I saw the film Oppenheimer again yesterday at the TIFF Lightbox, where it's currently screening in 70mm film as part of TIFF's Christopher Nolan retrospective.^[1]I saw his first film, Following, in the same theater the day before, with an intro by film writer Adam Nayman! As my friend and I were going into the theater he asked me if this was "like, [my] third time" seeing Oppenheimer, a question that baffled me so thoroughly that I had to quadruple check if he was joking or not.

I could not understand the question because it was actually my twelfth time seeing Oppenheimer, not counting all the times I put it on the TV as "background noise" and invariably at some point just started watching it. And it was great to be able to see it in a movie theater again - at 3PM on a Sunday, no less, which some are calling "the most dad time possible".^[2]This can only have heightened the experience because I LOVE "dadslop". The new season of Slow Horses premieres on September 16, FYI.

What's really funny is that while we were on the way to TIFF I was feeling pretty tired and wondered aloud if I might fall asleep at some point. Then the lights went down and the movie started and my heartrate instantly spiked and remained slightly elevated for the next 3 hours. It seems like every time I see this movie in a theater I find a completely new way to enjoy it. Some things that made this one particularly special:

• First rewatch in a theater since last March
• First rewatch after spending May and June devouring multiple Manhattan Project-related books
• Rewatching while in the throes of making, as mentioned in my previous blog post, a short narrative game starring our favorite tortured theoretical physicist

As such I feel compelled to write up a list^[3]Initially, this read "a quick list". Look at your scrollbar right now and you'll see why I had to edit that out. of the things that I particularly enjoyed or noticed this go around, in no particular order...

Jean

Jean Tatlock's presence in the film often gets reduced to two things: nudity, and lack of agency or motivation past being wishy-washy about whether she wants to date Oppie or not. While this is true, I do think that a) most of the characters in the film are confined to their relationship with Oppie, and b) this is likely because of time constraints and the fact that most of the film is filtered through his perspective. Of course, I see why people take umbrage with Jean's depiction given Nolan's less than stellar track record with women in his films, so I won't go to bat for it too hard.

One moment involving Jean randomly really moved me this time. It occurs when she gets bored mid-coitus with Oppie and goes to peruse his bookshelf.^[4]This scene gets a lot of flack for being the moment the film decides to invoke the "I am become death" line for the first time, a decision I cannot and will not defend. While she's there she ribs him for pretending to be more complicated than he actually is, to which he replies that "we're all simple souls, I guess". In response Jean remarks, "I'm not."

She moves past it pretty quickly but something about the line and Pugh's throwaway delivery really struck me. In real life, Jean Tatlock was a very complicated person. She was a radical Communist, a trained psychiatrist, prone to depression and moods, probably a lesbian but she didn't know that because she didn't know femme lesbians existed^[5]She once wrote to a friend, "there was a period when I thought I was homosexual. I still am, in a way, forced to believe it, but really, logically, I am sure that I can't be because of my un-masculinity". Poor Jean. But Oppie was lowkey nonbinary so it makes sense that she was with him. - all things that may have led to her eventual death, though whether it truly was a suicide is still up for debate (the film does not make a definitive judgment).

Perhaps this line affected me because when it's spoken a crack forms in the film's POV for a brief moment, giving you a tantalizing glimpse at who Jean really was and how she saw herself and the world around her. But then it closes up and you lose sight of her again; she disappears back into Oppie's world, and stays there until her exit.

Casting!

A few weeks ago I made a jokey list of which members of the Oppenheimer cast I consider irreplaceable. This list comprised:

• Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer
• David Krumholtz as Isidor Rabi
• Josh Hartnett as Ernest Lawrence
• Trond Fausa as George Kistiakowsky
• Devon Bostick as Seth Neddermeyer^[6]Neddermeyer is one of my favorite Los Alamos Glup Shittos, partially because I find his name super fun to say.

I didn't really think too deeply about it and had also not seen the film in a while, so after further review, I have some new inductees:

Clarke as Robb gives one of those performances that is so effortlessly ideal that you don't really think about him first afterwards but you'd sure notice if he was gone. Maybe this is why he didn't make the list the first time - I just don't think about him that much. But I'm thinking about him now!

Mr. Damon, on the other hand, I'd always liked and appreciated, but I waffled on putting him on the list because - and maybe this is silly to say - it's a good performance that doesn't necessarily convince me he's a good actor.^[7]I remain unsure of how I'll feel about his performance in the upcoming The Odyssey. This time, though, for some reason, I really liked him. I especially liked watching him and Oppie act as counterpoints to each other, and I love the levity and totally different energy he brings to this film full of neurotic scientists. (Groves making Colonel Nichols do his dry cleaning actually happened.)

Special shoutout as well to David Dastmalchian as William Borden - he doesn't actually get to do much so I can't grade him super high based on performance, but I always love how despite his first appearance being pretty brief, he has such a distinct face that you remember him when he comes back. With how often characters drop in and out of the film, the immediately memorable actors are crucial.

How does this shit makes sense at all

Not strictly a new observation, but really being locked in to it gave me a renewed appreciation of how miraculous it is that the damn thing is comprehensible whatsoever. Most people will be coming into the film with zero frame of reference for the science at work or the events of Oppie's life. Being able to tell such a dense and complex story that spans so many years and involves so many minor and major players is one thing, but to do it non-linearly and essentially in two halves is absurd. (Okay, it's more like 75-25, but that 25 is fairly important.)

I mentioned William Borden in the previous section, and I think he's a great example of how many balls this film is juggling at any given time. He's shown sparsely early in the film, when Lewis Strauss explains it was him who brought the charges against Oppie. Then he shows up again 80 minutes later in Oppie's POV, in a scene shown before the Trinity scene but that actually happens after the war. After that he appears in a flashback in Strauss' timeline, as it's explained how he got access to Oppie's file, before appearing one final time in Oppie's timeline at the hearing.

This sequence of events is difficult to parse when written out. But in practice, it slots into the film's narrative seamlessly. And this happens with basically every minor character throughout - from Borden to Nichols to Lomanitz to Hill. No screentime is wasted; every character takes a clear journey from Point A to Point B.

I am amazed by how Nolan and co. (as far as I'm concerned, editor Jennifer Lame is the real MVP of this behemoth) manage to deliver a final product that is so propulsive and frenetic but still remains coherent. I can totally understand being disoriented the first time around - I certainly was - but that's why I think the second viewing is always the best one: when you understand all the narrative beats and the general "shape" of the film, it takes on a totally new life.

It's actually super funny

Due to its subject matter, Oppenheimer can seem like a relatively humorless film - for the average person, anyway. As my friend can attest, I started trying and failing to suppress my laughter the second the "poison apple" incident occurred, because I've read 'American Prometheus' and was thinking about all the Looney Tunes antics Oppie got up to during his time at Cambridge.^[8]The poison apple incident actually may not have happened. Something we do know for sure happened, however, is that Oppie, in a fit of jealousy, tried to strangle his childhood friend with a belt. Despite this, they would remain friends for the rest of their lives. Why isn't this in the film?

But in addition to this, there are a bunch of actual jokes. (Groves is responsible for a lot of them.) There are exchanges that always make me laugh, like when a shaken Oppie asks if he can keep the indictment letter and Nichols flatly replies "No." This time, my favorite joke was a visual gag: in this recurring scene of a meeting about the H-Bomb program, the characters are seated around this table with a randomly huge centerpiece that Strauss keeps having to move around whenever a new guy speaks. Then later when we cut back to this meeting, the first thing we see is Lawrence taking the centerpice away.

I've also always found it hilarious how much of the film is presented with the same cadence as a superhero movie (I love this, to be clear). Some of the most "superhero" moments include:

• Mid-film Avengers recruitment montage
• Oppie's "suit up" scene
• The fact that characters keep getting dramatically revealed by being behind something that then moves away
• Not strictly an example of this, but I love how much of a supervillain reveal they give Boris Pash. He's seen only from behind for like 2 minutes while Groves tells you how scary he is, and only after that do you see his face.
• John F. Kennedy namedrop^[9]Let me defend this one a bit: I think it works to show how the tide of history keeps rolling on. The world is forever changed but that doesn't mean the bomb will be the last important thing to ever happen. Okay, now that I've said that - it is really, really funny.

Glup shittos for the sick and deranged

Look, I'm something of a fan of the real-life history depicted in the film Oppenheimer. I do a good job of hiding it, I know. Lucky for me, Christopher Nolan clearly is, too, and he gives me plenty of stuff to smile about.

The world of Oppenheimer is populated with characters like Charlotte Serber and Luis Alvarez, who aren't very prominent in the film, but in real life, as real people do, each of them had their own thing going on. Every time one of them shows up, I experience a brief vision of who they actually were and what they did, enriching the experience of watching them all play minor roles in this retelling of Oppie's life.

My favorite Glup Shitto this time around was this moment where Richard Feynman^[10]The guy with the bongos and Hans Bethe^[11]The guy who goes "He's a prima donna!" shake hands after they hear Truman's radio announcement about the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima. The real Feynman ("gregarious") and Bethe ("serious") worked near each other and developed a reputation around Los Alamos for constantly arguing^[12]'American Prometheus' posits this was mostly because Bethe "liked to have someone around who was willing to argue with him, and [...] Feynman loved to argue". It's actually really sweet... they were girls together.... This shot where the two of them both wear grim expressions and are on the same page for once feels like an acknowledgement of that dynamic, which isn't shown in the film at all, but to those of us who know... it's basically like Boba Fett or whatever.

Isidor Rabi historical appreciation corner

Though I have love in my heart for every part of this fucked up tapestry, Rabi may well be my favorite "character" in the whole Manhattan Project-verse just because by all accounts, he was a pretty cool guy and everyone liked him. David Krumholtz does a good job of portraying his warmth and good humor in the film even with his limited screentime.

In real life, Rabi was one of the only people in the world who could call Oppie an idiot and actually be heeded. He didn't go to Los Alamos because he thought it was kind of weird, which is depicted in Oppenheimer, but he was instrumental in recruiting many of the scientists who did end up going as a show of support to his buddy. Then while they were all doing "the bomb" he went off to develop radar and win a Nobel Prize and stuff.

He did visit Los Alamos frequently, and was popular there whenever he did. He and Groves did not see eye to eye on most things, but Groves invited him to be there for the Trinity Test because he knew that Oppie was going to be acting crazy and the only two people who could help regulate his emotions were his brother, Frank, and Rabi.

Rabi lived an enormously interesting life as the "worldly advisor" character in other people's stories. After the war was over and the space race began, he became a key consultant for President Eisenhower (they had known each other at Columbia). Lots of scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project struggled to find a "purpose" post-war - among them names like Lawrence, Alvarez, and Teller, who led the push for the H-Bomb program as a result. Maybe if they'd just been normal like Rabi the transition would've been easier for them.

Assorted stuff

Some other things that aren't substantial enough for their own section but still bear mentioning:

• You know you've seen a film too many times if you can see a random shot of a campfire in literally the first 5 minutes and think "oh, they must have shot this at the same time they shot that camping scene."
• Wow this movie is LOUD AS HELL in a theater!
• The fact that Lawrence calls Groves "Leslie"
• When Rabi makes a disappointed face at Lawrence, which scares him away from testifying against Oppie, I thought of the GIF of a wolf snarling
• The way Szilard goes "Who could think straight in a place like that? Everybody will go crazy :-)"^[13]Historically accurate! The scientists working in Chicago, at the Met Lab, thought the whole Los Alamos thing was very odd.

Okay. I think that's finally everything for now. This ended up being way, way longer than I thought it would be, but I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. I'm more well-read on this little slice of history than most people and I still feel like I've only scratched the surface. I hope that as I keep returning to this film throughout my life, it will continue to yield new insights, new understandings, and new emotions.

I guess I'll find out pretty soon. Because, obviously, I'll be seeing it again this summer. Thanks, TIFF!