Christopher Nolan likes to make movies big. He pioneered IMAX filmmaking, and now he’s promising a mandatory theatrical experience. Among other things, ‘Oppenheimer’ will offer a computer generated image of a nuclear explosion without using special effectsand the director and his main actor makes our teeth even longer.
“Go watch it on the biggest fucking screen you can”
The star Cillian Murphy has spoken with Empire and has ensured that:
“I think it’s a truly essential movie experience. And I know that’s what I’m supposed to say, that’s the line from the study. But you have to see this in the theater on the biggest fucking screen possible. There are moments that will leave people speechless.”
But ‘Oppenheimer’ also wants to live up to how important the creation of the world’s first atomic bomb was and the potential destruction of the planet. Nolan himself explains his approach:
“Look, what’s at stake in any big blockbuster is the survival of the world. And that is what this story is. I know of no story with more at stake than the Oppenheimer story. That’s the truth. It’s hard to use a word like entertainment when you’re talking about something so serious, but entertainment in movies takes many forms. This is such an immersive and captivating story that we were privileged to tell it.”
Nolan wanted to achieve the hazard effect literally, shooting a re-enactment of Oppenheimer’s bomb test Trinity in the New Mexico desert without using any CGI.
“I’ve done a lot of explosions in a lot of movies. But there’s something unique and particular about being in a desert in the middle of the night with a great cast, and doing some real huge explosions and capturing that on film. You can’t help but go back to this moment when they were doing this on the maximum scale, that in the back of their minds they knew there was a possibility that the atmosphere could catch fire. It was pretty amazing to be involved in that kind of tension.”
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