Christopher Nolan’sOppenheimeris one of the most anticipated films of the summer. With the film coming out later this month, many news outlets are buzzing over the announcement that Cillian Murphy and co-star Florence Pugh will share some scenes featuring “prolonged nudity”. Nolan is sure to amaze audiences with his feats in filmmaking with his upcoming release. Through the use of practical effects, IMAX cameras, and dramatic retellings of the moment that changed human history,fans are eagerly awaitingOppenheimer’s release.
Not much else is known aboutOppenheimerprior to the film’s late July release, with a bulk of the film’s marketing being tied to its same-day release with Greta Gerwig’sBarbie. However, audiences worldwide are eagerly awaiting what seems to beChristopher Nolan’s most ambitious project to date. The latest trailer confirms the film’s absolutely stacked cast, including huge industry names like Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and Florence Pugh joining Cillian Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer.
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What isOppenheimerabout?
Oppenheimer, whilebased on the events surrounding the creation of the atom bomb in World War II, is actually an adaptation of the bookAmerican Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimerby Martin Sherwin and Kai Bird.
J. Robert Oppenheimer was a scientist best known for leading The Manhattan Project, a military operation tasked with developing the atomic bomb for the United States during the height of World War II. Years later, Oppenheimer served as the chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission leading up to the Cold War in an effort to slow the developing nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union.
Oppenheimer was branded a communist in 1954 for his affiliation with multiple flagged groups. He was eventually relieved of service from the federal government, though that did not end his contributions to the scientific community. He worked as a teacher and continued on with theoretical physics, earning three Nobel Prize nominations in physics before his death in 1967.
While it is still unclear whether Christopher Nolan’sOppenheimerwill follow the events of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s life after the creation of the atomic bomb, audiences do know that The Manhattan Project will play a massive role in the construction of the film.Oppenheimeris already set to be a feat of visual effects, with the whole film being shot on IMAX cameras and no CGI being used in the entirety of the film.
Who is Florence Pugh playing inOppenheimer?
Florence Pugh joins the cast ofOppenheimeras Jean Tatlock, a psychiatrist, Communist Party member, and close friend of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Tatlock was an accomplished woman whose work paved the way for women in science in the mid-20th century. Despite her many accolades, Tatlock struggled with her own declining mental health in the later years of her life. Though her life ended in tragedy, she remained a deeply influential figure in J. Robert Oppenheimer’s legacy.
Jean Tatlock was born in 1914 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to Marjorie and John Tatlock. Her father was a prominent literary professor at Stanford, UC Berkley, and Harvard, and passed his love for English literature to his daughter. Despite her upbringing, Jean Tatlock pivoted in her professional life and attended Stanford University’s medical school. She graduated in 1941 and worked in the psychiatric department at Mount Zion Hospital in California. She was a radical leftist, and her affiliation with Bay Area communist groups directly impacted Oppenheimer’s later dismissal from the US military.
Tatlock and Oppenheimer met through mutual friends in 1936, while she was a student at Stanford and he was teaching at Berkley. The two had a very “on-again-off-again” affair that lasted several years, their relationship getting so intense that she brought him into the political groups she was affiliated with. Between 1939 and 1943, Tatlock and Oppenheimer’s meetings became more and more infrequent ashe was working on the top-secret Manhattan Project during this time. Their last meeting took place in 1943, as Oppenheimer snuck off from his Los Alamos, New Mexico, base to visit Tatlock after her most recent depressive episode. Several months later, on January 4th, 1944, Jean Tatlock died by suicide at the age of 29.
Oppenheimer was profoundly affected by her death, as Tatlock had irreparably impacted his life from the moment the two met. It was later speculated that the 1945 Trinity Test was named after mutually loved poet John Donne, in honor of Jean Tatlock.
