To Understand ‘Oppenheimer,’ Look Back at Prometheus

Christopher Nolan’s film, like the Greek myth, refuses to simply glorify its protagonist.

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Cillian Murphy in 'Oppenheimer.' (Photo: Courtesy of Universal Studios)

One of the most impressive things Christopher Nolan manages to do in Oppenheimer is striking a balance between admiration and ambivalence for “the father of the atomic bomb.” It’s a dual attitude his film shares with a far older story about a similarly titanic figure.

Oppenheimer begins with a title-card synopsis of the Ancient Greek myth of Prometheus, which reads:

Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man.

For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.

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  1. Mntantum

    My only quibble with the movie is that it downplayed the fear of the US leadership that invading Japan would lead to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of casualties. Japan was on a war footing where every citizen was to be used to defend the homeland. Regardless of that, a great movie. And seeing it has led me to reading the book it was based on as well as the Richard Rhodes book on the making of the Atomic bomb.

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      Normb1442

      The military estimated invading Japan would cost 500,000 casualties. Oppenheimer was aware of that estimate and it certainly factored into his support for the decision to use the bomb without warning. He pointed out that using it with advance warning or on a deserted island as a demonstration was risky because if the bomb was a dud (certainly a possibility) it would mean the Japanese would ignore any future warnings, thinking it was all hokum.

      What happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was horrible, but the surrender terms that the Japanese had put on the table involved the military regime remaining in power -- in other words, basically a cease fire. Would the Allies have been prepared to leave the Nazis in control of Germany after an armistice. Yeah, right. The trump card which the Japanese military held was those 500,000 American casualties. The Bomb showed the Japanese military that the U. S. DIDN'T HAVE TO invade. Their trump card was worthless. Unconditional surrender was the only option.

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    I think it takes a lot of guts to do what Prometheus did.

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    Jerry McKamy

    I loved Oppenheimer. I've seen it twice and it was better the 2nd time. It's a movie about my world: my heroes, nuclear physics, nuclear weapons, and Los Alamos. Oppie was partly a victim of his own arrogance, his own self-importance, and his blind idealism. The conflict between the 'judicial' and the scientific in the 'kangaroo court' were spot on. Lawyers cannot ever conceive of nor adjudicate fairly the highly complex and the nuanced and this was depicted wonderfully. I've been in a somewhat similar position as Oppie as an expert witness FOR the government in a nuclear case and the legal system, lawyers, cannot deal with the nuances of scientific positions adequately. They want sound bites and easy-to-bin narratives - not truth. Fermi was my boy-hood hero and I loved his depiction. Fermi and CP-1 were really the father of the atomic bomb, IMO, insofar as the physics is concerned. Oppie was the master physicist-visionary-manager who pulled it all together. Physicists only respect other physicists of equal or greater stature. Oppie was all that! IMO Oppenheimer deserves a Nobel for being the first to predict black holes.

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      Kenny.Peter

      I must have missed something: Who was CP-1?

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        Jerry McKamy

        Chicago Pile - 1 is CP-1. The first controlled nuclear chain reaction that Fermi and his team made.

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      Normb1442

      He would certainly have gotten the Nobel for predicting black holes but there was no way to validate his speculation at the time, and by the time it could be validated, he was dead. Nobels are only given to living people.

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        Jerry McKamy

        Thank you for pointing that out. I didn't know about the prohibition of posthumous Nobels.

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      Bill Dyer (aka Beldar)

      This much I absolutely agree with: "Oppie was partly a victim of his own arrogance, his own self-importance, and his blind idealism." The problem wasn't with what he did as a scientist, but as an arrogant, blind idealist. And he doubtless shared your attitude that "lawyers cannot ever conceive" — a fair assessment as to a nuclear fission bomb, a ridiculous assessment as to criminal violation of the national security laws.

      He thought himself above that law. It was a tragic flaw, and ought not be minimized nor even, frankly, sympathized with. The Bird & Sherwin book does both, which is why I found great fault with it.

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    Robert Knudson

    Enjoyed this review. It’s good to read a review that deals with a movie’s themes rather than one that uses the movie as a stick to beat the reader over the head with about the author’s intellectual priors.

    Oppenheimer’s tragedy was that he possessed both the rare ability to envision and articulate theory to real world effect and a dispositional inability to reckon with the consequences of his actions. This personifies man’s ability to harness scientific advances without being able to fully navigate their practical consequences.

    The recurring fruit metaphors, standing in for both the repercussions of original sin and the desire to avoid the worldly impact on ideals of the corruption of the flesh, beat you over the head but ensure the point is made. I was ready to enjoy the gratuitous Einstein-Gödel interaction at Princeton on its own and then realized that it was not gratuitous at all - Gödel really didn’t eat and thought the Nazis might be poisoning him.

    Likewise, in love Oppenheimer is a serial philanderer idealized by others but one who is unable and unwilling to maintain meaningful connection in the real world. As a man idealized by others he is unsatisfied by romantic relationships save for one, his most intimate connection, with someone who appears to see past his facade and who repeatedly disavows his affections even as they habitually return to one another. That he also has to deal with her suicide after he finally calls off their years long affair again reinforces the tragedy of the real world consequences faced by the idealist.

    I really enjoyed the film and will seek out the biography- Richard Rhodes’ “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” is one of my favorite books and further acquaintance with any of the characters is likely to be rewarding.

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      Normb1442

      I think Oppenheimer was totally aware of the consequences of his actions. He moved ahead anyhow out of fear that others -- the Nazis -- would be far more ruthless if they opened Pandora's box first. But once Pandora's box is opened, it becomes a totally different ball game -- one which Oppenheimer was much less capable of playing than others. Once Trinity proved nuclear weapons were feasible, Oppenheimer no longer mattered. The politicians -- for good or evil as the case may be -- took over. Oppenheimer may have had the illusion that he would remain relevant to the decisions of how the bomb would be used, but he never was. Nobody ever asked Prometheus how fire should be used.

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        Robert Knudson

        Its a fine counterpoint in the film that Oppenheimer, who couldn't navigate the politics of the bomb because he didn't want to soil his ideals, was upended by the thoroughly practical and unidealistic Lewis Strauss, and that Strauss was in turn upended by Oppenheimer's fellow physicists because he betrayed their ideals. I'm not sure if the testimony at the hearing being that of a Chicago man, who was on the applied side of the theoretical/applied divide but was at the nexus of connecting one with the other, is symbolic but there is a sense of harmony in it.

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          Normb1442

          I'm reasonably certain that Oppenheimer was defeated by Strauss because the atmosphere created by McCarthyism made it possible to make policy based upon innuendo rather than hard facts, at least where suspicion of Communist leanings was concerned. That the same forces which originally opposed his being put in charge of Los Alamos would strike again when things changed should have been obvious to him. With virtually the entire government under suspicion because of McCarthy's bloviations, it was only a matter of time before Oppenheimer came into the cross hairs.

          As for Strauss and the physicists, it is a fact that for years after Oppenheimer's security clearance was lifted, he would visit his New Mexico cabin in the woods and venture over to Los Alamos, where the physicists throw him a party and brief him on the latest developments without the slightest regard for his clearance or lack thereof. And if anyone in the government objected to this, I've never seen it. In Los Alamos, Oppenheimer is a hero. There's a life-sized statue of him and Groves on the main drag. As for Strauss, it's Lewis who? But in the wake of McCarthyism, there was a window in which Oppenheimer could be brought low. It closed when Kennedy took office and rehabilitated him.

          I say none of this to excuse Oppenheimer's blunder regarding Chevalier's approach to him -- something he eventually realized as well. What Chevalier did was not the act of a friend, and he did not deserve Oppenheimer's attempt to shield him.

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    Mesulkanen

    I’ve studied Oppenheimer for forty years, and Nolan’s film is a fine introduction to him. Thanks, Steve, for a thoughtful review.

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    The Bell Tower

    “Oppenheimer’s punishment—arguably the most painful part—was recognizing we humans might not be able to handle the fire he gave us.“

    Why would he ever think otherwise? And why would he think that he could prevent the arrival of this fire? Surely he was intelligent but not singular. The fire was coming.

    There’s much talk in scientific circles about the illusion of free will. When will we learn that control is the illusion?

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    Bayesian

    Thanks for the nice review. I'm far more inclined to see the movie now than I was before: my sheer fury at "The Imitation Game" and pretty much everyone involved with it was the final straw for ever spending money on a big budget movie purporting to involve any hypothetically "real" history, certainly from the 20th Century (to say nothing of "The Woman King", which was possibly even less historical than "Gone With the Wind").

    Plus I know enough of the factual basis of Oppenheimer's history and Kai Bird's own ideological stylings to have skipped the book, which *perhaps* was a mistake on my part.

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      Dave T

      Have you seen Lincoln, though?

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        Bayesian

        Thank you! for the reminder - yes, and quite good as I recall; not a single jaw clenching moment if memory serves (although I don't *remember* the detailed history of the events behind "Lincoln" as well as I do that of Turing and Bletchley Park - I had previously read "Team of Rivals" but I have read relatively deeply on Turing and Bletchley). However, recall that "Lincoln" was released in 2012, "Imitation Game" in 2014.

        (I understand that biopics are going to take liberties with their subject for dramatic interest, so I "forgave" the likes of "Theory of Everything" and "Darkest Hour"; because Turing is something of a hero to me, "Imitation Game's" character assassination got through my "it's Hollywood, Jake" defenses)

        Likewise, further back, "The Aviator" seemed reasonably true to what I knew to _me_, although someone I know who is familiar in detail with the Hughes Senate hearings thought that portion was badly done.

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    Francesca

    Very insightful piece.

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    Jack

    Great review, sir.

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  10. Pohl

    Perhaps it was admirable restraint to not mention “Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus.” Seems very apt, though.

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