From the tension of the trinity test, to Kitty's testimony and the ending there are many scenes
in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, that in my opinion stand out as being classic
sequences in the director's filmography.
But after numerous watches of the film in IMAX, one scene has stuck with me, highlighting
the horrifying ramifications of an atomic bomb.
The particular scene is Terrifying and it really plays with perspective and sound in
a way that I don't think I was ready for before watching it.
So in this video essay, I'm going to be discussing why the victory speech
scene in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is perfect and why it's my personal favourite
moment from the film.
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But without further a do, lets dive into the perfect scene from Oppenheimer.
So there are many scenes in Oppenheimer that absolutely gripped me, moved me and made me
feel the horrors that the main character was feeling towards his creation but also through
the ordeal that he was put through afterwards.
The ending moment between Oppie and Einstein was an impactful moment that leaves you grappling
with all the big questions that this movie was dealing with.
The moment where kitty comes to testify leaves you yes relieved that someone stood up for
Oppie and gave Roger Robb a taste of his own medicine, but it also leaves
you feeling more frustrated at how Oppenheimer and his wife's lives where essentially toyed
with and picked apart during those trials.
And the trinity test scene was built up supperbly with audio and visual tension, becoming a
springboard for all the horrors that would come afterwards.
But I think there's no scene that communicates those later horrors better than
the victory speech scene following the usage of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It's true that Cillian Murphy and Christopher Nolan crafted a spectacle that didn't focus
on what blockbusters tradionally do.
Instead, certain sequences felt more raw and visceral, capturing the thriller and horror
elements of this tale more than than the scope of a big film that
the filmmaker usually hones in on.
And throughout we see it in the moral battle that constantly rages on Oppenheimer's mind.
It's a multi-layered story that sees Oppie hailed as
a war hero, an exiled figure that was thrown under the bus by his own government, after
his accomplishments stopped serving their interest and someone who had to deal with
their creation and horrors it had unleashed on the
world.
And from this, the audience is left with the idea of just how flawed and emotionally troubled
he was during those later years.
No moment better captures this than the speech
scene and I think Nolan and Cillian have done an incredible job of heightening a sense of
horror, using performance, sound and imagery.
So after Oppenheimer took his theories on the atomic bomb and translated that into the
Trinity Test, the aftermath included an astonishingly nuanced sequence where he has to give a
speech, communicating a sense of victory in their achievement at Los Alamos.
But within this comes a clear display of contrast on many levels.
While his fellow workers and scientists stand there applauding him as a hero who beat
the Germans in the race to develop a bomb, the usage of it on civilians proved to be
a horrifying moment for him.
Now a big question that I had from many viewers going into Oppenheimer
was to do with how Nolan might depict the destruction at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
And as I said multiple times leading up to the film's
release, I didn't think he'd renact those events and that the more effective and appropriate
decision would be to show the effects it had on Oppenheimer himself or those that built
the weapon.
In the American Prometheus book, it details them hearing the news on the radio, just as
we see it oin the film.
And soon after Oppenheimer is quoted saying, "those poor
little people".
So the way to approach this would be to visually or internally capture how he must have been
in feeling, in turn, creating a shift in his mindset that we'd been seeing
in moments prior to this scene.
These moments took place after in the film's timeline, so by building up and then visualising
the moment his visions changed, it becomes a really
effective sequence.
In full detail, he sees just how destructive and terrifying his creation was.
In a scene with an stunning acting range from murphy, Oppenheimer delivers the speech
where he attempts to highlight the success of the trinity test, and this is shown in
the external perspective of it.
But internally, there is a very different story.
We see that he's inwardly tortured with the first hand depiction
of an atomic bombs effects on the human body, that while may have gone off in Hiroshima,
went off in his very mind at this very moment.
Nolan uses his daughter as a stand in actress to demonstrate the horrors of the weapon on
the flesh, and we cut in and out between an empty hall with radioactive fallout to a cheering
crowd celebrating the success of the bomb.
It showcases that contrast that I talked about before and it allows you as an audience member
to feel the change in mindset that Oppenheimer must have been delaing with at that time.
There's many moments in the movie where we get quiet shots of Cillian just staring forward,
and we start to peer into his soul to contemplate his character's moral ambiguity.
And after getting those teases of what his changing expressions were internally, this
scene then painfully realises that in the most horrifying way
possible.
And by contrasting both the people there celebrating and also sickened outside the hall with Oppenheimer
speaking triumphantly but feeling internally haunted, the truth is
revealed for all of us to see.
What I think really helps to elevate this scene, is how Nolan, his cinematographer Hoyte
Van Hoytema, his editor Jennifer Lame and his composer Ludwig Gorannson, really present
it on the big screen.
Not just that but the use of practical effects to really communicate the horrors on Oppenheimer's
help keep it on your mind by the time the credits start.
I felt devastated when it shows him imagining that
he'd stepped on a burnt body, and we get the feeling that he feels the incredible guilt
surrounding the hundreds of thousands deaths.
Also, the way the rhythmic pounding of the feet
in that hall is used becomes really impactful too.
The way it's utilised as an audio cue for moments before, whether it's Jean Tatlock's
death or the circling of targets on a map at an AEC meeting, and then seeing what that
actually stems from, communicates the heightened stress in Oppenheimer's mind really well.
You hear that sound effect before its revealed
in this scene, and even before the film came out, it was used in many trailers to symbolise
victory like a somewhat march towards it.
But in this moment we see its true purpose and that
is one of pure stress and rising guilt within Oppenheimer's mind.
Also, contrasting the cheering with the complete silence or removing of
sound layers, really makes it feel like an atomic bomb has just gone off in that room
or from within your soul.
From a visual standpoint too, I think they again did a brilliant job of
communicating Oppie's feelings.
The way the background starts to shake and jutter behind him reminds me of a similar
effect to what we saw in Nolan's Batman Begins during the Scarecrow
interoggation.
But rather than it being used in a more comically terrifying manner, here it actually is realistically
terrifying.
Add on the use of overexposed effects to show that
Oppenheimer imagines a nuke going off in that very room and you feel the kind of surreal
horror that you'd expect to see in a David Lynch project.
I think as a whole this scene is an absolute masterclass in subjective sound design
and camera work, and it echos both reactions to the bomb that were of that period.
The book makes it clear that people had parties at Los Alamos following the successful use
of them in the Japan, but it also makes it clear that some people, including Oppenheimer,
were forever haunted by the implications of the gadget they helped create.
And you definitelly see how that weighed on Oppenheimer afterwards, especially when we
get his later leaving speech and he how mentions that there could
come a time where the names of Los Alamos will be cursed.
But yes, with the particular case of the victory speech scene, I think it's hard to argue how
this moment isn't effective and the nervy interogation that it poses through
the acting, writing and filmmaking.
So now that I've described why I think it's the perfect scene, I thought I would end by
pointing out how this moment is different from how it is in the book, because I think
it really showcases how Nolan brought it to life in
his own powerful way.
In the American Prometheus Book, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin detail the speech that
Oppenheimer gives.
It's the same as what is seen in the movie from detailed as
short lived, from a triumphant perspective.
However, it doesn't say that he was seeing these horrible visions in this particular
moment and it's only in the pages around this that
we understand the guilt he must have been feeling.
The poor little people quote and the sadness that some felt towards it was communicated
outside of that hall he gave the speech in.
So what Nolan has done here is used this moment to visually symbolise a change in his mindset
and communicate the horrors that he must have been grappling with internally before we started
seeing his changing actions and pushes against the hydrogen bomb externally.
It's a genius move on the part of the director to
visualise what wasn't detailed in the book and that was his internal state.
The book barely gives any extensive thoughts or an extreme understanding of what was on
his mind during that change.
So the director decided to have that fully realised in this scene.
I think it was the perfect decision to do so and having watched the movie 3 times already,
the sequence continues to grab me everytime I see it.
I think it's one of the best constructed scenes in Nolan's filmmography and it's a moment
that needed to be in there to make us truly understand the changing state of Oppenheimer
during those years after the trinity test.
He went from visualising the science that would form the bomb, to visualising the horrors
of it, to the growing fears surrounding it's
usage in the future.
Hopefully it doesn't come to that, but the questions the film leaves us with does heighten
a lot of those fears, and this scene does really demonstrate all the
horrors that come with that.
But that was my video discussing my favourite scene from Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer.
Through acting, cinematography, sounds and special effects, this scene becomes one of
those moments from Oppenheimer that I will never
forget.
It haunts you everytime you watch it and I think Nolan took a balsy, yet effective move
when using this moment to highlight the building horror within Oppenheimer's mind.
But what do you think towards the victory speech scene in Oppenheimer and do you agree
that this is one of the standout moments from Christopher Nolan's latest movie.
Let me know your thoughts down below in the comments section alongside your other favourite
scenes from the film.
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