Oppenheimer Nolan
5..
It is said that the world was born twice.
4..
Everyone disagreed about his first birth.
3..
But they agreed on his second birth.
2..
At dawn on July 16, 1945…
1..
The sun of the atomic bomb rose in the New Mexico desert for the first time in human history.
“All of a sudden, the night turned into day, and it was tremendously bright, the chill turned into warmth; the fireball gradually turned from white to yellow to red as it grew in size and climbed into the sky; after about five seconds the darkness returned but with the sky and the air filled with a purple glow, just as though we were surrounded by an aurora borealis. . . . We stood there in awe…” “The big boom came about 100 seconds after the Great Flash — the first cry of a new-born world.”
Journalist William L. Laurence, who was present at the moment of the bomb test, described the reaction of the scientists and soldiers in attendance after the awe of the explosion had passed: “The little groups that hitherto had stood rooted to the earth like desert plants broke into dance … then the men began shaking hands, … slapping each other on the back, laughing like happy children.”
The scene contained many contradictions that were not clear to the majority of attendees who were possessed by the euphoria of nuclear energy. Blinding light pierced the darkness, radiant warmth permeated the dawn air, and jubilant celebrations preceded the commission of one of history’s most heinous acts. All the cheers were filled with some hidden apprehension in the first moments. The Trinity experiment was not just a test of the most lethal weapon in human civilization, but rather an opening to a new world in which mass destruction became possible.
The Most Famous Quote of the Day
Kenneth Bainbridge (who was responsible for experiment preparations at the test site) understood the consequences of the presence of nuclear weapons early on, and when he went to shake hands with Robert Oppenheimer (the scientific director of the Manhattan Project), he said to him the sentence that summed up the entire world’s position on this invention and those who participated in its manufacture: “Now we’re all sons-of-bitches.”
This saying, which was immortalized in history, became the stigma of the “Manhattan Project” because of the crimes they caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the world’s involvement in the complexities of the Cold War. Every time a political conflict between countries with an arsenal of nuclear weapons escalates, the world will curse those “sons-of-bitches” in Los Alamos. Even Oppenheimer himself believed in the reliability of this description. We find that many books and documentaries that sought to chronicle the manufacture of the atomic bomb and the lives of its makers have mentioned the famous quote by Kenneth Bainbridge in one way or another.
In the book American Prometheus, for example, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin gave chapter Twenty-Two (dedicated to the “Trinity” experiment) the title: “Now we’re all sons-of-bitches.” This is how the title was written in bold, so that the reader of history would not miss the conclusion of the “Manhattan Project” when they tested the first weapons of mass destruction.
When director Christopher Nolan opted to adapt the book American Prometheus for the screen, enthusiasts of history, cinema, and science eagerly anticipated witnessing this story unfold in Nolan’s signature style – marked by epic scale, narrative ingenuity, and visual dazzle. Yet, Nolan’s cinematic interpretation seemed to lack a crucial component – the inclusion of Kenneth Bainbridge’s famous quote!
The scenes depicting the “Trinity” test built a palpable sense of tension, leaving the captivated theater audience perched on the edges of their seats. Then came the cataclysmic explosion, the towering fireball ascending and painting the sky, followed by the thunderous roar that instilled a profound reverence in all who witnessed it. In the aftermath of these pivotal moments, the scientists’ triumphant response to their lethal breakthrough closely echoed the account documented in the book – every detail aligned, save for the absence of the famous quote that was never heard!
Where are the Sons-of-bitches?
At first glance, this may not seem worth dwelling on, but once we carefully examine Nolan’s artistic vision when he adapted the book American Prometheus, we will find it extremely important. Let us begin here by emphasizing that Oppenheimer’s film is not a cinematic work that seeks to polish the image of the “Manhattan Project” in any way. So, what was the motivation behind deleting the Bainbridge quote? Is it an attempt to obscure historical facts? Personally, I don’t think so, this is because the decision to delete the saying was for technical rather than political reasons. That is, mentioning the saying would have required a prior introduction to Bainbridge, thus necessitating a narrative investment in his character. It is not appropriate – dramatically – to introduce a new character from nowhere (we do not know the character’s name or role in the project), and then let him shake Oppenheimer’s hand and say: “Now we’re all sons-of-bitches.” This was to be a weak point of the film.
We are now faced with a complex issue in which the moral responsibility of portraying facts conflicts with their dramatic plot. Who has priority in this case? Should we ask filmmakers to make historical documentaries instead of dramas? Many questions on multiple, intertwined topics can be summarized in the case of Oppenheimer with Nolan’s adaptation of the book American Prometheus. The director’s Oppenheimer may not be subject to accusations of deliberately downplaying the atrocities of the atomic bombings. The film, told from Oppenheimer’s perspective, depicts his profound guilt in the final years of his life, rather than directly addressing the bombings themselves. Therefore, any critique of Nolan’s artistic vision would be better contextualized by examining the source material he adapted.
This brings us back to Bainbridge and his saying, which did not find its way to cinema screens, opening the door to comparison between the original work and its cinematic adaptation. Did Christopher Nolan neglect the responsibility of telling facts for the sake of the dramatic plot?
From Book Pages to Movie Screens
Well, in order to answer this question, we first have to delve into the technical issues of writing and filmmaking. For me, I find special pleasure in reading the original works before watching their cinematic adaptations, and this is because following the film with a prior vision of the events puts me in an exceptional position to capture the director’s artistic vision. You know when you find a difference in shooting a scene that the crew made an artistic decision to change it. Why? Is the scene too long or politically incorrect? Is its production cost high or is its presence not commensurate with the speed of the sequence of events?
This talk about books and films always leads us to the issue of “the superiority of the original work over its cinematic adaptation.” There are those who argue that the richness of the writer’s artistic vision puts him in a higher rank than the director whose vision is limited by his tools, budget, and what the censors allow him to film. This argument is valid if we limit the comparison to the detailed aspects of the complexities of the fictional world, and not the moral impact on the reader or viewer.
In the case of influence, we move out of the scope of talking about artistic products such as (books and films) and enter into another scope that revolves around the nature of interaction with this artistic content in its various forms. Here, we must differentiate between:
- Reading as a complex act requires learning specific linguistic skills (in order to read a text, you must first learn its language).
- Watching as a simple act does not require learning any linguistic skills (in order to watch a movie, you only have to open your eyes in front of the screen).
On this basis, we can say that language is the mental medium through which we create fictional worlds to experience its characters in their journeys that extend throughout the pages of the book. There is no life to the story without its reader. It is one of the most intimate experiences in its closeness and connection to us. The word that I set my eyes on is not revived by my mind in isolation from my experience of it. Words such as family, loyalty, love, revenge, greed, war, capitalism, etc. are emotionally charged concepts in all of our minds, making the act of reading stories – where the dramatic plots revolve around these themes – inherently intimate. Here lies the magic of literature, in the ability of its stories to arouse emotions and bring others to life, even if they are imagined.
On the other hand, we also find films capable of emotional arousal, but with greater difficulty. It requires a dramatic script, an artistic director, great acting performances, and a charming soundtrack, to create an emotional impact similar to reading a novel! The reason behind this is that the cinematic image does not require active participation from the viewer in order to revive it, as is the case with a fictional text. Each object in the image has its own identity, which makes it difficult to mentally form and identify with it. We are losing the mentality capable of drawing scenes from their linguistic descriptions on paper, and we depend on the ability of the director and his artistic team to present these scenes in the best possible way. For this very reason, many believe in the superiority of original works, not because of the actual superiority of the book, but because the adaptation fails to create the same effect on the viewer.
But the issue of absolute superiority does not stand up to many successful cinematic adaptations, such as Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of The Godfather, Miloš Forman’s adaptation of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Jonathan Demme’s adaptation of The Silence of the Lambs. What we lost in value from the pages of these novels, we gained many times more from their cinematic adaptations. What distinguishes these films from others is their fidelity to the original works in substance, not in detail. Experiences in the film industry have shown us that successful adaptation is based on removing superfluous details from the screen. In other words, we say that the details that are absorbed in the pages of the book and enjoyed by the reader may be better removed from the cinematic adaptation in order for the film to emerge in a coherent manner. This is known as “artistic license,” which allows the director to manipulate the original work in order to make the best possible adaptation while preserving the essence of the story.
Here, we clearly see that the priority when adapting cinema is the dramatic plot, not the side details of the book. Here too, all these issues begin to become complicated when we move to the subject of quoting real stories, because the details, in this case, are facts! Just like Kenneth Bainbridge said after the Trinity experience.
Do we have to make specific considerations of “artistic license” when dealing with real-life stories? Or does drama, by its nature, permit manipulation of facts?
Hollywood’s Formula for Dramatic Plot
Let us now delve into Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the book American Prometheus.
From the first pages of the original work, we find that the book has placed the reader in the middle of the vortex of Oppenheimer’s life during the period 1953-1954, when he found himself struggling with attempts to tarnish his reputation and the prevention of the renewal of his security license. In these pages, the two writers succeeded in highlighting the features of Oppenheimer’s rivalry with Lewis Strauss (the man with political ambitions in Washington). From here, Nolan found the essence of the story he wanted to tell with its epic scales extending across timelines. At the heart of the story lies the dramatic rivalry that unfolded behind the scenes of Cold War politics. On one side was Oppenheimer, a man grappling with the guilt of having helped create the nuclear bomb. On the other was Strauss, a power-hungry man operating in an age rife with anxiety and suspicion.
There are many wonderful Hollywood films that revolve around themes of rivalry. When we look closely at its narrative structure, we will find that it is based on stable dramatic foundations. It is the formula for successfully portraying rivalries on cinema screens.
There are 3 things in this equation:
- The dramatic basis of the rivalry
Distinguished writer Aaron Sorkin tells us that the essence of drama and its main driver in works of art is “desire and its obstacles.” The character wants something, but something else is preventing him from doing so. This is drama at its simplest. We can see how it gets complicated with changing narrative themes. Antagonism is one of the themes that contribute to creating interesting stories on a dramatic level. In this case, we find the characters’ desires conflicting with each other, so that each character is an obstacle to the other’s desire.
Robert Oppenheimer was seeking to stop the nuclear arms race between America and the Soviet Union, while Louis Strauss was seeking to push his government to dominate this race and continue developing weapons of mass destruction. At first glance, the description may seem to us as a childish depiction of the struggle between good and evil, but the reality of the rivalry was actually more complex, because we know that Oppenheimer was the one who led the “Manhattan Project” scientists to develop the bomb, which makes his psychological motivations rooted in his feelings of guilt. We now face characters who represent the full complexity of human nature, being capable of horrific acts against themselves and others.
- The dramatic escalation of events
This hidden complexity, the details of which are not revealed in the beginning, is what drives the viewer to invest in the events of the story. Did Oppenheimer really have to develop the atomic bomb, or was war fever blinding him? Why did the “Manhattan Project” not stop after discovering the failure of the Nazi project to develop the bomb? How did no one object to the use of the bomb militarily against Japan despite its defeat? Oh, Strauss was the one who planned the campaign to humiliate Oppenheimer! Why?
With these questions, Nolan demonstrated his high artistic ability to create an exciting cinematic experience for approximately 180 minutes. Every answer raises another question. Between Oppenheimer’s narrative and Strauss’s narrative, the viewer tries to arrange the events so that the full picture becomes clear to him. Scene after scene, and dialogue after dialogue, Nolan puts us in front of the big screen to witness the scenes of political decision-making in that critical period. It is a confusing and terrifying journey, taking us at an escalating pace from the secret laboratories in Los Alamos to the Senate buildings in Washington.
- The emotional payoff of the story
After investing, the return is equal to – or higher than – the value invested. This principle applies to everything from trading to watching movies. Here, the importance of the “climax” in the narrative structure (those scenes that put the characters in their final confrontations before the end) comes in. It gives back to the viewer the value of his emotional investment in the events of the film and its characters. As with business, this is not a foolproof process, and often depends on the director’s abilities to deliver a story capable of giving the viewer what they are looking for when invested in its events.
But what is this thing in the events of Oppenheimer? Is it the result of his conflict with Strauss? Or his internal struggle with feelings of guilt embodied in visions of the world burning in the flames he created for them? Were we supposed to choose sides in these conflicts? Or bemoaning the state of the new world that the “sons-of-bitches” left us?
There are those who felt that Nolan tried to push us towards Oppenheimer in order to exploit this for the emotional impact of the film. Fortunately, we can decide this issue by directly comparing the changes Nolan made while adapting American Prometheus, to determine whether he abused his “artistic license” when portraying the events of the story.
Unforgivable Crimes that are not Treated Dramatically
On October 25, 1945, US President Harry Truman received Robert Oppenheimer in the Oval Office. After several minutes of discussion about the future of nuclear energy, Oppenheimer sensed that the US President had not yet understood the political consequences of the nuclear arms race. He said to him in a depressed tone: “I feel I have blood on my hands.”
Historical accounts agree that this statement angered Truman, but they disagreed on his reaction:
- There is an account of him saying: “…the blood was on my hands, …let me worry about that.”
- Another account states that he said: “Never mind, it’ll all come out in the wash.”
- The last account describes that he pulled a handkerchief from his coat pocket, offered it to Oppenheimer, and said, “Well here, would you like to wipe your hands?”
Although there are many historical narratives, they tell us the same thing. In this case, we cannot blame Nolan for using his “artistic license” in portraying the character of the American President in the rude manner in which he appeared in the film. Cinematography did not stray far from reality.
But Nolan did not maintain this balance in his dramatic treatment of the story’s events throughout the film.
On October 16, 1945 (nine days before meeting the president), Oppenheimer took to the podium at his retirement ceremony from the Los Alamos administration and warned the audience: “If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima.”
This sentence, with its shameful wording, which places the victims of the atomic bomb in the crosshairs of insults, did not find its way into Oppenheimer’s sermon in the film! We hear him say: “…the time will come when mankind curses the name of Los Alamos,” with no mention of Hiroshima, as documented in the book American Prometheus. In this case, we see that Nolan used his “artistic license” to create an impression different from what actually happened. Aren’t the characters supposed to be treated in the same way, so that Oppenheimer’s insolence is portrayed in the same way as Truman’s insolence?!
We are now faced with two different treatments of the characters, as most of those around Oppenheimer are painted in a way that reflects the ugliness of their actions. On the other hand, we find that Nolan has dealt with the image of his main character with a high degree of caution. He does not want us to be alienated from him, because he is the dramatic foundation on which the film’s story and message are based.
This disparate treatment is evident in the scene of the meeting of the Interim Committee, headed by Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, which was held on the last day of May, 1945. In this fateful meeting, which only took a few minutes of the film, Oppenheimer was placed in a weak position among the senior decision-makers within President Truman’s administration. For instance, Stimson removed the city of Kyoto from the list of potential nuclear strike targets, citing his personal connection to the city from having honeymooned there. Likewise, a military official refused to warn the Japanese before the strike, in order to deny them the opportunity to thwart the operation. In contrast, Oppenheimer is portrayed as trying to voice his concerns about the consequences of using the atomic bomb, but his more measured perspective, which lacked the apparent bloodlust of the other attendees, is ultimately cut off and silenced.
Once again, Nolan used his “artistic license” to create an impression different from what actually happened. The “Interim Committee” meeting extended from the morning until the end of the day, and was not in a short period as the scene suggested to us. This means that Oppenheimer had many hours to argue his position, but he did not succeed in convincing anyone. Stimson’s decision to remove the city of Kyoto from the list of targets due to his emotional connection to it was an improvised decision by the character’s actor, and this information does not exist in American Prometheus. In addition, the soldier who expressed his objection to the Japanese ultimatum had mentioned this in a different meeting in Oppenheimer’s same office, and he did not argue his position in that meeting either.
The authors of American Prometheus argue that in the critical period before the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Oppenheimer was not in a position of weakness, but rather one of negligence. An examination of the proposals issued on June 16, 1945 by the Scientific Council (affiliated with the “Interim Committee”) indicates support for the military use of the atomic bomb against Japan. This undoubtedly implicates Oppenheimer, both historically and morally, as a participant in one of the most heinous crimes in history. These are unforgivable acts, even if Oppenheimer later spent his life attempting to atone for his guilt by trying to stop the nuclear arms race.
Final Words
So, did Christopher Nolan abuse his “artistic license” in Oppenheimer? Yes, I think he misused it. But it is important here to explain why. Manipulating historical details for dramatic purposes is not necessarily morally bad. I deliberately mentioned Aaron Sorkin beforehand in order to point out his biographical films about Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs as successful biographical films. Sorkin admits that manipulating historical details is a must in cinema, and no one objects to that. Why?
Zuckerberg contributed to the creation of Facebook, Jobs contributed to the manufacture of Apple devices, and Oppenheimer contributed to the manufacture of the atomic bomb that caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of victims! Differences in the degree of sensitivity of topics require different degrees of responsibility for portraying the facts. Does this mean that all war films and tragedies are not entitled to employ “artistic license”? Of course not. Director Quentin Tarantino, for example, is famous for manipulating historical facts, but in a comedic context that makes them acceptable to the viewer.
Christopher Nolan presented us with a morally flawed masterpiece, and the reason for this is that he quoted a book that contains all the ugly facts, and then chose to treat them dramatically in a way that distorts reality in terms of its portrayal of the main character. Oppenheimer does not deserve the title of Prometheus, in fact, he is one of the sons-of-bitches of Los Alamos.
T1706
