Spoiler Alert: Spoilers Ahead forOppenheimerIf a single element embodies Christopher Nolan’s filmography, it’s the ways in which he plays with time and structure.Mementoconsisted of two alternating strands of time; a black and white strand was told in chronological order, while the other, in color, was told in reverse order.
Inception’s climax involved several different layers of dreams within dreams, each layer experiencing more time dilation. AndDunkirkunfolded across a week for the British soldiers, a day for a civilian coming to their rescue, and an hour for the pilots above the battlefield.
Nolan’s latest,Oppenheimer, is no different; it consists of two alternating timelines, one in color, focusing on the subjective experience of the titular Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), and the other in black and white, from the perspective of AEC chairman Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.). But this device isn’t a pure gimmick, as it enhances Nolan’s themes and gets to the heart of his story.
What Happens in Each Timeline?
The bulk ofOppenheimerunfolds over the color timeline, told from the titular Oppenheimer’s point of view (Nolan actually wrote this portion of the scriptin the first-person). These scenes detail the early life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, first his days studying quantum physics overseas, then his time teaching physics at Berkley, and finally his recruitment into and work on the Manhattan Project, a top-secret military operation for developing and testing the world’s first nuclear weapons.
The storyline culminates in the Trinity test, the successful detonation of the bomb, after which Oppenheimer learns the weapon is now completely out of his hands. Upon discovering that the military bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he realizes that they are recklessly treating his creation as a new tool to wage war, and he’s left with a guilty conscience.
In the later years, he unsuccessfully lobbies against the creation of a hydrogen bomb, and eventually, his outspoken views and past ties to communism result in a hearing that ends with his security clearance being revoked.
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The second timeline, told in black and white, unfolds over AEC chairman Lewis Strauss’s Senate confirmation hearing for a cabinet appointment. As he testifies in favor of his credentials, flashbacks depict how Strauss was the one who orchestrated Oppenheimer’s downfall.
He favored the hydrogen bomb’s development and coupled with vindictiveness after Oppenheimer had publicly humiliated him during a hearing and suspicions of his ties to communism, Strauss had pushed AEC executive directorWilliam Borden (David Dastmalchian) into publishing a letter accusing Oppenheimer of colluding with the Soviets. This led to the hearings in which his security clearance was revoked.
But Strauss’s testimonies are disrupted when Manhattan Project scientist David Hill (Rami Malek) speaks out against Strauss’s activities, asserting that he was motivated by vindictiveness towards Oppenheimer. As a result of his past coming back to bite him, Strauss’s confirmation fails to pass, and his days in government are shown to clearly be numbered.
The Purpose of the Timeline Split
While Nolan’s detractors often assert that he relies too heavily on puzzle-box storytelling and that his films are too cold and clinical, it’s clear that he always has a clear thematic purpose in telling his stories the way he does.Memento’s alternating structure puts the audience in the shoes of its amnesiac protagonist.Dunkirkuses its three tracks of time to illustrate the chaos of war and the meaningless of time in its midst.
Oppenheimeralso wisely refuses to use its structure as a gimmick, as thealternating subjective and objective perspectiveseffectively illustrate how Oppenheimer himself was a man of contradictions and couldn’t easily be defined. He was a loving husband and a womanizer, a man of arrogance haunted by the consequences of his hubris, and a visionary scientist who sought to understand the world but instead created a tool that could possibly destroy it.
The bulk of the story directly puts the audience into Oppenheimer’s subjective perspective, giving a first-hand experience of his excitement when he saw his bomb successfully detonate and later his horror and guilt upon realizing what his creation had wrought. The black and white portion, on the other hand, gives us a clear eye on the direct consequences of his actions and how America’s secret creation of the bomb led to the crumbling of their relationship with Russia, and thus the very real possibility that the bomb could facilitate man’s destruction in the Cold War.
Since Oppenheimer was a complicated man, we need both of these perspectives to fully understand him. Before we can pass judgment on his actions, we need to understand both his personal feelings and guilt over what he had created and reconcile that with the impact his creation had on the world at large.
Late in the film, Strauss comments about how Oppenheimer used the hearings against him as a way to assuage his guilty conscience and turn himself into a martyr, and while he isn’twrong, it’s not the complete picture. To get the complete picture, we need the ways in which Nolan presents all of Oppenheimer’s contradictions (andCillian Murphy’s incredible performancecertainly helps), and the result is a fascinating portrait of a complicated man.
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A Deeply Haunting Biopic
Christopher Nolan made a massive gamble in making such a structurally unique biopic, but the results have absolutely paid off, as his finished film is one of the most fascinating and engrossing biopics in recent memory.
Unlike many other true-story films,Oppenheimertruly gets to the heart of the contradictions behind its subject, and this could only be accomplished by exploring his titular character from an objective and subjective point of view. And it proves that Nolan is no mere technician but that he, in fact, knows how to explore the nature of time, this time how time remembersa key historical figure, in a way that serves his stories.
