Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan is building a thrilling blockbuster

NEW YORK –

Christopher Nolan has never been one to take the easy or straight forward path when making a movie.

He films on large format film with large, unwieldy cameras to get the best possible cinematic image. He prefers practical effects to computer-generated effects and real locations to soundstages — even if that means recreating an atomic explosion in the middle of the night in the high winds of the New Mexico desert for “Oppenheimer,” out July 21 .

Although, despite rumors on the Internet, they did not detonate a real nuclear weapon.

And as for the biography that inspired his latest film, Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s riveting, linear narration “American Prometheus” was simply the starting point from which Nolan created an enchanting labyrinth of suspense and drama.

That’s why, in his 20 years in Hollywood, Nolan has become a franchise in his own right — the rare author-writer-director who creates films that are both intellectually stimulating and commercial, grossing more than $5 billion in box office receipts. That combination is part of the reason why he is able to attract Oscar winners and movie stars, not only to headline his films, but also to perform for just a few scenes.

“We’re all so intoxicated with his movies,” says Emily Blunt, who plays J. Robert Oppenheimer’s wife, Kitty. “That exploration of huge themes in an entertaining way isn’t happening. It just isn’t happening. That depth, the depth of the material, and yet on this massively epic scale.”

In the vast and complex story of the brilliant theoretical physicist who oversaw the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb during World War II, Nolan saw exciting opportunities to play with genre and form. There was the race to develop it before the Germans did, espionage, romance, domestic turmoil, courtroom drama, bruised egos, political machinations, communist panic, and the burden of having created something that could destroy the world.

And then there was the man himself, loved by most but hated by enough, who, having achieved iconic status in American society, saw his reputation and sense of self shattered by the institutions that built him.

“It’s such an ambitious story to tell,” said Matt Damon, who will support General Leslie Groves Jr. plays. “When I read the script, I had the same feeling I had when I read ‘Interstellar,’ which is, ‘This is great. Is he going to do this for God’s sake?'”

It’s not that separate from Nolan’s other films, either. As critic Tom Shone noted in his book on the director, “Looked at one way, Nolan’s films are all allegories of men who first find refuge in structure only to be betrayed or overrun by it.”

Nolan turned to Cillian Murphy to take on the mammoth task of playing Oppenheimer. Murphy had already starred in five Nolan films, including the Batman trilogy, “Dunkirk” and “Inception”, but this would be his first time as a lead actor – something he had secretly longed for.

“You feel a responsibility, but a great hunger and excitement to try and see where you can get,” said Murphy, who spent six months preparing extensively before filming, working closely with Nolan throughout. “It was an awful lot of work, but I loved it. There’s this kind of excitement, this energy when you’re on a Chris Nolan set about the potential for what you’re going to achieve.”

It would be an all-consuming role that would require some physical transformation to approach that famously thin silhouette. A complex, contradictory figure, Oppenheimer emerged from a somewhat awkward childhood into a renaissance man who seemed equally passionate about the Bhagavad Gita, Proust, physics, languages, New Mexico, philosophical questions about disarmament and the perfectly blended martini. But Murphy knew he was in safe hands with Nolan.

“He’s the most natural director I’ve ever worked with. And the notes he gives to an actor are quite remarkable. How he can gently take you to another place with your performance is quite amazing in such a subtle , low-pitched, important, understated way,” Murphy said. “It can have a profound effect on the way you look at a scene from one shot to the next.”

Nolan wrote the film’s main timeline in the first person, to reflect Oppenheimer’s subjective experience.

“We want to look at everything through Oppenheimer’s point of view,” Nolan said. “That’s a huge challenge for an actor to take on because they have to be concerned about the performance, the truth of the performance, but also make sure that’s always open to the audience.”

The other timeline, filmed in black and white, is more objective and focuses on Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.), a founding member of the Atomic Energy Commission and a proponent of developing the more destructive hydrogen bomb.

“Oppenheimer” is Nolan’s first R-rated movie since 2002’s “Insomnia” that he feels comfortable with, after working exclusively in PG-13 for years. It matches the weight of the material.

“We are dealing with the most serious and mature story imaginable — very significant, dramatic events that changed the world and defined the world we live in today,” said Nolan. “You don’t want to compromise in any way.”

Much of the filming took place in New Mexico, including the real Los Alamos lab where thousands of scientists, technicians and their families lived and worked for two years to develop the bomb. Nolan enlisted many of his frequent behind-the-scenes collaborators, including his wife and producer Emma Thomas, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, composer Ludwig G├╢ransson, and special effects supervisors Scott Fisher and Andrew Jackson, as well as some newcomers such as production designer. Ruth de Jong and costume designer Ellen Mirojnick to help bring this world to life.

“It was a very focused set – fun set too, not too serious. But the work was serious, the sweating of the details was serious,” said Blunt. “Everyone has to match, or want to, match Chris’s excellence.”

When it came to recreating the Trinity test, Oppenheimer’s chosen name for the first nuclear detonation, art and life went together in a visceral way.

“We wanted to put the audience right there in that bunker,” Nolan said. “That meant really trying to make these things as beautiful and terrifying and awe-inspiring as they would have been to the people at the time.”

While no real nuclear weapons were used, they did stage many real explosions to approximate the blindingly bright atomic fire and mushroom cloud.

“To do that safely in a real environment in the nighttime desert, there’s a certain amount of discipline and focus and adrenaline and just executing that for the movie that echoes in a really interesting way and reflects what these guys are at the biggest. went through scale.”

The weather “also did what it was supposed to do, according to history,” Murphy said, as the wind picked up and whipped around the set.

“Rumor has it that I’m very lucky with the weather and that’s not the case. It’s just that we decide to shoot regardless of the weather,” said Nolan. “In the case of the Trinity test, it was essential, central to the story, for this big storm to come in with tremendous drama. And it did. That really made the series come alive.”

He added, “The extremity of it got me very into the mind of what it must have been like for these guys. It really felt like we were in it.”

Then of course there is the experience of watching “Oppenheimer”.

“When you’re making a movie, I feel like you’re looking from the inside out,” said Blunt. “It’s really overwhelming to see it reflected back at you, especially one of this size. … I just felt like my chest plate was going to break, it was so intense.”

The hope is that when “Oppenheimer” is unleashed on the world, audiences will be just as invested and look it up on the biggest screen they can find. The movie is playing in IMAX theaters across the country, not something often offered to serious R-rated movies in the middle of the busy summer season. But this is also the essential Nolan impossibility. While more and more authors have had to compromise – to go smaller or team up with streamers to get the kind of budget they once had in studios, as even Ridley Scott and Martin Scorsese had to do this year – Nolan continues to making movies on the grandest scale.

“Each of his films has been revolutionary in its own way,” said Murphy. “It’s an event every time he releases a movie, and rightfully so.”