of someone playing bongos who must have been Feynman because that’s all anyone knows about Feynman and Fermi (Italian accent) and a few seconds of Szilard who was the man who actually discovered the chain reaction (in London, on Southampton Row) but patented it to keep it secret because he didn’t want atomic weapons used even though his family had been forced to flee the Nazis.
But the focus was on Oppenheimer and was he or wasn’t he a lefty. I think the conclusion was that he might have been a lefty but he was an American hero and you shouldn't treat a hero like that.
I also thought the history was distorted. Time magazine described him as the 'Father of the Atom Bomb' but actually he was only really the scientifically literate administrator who headed a team of brilliant scientists. Before WWII Oppenheimer was a bit of a dilettante physicist, collaborating here and there, skipping from one topic to another. He developed (with Born) an approximation to help calculate the wave functions of electrons and atomic nuclei (you treat their wave functions as separate which mostly works because a nucleus is so much more massive than an electron). He explained why deuteron bombardment can cause materials to become radioactive due to fusion processes. He is credited with the “first prediction of quantum tunnelling” by his work on that was some years after Hund had described it. He worked on the mass limit of neutron stars. The film suggests that he developed the theory of black holes, which he didn’t (except insofar as the mass limit of neutron stars presupposes a breakdown above that limit), and that as soon as he heard about successful fission he realised the possibility of a chain reaction (but that was Szilard, see above). Following the war he worked for the government running several more projects until his security clearance was revoked. He never won a Nobel prize unlike a host of others who worked at Los Alamos, including the bongo-playing Feynman. Furthermore, the British contribution to the project was significantly down-played. We were repeatedly told of the British scientist Fuchs, because he was the spy who shared the atom bomb secrets with the Russians. No mention that Chadwick was at Los Alamos, despite the fact that he discovered the neutron! And no mention of the fact that it was British research early in the war into the feasibility of making an atom bomb that was turned over to the Americans in order to kick-start the Manhattan Project in the first place.
But the fundamental problem was that the film was far too long. I was looking at my watch after 40 minutes!
But the fundamental problem was that the film was far too long. I was looking at my watch after 40 minutes!
Nevertheless, it has won a number of Oscars including best picture, best actor and best directing.
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