Christopher Nolan and his cast told Oppenheimer: “A deep confrontation with our reality”

Three years ago, at the center of Pandemic, Christopher Nolan took us back and forth in time with Tenet, a fascinating action and spy film that warped our view of reality. Today, as the writers’ and actors’ strike paralyzes Hollywood again, he takes us back in time with Oppenheimer.

At first glance, the most classic feature film of its author, J. Because of the status of the biography dedicated to Robert Oppenheimer. And this is that there is no concept like Tenet, Inception or even Dunkirk, which was also created during the Second World War.

Except that Oppenheimer remains primarily a Christopher Nolan film. By breaking the chronology, playing on subjectivity and building a thriller-like whole, in which we find his favorite themes such as obsession or manipulation.

Everything in the opus, which, despite the fact that it takes place in the 40s and 50s, resonates with the present. And not just because filming began during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which underscored the fear of nuclear power that has gripped the world since Oppenheimer’s work.

An aspect that the director and screenwriter evokes on our microphone in the company of his main actors: Cillian Murphy, who has the title role, as well as Matt Damon (already in Interstellar) and Emily Blunt, new to the world of filmmakers.

A quartet that returns to both the film’s theme and its most amazing scene: a reconstruction of the Trinity Test, the first nuclear test in history to be performed without the slightest digital trickery, according to Christopher Nolan. For the most spectacular and impressive result.

Interview by Maximilien Pierret in Paris on July 11, 2023 – Edited by Arthur Tourneret