I've seen the film twice and now read the screenplay - which didn't provide clarity on the opening moments. I haven't read American Prometheus yet.
The first shot of raindrops followed by Oppenheimer watching intently as he briefly tilts his head before cutting to shots of fire eating the desert.
These shots of Oppenheimer/raindrops occur during his time in Europe (Cambridge?) but as the film unfolds, the insert cuts don't show Oppenheimer having nightmares of the same fire/sphere/destruction, but more abstract visions of this hidden universe.
It wasn't until the Berkeley/news that the atom was split that Oppie sees the outcome of a bomb.
The opening/closing minutes bookend the film so nicely - but do the opening shots imply Oppenheimer already envisioned destruction while he was still a student? The screenplay opens with the shots of destruction, and not the raindrops/Oppie.
I've seen the film twice and now read the screenplay - which didn't provide clarity on the opening moments. I haven't read American Prometheus yet.
The first shot of raindrops followed by Oppenheimer watching intently as he briefly tilts his head before cutting to shots of fire eating the desert.
These shots of Oppenheimer/raindrops occur during his time in Europe (Cambridge?) but as the film unfolds, the insert cuts don't show Oppenheimer having nightmares of the same fire/sphere/destruction, but more abstract visions of this hidden universe.
It wasn't until the Berkeley/news that the atom was split that Oppie sees the outcome of a bomb.
The opening/closing minutes bookend the film so nicely - but do the opening shots imply Oppenheimer already envisioned destruction while he was still a student? The screenplay opens with the shots of destruction, and not the raindrops/Oppie.
its perhaps the most abstract moment in the movie, but i interpret it as not Oppie imagining the bomb, but rather him looking at nature in its very core, and the the movie showing us what power he will unearth from it, even if at the moment unkowingly.
I've seen the film twice and now read the screenplay - which didn't provide clarity on the opening moments. I haven't read American Prometheus yet.
Well American Prometheus is a fantastic read, but it's a fairly straightforward historical biography, and so it probably wouldn't be useful for understanding Nolan's artistic decisions and structural choices. That's more up to the viewer, although potentially aided by things Nolan and the others involved in the making of the film have said in interviews and such.
The first shot of raindrops followed by Oppenheimer watching intently as he briefly tilts his head before cutting to shots of fire eating the desert.
These shots of Oppenheimer/raindrops occur during his time in Europe (Cambridge?) but as the film unfolds, the insert cuts don't show Oppenheimer having nightmares of the same fire/sphere/destruction, but more abstract visions of this hidden universe.
It wasn't until the Berkeley/news that the atom was split that Oppie sees the outcome of a bomb.
The opening/closing minutes bookend the film so nicely - but do the opening shots imply Oppenheimer already envisioned destruction while he was still a student? The screenplay opens with the shots of destruction, and not the raindrops/Oppie.
If you want to justify the reasoning for the images of the Trinity test in the opening (beyond it making for one hell of an opening scene), you could say that these are being imagined by Oppenheimer in 1954 right before his testimony (directly connecting to the shot where he opens his eyes after being called on by Gray to read his statement; that's also a nice visual parallel with the ending scene with Oppenheimer closing his eyes). But the image of raindrops falling and making ripples is one that's repeated throughout the film; my working interpretation is that, initially, this image is one that acts as a kind of visual reminder of these "quantum visions" Oppenheimer is experiencing, a reminder of the hidden energies and forces that lay within everyday nature; but later, after theory becomes practice with the Trinity test, that image, and the visions it acts as shorthand for, comes to represent those hidden energies being released into the world and the expanding consequences of that release (the ripples on the map of the Soviet Union at the GAC meeting, and the ripples of fire spreading across the planet in the ending being the most prominent examples of this representation of that image). So the shot of raindrops at the beginning as followed with the images of Trinity is direct foreshadowing of where these "quantum visions" of Oppenheimer's will lead to, even if they're not imbued with that horror and destruction just yet.
I never really assumed that the visuals were happening in his head. I thought it was a nicely made title card that foreshadowed what we were about to see.
But it does lead to him being distracted by visions and opening his eyes at the hearing. So the explosions could be him remembering the trinity test.
Last edited by Tarssauce on August 9th, 2023, 12:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Virtually the entire "color" portion of the film plays out as a memory of Oppenheimer at the time of the hearing. There is only one scene after that which, chronologically, is the 'end' of the movie, IE him meeting Kitty. Arguably, the flashforward is the chronological "end," but it depends whether we are meant to be taking those moments as literal or imagined.
I saw the film for the third time yesterday and noticed something interesting during the ending, so this is my question:
In the ending when Oppenheimer receives the Enrico Fermi Award, we see Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett) shake Oppenheimer's hand, but in real life Lawrence died earlier. Why was he in this scene? Is it something that also happens in the book and if so, does it explain it?
I saw the film for the third time yesterday and noticed something interesting during the ending, so this is my question:
In the ending when Oppenheimer receives the Enrico Fermi Award, we see Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett) shake Oppenheimer's hand, but in real life Lawrence died earlier. Why was he in this scene? Is it something that also happens in the book and if so, does it explain it?
Just curious because I find it super interesting.
The only physicists I was able to confirm as being present at this ceremony were Glenn Seaborg, who was there as AEC Chairman, and Edward Teller. American Prometheus doesn't say anything about Rabi or Frank being there either, and of course Lawrence couldn't possibly be there (in reality, Lawrence and Oppenheimer never reconciled, although their final brief encounter, in 1958, had "a sense of disengagement, but certainly not hostility," in Oppenheimer's words). I chalk that scene up to Nolan giving Oppie the "good ending," being in principle rehabilitated, and also being congratulated by several of the characters we've seen throughout the film.
the award ceremony is Oppenheimer's imagination of the future over Einstein's words..
it is yet to actually happen in the story
As poetic as that interpretation is, I'm not sure Oppenheimer would have been able to imagine Lyndon Johnson as president sixteen years later, since nobody can be that clairvoyant, so I take it to be a genuine flash-forward (also, in that closing montage, Oppenheimer imagines himself in Borden's plane a couple years before he's told of the V2 story in the film, so make of that what you will too).
