Oppenheimer has had an extremely favorable reception among critics and audiences. The plot follows the life of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb,” from his youth to the years after he dropped his creation on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. One of the most striking scenes in the film is the American physicist’s final reflection. But, for those who don’t know what to think about the enigmatic moment, Here we tell you what Christopher Nolan wanted to communicate with the end of Oppenheimer.
The end of Oppenheimer
In the scene in question it is revealed to us what was actually said in the exchange presented in the first section of the film between Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein. During their conversation that takes place in 1947, Oppenheimer tells Einstein that, in the early stages of developing the atomic bomb, he feared igniting the atmosphere, causing a chain reaction that would wipe out all life on Earth. When Einstein asks him why he brings up the topic, he replies: “I think we did.”
Oppenheimer refers to the fact that they effectively destroyed the world. However, he does not mean this in a literal sense, since the bomb did not cause global destruction.. But I do leave the perpetual threat of a nuclear war that one day ends humanity.
“The ending was one of the first things I defined about how I would write the script and everything in the film leads to that moment“Nolan commented in an interview with Insider. “There are statements of mine saying that I see Oppenheimer as the most important person who ever lived, and that ending is intended to reflect that. He is a person whose actions changed the world irrevocably. Whether we like it or not, we live in his world and always will. And the ending is designed to reflect that and make it obvious to everyone.”
The point of no return? Christopher Nolan explains the ending of Oppenheimer
After the Trinity test, Oppenheimer no longer has visions of the world of quantum physics, but almost exclusively of preludes to destruction. There is perhaps no better example than the victory speech he gives to a crowd at Los Alamos, after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There, the cheers and reactions of joy soon transform into images of anguish, hopelessness and terror.
“The whole movie is about the consequences. The late onset of consequences that people often forget – the movie is full of different representations of that. Some visceral, others more narrative“Nolan commented in another talk for Vulture. “As I immersed myself in Oppenheimer’s story, I finally came to the conclusion that, although he never specifically apologized for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, his actions the night after the bombing were those of someone truly possessed by guilt, by a desire to undo what he had achieved. So I felt that in telling it, I wanted to be true to my interpretation of the inner turmoil he must have felt.”
Likewise, when Vulture pointed out to the filmmaker the relevance of talking about a nuclear holocaust in a time with events such as those experienced in Russia and Ukraine, Nolan specified that he did not intend to talk about a specific current situation, but in a general sense.
“That specificity was certainly not my intention. [Pero sí] a series of worrying echoes in the finale. And I truly felt that if I did my job correctly, those [ecos] would affect each individual watching the film and different audiences differently.”
Oppenheimer It is now available on digital platforms in Mexico. You can read HERE the review of PREMIERE CINEMA.