The road to Christopher Nolan's latest project is well underway, and its only right that
I start a new series for it.
We did one for Tenet a few years back, and now with the Road
To Oppenheimer, I'm going to be doing topical videos and essays surrounding his past films
and also his upcoming movie too.
To start the series, I thought it would be interesting to talk
about the exciting IMAX Black and White scenes in Christopher Nolan's latest picture, discussing
the details of the format, the relation it has to the filmmaker's early career, and most
importantly, what the importance of it could be.
Before I get into it though, if you want to keep up to date on any of my content surrounding
Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and the videos I'm going to be posting in this brand
new series, then don't forget to support this upload by giving it a like rating, subscribing
to the channel and turning on your notifications.
But without further a do, lets dive into the importance of black and white IMAX photography
in Oppenheimer.
So Christopher Nolan's next IMAX epic is his film Oppenheimer which tells the story of
American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic
bomb.
It is being adapted from Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin's novel, American Prometheus.
The film is being shot by Nolan’s returning IMAX cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, who
shot Interstellar, Dunkirk and Tenet and it will
be Nolan’s second film related to World War 2 events.
And while this will be Nolan’s sixth IMAX feature to be shot on IMAX film cameras, in
order to heighten the importance of history and the perception of it, some of the sequences
will be shot in black and white IMAX, developed by Kodak specifically for certain scenes.
Months ago, an Indie Wire article revealed that Oppenheimer will be shot on a combination
of IMAX 65mm and 65mm large-format film photography including, the first ever IMAX black and
white analog photography.
So a big undertaking has gone into developing brand new cameras just to capture black and
white IMAX in Oppenheimer, and its time we go into the reasons for it
and historical connection that the filmmaker has to black and white film.
The use of black-and-white film harkens back to Nolan’s earliest films with a small debut
feature in Following and also his breakout hit Memento, which like Oppenheimer features
portions in the black and white format.
In a previous interview, Nolan said, "I very much loved the structural assistance and the
aesthetic charge of shifting between color and black and white
that I had on Memento, I’d always been looking for a reason to go back to that.
And in the case of Oppenheimer and the way in which we tell this story, it’s very subjectively
told, but also with a more objective story strand that
intertwines with that.
It was really the perfect time to go back to that device that I loved so much."
Memento, which Nolan has done a brilliant 18 minute analysis of in the past,
is a film that alternates between the subjective and the objective, with the colour being the
subjective and the black and white being the objective in the beginning.
He plays with the very foundations of how to present a story, but he makes sure that
that structure has a foundational purpose.
That it guides and adapts as the narrative progresses.
Both with Leonard Shelby and the events of that film, you feel like you are realistically
placed both in the shoes of the character, but then for a portion of it
you are also lost in trying to understand the problems and questions that this figure
deals with.
And to capture that reality, Nolan of course has always shot on fim, and makes sure the
image of a feature that he puts to screen has an essential timeless feel to it.
Memento was shot on 35mm anamorphic, but after shooting groundbreaking IMAX sequences for
The Dark Knight, Nolan has since become a key figure in the
progressing of large-format film.
And now, we're essentially seeing a combination of both of these pioneering feats on his latest
film, with the challenge of shooting on large-format black-and-white
film.
Nolan said, "we challenged the people at Kodak and Fotokem to make this work for us, and
they stepped up.
For the first time ever, we were able to shoot IMAX film in black-and-white.
And the results were thrilling and extraordinary.
As soon as Hoyte van Hoytema, and I saw the first tests come in, we just knew
that this was a format that we were immediately in love with."
In the past Nolan has made it very clear that he's interested in capturing a reality and
a longlasting feel to pictures on the big screen.
Shooting practically, shooting on film and adding a sense of film noir to each of his
pictures has helped to achieve this throughout his filmography.
And with Nolan continuously expressing his love for film
noir and also driving his stories both through the subjective experience and complex narrative
structures, he always finding a way to do something we haven't seen before.
And with Oppenheimer, that is yet another story and project, that calls for a very unique
experience, one that you could say harkens back to his early
filmmographer, but also pushed it into a new realm of large format photography.
So when it comes to Christopher Nolan's latest film, what scenes can we expect to be in black
and white IMAX and what is the likely importance of them.
Well, starting with what scenes, based on everything we've seen so far, whether
its the intial announcement teaser last July, the main online trailer, the IMAX trailer
in front of Avatar The Way Of Water, or the few
images in black and white that came out in magazine articles, these sequences all seem
to be focusing around the later segments of Oppenheimer's life.
You'd expect black and white to be used to convey a sense of the past when it
comes to a particular biopic story, but from the material we've seen, it seems to indicate
a reversal of that idea.
There's been shots of Oppenheimer's trials, which took place after
the development and using of the atomic bomb, more shots of Robert Downey Jr's character,
who was a big player in those later trials, the
moments where Oppie walks past photographers taking pictures of him, likely once he becomes
one of the most talked about people on the planet, and a few brief shots of Oppie at
his Los Alamos ranch.
These intial shots and images mostly indicate that we can expect a lot of this black and
white footage to be set after the manhattan project where they developed the atomic
bomb.
And that could tell us quite important info about how Nolan plans to tell this story,
and the importance of that approach.
We've talked about Nolan using formats and narrative
structures to really play into that subjectivity that becomes a big part of a Nolan picture.
And if we consister the story of Oppenheimer, there is both the objective and the subjective
side to it.
When it comes to the structure of the film, I think Nolan's intention is to have all the
early life and manhatton project moments in colour, but then intercut the black and
white trial or public scenes throughout those colour sequences.
It's essentially a way of showing how the public viewed Oppenheimer in black and white,
which is how we mostly saw him vs the more scientific and eye-opening detail
in those Manhattan project developments.
The more subjective view of Oppie through his personal lens.
Based on this potential method, you could add that Nolan may stylistically be showcasing
the difference between how the world viewed Oppenheimer vs who he actually was, therefore
using black and white and colour to signify truth
vs perception.
In the book, American Prometheus, moments from the court trials are intercut throughout
the bomb's development pages, and the moments that do pop-up, read like historical
fragments that display the eventual tragedy and perception of Oppenheimer's later story.
So playing with the subjective and objective, which Nolan has played with in different ways
before, is something that really seems to be fuelling
these different narrative sequences.
And that leads us quite smoothly into the importance of the black and white scenes.
Like I spoke about before in relation to Memento, Nolan uses the narrative structure and different
filmic formats in his movies to convey something crucial to the narrative.
They have to have a purpose, otherwise it would be unnecessary to the audience.
Whether it's the colour of the film or whether its say an IMAX scene
or not.
Typically in the past we've seen that the big IMAX moments of Nolan's movies convey
a large set piece and showcase the scale or weight of a particular tense moment.
But with Oppenheimer it looks like he's doing the reverse of that, using it for dialogue
driven court scenes or sequences featuring Oppenheimer in
the public eye.
These scenes as read in the book, are tense enough to carry this IMAX thread alone, as
they focus on the interrogation surrounding whether Oppenheimer was feeding info to
the soviets and also the questions surrounding potential affiliations with communism.
There's no action or much blockbuster like sensibilities, but instead, there is a focus
placed on the shear tragedy and humiliation of Oppenheimer
in the public eye.
So rather than using black and white to signal something happening in the past, based on
what we've seen so far, Nolan seems to be using it as an effective tonal
tool to showcase the personal decline in Oppie's story.
The rise of his career and the development of a gadget that he and other scientists
believed could end all wars, would essentially be shown in colour.
And then the degrading trials and the fall of Oppenheimer during the years later, would
be shown in objective black and white, intercuting throughout those colour
scenes.
If this is the direction Nolan's going in, it may be a great way to make the audience
feel just as bleak as Oppenheimer did after the
bomb's development and communicate the very tragic sensibility that the end of this story
brings.
And again, it's a reversal of what you'd expect from a biopic film with both colour and
black and white imagery, and a certain twist on what you'd expect from Christopher Nolan
IMAX sequences.
If it's adapted like the book reads, then these court trials and later moments in
Oppenheimer's life, can be just as gripping as anything we've seen from Nolan on IMAX
in the past.
And as mentioned previously, the colour scenes will also include IMAX photography with
hopefully stunning images too.
Whether that's all the Manhattan project scenes, the trinity test or the more trippy scientific
visuals that we've already seen in previous trailers.
So overall, it looks like we're going to be getting
a great mix of impressive practical footage in colour and then hopefully some great moody
cinematography during those court scenes and Oppenheimer's later life in black and white.
It's signalling that both of these particular sequences are being used as important narrative
tools of Oppenheimer's story, meaning that it's
more a case of substance over style.
Nolan wants his new film to last just as effectively as film noir or Oppenheimer's tale itself,
so it's key that he takes the right steps when it comes
to tackling this film and the history accurately.
And this potential method of approach seems to be a way of doing just that.
But that was my video discussing the importance of black and white scenes in Christopher Nolan's
Oppenheimer.
The filmmaker has always maintained a level of secrecy when it comes to
editorial choices, timelines or narrative structures in his movies, and I'm sure we'll
be in for a few surprises when it comes to what formulas Oppenheimer will put on display.
But having read a good chunk of this story and
seeing what black and white footage is already in past trailers and footage, I think Nolan
will aim to make this a more tonal choice than ever
before, and one that also relates to his filmmaking approaches of the past.
Like I've said previously, Christopher Nolan has a tendency to try and differentiate a
film from other examples within a given genre striving to
bring a unique quality that only he could bring.
And while yes he does this in a creative sense, more importantly, he does it in a way that
feels right for that particular project.
So we'll have to see how he takes on Black and white IMAX photography in Oppenheimer,
but if its on the level of the narrative and filmmaking
choices that he's made with previous films, then we can hopefully expect something quite
memorable.
But why do you think Nolan is using black and white IMAX cameras in Oppenheimer and
are you excited to see the new footage in the film later this July.
Let me know down below in the comments section, and stay tuned for more video essays and topical
videos in my Road to Oppenheimer series in the months ahead.
For much more videos and news on Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, then subscribe to the
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