“I don’t disagree”: Christopher Nolan Reacts to Filmmaker Calling Oppenheimer a “Horror Movie”
Christopher Nolan’s much-hyped sci-fi project Oppenheimer has already created a buzz with respect to its star-studded cast, the story, and the noteworthy CGI. Based on the life of the American Scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the moment that went on to change the geography and geopolitics of the world, the movie is one of the most awaited projects of Christopher Nolan.
Oppenheimer is based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. The movie is produced by Christopher Nolan’s wife Emma Thomson. The husband-wife collaboration is already making their fans crazy with the respective trailers that have been dropped on YouTube. The film will release in July 2023 in theatres across the globe.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer Was Called A Horror Movie
During an interview with Maria Streshinsky, executive editor from the media outlet Wired, the Academy Award-nominated director Christopher Nolan spoke about his upcoming project Oppenheimer. The Dunkirk director spoke about many aspects of Oppenheimer. While addressing the early reactions to his movie, the director mentioned-
“Some people leave the movie absolutely devastated. They can’t speak. I mean, there’s an element of fear that’s there in the history and there in the underpinnings. But the love of the characters, the love of the relationships, is as strong as I’ve ever done.”
According to the reaction of a fellow filmmaker, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is almost like a horror story. While giving his take on this particular reaction, the director said-
“I think you might have to wait a long time before you do. It is an intense experience because it’s an intense story. I showed it to a filmmaker recently who said it’s kind of a horror movie. I don’t disagree. It’s interesting that you used the word nihilism earlier because I don’t think I’d quite managed to put my finger on it. But as I started to finish the film, I started to feel this color that’s not in my other films, just darkness. It’s there. The film fights against that.”
He was also asked about why did he end up going for Oppenheinmer’s story, or was it on his mind for a long time, the actor replied-
“Oppenheimer’s story has been with me for years. It’s just an incredible idea—people doing these calculations, and looking at the relationship between theory and the real world, and deciding there’s a very small possibility they’re going to destroy the entire world. And yet they pushed the button.”
On justifying why Oppenheimer has been categorized as a horror movie by the people who have already watched it. He clarified-
“I was relieved to be finished with it, actually. But I enjoy watching the film tremendously. I think you’ll understand when you see the film. It’s a complicated set of feelings to be entertained by awful things, you know? Which is where the horror dimension comes in.”
The movie’s focal point revolves around the relationship between government and science, which is a complicated one and the details have never been exposed in such a way in any movie than in Oppenheimer’s story.
Christopher Nolan On His Love For Science
While talking about his love for science, the Inception director spoke about his interest in astronomy, and how he got to explore it by Interstellar during an interview with Wired. He said-
“Well, I’ve always been interested in astronomy, in questions of physics. I got to explore that in Interstellar. When my brother wrote the script, he would look at Einstein’s thought experiments, and he identified a particular melancholy that some of them had. It’s all to do with parts in time. All to do with, like, twins who get separated and one goes away and comes back and the other’s older, you know?”
While drawing a link between science and storytelling, Christopher Nolan further mentioned-
“There’s a very literary quality to Einstein onward in terms of thinking about physics and how you would do these thought experiments, how you conceive of these ideas, and how they work. The process of visualization that physicists need isn’t so different from a literary process.”
He even dropped a spoiler and said that there is an interesting connection between the endings of both Oppenheimer and Inception to be explored that should be explored by the audience.
Oppenheimer is releasing in theatres on July 21, 2023, worldwide.
Source: Wired
