“Can You Hear the Music?”
I am an admitted Nolan fanboy (Tenet was my favorite film the year it came out), so I was extremely excited to see Oppenheimer this past July. After leaving the theater, I appreciated how great it was (the acting, music, sense of scope, etc.), but I didn’t exactly enjoy it. I had the same reaction to Dunkirk (which I need to rewatch, since I like this film more each time I see it). I just thought that I preferred Nolan when he stays in the fully fictional world; his true stories were too limited by history.
A few months later, I was able to watch it again at home, and again, and again…I’ve watched it eight times now. Initially, I only watched it a second time because it’s Nolan, and seemingly everyone had declared the film a masterpiece. I just wanted to see if what I missed would suddenly click. And it did.
My relationship with this movie is best summed up by the scene between Niels Bohr and Oppenheimer early in the film. He asks how good Robert’s mathematics skills are, and when he hears they aren’t great, he says, “Algebra’s like sheet music. The important thing isn’t, “Can you read music?’ It’s ‘Can you hear it?’ Can you hear the music, Robert?”
This perfectly sums up what I have loved about Nolan’s past two films. I will never understand the science behind what’s going on onscreen, but I love the feeling and experience created in the films. Nolan has caught shit for his sound mixes being so loud that dialogue cannot be understood, but that’s the point. Hearing specific details about how inversion works in Tenet or quantum physics works in Oppenheimer would be completely wasted on my dumbass. But an amazing score set to riveting visuals I can understand and enjoy. I can hear that music.
Speaking literally about music, this is something else that has been vital in his past two films (although almost all of his work features prominent scores). Tenet utilized a complex score that incorporated backwards music, and helped set the tone for a grand, serious story about saving the world. Likewise, Oppenheimer’s score is equally complex (in ways that I don’t completely understand due to my lack of musical knowledge) in how it shifts seamlessly from important moments of history to foreboding tones of what this work will lead to while also featuring softer moments of the human relationships established throughout. The cliché is that a score should be enjoyed but not noticed, but with Ludwig Göransson’s Tenet and Oppenheimer scores, it is clear that the score can be an integral and noticeable aspect of a great film. Hans Zimmer may have made Nolan’s most famous (and copied) scores, but Göransson has made the best and most complementary ones.
With Tenet and Oppenheimer, my first viewings left me a bit confused and not exactly blown away, but thanks to Nolan’s reputation and visuals along with an interesting score, I knew I needed to revisit these films. Because of this, my appreciation of both films only grows with each new viewing. And this has led to Oppenheimer becoming the most watched film for me in Nolan’s filmography. I don’t fully understand what’s going on here, but I can hear the music, and that’s all that matters.
Small Moments in a Big Film
While Oppenheimer is this big film essentially about the end of the world filled with huge moments and lengthy and dense dialogue scenes, it’s a film filled with little moments that I love that bring me back to the movie again and again. I just wanted to mention them here.
First is the “Can you hear the music?” scene I went into detail about above. I have nothing to add there aside from that I’ve seen a YouTube clip of this scene posted by someone at a screening that featured a full orchestra performing the score live, and I am extremely jealous.
The introduction of Groves is great. Damon isn’t getting enough credit for his performance here, providing some drastically needed humor to this serious film. And I love it when he sends Dane DeHaan off to dry clean his jacket.
This is also the first time you hear the theme that plays signifying the friendship developed here that reappears a couple more times later on.
I was worried about Einstein being in this movie at first because he’s become more of a character than an actual human at this point in history, but the scene in which Oppenheimer tells him about the possibility of igniting the atmosphere put my fears to rest.
Casey Affleck showing up to be a creepy bastard.
The way the score starts to incorporate Geiger counter noises as they get closer to completing the bomb…er…gadget.
The Trinity test, of course.
The crux of the film, and the most effective individual moment, for me is Oppenheimer’s speech after the bomb had been dropped. The sound design of this moment puts you right into Oppenheimer’s mind as he wrestles with this celebration of death he feels responsible for, but the standout moment is when a scream is isolated from the cheering crowd. Within a jubilant, patriotic assembly, such a scream would just blend in; but isolated from it, it sounds more like someone’s response to witnessing a nuclear weapon destroy the world around them. I get chills every time I watch this scene, and I’m getting them as I write about it.
Truman calling Oppenheimer a cry baby.
Oppenheimer snubbing Strauss’s loser son and fiancée.
Matthew Modine’s righteous anger at the closed hearing: “Excuse me, gentlemen, if I become stirred. But I am.”
Oppenheimer realizing Groves had Pash transferred.
Groves’s nod to Oppenheimer as he leaves the hearing. And, “But I don’t think I’d clear any of those guys,” and Jason Clarke’s dickhead smile in response.
Emily Blunt’s takedown of Clarke: “‘Cause I don’t like your phrase.”
Downey, Jr.’s angry meltdown at the end, during which they should have just had young Han Solo hand him an Oscar.
Emily Blunt’s response to Teller’s attempted handshake.
The final scene revealing the conversation with Einstein, and that perfect ending moment, conveying the guilt Oppenheimer will carry with him for the rest of his life.
Random Thoughts / Favorite Quotes
As a lifelong resident of Indiana who grew up playing basketball, it’s hard to associate the sound of people stomping on gym bleachers in a negative connotation.
With each rewatch, I enjoy the old man (John Gowans, who was first credited as an old man in 2003) in the hearing more and more. It’s great when he laughs along with Emily Blunt, but his best moment is when Oppenheimer tells them that Berkeley only had the leading physics department once he had built it, and the old dude nods like, “That’s right, motherfuckers.”
It’s nice watching young Han Solo and old Iron Man be slight dicks to each other for the whole movie while Jeff from American Dad! just kind of hangs out, eating soup and whatnot.
The same dude who brought Michael Myers his mask in Halloween (2018) is the same dude who suggests treason to Oppenheimer. This fucker needs to just leave people alone.
Oppenheimer putting on his high-waisted pants and dorky hat and grabbing his pipe is treated with the same reverence as the first time Batman puts on the Batsuit.
James Urbaniak was brought in to say one line about trees with a German accent.
Before his standout moment near the end in his testimony at the hearing, Oscar-winner Rami Malek’s main role is to have writing implements taken or smacked away by Oppenheimer.
Dane DeHaan has aged to become the perfect wormy guy in a movie.
It took me eight watches of this to finally notice that someone was playing the bongos two different times at Los Alamos: at the Christmas party/Niels Bohr surprise and after the Trinity test. With very little research, I found out it was Richard Feynman, and he really did play the bongos.
“Birth control is a little out of my jurisdiction, General.”
Groves, seeing a pregnant Kitty: “Clearly.”
“I worry about an America where we do these things and no one protests.”
The isolated scream during the pep rally speech gives me chills every time.
“You shook his fucking hand?” Why did he tell her that he shook his hand?
“...but I don’t think I’d clear any of those guys.”
The score takes on a softer tone when Groves leaves the hearing and gives Oppenheimer a nod. It’s the little moments like that that stick with me.
In fact, that part is actually a little theme that plays during another moment when Oppenheimer realizes that Groves had Pash transferred. It’s the “Groves was really my friend” theme.
“Only a fool or an adolescent presumes to know someone else’s relationship.”
I now believe that Lewis Strauss was behind the JFK assassination.
Emily Blunt deserves a nomination just for that look she gives Teller when he goes to shake her hand.
