Regie:
Christopher NolanDrehbuch:
Christopher NolanKamera:
Hoyte van HoytemaMusik:
Ludwig GöranssonBesetzung:
Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Conti (mehr)Streaming (5)
Inhalte(1)
Das von Christopher Nolan geschriebene und inszenierte IMAX®-Thrillerepos Oppenheimer konfrontiert das Publikum mit dem pulsierenden Paradoxon jenes rätselhaften Mannes, der die Zerstörung der Welt riskieren muss, um sie zu retten. (Universal Pictures Germany)
Kritiken (18)
Two commissions, two ambivalent narcissists and a lot of tensions, things left unsaid and affecting history. Unexpectedly emotional and working with characters for a Nolan film. Spectacular in all its intimacy, transparent in all the time-playing frenzy of characters, names, and events. Three hours of dialogue condensed into what feels like a much shorter running time. The tangibility of it all, the acting, Göransson's score, the editing... Everything is at the highest bar, but that's no the reason to love it. The reason is how it totally nails it, how it grapples the issue in an unscholarly way asking the big questions of life, and how damn good it is as a film.
()
Christopher Nolan hat in seinem reifsten und gleichzeitig schwierigsten Film die Zuschauer*innen mit einem dreistündigen Reden über Kernphysik und Politik gefangen genommen und beeindruckt. Zuschauer*innen, deren Bildung und Intelligenz sehr unterschiedlich sind. Hut ab! Der Film ist ein konzentriertes, informationsreiches und durchdacht zusammengesetztes Mosaik von Ereignissen, das die ganze Zeit interessant und historisch glaubhaft ist. Man muss wirklich ein Meister sein, wenn man so ein Werk in nur 57 Tagen gedreht hat. Nolan hat natürlich das Thema geholfen, das alle betrifft und allen Angst macht. Gibt es aber einen anderen Regisseur, der diesem Stoff einen größeren Drive verliehen hätte? Die Intensität und die Dringlichkeit des Erzählens werden durch den laut gemischten Soundtrack des Zauberers Ludwig Göransson (Tenet) geboostet. Die Originalität und die kreativen Details des Soundtracks haben ein großes Lob verdient. Eine brillante Stilisierung der Figuren, der Schnitt, perfekt ausgesuchte Schauspieler*innen, mit denen man hier nicht gerechnet hätte (Benny Safdie rulez!). Und die zwei Schlüsselszenen, die ohne digitale Hilfsmittel auf fundamentalen Filmemacher-Elementen basieren, sind eine echte Delikatesse. Unmittelbar nach dem Ende des Films hatte ich gemischte Gefühle, ich war nicht der Einzige, der etwas anderes erwartet hat. Mit der Zeit wächst in mir Oppenheimer und ich bin froh, dass es Nolan so gemacht hat, wie er wollte.
()
Dieser Film entspricht in vielen Hinsichten meinen Erwartungen, in vielen Hinsichten ist er noch besser. Christopher Nolan hat diesmal das kontroverse Thema nicht nur als Regisseur, sondern auch als Drehbuchautor absolut präzise bearbeitet. Es stimmt zwar, dass in Oppenheimer „ständig geredet wird“, die Monologe und Dialoge sind aber so geschrieben, dass man in ihnen nicht ertrinkt. Ja, vielleicht zieht Sie ihr Gewicht manchmal für einen kurzen Augenblick unter die Oberfläche. Es dauert aber nicht lange, weil jede solche Szene eine klare und verständliche Pointe hat, die eine Grundlage für die nächste Szene bildet. Das Chaos namens Tenet, das auch ein paar Sekunden der Unaufmerksamkeit bestraft, hat sich nicht wiederholt (auch wenn es sympathisch rücksichtslos war). Der Film hat eine unglaublich tolle Besetzung, an der Spitze mit dem Trio Murphy, Damon und Downey Jr., und eine schlaue Darstellung von zwei unterschiedlichen Perspektiven, die am Ende durch einen unheimlichen Gedanken ergänzt werden, mit dem ich mich noch lange befasst habe.
()
Der große Film über das Leben eines theoretischen Physikers und des Vaters der Atombombe ist weniger ein klassisches biografisches Drama, es ist vielmehr ein modernistischer, dramatischer politischer Thriller, in dem sich zwei Erzähllinien über mehrere Zeitebenen abwechseln. Eine dichte Informationsübersicht über ehrgeizige, intelligente und intrigante Charaktere und kluge Dialoge, die keine Luft zum Atmen lässt. Außerdem mit einer intensiven filmischen Wirkung gedreht. Ein dynamischer und wilder Film mit einer beeindruckend verwobenen Struktur, aufgebaut auf dem Konflikt zweier egoistischer Männer und der Geschichte eines Wissenschaftlers, der um die Rettung seiner eigenen Seele kämpft. Der Film stellt Fragen zur Veränderung der Zivilisation nach der Erfindung der Atomwaffe, zur ethischen Seite ihrer Nutzung und zur Bereitschaft der Menschen, für Ruhm oder Weltherrschaft die Zerstörung der Welt in Kauf zu nehmen. Diese Fragen haben auch heute noch eine Relevanz.
()
Ich hatte noch keinen vollwertigen Trailer zu Oppenheimer gesehen, und da mein Wissen über den "Vater der Atombombe" mit dieser Bezeichnung endet, ging ich als unbeschriebenes Blatt ins Kino - aber auch mit einer gewissen Vorfreude angesichts des Namens des Regisseurs und der hochkarätigen Besetzung. Der Film erzählt auf mehreren Ebenen die Geschichte von J.R. Oppenheimer - einem begeisterten Studenten, einem bahnbrechenden Physiker, einem untreuen Ehemann, einem amerikanischen Helden, aber auch einem "Verbrecher". Vor der Vorführung hatte ich erwartet, dass der Film so viele (Atom-)Pilze hat wie ein Wald, aber in dieser Hinsicht war der Film recht sparsam - trotzdem hatte ich dank der manchmal wirklich beklemmenden Atmosphäre das Gefühl, eine einzige riesige tickende Bombe zu sehen, in der nicht Atomkerne explodieren, sondern menschliche Egos, und in der sich Neid und Hass mischen. Dazu trug auch die unverwechselbare Musik bei, die den "explosiven" Charakter des Films perfekt wiedergibt. Neben der aufschlussreichen Geschichtsstunde über die Entwicklung von Atomwaffen haben mir die Szenen aus beiden Prozessen, "farbigen" und dem "schwarzweißen", sehr gut gefallen, und es war faszinierend zu sehen, wie die Waage (Wahrheit und Lüge) während des Films kippte. Neben den hervorragenden Leistungen von Cillian Murphy und Emily Blunt ist vor allem Gary Oldmans kleine, aber eindrucksvolle Rolle als Truman in Erinnerung geblieben. Im Ergebnis würde ich dem Film 4,5 Sterne geben - einige Werke in Nolans Filmografie haben mich mehr beeindruckt (Interstellar, Prestige - Meister der Magie) - aber da sein Oppenheimer es geschafft hat, meine Aufmerksamkeit volle drei Stunden im Kino zu halten, gebe ich dem Film eine höhere Bewertung.
()
I could have done without the last half-hour, where the loses its breath, but until then it's a riveting fresco, with an anti-war appeal at the very end, something much needed in these days of Putin's saber-rattling.
()
Nolan is the Dr. Manhattan of contemporary Hollywood. And perhaps will be for another two decades at least. At the peak of his creative powers, he can afford a three-hour conversation colossus, which subjectively lasts a third less, because the level of precision of all creative components is on an absolute level. Actually, even the most coveted gold-plated statue is completely understandable. And yet something is missing. Perhaps a bit of personal passion in front of and behind the camera. Without hesitation, however, this is the only film by the director that I know I will probably never watch again. PS: Sex in the interrogation room is probably the biggest cringe moment in Nolan's filmography. No debate about it.
()
I went to the cinema thinking that Christopher Nolan wouldn't make just a biopic. Well, it's basically a biopic for at least the first hour and a half. A bit more playful in terms of working with time planes, but above all, it's audiovisually imaginative and engaging in a way that all those academy-praised films like The Theory of Everything have little chance of capturing my attention anymore. Moreover, Nolan switches gears a little bit in the middle and starts to play a lot more with individual plot lines as well as genres, so that after the more daringly conceived biopic (which looks great in IMAX), Oppenheimer turns into a horror film at times, a psychological drama at others, and isn't afraid to be a courtroom thriller that even Aaron Sorkin would applaud. It's a bit of a shame that Nolan doesn't have more faith in his audience and always ends regurgitating what might seem a bit complex for the unfocused into a few sentences. I'd certainly have liked it if he'd pushed the line about the responsibility of scientists more and generally gone more in depth with the main character himself, but those are just small things. I was entertained by Oppenheimer for the entire three hours, whether Nolan was playing with image, sound, pacing and genres, or sticking to more traditional storytelling techniques, and just spicing them heavily with his audiovisual mastery.
()
The long wait for another Nolan film was broken by the biographical story of Robert Oppenheimer, the man behind the atomic bomb. Yes, the subject matter is undeniably strong, but 180 minutes? Not so much. In typical Nolan fashion, he doesn't make it easy for the viewer, intertwining three timelines right from the start. If you're not familiar with the basics of Oppenheimer's life, good luck keeping up. The film is heavy on dialogue – a lot of talking, and not the gripping kind. This is especially apparent whenever Albert Einstein appears on screen; those moments steal the show and offer the best dialogue the film has to offer. It's a movie about a monumental scientific advancement, one that's essential for human progress but also one we might not deserve. It also highlights American arrogance and hints at what the Russians did afterwards – but let's not even go there.
()
Christopher Nolan has made an excellent 3-hour period drama about the making of the atomic bomb with a perfect cast, breathtaking visuals, great dialogue and decently dosed tension, but it's also a very exhausting and challenging film, and I'm not sure I want to go through it again – we all know Nolan makes films that need to be seen multiple times to fully understand them and pick up all the details, but here I just don't know if it will be too tedious a second time around, or if it won't be at the cinema again. I like the fact that Nolan wrote the script himself and got the best of the best for the rest: cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoyte, whose cinematography is simply unique, the music this time is not by Hans Zimmer but by the skillful Ludwig Göransson, who is also a safe bet; and he was lucky in the choice of actors. Cillian Murphy gives probably the performance of his life, which should be awarded an Oscar. It was also nice to see Matt Damon and Robert Downey Jr. (the rest of the famous actors really had minimal space and are rather cameos). The first hour is a little quieter and a little too much scientific for my taste, which I'm not that interested in, but it's simply part of the fabric, just not something I'm downright fond of. With the arrival of Damon and the preparation of the nuke – the explosion is one of the best sequences of the film (unexpectedly) – the tension was palpable, the atmosphere thickened and the whole thing is really very nicely executed. I enjoyed the final “trial”, it was pretty heated, although I expected to be even more blown away, as I love these verbal shootouts, but something was missing. All in all, I am satisfied, it couldn't have been done better, audiovisually it is a masterpiece of the genre, it's just not really my genre and unless I have the need to visit the cinema again immediately, I can't give it a full score. 8/10.
()
Nolan made a bold move when, after Tenet flopped because of the coronavirus pandemic, he spectacularly cut his long-standing ties with Warner Bros. and played a game of “Do You Want Me?” with other studios. Universal can thus now call Nolan “my darling”. All the studio had to do was fork over the money for a project that doesn’t fit into the currently preferred pigeonholes of Hollywood production. Oppenheimer is thus interesting as a marketing challenge. The first steps led through the elevation of the project itself to the high-concept tagline “Nolan makes an atomic bomb”. Subsequently, the elevation of analogue was brought into the mix, which, in combination with the detonation of the bomb, helped to evoke the impression of an event. Finally, the phrase “70 mm IMAX” helped to complete the suggestion that a three-hour biopic about a theoretical quantum physicist would be an epic spectacle. The most remarkable thing about this is the fact that the premium projection format is employed not for a visually bombastic spectacle, where it would be obviously justified, but for a dialogue film that is mostly composed of shots of actors in suits or uniforms delivering their lines. On the other hand, the myth of 70 mm film stock previously was used in the exact same way to promote Tarantino’s interior dialogue-heavy The Hateful Eight. Even more than in the case of Tarantino’s film, this time the PR spin doctors managed to create the impression that for every film fan a visit to an IMAX cinema is the equivalent of a pilgrimage to Mecca. This is a commendable approach in the interest of achieving a return on the funding invested in Oppenheimer and securing future Nolan projects. Despite the whole PR circus, however, I will venture to say that we don’t need the biggest screen to fully appreciate this film. Excellent sound, yes, but not IMAX. Oppenheimer will not rivet viewers to their seats with the spectacle of its scenes. However, it does offer excellent screenwriting that brilliantly holds the viewer’s attention and succeeds in clearly and thoroughly examining the title character. I write that as someone who has trouble remembering names, so a lot of films with numerous characters don’t work for me, because I easily get lost in them. That is not the case with Nolan’s Oppenheimer, because of how it is told, or rather how it layers not only the timelines, but also the images and sound. It’s as if Nolan has gone back to his roots, when he didn’t have huge budgets and captivated audiences solely with the power of the ingeniously composed narrative in Memento. Except that, unlike his youthfully ambitious hit, the non-linearity in Oppenheimer doesn’t come across as a gimmick. With an unpretentious purposefulness refined over the years, it makes it possible to dissect and, in a way that is fascinating for viewers, piece back together the disparate roles that Robert Oppenheimer played in his life, as well as the professional, personal and moral questions tied to his personality, work and position in the context of major historical events. Thanks to the film’s structure, which constantly places details aside in favour of the bigger picture and distances the context and point of view from the dramatic appeal of the moment, Nolan’s portrait succeeds in avoiding the minefields of poster glorification, tabloid scandal and philosophical ponderousness. Not by dispensing with them, but by constantly bombarding them with particles of other points of view. In Oppenheimer, the standard phrase “complex portrait” is an uncompromising maxim.
()
(weniger)
(mehr)
The creator of this device will be weighed down by his conscience, whether he is the destroyer of worlds or their savior. Let’s compare the escalating drama of the Trinity test culminating in deafening silence with the famous quote read in Sanskrit during a non-nuclear fusion with Florence Pugh, or naked bodies in chairs and imagination, and let’s consider what the author is truly good at and where the artistic arrangement feels of dubious value. In the respectful sense, it’s an opulent commissionary martyrdom, but it offers fewer truly exceptional moments than there are appearances of the god born in Ulm on a pulley. Nolan has the skills to craft a technically perfect bomb, but perhaps he should entrust the design to someone else.
()
A focused Nolan, a perfect Cillian Murphy and a roaring Ludwig Göransson in a history lesson I've always wanted to see. The suffocating atmosphere, disturbed only by the celebration of the Trinity explosion, sticks to the palate, and at times you feel sick of what could have been. If Hitler hadn't shot himself, they would have dropped the nukes in Europe. Oppenheimer's life of communism, his wives, his nightmares, his friends and his enemies are all engulfing, and for three hours they don't let go, whether it's black and white conversations or the simulation of a nuclear explosion. The horrific ending with Einstein still resonates with me. “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
()
Barbenheimer, part 2. I wouldn't be afraid to compare Nolan's Oppenheimer to Dominik's Blonde. Both films are adaptations of biographical novels, dealing with generally known topics, bringing back the same stories, the same settings, the same personalities and asking the same questions. Perhaps both films are more formally ambitious, but they don't bring anything new or surprising to the table. Perhaps only the new acting challenges of dealing with images of characters that are culturally rooted and defined. And Nolan of course has the most attractive cast of today, there is no doubt about that.
()
I was expecting another new world adventure and instead got a wildly edited, plodding three-hour procedural with elements of an inside job at the end. All to the sound of monstrously thumping music and artsy black and white flashbacks. I'm not disputing the dense premise, or the decent performances, but the film only has two sparks in 180 minutes. One when the bomb goes off and the other when the camera is trained on Florence Pugh – with or without clothes on, it doesn't matter, both work.
()
If a film with this exact same theme had been made by someone else or with a different cast, the result would be vastly different. At the core, it's still just a biopic, the kind of which there are hundreds, but Christopher Nolan's handwriting is so polished that what he has delivered to us is so iconic, and his name comes through so much in Oppenheimer, that you can't help but go full throttle with the words audiovisual porn and the pinnacle of the film genre, as we've never seen a piece of this quality in every aspect. It's hard to say what's more grounding: the twenty A-list actors and a cast that hasn't been seen in a single film before, the impeccable narrative work divided into several acts, the indescribably shocking build-up in the final third, or the overall look and creative appeal of the whole result. However you look at it, there's no denying that Nolan is simply brilliant, and he rightfully holds his title of master. I am entranced and I applaud. And factually, I learned as much interesting stuff and as much history as I have in a long time from any film of a similar genre.
()
My strongest impression after finishing the movie was joy. Joy that I didn't watch it sitting down. Otherwise, I'd have to use a Marsellus Wallace line to describe the experience. Christopher Nolan assembled a stellar cast (even for walk-on parts), and naturally, I was expecting something exceptional. However... While I had no issue with the performances — they were, in fact, fantastic — the story didn't grip me as much as I had hoped. I've admitted time and again that I'm not exactly well-versed in the natural sciences, and as a result, I found myself missing out on a substantial portion of the dialogue. What I did manage to grasp didn't offer much in the way of new insights; politics remains a global quagmire, even in the so-called cradle of democracy, where secret police practices bear an uncomfortable resemblance to totalitarian regimes. Nothing groundbreaking for me. Oh, and there was an epic explosion at one point. Not enough for a three-hour film. / Lesson learned: Reading in Sanskrit might have fatal consequences.
()
Christopher Nolan has done it again (I’m genuinely curious if he’ll ever produce something weaker... because all of his projects have either turned out excellent or downright brilliant). In today’s Hollywood, I can’t think of another creator capable of taking a seemingly ordinary biography and turning it into a masterpiece that resonates long after the credits roll. But he pulled it off. And honestly, I’m not surprised. Just the cast alone was astonishing. So many well-known names, which is not often seen. Each of them added their piece to the puzzle. Cillian Murphy was absolutely outstanding; I’m pretty sure the golden statuette will be his. On the other hand, Robert Downey Jr. might have impressed me even more. I’ve been saying for years that he deserves far more dramatic roles. Serious roles really suit him. Additionally, as always, one must appreciate the impactful soundtrack accompanying the grandiose cinematography (Hoyte van Hoytema FTW!). And as I feared the final hour might dip into slower storytelling after the Trinity bomb explosion (the build-up to the largest cinematic explosion ever was breathtaking), my concerns vanished quickly. The courtroom dialogues kept you on edge without a moment’s rest. Nolan is simply an artist. Combining several completely different genres in one film (ordinary biography, intense drama, thriller, and even moments of horror) with such precision is something no one else in the field can achieve. A necessary second viewing. For me, it’s a 9/10.
()
Werbung