Any film directed by Christopher Nolan will be eagerly awaited, but his next project seems especially special. “Oppenheimer” is the director’s debut biographical film and his first film after “Memories” of the 2000s, which will not be distributed by Warner Bros., glued together by a cast that resembles a gathering of Avengers Hollywood heavyweights.
In addition to the stellar cast, Oppenheimer’s theme has the scale and weight that we used to associate with Nolan’s work. This is the story of theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is considered the “father of the atomic bomb” for his role in the Manhattan Project during World War II. With Cillian Murphy at the helm, can this story about humanity’s most destructive creation become a cinematic event to compete with his past works?
What is Oppenheimer talking about?
Based on the “American Prometheus”, a biography of J. By Robert Oppenheimer, written by Kai Byrd and Martin J. Sherwin, Nolan’s film describes the role of a theoretical physicist in the Manhattan project. Between 1942 and 1946, during World War II, the United States led a research and development program to create the first nuclear weapon.
The foundations of the project were originally laid by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 in response to concerns that scientists working for Adolf Hitler were working on their own nuclear weapons. A team consisting of scientists and military personnel was tasked to study the potential of uranium as a weapon. Later in 1941, it was named the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD).
After the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, which led to America joining the war effort on the side of the Allies, this project officially turned into a military initiative led by Lieutenant General Leslie Groves of the Army Corps of Engineers.
In 1943, Oppenheimer was appointed director of the Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where real bombs were being developed. In this complex, also known as Project Y at the time of its creation, the first bombs of the Manhattan Project were built and tested.
The culmination of the Manhattan project was the first explosion of nuclear weapons at the White Sands test site in New Mexico as part of the Trinity tests on July 16, 1945. Bombs designed to end World War II were later used in the devastating attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on August 6 and 9, 1945, respectively. Two bombs killed more than 100,000 people and leveled both cities.
