Christopher Nolan, the Modern-Day Oppenheimer

Christopher Nolan has climbed the rungs of Hollywood’s ladder while staying committed to his unique art form. Nolan’s time motif is nothing new to his viewers. Even last semester, while teaching a composition and research class, I had a student write a research essay on Nolan’s use of time within his cinematic corpus. However, I would like to suggest time is merely the byproduct of Nolan’s unique marriage between film and the sciences. In other words, time is one of Nolan’s themes conveyed through the fusion of the humanities and its seemingly opposite discipline. In this way, Nolan comes to embody the very persona of his newest titular 2023 character, Oppenheimer.

Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” is based on Kai Bird’s and Martin J. Sherwin’s 2005 Pulitzer Prize Winning biography, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Early on, Bird and Sherwin note Oppenheimer’s fascination with the humanities, particularly literature. In 1922, T.S. Eliot published his famous poem, The Waste Land, “and when Robert read it, he instantly identified with the poet’s sparse existentialism. His [Oppenheimer’s] own poetry dwelt with themes of sadness and loneliness” (Bird and Sherwin 32). It would seem like Oppenheimer’s dreams would become reality when, in 1948, Eliot agreed to come to the Institute for Advanced Study for one semester, where Oppenheimer served as the Institute’s director. However, having a poet at a primarily scientific establishment meant Eliot was met with ire. As Bird and Sherwin note, “Having a poet in residence didn’t sit well with the Institute’s mathematicians, some of whom snubbed Eliot, even after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature that year” (377).

However, Oppenheimer did not merely invite Eliot out of a fanboy impulse; rather, Eliot’s invitation was directly linked with Oppenheimer’s intellectual philosophy. The father of the atomic bomb “strongly believed it was essential that the Institute remain a home to both science and the humanities. In his speeches about the Institute, Oppenheimer continually emphasized that science needed the humanities to better understand its own character and consequences” (Bird and Sherwin 377). It comes as no surprise that Oppenheimer, thinking poetically, named the first atomic test site—Trinity—either after John Donne’s sonnet “Batter my heart, three-person’d God…” or after the Bhagavad-Gita’s three-person deity of Braham (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer). Oppenheimer clearly saw the interconnectedness of the humanities and physics, a marriage which initially seems paradoxical, but upon further contemplation makes complete sense. Oppenheimer, a man who led a group of scientists into the nuclear age, dealt in the realm of existence or extinction, both concepts facilitated through the conveyance of time. Re-enter Nolan.

Nolan is no physicist; indeed, Nolan, a graduate of University College London, studied English literature. And yet, since Interstellar (2014), it seems as if Nolan is on a mission to solidify the links between the scientific realm and the literary. On a purely scientific level, Interstellar saw the first, visually accurate depiction of a black hole, five whole years before we even had a real picture of one. Famously, Dr. Kip Thorne, the co-winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Physics, was an executive producer on the film, acting as a scientific consultant. Nolan wanted everything presented on screen to be physically possible within the laws of physics. Minus the ice clouds on Mann’s (Matt Damon) planet, Nolan stayed true to his promise. Indeed, the physics of the film are so complex, Thorne published a book, The Science of Interstellar (2014), to elucidate the more intricate aspects of the film.

Having not taken a math class since my senior year of high school or a science class since my freshman year of college, much of the scientific concepts bypassed my understanding. But this did not hinder Interstellar from being one of the most emotional, human films I have ever seen. Whether it was Brand’s (Anne Hathaway) theologically influenced discussion on love or Cooper’s (Matthew McConaughey) heart-retching relationship with Murphy (Jessica Chastain), Nolan’s film conveys human truths through science and science through human truths. Had Nolan included any less scientific concepts or depended too much upon literary components, the film would have failed, both artistically and scientifically. However, Nolan, much like his historical counterpart Oppenheimer, realized the interdependency of the disciplines. Which brings us to 2023.

Nolan’s films come from a deeply personal space. For example, Inception (2010) was inspired by Nolan’s own experimentation with lucid dreaming while in college. The same seems to be true for Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer, a product of WWII, demonstrates how literature is conveyed through the medium of science. In our digital age, Nolan equally illustrates truths, both physical and humanistic, through his artistic medium: film. Nolan, like Oppenheimer (yet conversely), realizes the humanities needs science to better understand its own discipline. It then comes as no wonder why Nolan selected Oppenheimer as his cinematic topic. However, as science and literature move in their dance, we must ask the ultimate Shakespearean question: is art imitating nature or is nature imitating art?  

Previous
Previous

Dealing with Self-Doubt and Imposter Syndrome as a Christian in Graduate School

Next
Next

Introduction, Blog Purpose, and Splatter Writing