Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan is known for his attention to detail and commitment to authentic filmmaking. With the release of Oppenheimer, the esteemed filmmaker left many audiences wondering how the crew pulled off the jaw-dropping scene of the detonation of the atomic bomb; and the arduous process has finally been revealed.
Oppenheimer follows the life of American physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer and his involvement in The Manhattan Project, the research experiment that led to the development of the first nuclear weapons. Last December, Nolan raised many eyebrows when he revealed the crew recreated the infamous explosion of the atomic bomb with no CGI. As excitement for the film built among fans eager to experience the viral Barbenheimer (Barbie movie and Oppenheimer) double feature, no further explanation of the film's cinematic process had been revealed— until now.
So, what led to the culmination of the ten-minute sequence of the Trinity Test? A mixture of everything, Variety reports. In a recent interview, Oppenheimer cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema revealed that science experiments and multiple trials and errors led to the spectacular scene. To stay away from digital VFX, which would significantly diminish the depth of resolution of the film, the crew embarked on a weeks-long project to try to bring the ambitious scene to life. Ultimately, cross-cutting different techniques, such as long and short shutter speeds, wide negative color, and underexposure, coupled with experiments such as built-in aquariums and molded metallic balloons, helped make the sequence seen in the film.
But the final bang was not the only technical difficulty the team ran into. Though Oppenheimer primarily deals with the Father of the Atomic Bomb himself, there is another story threaded into the film— that of United States Secretary of Commerce Lewis Strauss, played by Robert Downey Jr. As a way to separate the simultaneous storylines, Nolan and van Hoytema decided to integrate black and white into the film. But there was an inconvenience, black and white IMAX stock in 70 mm— the format in which the movie was filmed— does not exist. To solve the issue, van Hoytema went to the photography company Kodak to ask the supplier to manufacture the stock.
This is not the first time Nolan set out to use challenging means to bring a story to the big screen. In his 2020 film, Tenet, Nolan blew up a 747 plane at a working airport. Similarly, zero-gravity fight scenes in Inception, and the mid-fight plane hijacking in The Dark Knight Rises, are just a few examples that show the length the director is willing to go to capture realistic shots.
Oppenheimer is now playing in theaters.
Source: Variety