Oppenheimer is a man who suffers throughout his life. The film is a mixture of courtroom drama and political paranoia during the 1940s wartime, with Oppenheimer trying to achieve something significant using his mind and intelligence. The movie showcases his intelligence as the motivation for his success. It also highlights his shortcomings, as he struggles to relate to other people on an emotional level. He works with other scientists in the lab. He struggles to be a leader because he lets the arguments and confusion of the science distract from the goal. Over time he eventually helps lead a team of scientists to be able to make this atomic weapon to end the war. There is a disconnection with the women he encounters, and he appears weak in terms of his own sense of ethics and enthusiasm. The editing is experimental, making the dialogue confusing as a linear story that is moving forward. The black and white footage seems to have some kind of meaning, but it is so puzzling that a first-time viewing has a more confusing effect than providing a comprehensive understanding of the events happening. The bomb itself is a fantastic moment, but its scale is difficult to comprehend on film. Toward the third act of the movie, all of his personal mistakes are used against his professional career. His personal struggles became fuel for the government to blame him for the ethical issues surrounding the bomb's destruction on humanity. The film could of been improved with a shorter run of under 3 hours long. The best parts of this film are the technical side of the movie along with the actors' performances. The direction is also well done, but the overall story is more focused on Oppenheimer's mental health and how it destroys his emotional and mental capacity while working on the bomb.
The story came from the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. This narrative book captures the life of the remarkable yet controversial scientist. Each page explores Oppenheimer's significant contributions to the Manhattan Project, which was the site of the original atomic bomb. This was when he was first called the "father of the atomic bomb." The book describes his complex personality, fierce intellectual power, and his changing ethical stance about nuclear weaponry. These reservations, along with his political affiliations, led to his downfall during the McCarthy era during that time. The narrative traces his struggle against the resulting ostracism and his ultimate rehabilitation, shining a spotlight on the inherent human complexities in the face of scientific and political upheaval.
Two types of Imax stock was used to capture this movie on film. Color and black and white. For the black and white film stock a new engineering had to be made on the IMAX cameras. The physical film celluloid is thinner and the pressure plates had to be changed too. They also had to alter how the film was processed in the lab. More of this can be found here.
The locations of the movie were filmed in New Mexico, New Jersey, California, Los Alamos, Santa Fe, Los Angeles County, Berkeley, and Mercer County according to the Cinemaholic website. The testing site for the bomb explosion was at Los Alamos, New Mexico.
