Christopher Nolan’s latest film,Oppenheimer,had such a profound effect on his filmmaking process that he found himself doing something completely alien in the making of it - writing the script from the perspective of the main character. The majority of the film is told from the perspective ofCillian Murphy’s Robert J. Oppenheimer, the title character who led the Manhattan Project in creating the atomic bomb.
Speaking with Empire Magazine, the director elaborated on the process - and explained why he felt the need to get so deep inside the scientist’s mind, as part of a desire to keep the film as subjective as possible.In order for it to be about Oppenheimer, he had tobeOppenheimer.
“I actually wrote in the first-person, which I’ve never done before. I don’t know if anyone’s ever done it before. But the point of it is, with the colour sequences, which is the bulk of the film, everything is told from Oppenheimer’s point of view — you’re literally kind of looking through his eyes.Odd thing to do. But it was a reminder to me of how to shoot the film. It was a reminder to everybody involved in the project, ‘Okay, this is the point of view of every scene.’ I wanted to really go through this story with Oppenheimer; I didn’t want to sit by him and judge him. That seemed a pointless exercise. That’s more the stuff of documentary, or political theory, or history of science. This is a story that you experience with him — you don’t judge him. You are faced with these irreconcilable ethical dilemmas with him.”
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This isn’t the first time Nolan has discussed the unorthodox writing process he undertook forOppenheimer,as he revealed in a conversation with Cillian Murphy forEntertainment Weekly.“I’m actually curious if the fact that the script was written in the first person will have added to the feeling of responsibility that you were going to have taking it on,” said the director.
Murphyresponded positively: “Yes, massively. That’s the only script that I’ve ever read that’s been in the first person. It took me a minute, maybe a bit more than a minute, to figure that out. But then it became clear that you wanted it to be completely subjective, that everything was to be seen through the character’s eyes as it were, and, again, yeah, that added massively to the terror.”
Oppenheimerwill be released on July 16.Check out the trailer for the film down below.
