Fun fact: the girl with the melting face is Nolan actual daughter. He said having her made that scene that much more emotional resonant for him that the film already was.
That does make a lot of sense. Some people have compared this to Nolan's first horror movie, and I know that he takes the seriousness of atomic warfare very seriously. So seeing his daughter be a hypothetical victim would be something he worries about.
I saw this movie in theaters and it was a magical experience. The room was full, not a single seat was empty. The Trinity test scene was incredible, the entire room went silent, there was no sound of people chewing, drinking, breathing, coughing, nothing, pure silence and it stayed that way throughout the entire scene. The movie didn't feel like 3 hours at all. Loved your reaction
I do love a good blockbuster, but to be in the middle of a cinema full of grown ups who were just absorbed in what was on screen was such a pleasurable experience.
Los Alamos is actually still a working community. I live near the area, and pass through regularly, and it's a huge deal. It's actually the inspiration for Black Mesa from half life, and is similarly a giant underground facility full of weird shit that's very very classified 😂 You can actually, technically, drive through the area, because it has a road that passes through it, but there are quite a few people with large weaponry to make sure you're not tempted to stop.
It is very much still an active national lab. One of my friends just went to work there to do weapons development...He graduated from TX A&M in nuke engineering, apparently working there is every aggies' dream
They will let people pass through when they are going to the campgrounds at Bandelier National Monument or to the ski hill, there's no other reliable way to get to those spots in a vehicle. But yes, they will make sure people actually pass through and don't make any turns onto the lab grounds. The movie brought a lot more tourists up there, when they show up at the lab, they are directed to the town site where they can go to the museum and walk around to see some of the original houses that are still there.
I have been to Los Alamos, which is a working laboratory. You can visit the Atomic Museum there, and they have the original gadget construction cabins and other areas you can drive to. The Trinity Test Site is normally off-limits, but it is open to the public the first week of October and the first week of April every year.
All the walls are covered in asbestos by the way....keeps out the rats. Let us know if you develop a large dry cough, headache or your heart stopping. Because that's not part of the test. That's asbestos.
I like how they trick us into thinking Strauss is a friend at the beginning of the movie. Then, by the time the movie progresses, you realize he's the villain pulling all the strings.
As far as I'm aware "Break a leg" started in show business, and was usually said to someone going for an audition where it meant "I hope to see you in a cast soon", but as it effectively means "good luck", that is what it's meaning has morphed into.
In the old days of theater (late 1800s/early 1900s), if you were not acting, you had to stay behind "the leg line" and not get paid. Telling someone to break a leg is letting them know you want them to not only act, but also get paid for doing so. It was only later used instead of "good luck" since saying so would "jinx" the performance!
I know of two ideas, one is that you'd have to do so many curtain calls after your performance you'd break the "leg" curtains, the other is that you'd break a leg from the bowing.
the most haunting line is when the military officer says to Oppenheimer, "we'll take it from here!" Military drops the bomb, wins the war, scientists get crucified, tale as old as time.
It's such a perfect movie. I went to see it 2 and wanna see it even more. I also predicted it that it would won a lot of Oscars (11 in my case) but 7 is more than enough. 10/10 movie
Simone & George - No apologies are necessary for the quiet you displayed in this reaction. From the immeasurable weight of the subject itself, to the amazingly crafted script, to the undaunted and unflinching delivery of the actors; this movie was an experience to behold in nothing less than stunned silence. Theaters should have had ushers outside to help people pick up their dropped jaws as they exited. Great reaction, you two!
@@MerelvanHouten - Same. I mean the acting and cinematography were top notch. But Nolan’s typical time jumping got old very fast. The pacing was all over the place. And the last hour was boring as shit (should have been 20 mins tops). I thought The Imitation Game was a much better movie, fwiw.
The explosion was silent because the speed of light through air is MUCH faster than the speed of sound. A few movies have shown explosions and delayed sound properly (Tenet and The Hurt Locker come to mind) on far distant chemical explosions, but for an atomic explosion, its so big, you are VERY VERY far away when viewing, and can still see it very well, hence the sound comes several seconds later.
The real shockwave of that test explosion on July 16, 1945 reached the scientists after 44 seconds. It's possible that the shockwave in the film also comes in after 44 seconds, but I do not own it to confirm.
Watching this on IMAX was insane. It was louder than life, the tension before the explosion was one of the most intense things I've experienced in a movie theater ever
@@caifothiazz Okay I'm not gonna lie, some time has passed now and I've seen other stuff and...man Oppenheimer was awesome, sure, but if I could choose I actually would have prefered to watch Godzilla Minus One on IMAX. I always hated giant monster movies but Minus One is an extremely rare exception. 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, check it out
When George mentioned the fence story I thought "that sounds like something Richard Feynman would do", and sure enough when I looked it up it was a story told by Feynman himself. About the only difference is the direction he was going... Feynman said he would go out through the gate and back in through the fence hole 😂
The Trinity test using silence was genius, not just because it was effectively dramatic. From the moment of the on screen explosion until the shockwave hits, is the actual amount of time it took to reach the scientists at the real Trinity test. Nolan incorporated that moment of silence to give us the feeling that the scientists and other observers would have felt. As much of that feeling as you can put into a movie, anyway. That quiet moment of just taking it in, and realizing you succeeded, and experiencing the visuals of the strangely beautiful explosion you spent months trying to create. Then BAM oh yeah it's violent and terrifying as fuck. I saw that in theaters and it made me jump harder than any horror movie I've ever watched. Nolan is all timer of a filmmaker. Absolutely perfect creative decisions for that scene alone
Nolan should've pulled his head out of his butt and allowed the use of CGI for that explosion. I know Trinity wasn't _that_ big of an explosion in real life, but using a little gasoline fire to pretend to be Trinity was very weak stuff.
It was so effective because, in the theater, the rest of the movie was incredibly loud, louder than any movie I'd seen before, so that sudden silence felt like the end of everything that preceded it
@@fakecubed the movie is not about the bomb itself so literally who cares. i dont understand why people care so much. the bomb looked fine considering it is not the key focus of the movie. a whole extra hour of film afterwards but wahh wahh bomb thats on-screen for 2 minutes not big enough
Seems almost symbolic of their success. The quiet before the storm. They succeeded at their jobs, and got to bask in the silence of it for just a brief moment before the reality sets in.
This movie utilized sound in ways I'd never experienced before. In the ARQ theater, it was absolutely incredible. The other thing that got me was we all know the test succeeded - but the tension they were able to build prior to the bomb going off was... amazing. EDIT: I'm also wondering if the drowning of her, that the hands are Oppenheimer's signifying he feels responsible for her death. That he killed her.
Don't be sorry for a quiet reaction. My reaction in the theatre was exactly the same as so was everyone else's. My theatre was dead silent throughout the entire movie. The only noise I heard was a few people at the end of the movie who said "wow". The ending left me in silence for a solid 20 minutes after it ended. The sheer weight and gravity that we could feel through the screen is just a testament to Cillian's amazing performance and Nolan's elite filmmaking
I've seen three theories on the origin of 'break a leg', the first by far the most likely. Theatrical folk were superstitious, and it was thought that wishing someone 'good luck' on their upcoming performance would actually bring bad luck. So bidding a person to break a leg, a bad outcome, would be a 'safe' way to wish them good luck, while presumably appeasing the gods of perversity. The second possible origin of the phrase dates back to Elizabethan times, when audiences reportedly showed their appreciation by banging their chairs on the floor. The greater the appreciation, the harder the banging. Any broken chair legs would therefore signify a real _tour de force._ The third theory is that the phrase refers to the leg line on a stage, a line on the floor in the wings, beyond which the person is considered to be on stage and visible to the audience. Performers who made it on stage, i.e., 'broke' the leg line, would actually get paid, while those who remained in the wings and behind the leg line would not.
Seeing this in IMAX three times, I was mesmerized every single time. This movie literally made me go home and start to study physics. Life changing experience.
As a lover of history, the fact that movie still made me incredibly nervous during the Trinity Test scene, despite already knowing what happened, says so much about Nolan's talent as a film maker. This is by far the best movie of the year, if not decade.
“Break a leg” is theatre term. A lot of people think it means “good luck,” but that’s actually wrong. What it actually means is: “earn your pay.” Back in the day; actors only got paid for the time they spent on stage performing. If you’re not performing; you’re backstage. Well, in an amphitheater performance; there usually isn’t much of a backstage. Actors typically stand off to the side; past the stage area. The point where the stage and the side meet is known as a Leg-line. So; in order to earn your pay; you had to step across that line; or “Break the leg,” and start performing.
I saw it twice in IMAX. During the lead up to the bomb being detonated. My heart was beating out of my chest. Also, I knew Gary Oldman was in the movie. But I didn't know who he was playing, so when I saw him as President Truman. My face lit up!
Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors working today who can make a three-hour biopic largely comprised of people talking in hushed tones and make it so absolutely riveting. But he's able to convey the grave stakes and consequences of these hushed conversations. These were serious people talking seriously, and their choices changed the course of human history. Some complained that they never showed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the movie seems to intentionally choose not to, not just because Oppie was the focus of the film, but because we all have seen the cataclysmic damage they caused. The real footage is out there for any of us to find. Nolan simply chooses to imply the damage and the aftermath. We see Oppie's anguished reaction to the news reel. He's so distracted by what he caused that he doesn't even hear the cheers during his speech in the barn. He sees a woman's face peeling off and the burned-out husk of a human body at his feet. The man is clearly haunted, and we are haunted through him. The stomping in the barn is also some great sound design. It's the horrible sound of a raucous crowd applauding mass destruction, but it also sounds like the engine of a steam train as it rolls into motion. Like Oppenheimer's atomic research and everything it wrought, it's an unstoppable train chugging forward faster and faster, at risk of getting so out of control that it will annihilate everything in its path.
We see what is happening in Japan through Oppenheimer's eyes as he is seeing burning faces and is practically having a panic attack during this speech! Cillian Murphy, Christopher Nolan, sound and editing are brilliant ‼️
This movie was one of the most jaw dropping experiences I’ve ever had in a movie theatre. I don’t think I’ve ever left a screening before where the audience was in absolute stunned silence.
40:57 Speaking of that name-drop, another epic historical drama w/ a stacked cast and masterful editing is Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) starring Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland, John Candy, Kevin Bacon, Michael Rooker, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jack Lemmon, etc...
I just found out a while back from my Dad, that my Grandfather's unit was doing some work about 50 miles from the test area at Los Alamos. They didn't know the test was happening. He said it looked like the sun was starting rise, then it immediately set. Didn't find out until much later what it was. Pretty cool thing for him to have witnessed.
I was mainly excited to see Richard Feynman. They did show him not using the welding glass to view the explosion, as he knew glass blocks the harmful UV light from the blast. But there were other stories of him breaking into safes using logic and making people think he was a genius locksmith. He was a joker and pretty unique. Not a saint by any means but listening to his lectures are always entertaining and help you think differently about the world around you. The man won 2 Noble Prizes in Physics and neither were related to his relatively small work on the Manhattan Project. And yes he loved playing the bongos.
Gosh, me too. Honestly, the whole Manhattan project thing I familiar with it because of his book Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! So I really appreciate that they included him in movie
There's a lot of symbolism (Shoutout to Just Trust Ash) in this film. One of my favourite is the first scene with Einstein and Oppenheimer we get one short cut to Albert throwing one stone in the pond, creating a single ripple symbolising the atomic bomb as a unique single theory. In their last scene it shows the light rain creating multiple ripples now that the entire world has been introduced to it while he points out we destroyed the world. Truly a great film!
I think it’s very easy to be critical of Harry Truman here, but even if their meeting played out exactly such, I have a different perspective. If I was wrestling with the idea that my name would live forever as the person that dropped those bombs, I might resent someone coming into my office and expecting me to commiserate with their feelings of guilt.
I saw this opening weekend in IMAX at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood at a 7am screening. The IMAX film reel was so big - 11 miles long and 600 pounds - that the theatre, along with many others, had to build an extension to the projection booth to have room for it. The sound was insanely great and those amazing IMAX shots made it well worth getting up early for. Beautiful film and performances. Cillian and RDJ damn well deserve nominations at all the awards coming up.
@@Hexon66 - My only issue with the sound is what seems to be a regular complaint with Nolan's sound mixing wherein the dialogue - which there's a LOT of - is often hard to hear. The boom of the shockwave after that long space of silence when the Trinity test went off scared the shit out of a lot of people in the theatre, myself included.
If you want to watch a pretty good flick about the McCarthy era, and various other important topics that still resonate today, check out 'Good Night, and Good Luck'.
I saw this in 70mm IMAX twice and it was possibly the best movie-going experience I've ever had. The opening scene with the fireball sent chills through my body. Incredible filmmaking.
@@zhen3142 you're very wrong my friend seeing it in IMAX 70mm was incredible. Its about he immersion. Seeing the whole movie in that format was great. But especially the opening montage, the explosion scene and the final few minutes was overwhelming. Seeing the whole image they captured on a 60ft tall screen blew my mind. watching it at home isn't as fun
Just wanted to say, I'm a therapist watching this on my lunch break and Simone's "Sit down for a session with Cinebinge" made me laugh. Well done, lads!
I'm an actor and as far as I know the phrase "Break a leg" has a number of possible origins but all of them stem from the superstition you shouldn't wish someone good luck in the theatre. "The leg" can refer to the lever that opened an closed the curtains at the front of the stage, it can also refer to the side of a stage and in both cases back in the days of vaudeville you'd only get paid if you actually appeared on stage. So by wishing someone "Break a leg" you are wishing them success and that they get paid because they've actually appeared and done the work.
My favourite scene is where Oppenheimer jumps on the table and screams "Its Oppen time!" and then the nuke goes off. In all seriousness, its a fantastic movie, Cillian Murphy deserves an Oscar.
You can see it in the reaction here too, but I found this movie to be so horribly over-orchestrated. There's music under literally every single scene, so much so that you can never relax and forget you're watching a movie. I found it incredibly distracting.
Trust me, you lot absorbing the movie in quietly is a lot better than these gen z reactors getting outraged every 30 seconds about the fact that it was dropped
I worked at White Sands Missile Range up north at Stallion Range Camp and nearby is the test site and the McDonald ranch house & buildings, confiscated from them and other ranches during the war, and never returned to them. Tours are made twice yearly or by special arrangement, but we were able to drive over every so often since we already had access on the range. The site is behind a fence but the house is accessible. They’ve kept it up and even have markings such as “Clean Room - keep door shut” where final assembly was done. Amazingly, the house and outbuildings are just a couple miles from ground zero but had no damage. I do have some great pictures of both sites though. It’s crazy that the trigger mechanism parts were driven down the mountain from the lab the 210 miles in a sedan over some bad roads for final assembly. Los Alamos was so secret it had no mail service. A box in Santa Fe was the address and someone had to carry the mail up and back daily. And now Los Alamos and the National Laboratory is a very well-kept and nice “government” town. I love it and its’ beauty but would rather live down the hill in Santa Fe. And Groves built the Pentagon in 16 months, not the 48 the planners insisted it would take. He was a #%$& but it got results. The project included far-flung locations at Oak Ridge, Hanford as well as Los Alamos. All heavily compartmentalization and Top Secret.
The first time I watched "Oppenheimer" in theaters I had to take a quick bathroom break, but knew enough about the history of it to know where to break from. I also knew I would see it in the theater again anyway because the writing is so intricate and cohesive that you really can't miss a second of it or it feels like you've missed a quarter of a standard feature-length movie. It is like a feat of engineering where damn near every performance, major or supporting, were integral and/or significant.
Months late lol but “break a leg” originates from the theatre. The curtains on the side are called legs and to break the legs meant to get out on stage and get paid.
Here in NM this is in our DNA. I live about 50 miles from Las Alamos and about the same distance from Trinity Site. Visiting the Trinity is a very solemn, eerie occasion. The tape was to cover where the electrical leads connected, the storm actually came up by coincidence so Nolan left it in. A single electrical discharge could have set the whole thing off. Towns as far away as 60 miles lite up with light. No one knew what was going on, end of the world? As a side, my dad chauffeured Oppenheimer to Las Alamos once.
"Break a leg" comes from ye olde English theatre tradition / superstition. Wishing someone good luck before going on stage was considered bad luck, so naturally it became custom to wish *bad* luck on someone in order to bring them good. There were all sorts of inventive things you could ask to befall someone, but being short and simple, "break a leg" is what's stuck around into everyday use.
The only issue with the movie is that so many people are getting from it the impression that there would be no bomb without Oppenheimer, and that is just not true. If he had not been involved, it would likely have taken longer, but it was always going to happen.
people resist that narrative because they just want to clutch their pearls and act morally superior. they want to act like america is evil and did this evil thing and if it didnt do this evil thing then the world would be awesome right now. this movie definitely capitlizes on the current "america bad" narrative that everyone is into. What Truman said in this movie is absolutely correct imo, its all on the politicians not the scientists.
Yes, but it would have taken decades if not for the Manhattan project - just like the Apollo Program vs Artemis - when not a national priority, government is slooooooooooooooow.
@@dansiegel995 Quite true...the money would have to be spent, but Oppenheimer did not need to be involved. Without him, it would have taken longer and thus cost more, but the Manhattan Project did not need Oppenheimer to succeed, and would have happened regardless of his involvement.
@@iKvetch558The Manhattan project absolutely would not have been completed prior to the end of WW2 without Oppenheimer. That is a fact. In fact, it could have been delayed so much without him, that at the war's conclusion, it's absurd funding and national priority could have been eliminated, as the Soviets were NO where near obtaining the bomb. I agree it was inevitable that it was developed, but I propose it could have been DECADES without a rival, in wartime, pushing for its completion. In that time, a non-atomic WW3 could have easily broken out between the West and the Soviets, costing perhaps even more than the horrific losses of WW2.
I have full confidence that Christopher Nolan will win the Oscar for "Best Director" next year. It's the right film at the right time in his career. Essentially, it's Nolan's "Schindler's List". I'd like to recommend that you see "Thirteen Days" starring Kevin Costner. It's about the Cuban missile crisis.
It may be a tough year and could be a dead heat between Nolan and Scorcese, but advance word on "Maestro" is fantastic, so Bradley Cooper might be in the running, as well.
Im predicting Scorsese gets it. Flower Moon feels like the film his career has been building towards much in the same way Nolans has with Oppenheimer, but I hate to say it also has the right politics behind it and matches up more with the Academy voting style. Its got the prestige vote. Cillian will 100% get Best Actor though and IMO his performance is the real triumph of this film.
I'm just grateful for this year. That the films that mattered this year and that will be remembered from this year aren't big budget franchise films. After the past decade of films, this year feels like a miracle (however inevitable it may have been)
@@sergeantbigmac Cillian was serviceable in the film, but he was totally overshadowed by RDJ. I rate Scorsese over Nolan because it's a better film, not because of the "politics". Not sure why you'd bring politics into it... oh right, yes I do.
@@Hexon66 I felt like RDJ was great but his role couldve been played by another actor, Cillian's performance was nuanced and haunting and unforgettable. Far beyond 'serviceable' but this is a simple agree to disagree situation I think. I agree Flowers Moon was probably the better film overall with the added benefit of also being campaigned by Academy members more right now. So I brought politics into it because its a simple fact the Academy voting IS politics. I wish it wasnt and when I was younger and more naive I thought it was truly about elevating all art equally and fairly choosing the best. You might be misinterpreting what kindve politics I mean here. I forget which Hollywood exec said this years ago but basically he didnt care about the Oscars because they are created by rival studios and not truly voted for. From campaigning and finding sponsors to promoting your film as a nominee, its about who has the most money behind them. When I learned about all this it was eye-opening to me. Its a political game and Flowers Moon more easily wins that game this year.
One of the two movies in my life so far that I've gone to the cinema 4 times for. Even just to experience the audio of it on big speakers makes it worth it every time.
Nicely edited! Actually appreciated you left longer parts without comment - seen it twice in the cinema myself, and yeah, you can’t help but just sit there. Some notes 3:14 Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and “father” of quantum mechanics. Mentor of Werner Heisenberg, among many others (Bohr’s son won a Nobel prize too). The play “Copenhagen”, which I highly recommend, is a great companion piece to this movie, as it deals with Heisenberg - Germany’s Oppenheimer - and his visit to Bohr in 1942, during the occupation. Bohr was in a precarious situation then, being Jewish in Nazi-occupied Denmark, but was smuggled out (along with the vast majority Danish Jews, incredibly enough) and made it to neutral Sweden, and then, as we see, to the US. Bohr is played here by Kenneth Branagh who does a _terrible_ job at a Danish accent :D 8:28 George: yeah, using that quote in that context is a bit much, even for Nolan. Sex and death, la petite mort and all that but still. 9:15 Simone: Yup, black holes are a relatively new discovery. Heck, the fact that there are other galaxies - let alone billions of them - is relatively recent. 11:42 Applause for Emily Blunt’s accent. 12:16 Mentioned in passing here is perhaps Einstein’s most direct contribution to the bomb: the letter that he and Szilard wrote to the president, warning him that the Nazis might be working on it or, at any rate, that the US should be. 12:56 George: Please watch “Good Night, and Good Luck” (David Straithairn, George Clooney - Clooney also directed) for another look at the McCarthy era. Incredible movie! 16:09 Teller, introduced here, did end up becoming the inventor of the hydrogen bomb (along with Stanislav Ulam), but besides his contribution to human precarity, he was also just a truly unlikable piece of crap his whole life. Unlike Oppenheimer’s mixed feelongs about his creation, Teller was just “how can we make make boom big enough to destroy all of communism?!” 16:23 Not in the edit, and barely in the movie, but Einstein is having a stroll with Kurt freakin Gödel - the man who, in a sense, broke mathematics. Look him up. 17:22 The film’s in color when it’s from Oppenheimer’s perspective. It’s black and white when it’s not. … thats probably enough notes :)
ah, just like the way Nolan intended for this movie to be seen. Seriously though guys, seeing and hearing "Can you hear the music" in the cinemas was something else.
When they say there is a "non-zero" chance of setting the atmosphere on fire, they are dramatizing it for the movie. The actual chance it would happen is so unlikely, it's like the chance of every wave function of every atom in your body perfectly syncing to let you walk through a solid wall. Basically impossible, but still non-zero.
Sorry to double-comment but if you guys are interested in watching more about splitting atoms & the terrible things governments will do for that power, you should check out _"Operation Buffalo"_ A miniseries about the nuclear testing done in Australia by the British, slightly dramatised but based on real events.
It's honestly really hard to describe how it felt watching the Trinity test for the first time. It's a masterclass in building and releasing tension. Even though I'm not as big a fan of the movie as others, that 5-6 minutes is just undeniable.
Wow, you really upped your game with this one. In my country, this film is not even on streaming yet 😄 I know it's long, but i think this is the kind of film you have to watch more than once to truly appreciate it. In my second viewing i caught a lot of things that flew over my head the first time, specially Emily Blunt's role which is far more than just an angry wife. Anyway, this is a great film, love your reactions 💟
I saw this at the IMAX (proper 15perf 70mm film projection) and it was just an otherworldly experience. Some parts of the film felt like a fever dream. The closeups of Cillian (pronounced Killian, not Sillian) Murphy when the world was shaking around him were stunning. Learning they were done fully in camera was just icing on the Nolan cake. Nolan has made some seriously good films before, but this is his masterpiece - his career peak to date. I expect/demand nominations all around, and I'll be quite upset if Nolan, Murphy and Downey don't win at least a few statues for this.
I was lucky enough to live 20 minutes from 1 of 5 theaters in my country playing it in 70mm IMAX...ya it has literally ruined any future movies i watch in that theater cause they will not give me any feeling similar to how i felt when i went to that screening
This film was such a bore, they hyped up the nuclear explosion scene so much in the previews and it became such a letdown. I couldn’t find a single memorable scene worth remembering in this movie. This is Nolan’s worse film ever made in my opinion.
The bespectacled and handsome actor is Josh Harnett, star of Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor. About 20 years ago he didn't appear in major studio films because he wanted to lower his profile, so he turned to independent films and television.
A couple of things. 1: Would be very interested in seeing you both react to the Chaplin biopic. Downey JR’s greatest role. 2: well worth checking out the TV series Manhattan which followed characters living together working on the Manhattan Project.
Your reaction was perfect - it's an overwhelming character and subject. I worked with Los Alamos (LANL) for a year around the turn of the century and was fascinated by the cognitive dissonance exhibited by the scientists there. I think it was showcased in the (then) Atomic Museum, now named the Bradbury Museum. At the beginning of the exhibits is the famous letter from Einstein to Pres. Roosevelt about the possibility of creating an atomic bomb. At the end of the exhibits is a lesser known letter from Einstein to Pres. Truman begging him to stop Hydrogen bomb research and testing. LANL is still responsible for ensuring that our nuclear arsenal is working properly yet the scientists there never want to see it used.
Cillian Murphy's first name is a HARD c sound, like Killian's Irish Red Beer - for years I also thought it was a soft c (cause if hard, use a K like the beer?) - however I've heard many interviewers and even himself, pronounce it with a HARD c sound.
Yes, from what I understand, at one point in Europe, languages started to become softer, even to the point going back and changing pronunciation from older languages. So the famous Roman Cicero in now pronounced “Sisero” instead of “Kikero”. The word Celtic, like Cillian, should be pronounced with a hard “k” sound.
@@dansiegel995 lol, I didn’t bring that up on purpose. Trying to tell a city of diehard (and usually drunk) fans they are saying it incorrectly can be dangerous to your health. And I say that jokingly as a former diehard (and drunk) Knicks fan.
Here to be the token person to say this movie sucks. It's mostly legal drama and not scientific discovery, and nuclear weapons going off has been done better in other movies made decades ago. I hardly go to the movies anymore since I had my daughter, so I regret wasting my time with this one. Love this channel though! Thank you for the work you do.
9 месяцев назад+2
I seriously cannot watch this movie ever again, unless it's on a theater screen. It was a near perfect audio visual experience.
Two interesting trivia bits: 1. For Olivia Newton-John fans: When Oppenheimer went to study in Germany, the teacher he studied under was Max Born, also known as Olivia Newton-John's grandfather. 2. For Leave It To Beaver fans: Before she became an actress, Madge Blake (a.k.a. Mrs. Mondello - - she also played Aunt Harriet on the original Batman series) - and her husband worked on the Manhattan Project, specifically in the testing department.
This was a surreal experience to watch this in an imax theater, especially the trinity tests. The vibrations could be felt for minutes after the explosion
The movie "Trumbo" is one of the best movies to learn the insanity of the McCarthy witch-hunts! Hollywood blacklisted screenwriters, so many turned in scripts under ghost names, Trumbo being one of them. He wrote the script for "Spartacus" and others and won Oscars, but could not accept them , cuz of ghost names! The great actor Bryan Cranston plays Trumbo...and I highly recommend Cinebinge give this movie some ❤
28:50 /// The atomic bomb was not the most expensive project the Americans developed during World War II. More expensive was the aircraft to carry it over the target. It cost $3 billion to develop the B-29. So the entire cost of dropping the atomic bomb was more than $5 billion, or nearly $86 billion today.
An equally sizeable project were the proximity fuzzed AA shells, primarily used by naval vessels. Millions upon Millions of shells manufactured, each with a tiny radar in each shell. Even though made by over 100 manufacturing companies, its secrecy was guarded at the same levels of the Manhattan project and D-Day invasions. Known by few, this is the primary reason Japanese Kamikazes were so unsuccessful. It could have been disastrous.
12:12 "Everybody Out, NOW!" 15:45 "Goes This [__] This Head." 18:06 "Jacket" Or "Gadjet"? 24:50 "Germany Is About To Surrender." 24:53 "With The Japanese Fightart." 30:01 "These Things Are Hard In Your Heart." 39:24 "I Left My Country That Never Return." 40:57 "Kennedy, Jonh F. Kennedy."
A pretty good anecdote is one I've seen posted around. Someone in the theater asking out loud, if there was any post-credits scenes. Someone else simply replying, "Yeah. You're living in it."
12:09 Did Someone Says "RUclips"? 19:22 "What The Hell Are You Doing In Chicago." 23:56 "On A Hydrogen Bomb You're Not Even A Building." 34:13 "You Think Anyone Give A [__] Who Build The Bomb." 37:58 "Oppenheimer Is An Agent Of The Soviet Union." 38:39 "I Would Have Split In His Face." 39:47 "He Talks About The Nuclear Genie Back In The Bottle."
This is an amazing movie. I'd say one of Nolan's best. There was a story I heard about the trinity test, they said you could see the flash miles away and I read that one guy had his hands over his eyes and he could see the bones in his hand. Another story was that a blind person saw the flash. I hope those actually happened but not sure how to verify.
Highly recommend the book American Prometheus, which was Nolan’s primary source of information when making the film. The reality of Oppenheimer’s life is even more complex and astounding than the movie conveys.
I know I’m big time in the minority, but it was underwhelming for me. Maybe overwhelming? I’m not sure if it was the pacing or difficulty integrating the three major storylines that didn’t work for me. Also, I think self-constraining to purely practical effects did just that constrained them. I think the could have pushed the effects just a bit further and made them truly magical. But again, it’s not a popular view.
The OSS was prepared to assassinate Heisenberg since he was the head of the German nuclear weapon program. Fortunately for him, when the OSS got close to him at a lecture in Italy, the OSS agent realized it was unnecessary since the German project had made a wrong turn and was not ahead of the Allies.
Los Alamos is still a functioning government weapons lab. And yes, they continue research in nuclear weapons - as long as other countries do it, so must the US.
I feel like one of the few people that doesn’t like this film on the same level as everyone else. While I enjoyed it, I think it’s far from Nolan’s best work. It seems to paint Oppenheimer in a martyr kind of way, as if he was doing good for our country when they skipped over things like the thousands of Native American lives lost due to the chemical work they did because of the location he chose, etc.
saw this in theatres, and the atomic bomb scene it was dead silent... not one said a word and then the sound of the blast, a bunch of ppl were screaming or jumped back lol it was nuts and i saw it in imax
My Dad was WW II veteran, and as horrible as the atomic bomb was to be dropped on Japanese cities, the Japanese killed a 100, 000 Chinese by an old technic by the sword, so the Japanese Empire had to be stopped, the Japanese had the same mindset as the Germans in that they believed they were superior to other people. Their Empire had not been invaded in 1,000 years, it was not possible to lose the war, they would have fought to the last, man, woman and child.
A very important thing that a lot of people forget about the anti-communist rhetoric of the time is the surrounding circumstances. Communism was Russia personified at the time, and Russia was rapidly becoming a significant global threat under Stalin, not even mentioning the threat they posed post-war. The Soviets had the largest spy network in the world and it wasn't even close. The REASON people, and especially governments of the time were so incredibly set on rooting out communists was because they were likely feeding the Soviets intel. On top of all of that, Nuclear Weapons were clearly the #1 thing to safeguard due to their terrifying power, which was already self evident in the science before they were even built. So later, when the Soviets cracked the bomb only a FEW YEARS after the US did, they knew it was because of moles in the teams of scientists who developed it. So when the HEAD of the project had actively attended communist rallies and seemingly every person he was close to was a known communist at some point, then they would have to be borderline saboteurs to not investigate with the highest levels of scrutiny. We STILL don't know if Oppenheimer actually leaked information, and there is a real non-zero chance that he did.
there are individuals WORTH more tha this project is more correct, its important to remember they dont have some giant scrooge mcduck vault full of money, a lot of it is asset valuation, like stocks and stuff
I cannot recommend rewatching this enough, now that you know what to be on the lookout for and who everyone is and how they all fit together it flows even better
I hope you'll eventually watch the sequel to this, Godzilla Minus One. It's in theaters right now, but I'm sure it'll come out on home release before too long. Oppenheimer was my favorite new movie of the year, until I saw Godzilla Minus One. One of the rare cases where the sequel is even better than the first movie.
I still remember when the credits rolled and I all I felt was this impending doom......a kind of fear that Oppie must have felt back then. I kept seated for a while, I let Ludwig Gorranson make my skin crawl with that closing music. Only Chris Nolan can make a movie of a real life account feel so thrilling.
my brother asked me why there was nudity in this movie. all I could tell him was, "if it makes you feel uncomfortable then that's why its there". Nolan movies are like an inside job. they're trying to hide the missing trillions while getting you worked up. and you wont even notice. then you gotta watch it again. and again. and again. hes old school. he makes movies that last. like they used to.
@@shivamsud that's what it was trying to do in my opinion. The man is historically reveared for his contributions to the world and his advocacy against the use of what he helped to create. That can create a sort of rose tinted readers digest version of a very real, human man. I think it was also a way of poking fun at viewers who expected a recreation of the television interview shot for shot. I mean Nolan is not Zach Snyder.
@@BoKnowsBrains yeah but it totally kills the true meaning of the line. For anyone who has actually read the Bhagvat Gita that line means way more than what most people think. Oppenheimer understood that and thats why he drew that comparison For most people the line is just about him creating a deadly weapon that can destroy the world but if u take it in the context of the Book it has soo many more layers on how he litrally created a weapon of the gods that can flatten the world and destroy entire armies at once. He recognised the mayhem they caused in the battlefield of kurukshetra and finally realised what big of a mistake he has made. Using that line during a sex scene takes away the weight of the words and pardons him from any accountability of his actions. And u know how well the covered other aspects of the effects of his experiments on the native lands and the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Fun fact: the girl with the melting face is Nolan actual daughter. He said having her made that scene that much more emotional resonant for him that the film already was.
They even actually melted her face off for realism, crazy
@@tear728 hahahaha
That does make a lot of sense. Some people have compared this to Nolan's first horror movie, and I know that he takes the seriousness of atomic warfare very seriously. So seeing his daughter be a hypothetical victim would be something he worries about.
@@tear728 Bravo Nolan!!!! 😂😂😂
@@tear728 She actually improvised that and Nolan liked it so much that he decided to keep it in.
I saw this movie in theaters and it was a magical experience. The room was full, not a single seat was empty.
The Trinity test scene was incredible, the entire room went silent, there was no sound of people chewing, drinking, breathing, coughing, nothing, pure silence and it stayed that way throughout the entire scene.
The movie didn't feel like 3 hours at all. Loved your reaction
I do love a good blockbuster, but to be in the middle of a cinema full of grown ups who were just absorbed in what was on screen was such a pleasurable experience.
Same. Unforgettable cinematic experience.
On the two occasions I saw it. It was completely full. Which was brilliant to see.
I also saw it in cinema in Sweden and the trinity test scene the whole room just went silent...it was a little bit spooky....
Totally different from when I saw it. There was only like 4 people max. I also saw it right after Barbie
I saw this in theaters and it melted my mind. The score, the sound design, the visuals…. It did not feel like a 3 hour movie at all!
Agree with the sense of awe. Bladder totally disproved the statement on the time it felt, though! 🙄
Then I saw Killers of the Flower Moon, and that felt like it took a out 8 hours
Felt like a 6 hour movie!
@@highviewbarbell I saw napoleon and swearcit felt like 4 hours my god it felt slow asf
Los Alamos is actually still a working community. I live near the area, and pass through regularly, and it's a huge deal. It's actually the inspiration for Black Mesa from half life, and is similarly a giant underground facility full of weird shit that's very very classified 😂
You can actually, technically, drive through the area, because it has a road that passes through it, but there are quite a few people with large weaponry to make sure you're not tempted to stop.
It is very much still an active national lab. One of my friends just went to work there to do weapons development...He graduated from TX A&M in nuke engineering, apparently working there is every aggies' dream
They will let people pass through when they are going to the campgrounds at Bandelier National Monument or to the ski hill, there's no other reliable way to get to those spots in a vehicle. But yes, they will make sure people actually pass through and don't make any turns onto the lab grounds. The movie brought a lot more tourists up there, when they show up at the lab, they are directed to the town site where they can go to the museum and walk around to see some of the original houses that are still there.
oh... so G-Man is a reference to Oppenheimer here.
...neat!
I have been to Los Alamos, which is a working laboratory. You can visit the Atomic Museum there, and they have the original gadget construction cabins and other areas you can drive to. The Trinity Test Site is normally off-limits, but it is open to the public the first week of October and the first week of April every year.
All the walls are covered in asbestos by the way....keeps out the rats. Let us know if you develop a large dry cough, headache or your heart stopping. Because that's not part of the test.
That's asbestos.
I like how they trick us into thinking Strauss is a friend at the beginning of the movie. Then, by the time the movie progresses, you realize he's the villain pulling all the strings.
I thought he was a villain at the beginning
@@nightfall902That’s a tall ask for many people. The movie should provide a gateway for people to explore the subject more.
Wait what? He was the villain from pretty early on
Too many characters and too much talking, had no idea what was going on by the end
@@user-yc3mq2wm3vI always find it funny how Americans think simply knowing communists is "breaking the rules."
As far as I'm aware "Break a leg" started in show business, and was usually said to someone going for an audition where it meant "I hope to see you in a cast soon", but as it effectively means "good luck", that is what it's meaning has morphed into.
Same as I heard, "break a leg" wishing to see you in cast!
Also in show biz saying, "good luck" is supposed to be bad luck, so "break a leg".
That makes so much sense!
In the old days of theater (late 1800s/early 1900s), if you were not acting, you had to stay behind "the leg line" and not get paid. Telling someone to break a leg is letting them know you want them to not only act, but also get paid for doing so. It was only later used instead of "good luck" since saying so would "jinx" the performance!
I know of two ideas, one is that you'd have to do so many curtain calls after your performance you'd break the "leg" curtains, the other is that you'd break a leg from the bowing.
that "i believe we did.." line at the end is SO haunting. glad i saw this in theaters. absolute master piece. i predict A LOT of Oscars
It's definitely Oscar bait, but I'm not sure if it's "diverse" enough of a film for the modern Oscars.
@@farterboy "anti-white" is crazy.
the most haunting line is when the military officer says to Oppenheimer, "we'll take it from here!" Military drops the bomb, wins the war, scientists get crucified, tale as old as time.
It's such a perfect movie. I went to see it 2 and wanna see it even more. I also predicted it that it would won a lot of Oscars (11 in my case) but 7 is more than enough. 10/10 movie
Simone & George - No apologies are necessary for the quiet you displayed in this reaction. From the immeasurable weight of the subject itself, to the amazingly crafted script, to the undaunted and unflinching delivery of the actors; this movie was an experience to behold in nothing less than stunned silence. Theaters should have had ushers outside to help people pick up their dropped jaws as they exited. Great reaction, you two!
I almost fell asleep in the theater.
@@MerelvanHouten Same haha
@@MerelvanHoutenI feel sorry for you. Enjoy your next Transformers movie
Movie was good. But definitely not Nolan’s strongest display
@@MerelvanHouten - Same. I mean the acting and cinematography were top notch. But Nolan’s typical time jumping got old very fast. The pacing was all over the place. And the last hour was boring as shit (should have been 20 mins tops).
I thought The Imitation Game was a much better movie, fwiw.
The explosion was silent because the speed of light through air is MUCH faster than the speed of sound. A few movies have shown explosions and delayed sound properly (Tenet and The Hurt Locker come to mind) on far distant chemical explosions, but for an atomic explosion, its so big, you are VERY VERY far away when viewing, and can still see it very well, hence the sound comes several seconds later.
The real shockwave of that test explosion on July 16, 1945 reached the scientists after 44 seconds. It's possible that the shockwave in the film also comes in after 44 seconds, but I do not own it to confirm.
@@pointystories582 it does. Nolan made sure abt sure lil details
@@pointystories582 LOL I never verified it myself, but Nolan is so anal about time in his movies, I'm sure he got it exactly right.
Watching this on IMAX was insane. It was louder than life, the tension before the explosion was one of the most intense things I've experienced in a movie theater ever
best movie for IMAX, i think better than Avatar.
@@caifothiazz Okay I'm not gonna lie, some time has passed now and I've seen other stuff and...man Oppenheimer was awesome, sure, but if I could choose I actually would have prefered to watch Godzilla Minus One on IMAX. I always hated giant monster movies but Minus One is an extremely rare exception. 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, check it out
When George mentioned the fence story I thought "that sounds like something Richard Feynman would do", and sure enough when I looked it up it was a story told by Feynman himself. About the only difference is the direction he was going... Feynman said he would go out through the gate and back in through the fence hole 😂
The Trinity test using silence was genius, not just because it was effectively dramatic. From the moment of the on screen explosion until the shockwave hits, is the actual amount of time it took to reach the scientists at the real Trinity test. Nolan incorporated that moment of silence to give us the feeling that the scientists and other observers would have felt. As much of that feeling as you can put into a movie, anyway.
That quiet moment of just taking it in, and realizing you succeeded, and experiencing the visuals of the strangely beautiful explosion you spent months trying to create.
Then BAM oh yeah it's violent and terrifying as fuck. I saw that in theaters and it made me jump harder than any horror movie I've ever watched. Nolan is all timer of a filmmaker. Absolutely perfect creative decisions for that scene alone
Nolan should've pulled his head out of his butt and allowed the use of CGI for that explosion. I know Trinity wasn't _that_ big of an explosion in real life, but using a little gasoline fire to pretend to be Trinity was very weak stuff.
It was so effective because, in the theater, the rest of the movie was incredibly loud, louder than any movie I'd seen before, so that sudden silence felt like the end of everything that preceded it
@@fakecubed the movie is not about the bomb itself so literally who cares. i dont understand why people care so much. the bomb looked fine considering it is not the key focus of the movie. a whole extra hour of film afterwards but wahh wahh bomb thats on-screen for 2 minutes not big enough
@@fakecubed It's looking very much like an actual atomic explosion if you look historic footage of nuclear tests.
Seems almost symbolic of their success. The quiet before the storm. They succeeded at their jobs, and got to bask in the silence of it for just a brief moment before the reality sets in.
This movie utilized sound in ways I'd never experienced before. In the ARQ theater, it was absolutely incredible. The other thing that got me was we all know the test succeeded - but the tension they were able to build prior to the bomb going off was... amazing.
EDIT: I'm also wondering if the drowning of her, that the hands are Oppenheimer's signifying he feels responsible for her death. That he killed her.
It's also a plausible, but never proven theory that Jean was murdered by the intelligence community.
The drowning scene was showing two different things because oppie himself wasn’t sure if she actually suicided or was killed.
Don't be sorry for a quiet reaction. My reaction in the theatre was exactly the same as so was everyone else's. My theatre was dead silent throughout the entire movie. The only noise I heard was a few people at the end of the movie who said "wow". The ending left me in silence for a solid 20 minutes after it ended. The sheer weight and gravity that we could feel through the screen is just a testament to Cillian's amazing performance and Nolan's elite filmmaking
I've seen three theories on the origin of 'break a leg', the first by far the most likely. Theatrical folk were superstitious, and it was thought that wishing someone 'good luck' on their upcoming performance would actually bring bad luck. So bidding a person to break a leg, a bad outcome, would be a 'safe' way to wish them good luck, while presumably appeasing the gods of perversity.
The second possible origin of the phrase dates back to Elizabethan times, when audiences reportedly showed their appreciation by banging their chairs on the floor. The greater the appreciation, the harder the banging. Any broken chair legs would therefore signify a real _tour de force._
The third theory is that the phrase refers to the leg line on a stage, a line on the floor in the wings, beyond which the person is considered to be on stage and visible to the audience. Performers who made it on stage, i.e., 'broke' the leg line, would actually get paid, while those who remained in the wings and behind the leg line would not.
Seeing this in IMAX three times, I was mesmerized every single time. This movie literally made me go home and start to study physics. Life changing experience.
Only about 2 minutes of the film was worth watching in imax. The rest would’ve been the same on TV at home
Sound system is million times better in imax @@zhen3142
As a lover of history, the fact that movie still made me incredibly nervous during the Trinity Test scene, despite already knowing what happened, says so much about Nolan's talent as a film maker.
This is by far the best movie of the year, if not decade.
It was great, but Nolan can’t write a good female character to save his life imho
@@lightup6751 Can you?
The Imax experience of this film was insane. When the test was going on, I felt like it wasn't going to work because of the suspense
“Break a leg” is theatre term. A lot of people think it means “good luck,” but that’s actually wrong. What it actually means is: “earn your pay.”
Back in the day; actors only got paid for the time they spent on stage performing. If you’re not performing; you’re backstage. Well, in an amphitheater performance; there usually isn’t much of a backstage. Actors typically stand off to the side; past the stage area. The point where the stage and the side meet is known as a Leg-line. So; in order to earn your pay; you had to step across that line; or “Break the leg,” and start performing.
I saw it twice in IMAX. During the lead up to the bomb being detonated. My heart was beating out of my chest. Also, I knew Gary Oldman was in the movie. But I didn't know who he was playing, so when I saw him as President Truman. My face lit up!
Christopher Nolan is one of the few directors working today who can make a three-hour biopic largely comprised of people talking in hushed tones and make it so absolutely riveting. But he's able to convey the grave stakes and consequences of these hushed conversations. These were serious people talking seriously, and their choices changed the course of human history.
Some complained that they never showed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But the movie seems to intentionally choose not to, not just because Oppie was the focus of the film, but because we all have seen the cataclysmic damage they caused. The real footage is out there for any of us to find. Nolan simply chooses to imply the damage and the aftermath. We see Oppie's anguished reaction to the news reel. He's so distracted by what he caused that he doesn't even hear the cheers during his speech in the barn. He sees a woman's face peeling off and the burned-out husk of a human body at his feet. The man is clearly haunted, and we are haunted through him.
The stomping in the barn is also some great sound design. It's the horrible sound of a raucous crowd applauding mass destruction, but it also sounds like the engine of a steam train as it rolls into motion. Like Oppenheimer's atomic research and everything it wrought, it's an unstoppable train chugging forward faster and faster, at risk of getting so out of control that it will annihilate everything in its path.
We see what is happening in Japan through Oppenheimer's eyes as he is seeing burning faces and is practically having a panic attack during this speech! Cillian Murphy, Christopher Nolan, sound and editing are brilliant ‼️
This movie was one of the most jaw dropping experiences I’ve ever had in a movie theatre. I don’t think I’ve ever left a screening before where the audience was in absolute stunned silence.
I would love to see Star Trek reactions on Your channel.
40:57 Speaking of that name-drop, another epic historical drama w/ a stacked cast and masterful editing is Oliver Stone's JFK (1991) starring Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Joe Pesci, Donald Sutherland, John Candy, Kevin Bacon, Michael Rooker, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jack Lemmon, etc...
Ya you guy's gotta do JFK, I love that movie.
Nolan said that JFK was one of the films he looked at for Oppenheimer
I just found out a while back from my Dad, that my Grandfather's unit was doing some work about 50 miles from the test area at Los Alamos. They didn't know the test was happening. He said it looked like the sun was starting rise, then it immediately set. Didn't find out until much later what it was. Pretty cool thing for him to have witnessed.
I was mainly excited to see Richard Feynman. They did show him not using the welding glass to view the explosion, as he knew glass blocks the harmful UV light from the blast. But there were other stories of him breaking into safes using logic and making people think he was a genius locksmith. He was a joker and pretty unique. Not a saint by any means but listening to his lectures are always entertaining and help you think differently about the world around you. The man won 2 Noble Prizes in Physics and neither were related to his relatively small work on the Manhattan Project. And yes he loved playing the bongos.
Gosh, me too. Honestly, the whole Manhattan project thing I familiar with it because of his book Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman! So I really appreciate that they included him in movie
This gotta be a bot comment.
@@Ulexcool No that's the title of the book, "Surely You're Joking , Mr. Feynman!". He was a funny and great educator.
@@UlexcoolThat's the most self-referential comment I've ever read.
AND he was the scientist that George mentioned going through the hole in the fence and then back through security again and again. He was a jokester.
There's a lot of symbolism (Shoutout to Just Trust Ash) in this film. One of my favourite is the first scene with Einstein and Oppenheimer we get one short cut to Albert throwing one stone in the pond, creating a single ripple symbolising the atomic bomb as a unique single theory. In their last scene it shows the light rain creating multiple ripples now that the entire world has been introduced to it while he points out we destroyed the world. Truly a great film!
One thing I've noticed about Nolan is how well he can make a sequence tense, even kind of horrifying.
Yeah, Oppenheimer has been described as Nolan's first horror movie.
well "horrifying" is fitting as its not just a movie about that part of history, its also a wakeup call
I think it’s very easy to be critical of Harry Truman here, but even if their meeting played out exactly such, I have a different perspective.
If I was wrestling with the idea that my name would live forever as the person that dropped those bombs, I might resent someone coming into my office and expecting me to commiserate with their feelings of guilt.
I saw this opening weekend in IMAX at the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood at a 7am screening. The IMAX film reel was so big - 11 miles long and 600 pounds - that the theatre, along with many others, had to build an extension to the projection booth to have room for it. The sound was insanely great and those amazing IMAX shots made it well worth getting up early for. Beautiful film and performances. Cillian and RDJ damn well deserve nominations at all the awards coming up.
Are you a bot too?
@@Ulexcool - Um ... nope. I'm a lot, sometimes, but never a bot. Not that I know of anyway.
I also watch in IMAX, and I found the sound to be particularly cloying and ultimately too distracting to fully enjoy the film.
@@Hexon66 - My only issue with the sound is what seems to be a regular complaint with Nolan's sound mixing wherein the dialogue - which there's a LOT of - is often hard to hear. The boom of the shockwave after that long space of silence when the Trinity test went off scared the shit out of a lot of people in the theatre, myself included.
Only about 2 minutes of the film was worth watching in imax. The rest would’ve been the same on TV at home
If you want to watch a pretty good flick about the McCarthy era, and various other important topics that still resonate today, check out 'Good Night, and Good Luck'.
I saw this in 70mm IMAX twice and it was possibly the best movie-going experience I've ever had. The opening scene with the fireball sent chills through my body. Incredible filmmaking.
Only about 2 minutes of the film was worth watching in imax. The rest would’ve been the same on TV at home
@@zhen3142 you're very wrong my friend seeing it in IMAX 70mm was incredible. Its about he immersion. Seeing the whole movie in that format was great. But especially the opening montage, the explosion scene and the final few minutes was overwhelming. Seeing the whole image they captured on a 60ft tall screen blew my mind. watching it at home isn't as fun
Just wanted to say, I'm a therapist watching this on my lunch break and Simone's "Sit down for a session with Cinebinge" made me laugh. Well done, lads!
I'm an actor and as far as I know the phrase "Break a leg" has a number of possible origins but all of them stem from the superstition you shouldn't wish someone good luck in the theatre. "The leg" can refer to the lever that opened an closed the curtains at the front of the stage, it can also refer to the side of a stage and in both cases back in the days of vaudeville you'd only get paid if you actually appeared on stage. So by wishing someone "Break a leg" you are wishing them success and that they get paid because they've actually appeared and done the work.
My favourite scene is where Oppenheimer jumps on the table and screams "Its Oppen time!" and then the nuke goes off.
In all seriousness, its a fantastic movie, Cillian Murphy deserves an Oscar.
As does Robert Downey Jr for best supporting actor.
"Near zero" in physics means zero. Unless you repeat the experiment "near infinite" times.
You can see it in the reaction here too, but I found this movie to be so horribly over-orchestrated. There's music under literally every single scene, so much so that you can never relax and forget you're watching a movie. I found it incredibly distracting.
Trust me, you lot absorbing the movie in quietly is a lot better than these gen z reactors getting outraged every 30 seconds about the fact that it was dropped
I worked at White Sands Missile Range up north at Stallion Range Camp and nearby is the test site and the McDonald ranch house & buildings, confiscated from them and other ranches during the war, and never returned to them. Tours are made twice yearly or by special arrangement, but we were able to drive over every so often since we already had access on the range. The site is behind a fence but the house is accessible. They’ve kept it up and even have markings such as “Clean Room - keep door shut” where final assembly was done. Amazingly, the house and outbuildings are just a couple miles from ground zero but had no damage. I do have some great pictures of both sites though. It’s crazy that the trigger mechanism parts were driven down the mountain from the lab the 210 miles in a sedan over some bad roads for final assembly. Los Alamos was so secret it had no mail service. A box in Santa Fe was the address and someone had to carry the mail up and back daily. And now Los Alamos and the National Laboratory is a very well-kept and nice “government” town. I love it and its’ beauty but would rather live down the hill in Santa Fe. And Groves built the Pentagon in 16 months, not the 48 the planners insisted it would take. He was a #%$& but it got results. The project included far-flung locations at Oak Ridge, Hanford as well as Los Alamos. All heavily compartmentalization and Top Secret.
The first time I watched "Oppenheimer" in theaters I had to take a quick bathroom break, but knew enough about the history of it to know where to break from. I also knew I would see it in the theater again anyway because the writing is so intricate and cohesive that you really can't miss a second of it or it feels like you've missed a quarter of a standard feature-length movie. It is like a feat of engineering where damn near every performance, major or supporting, were integral and/or significant.
Months late lol but “break a leg” originates from the theatre. The curtains on the side are called legs and to break the legs meant to get out on stage and get paid.
Here in NM this is in our DNA. I live about 50 miles from Las Alamos and about the same distance from Trinity Site. Visiting the Trinity is a very solemn, eerie occasion. The tape was to cover where the electrical leads connected, the storm actually came up by coincidence so Nolan left it in. A single electrical discharge could have set the whole thing off. Towns as far away as 60 miles lite up with light. No one knew what was going on, end of the world? As a side, my dad chauffeured Oppenheimer to Las Alamos once.
"Break a leg" comes from ye olde English theatre tradition / superstition. Wishing someone good luck before going on stage was considered bad luck, so naturally it became custom to wish *bad* luck on someone in order to bring them good. There were all sorts of inventive things you could ask to befall someone, but being short and simple, "break a leg" is what's stuck around into everyday use.
You guys should definitely watch Chaplin! As well as classic Chaplin films (The Great Dictator). RDJ embodied him so well
The only issue with the movie is that so many people are getting from it the impression that there would be no bomb without Oppenheimer, and that is just not true. If he had not been involved, it would likely have taken longer, but it was always going to happen.
people resist that narrative because they just want to clutch their pearls and act morally superior. they want to act like america is evil and did this evil thing and if it didnt do this evil thing then the world would be awesome right now. this movie definitely capitlizes on the current "america bad" narrative that everyone is into. What Truman said in this movie is absolutely correct imo, its all on the politicians not the scientists.
Yes, but it would have taken decades if not for the Manhattan project - just like the Apollo Program vs Artemis - when not a national priority, government is slooooooooooooooow.
Indeed, as it was only a matter of time before someone came to the exact same conclusion with the discovery of nuclear fission.
@@dansiegel995 Quite true...the money would have to be spent, but Oppenheimer did not need to be involved. Without him, it would have taken longer and thus cost more, but the Manhattan Project did not need Oppenheimer to succeed, and would have happened regardless of his involvement.
@@iKvetch558The Manhattan project absolutely would not have been completed prior to the end of WW2 without Oppenheimer. That is a fact. In fact, it could have been delayed so much without him, that at the war's conclusion, it's absurd funding and national priority could have been eliminated, as the Soviets were NO where near obtaining the bomb. I agree it was inevitable that it was developed, but I propose it could have been DECADES without a rival, in wartime, pushing for its completion. In that time, a non-atomic WW3 could have easily broken out between the West and the Soviets, costing perhaps even more than the horrific losses of WW2.
I have full confidence that Christopher Nolan will win the Oscar for "Best Director" next year. It's the right film at the right time in his career. Essentially, it's Nolan's "Schindler's List".
I'd like to recommend that you see "Thirteen Days" starring Kevin Costner. It's about the Cuban missile crisis.
It may be a tough year and could be a dead heat between Nolan and Scorcese, but advance word on "Maestro" is fantastic, so Bradley Cooper might be in the running, as well.
Im predicting Scorsese gets it. Flower Moon feels like the film his career has been building towards much in the same way Nolans has with Oppenheimer, but I hate to say it also has the right politics behind it and matches up more with the Academy voting style. Its got the prestige vote.
Cillian will 100% get Best Actor though and IMO his performance is the real triumph of this film.
I'm just grateful for this year. That the films that mattered this year and that will be remembered from this year aren't big budget franchise films.
After the past decade of films, this year feels like a miracle (however inevitable it may have been)
@@sergeantbigmac Cillian was serviceable in the film, but he was totally overshadowed by RDJ. I rate Scorsese over Nolan because it's a better film, not because of the "politics". Not sure why you'd bring politics into it... oh right, yes I do.
@@Hexon66 I felt like RDJ was great but his role couldve been played by another actor, Cillian's performance was nuanced and haunting and unforgettable. Far beyond 'serviceable' but this is a simple agree to disagree situation I think.
I agree Flowers Moon was probably the better film overall with the added benefit of also being campaigned by Academy members more right now. So I brought politics into it because its a simple fact the Academy voting IS politics. I wish it wasnt and when I was younger and more naive I thought it was truly about elevating all art equally and fairly choosing the best. You might be misinterpreting what kindve politics I mean here. I forget which Hollywood exec said this years ago but basically he didnt care about the Oscars because they are created by rival studios and not truly voted for. From campaigning and finding sponsors to promoting your film as a nominee, its about who has the most money behind them. When I learned about all this it was eye-opening to me. Its a political game and Flowers Moon more easily wins that game this year.
One of the two movies in my life so far that I've gone to the cinema 4 times for.
Even just to experience the audio of it on big speakers makes it worth it every time.
Nicely edited! Actually appreciated you left longer parts without comment - seen it twice in the cinema myself, and yeah, you can’t help but just sit there.
Some notes
3:14 Niels Bohr, Danish physicist and “father” of quantum mechanics. Mentor of Werner Heisenberg, among many others (Bohr’s son won a Nobel prize too). The play “Copenhagen”, which I highly recommend, is a great companion piece to this movie, as it deals with Heisenberg - Germany’s Oppenheimer - and his visit to Bohr in 1942, during the occupation. Bohr was in a precarious situation then, being Jewish in Nazi-occupied Denmark, but was smuggled out (along with the vast majority Danish Jews, incredibly enough) and made it to neutral Sweden, and then, as we see, to the US. Bohr is played here by Kenneth Branagh who does a _terrible_ job at a Danish accent :D
8:28 George: yeah, using that quote in that context is a bit much, even for Nolan. Sex and death, la petite mort and all that but still.
9:15 Simone: Yup, black holes are a relatively new discovery. Heck, the fact that there are other galaxies - let alone billions of them - is relatively recent.
11:42 Applause for Emily Blunt’s accent.
12:16 Mentioned in passing here is perhaps Einstein’s most direct contribution to the bomb: the letter that he and Szilard wrote to the president, warning him that the Nazis might be working on it or, at any rate, that the US should be.
12:56 George: Please watch “Good Night, and Good Luck” (David Straithairn, George Clooney - Clooney also directed) for another look at the McCarthy era. Incredible movie!
16:09 Teller, introduced here, did end up becoming the inventor of the hydrogen bomb (along with Stanislav Ulam), but besides his contribution to human precarity, he was also just a truly unlikable piece of crap his whole life. Unlike Oppenheimer’s mixed feelongs about his creation, Teller was just “how can we make make boom big enough to destroy all of communism?!”
16:23 Not in the edit, and barely in the movie, but Einstein is having a stroll with Kurt freakin Gödel - the man who, in a sense, broke mathematics. Look him up.
17:22 The film’s in color when it’s from Oppenheimer’s perspective. It’s black and white when it’s not.
… thats probably enough notes :)
ah, just like the way Nolan intended for this movie to be seen.
Seriously though guys, seeing and hearing "Can you hear the music" in the cinemas was something else.
When they say there is a "non-zero" chance of setting the atmosphere on fire, they are dramatizing it for the movie. The actual chance it would happen is so unlikely, it's like the chance of every wave function of every atom in your body perfectly syncing to let you walk through a solid wall. Basically impossible, but still non-zero.
I mean, if we take Murphy's Law for reference, if it can happen, it will most definitely happen.
when?... it's a math problem.
"Break a leg" is from hoping to slip on horse manure from the many carriage horses in front of the theater if a play is successful. It's pretty old.
Sorry to double-comment but if you guys are interested in watching more about splitting atoms & the terrible things governments will do for that power, you should check out _"Operation Buffalo"_
A miniseries about the nuclear testing done in Australia by the British, slightly dramatised but based on real events.
It's honestly really hard to describe how it felt watching the Trinity test for the first time. It's a masterclass in building and releasing tension. Even though I'm not as big a fan of the movie as others, that 5-6 minutes is just undeniable.
Wow, you really upped your game with this one.
In my country, this film is not even on streaming yet 😄
I know it's long, but i think this is the kind of film you have to watch more than once to truly appreciate it.
In my second viewing i caught a lot of things that flew over my head the first time, specially Emily Blunt's role which is far more than just an angry wife.
Anyway, this is a great film, love your reactions 💟
I saw this at the IMAX (proper 15perf 70mm film projection) and it was just an otherworldly experience. Some parts of the film felt like a fever dream. The closeups of Cillian (pronounced Killian, not Sillian) Murphy when the world was shaking around him were stunning. Learning they were done fully in camera was just icing on the Nolan cake. Nolan has made some seriously good films before, but this is his masterpiece - his career peak to date. I expect/demand nominations all around, and I'll be quite upset if Nolan, Murphy and Downey don't win at least a few statues for this.
I was lucky enough to live 20 minutes from 1 of 5 theaters in my country playing it in 70mm IMAX...ya it has literally ruined any future movies i watch in that theater cause they will not give me any feeling similar to how i felt when i went to that screening
Are you a bot?
@@Ulexcool no
This film was such a bore, they hyped up the nuclear explosion scene so much in the previews and it became such a letdown. I couldn’t find a single memorable scene worth remembering in this movie. This is Nolan’s worse film ever made in my opinion.
@@magicwv bait lol
The color/B&W switch indicates who is telling the story. Full color is Oppenheimer telling his story, B&W is Strauss telling his side of it.
It's nice seeing Josh Hartnett back in Hollywood's good grace. He's always been such an underrated actor, even back when he had success.
The bespectacled and handsome actor is Josh Harnett, star of Black Hawk Down and Pearl Harbor. About 20 years ago he didn't appear in major studio films because he wanted to lower his profile, so he turned to independent films and television.
A couple of things. 1: Would be very interested in seeing you both react to the Chaplin biopic. Downey JR’s greatest role. 2: well worth checking out the TV series Manhattan which followed characters living together working on the Manhattan Project.
Your reaction was perfect - it's an overwhelming character and subject. I worked with Los Alamos (LANL) for a year around the turn of the century and was fascinated by the cognitive dissonance exhibited by the scientists there. I think it was showcased in the (then) Atomic Museum, now named the Bradbury Museum. At the beginning of the exhibits is the famous letter from Einstein to Pres. Roosevelt about the possibility of creating an atomic bomb. At the end of the exhibits is a lesser known letter from Einstein to Pres. Truman begging him to stop Hydrogen bomb research and testing. LANL is still responsible for ensuring that our nuclear arsenal is working properly yet the scientists there never want to see it used.
Cillian Murphy's first name is a HARD c sound, like Killian's Irish Red Beer - for years I also thought it was a soft c (cause if hard, use a K like the beer?) - however I've heard many interviewers and even himself, pronounce it with a HARD c sound.
Yes, from what I understand, at one point in Europe, languages started to become softer, even to the point going back and changing pronunciation from older languages. So the famous Roman Cicero in now pronounced “Sisero” instead of “Kikero”. The word Celtic, like Cillian, should be pronounced with a hard “k” sound.
@@brianwilson2789 Lol, doesnt help when the Boston Celtics still use a soft c.
@@dansiegel995 lol, I didn’t bring that up on purpose. Trying to tell a city of diehard (and usually drunk) fans they are saying it incorrectly can be dangerous to your health. And I say that jokingly as a former diehard (and drunk) Knicks fan.
Here to be the token person to say this movie sucks. It's mostly legal drama and not scientific discovery, and nuclear weapons going off has been done better in other movies made decades ago. I hardly go to the movies anymore since I had my daughter, so I regret wasting my time with this one. Love this channel though! Thank you for the work you do.
I seriously cannot watch this movie ever again, unless it's on a theater screen. It was a near perfect audio visual experience.
Two interesting trivia bits:
1. For Olivia Newton-John fans: When Oppenheimer went to study in Germany, the teacher he studied under was Max Born, also known as Olivia Newton-John's grandfather.
2. For Leave It To Beaver fans: Before she became an actress, Madge Blake (a.k.a. Mrs. Mondello - - she also played Aunt Harriet on the original Batman series) - and her husband worked on the Manhattan Project, specifically in the testing department.
Ok, that was pretty cool.
Do you ever, you know, just shut up? Like, enjoy the movie dude...
This was a surreal experience to watch this in an imax theater, especially the trinity tests. The vibrations could be felt for minutes after the explosion
Half way through and you really cant let go of the fence wtf chill bro lmao
Hooking Downey to Chaplin to Mcarthy? Best Simone voice: Jesus, George!
The movie "Trumbo" is one of the best movies to learn the insanity of the McCarthy witch-hunts! Hollywood blacklisted screenwriters, so many turned in scripts under ghost names, Trumbo being one of them. He wrote the script for "Spartacus" and others and won Oscars, but could not accept them , cuz of ghost names! The great actor Bryan Cranston plays Trumbo...and I highly recommend Cinebinge give this movie some ❤
28:50 /// The atomic bomb was not the most expensive project the Americans developed during World War II. More expensive was the aircraft to carry it over the target. It cost $3 billion to develop the B-29. So the entire cost of dropping the atomic bomb was more than $5 billion, or nearly $86 billion today.
An equally sizeable project were the proximity fuzzed AA shells, primarily used by naval vessels. Millions upon Millions of shells manufactured, each with a tiny radar in each shell. Even though made by over 100 manufacturing companies, its secrecy was guarded at the same levels of the Manhattan project and D-Day invasions. Known by few, this is the primary reason Japanese Kamikazes were so unsuccessful. It could have been disastrous.
12:12 "Everybody Out, NOW!"
15:45 "Goes This [__] This Head."
18:06 "Jacket" Or "Gadjet"?
24:50 "Germany Is About To Surrender."
24:53 "With The Japanese Fightart."
30:01 "These Things Are Hard In Your Heart."
39:24 "I Left My Country That Never Return."
40:57 "Kennedy, Jonh F. Kennedy."
A pretty good anecdote is one I've seen posted around. Someone in the theater asking out loud, if there was any post-credits scenes.
Someone else simply replying, "Yeah. You're living in it."
The Strauss and Oppenheimer relationship is inspired by the one in Amadeus between Salitare and Mozart. Oppenheimer told Robert Downey Jr to study it
Yes Salieri's jealousy of Mozart was notorious!‼️
12:09 Did Someone Says "RUclips"?
19:22 "What The Hell Are You Doing In Chicago."
23:56 "On A Hydrogen Bomb You're Not Even A Building."
34:13 "You Think Anyone Give A [__] Who Build The Bomb."
37:58 "Oppenheimer Is An Agent Of The Soviet Union."
38:39 "I Would Have Split In His Face."
39:47 "He Talks About The Nuclear Genie Back In The Bottle."
This is an amazing movie. I'd say one of Nolan's best.
There was a story I heard about the trinity test, they said you could see the flash miles away and I read that one guy had his hands over his eyes and he could see the bones in his hand.
Another story was that a blind person saw the flash.
I hope those actually happened but not sure how to verify.
I think at 23:40 they're implying that Oppenheimer feels like he killed her because he wasn't there for her.
Highly recommend the book American Prometheus, which was Nolan’s primary source of information when making the film. The reality of Oppenheimer’s life is even more complex and astounding than the movie conveys.
08:28 30:47 "& Now, I Become Death, The Destroyer Of Worlds."
39:55 "In Here That The Bombing Of Hiroshima Was Very Successful."
I suggest you watch "Lucky Number Slevin" - a brilliant movie with Josh Hartnett and Bruce Willis.
Nolan deserves fucking OSCAR
I know I’m big time in the minority, but it was underwhelming for me. Maybe overwhelming? I’m not sure if it was the pacing or difficulty integrating the three major storylines that didn’t work for me. Also, I think self-constraining to purely practical effects did just that constrained them. I think the could have pushed the effects just a bit further and made them truly magical. But again, it’s not a popular view.
The OSS was prepared to assassinate Heisenberg since he was the head of the German nuclear weapon program. Fortunately for him, when the OSS got close to him at a lecture in Italy, the OSS agent realized it was unnecessary since the German project had made a wrong turn and was not ahead of the Allies.
I saw this in both IMAX and regular cinema. Best movie I've ever watched.
Los Alamos is still a functioning government weapons lab. And yes, they continue research in nuclear weapons - as long as other countries do it, so must the US.
I feel like one of the few people that doesn’t like this film on the same level as everyone else. While I enjoyed it, I think it’s far from Nolan’s best work. It seems to paint Oppenheimer in a martyr kind of way, as if he was doing good for our country when they skipped over things like the thousands of Native American lives lost due to the chemical work they did because of the location he chose, etc.
saw this in theatres, and the atomic bomb scene it was dead silent... not one said a word and then the sound of the blast, a bunch of ppl were screaming or jumped back lol it was nuts and i saw it in imax
5:31 I’ve been trying to place that actor for weeks, and finally realized it’s “Mr. Universe,” from “Serenity”! 🤗
My Dad was WW II veteran, and as horrible as the atomic bomb was to be dropped on Japanese cities, the Japanese killed a 100, 000 Chinese by an old technic by the sword, so the Japanese Empire had to be stopped, the Japanese had the same mindset as the Germans in that they believed they were superior to other people. Their Empire had not been invaded in 1,000 years, it was not possible to lose the war, they would have fought to the last, man, woman and child.
A very important thing that a lot of people forget about the anti-communist rhetoric of the time is the surrounding circumstances. Communism was Russia personified at the time, and Russia was rapidly becoming a significant global threat under Stalin, not even mentioning the threat they posed post-war. The Soviets had the largest spy network in the world and it wasn't even close. The REASON people, and especially governments of the time were so incredibly set on rooting out communists was because they were likely feeding the Soviets intel. On top of all of that, Nuclear Weapons were clearly the #1 thing to safeguard due to their terrifying power, which was already self evident in the science before they were even built. So later, when the Soviets cracked the bomb only a FEW YEARS after the US did, they knew it was because of moles in the teams of scientists who developed it. So when the HEAD of the project had actively attended communist rallies and seemingly every person he was close to was a known communist at some point, then they would have to be borderline saboteurs to not investigate with the highest levels of scrutiny. We STILL don't know if Oppenheimer actually leaked information, and there is a real non-zero chance that he did.
I believe "Break a Leg" is a theatre term, breaking the leg line of the stage.
there are individuals WORTH more tha this project is more correct, its important to remember they dont have some giant scrooge mcduck vault full of money, a lot of it is asset valuation, like stocks and stuff
I cannot recommend rewatching this enough, now that you know what to be on the lookout for and who everyone is and how they all fit together it flows even better
Everyone told me this movie is boring as f.
"Maybe they were talking about something more... important" has to be the biggest roast I have ever heard.
Such an elegant way of saying "Arrogant prick"
It's a hard C in Cillian. so it's pronounced Killian. I used to make that mistake myself.
Los Alamos is very much active.
It is its own unique county.
Of course George is just going to fuck this up
I hope you'll eventually watch the sequel to this, Godzilla Minus One. It's in theaters right now, but I'm sure it'll come out on home release before too long. Oppenheimer was my favorite new movie of the year, until I saw Godzilla Minus One. One of the rare cases where the sequel is even better than the first movie.
I still remember when the credits rolled and I all I felt was this impending doom......a kind of fear that Oppie must have felt back then. I kept seated for a while, I let Ludwig Gorranson make my skin crawl with that closing music.
Only Chris Nolan can make a movie of a real life account feel so thrilling.
my brother asked me why there was nudity in this movie. all I could tell him was, "if it makes you feel uncomfortable then that's why its there". Nolan movies are like an inside job. they're trying to hide the missing trillions while getting you worked up. and you wont even notice. then you gotta watch it again. and again. and again. hes old school. he makes movies that last. like they used to.
Well i don't mind the nudity. What bugs me is thats the moment they took to use one of the most famous and important Oppenheimer quotes.
@@shivamsud that's what it was trying to do in my opinion. The man is historically reveared for his contributions to the world and his advocacy against the use of what he helped to create. That can create a sort of rose tinted readers digest version of a very real, human man. I think it was also a way of poking fun at viewers who expected a recreation of the television interview shot for shot. I mean Nolan is not Zach Snyder.
@@BoKnowsBrains yeah but it totally kills the true meaning of the line. For anyone who has actually read the Bhagvat Gita that line means way more than what most people think. Oppenheimer understood that and thats why he drew that comparison
For most people the line is just about him creating a deadly weapon that can destroy the world but if u take it in the context of the Book it has soo many more layers on how he litrally created a weapon of the gods that can flatten the world and destroy entire armies at once. He recognised the mayhem they caused in the battlefield of kurukshetra and finally realised what big of a mistake he has made.
Using that line during a sex scene takes away the weight of the words and pardons him from any accountability of his actions.
And u know how well the covered other aspects of the effects of his experiments on the native lands and the bombardment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki