Christopher Nolan says ‘Oppenheimer’ is his “most extreme” movie yet
Oppenheimer director Christoper Nolan has revealed the upcoming film, set for release on July 21st, is his “most extreme” yet.
The movie is a biographical thriller about J. Robert Oppenheimer, written, directed and produced by Nolan, based on the 2005 book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Famously, Oppenheimer was the theoretical physicist who helped to develop the first nuclear weapons and was instrumental in The Manhattan Project during the Second World War.
Starring Cillian Murphy in the role of the eponymous scientist, the ensemble cast also features the likes of Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek and Kenneth Branagh.
In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Nolan commented on his latest movie, labelling it the “most extreme” yet.
“All the films I’ve made, one way or another, are film noirs,” Nolan explained. “They’re all stories about consequences. And with ‘Oppenheimer,’ the consequences are the fastest to arrive and the most extreme.”
Elsewhere, the film’s presentation of Oppenheimer as the essential component of the atomic bomb and The Manhattan Project was discussed, with Nolan characterising nuclear weapons as “the recurring nightmare, the threat that has never gone away.”
Nolan also admitted that his knowledge of Oppenheimer was vague before producing the movie. He said that he knew the lyrics to Sting’s song ‘Russians’. The director commented: “How can I save my little boy from Oppenheimer’s deadly toy” – and used his name as a reference in Tenet. “It was loose knowledge,” he continued, “That he was instrumental in the bomb and then something else happened, some taint or reckoning.”
Watch the trailer for Oppenheimer below.
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