Director Christopher Nolan
“Oppenheimer” is “a kind of horror film”
Christopher Nolan also sees horror elements in “Oppenheimer”.
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According to the director, anyone who wants to buy a cinema ticket for Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” soon has to be prepared for horror film vibes.
The first reactions of the viewers to Christopher Nolan’s, 52, new film “Oppenheimer” were obviously extremely emotional. At least that’s what the director said himself in an interview with Wired magazine. At the first screenings of the drama about the eponymous “father of the atomic bomb”, “some people came out completely devastated. They could no longer speak,” says the filmmaker.
A director friend of mine even made a stark comparison, Nolan says: “It’s an intense experience because it’s an intense story. I recently showed it to a filmmaker who said it was like some kind of horror film. I don’t disagree .” The “impossible and paradoxical ethical dilemma” would lead to the oppressive feeling of a horror film.
The director of such films as ‘Interstellar’, ‘Prestige’ and ‘Memento’ continues: “It felt essential that at the end of the film there are questions that you keep going through people’s minds and thus stimulate discussion .” Nevertheless, Nolan emphasizes that it was important to him to strike an optimistic tone in “Oppenheimer”.
The world at an ethical crossroads – that’s what “Oppenheimer” is about
In 1942, in the middle of the Second World War, the entire world is at a crossroads: when physicist Julius Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy, 47) is put in charge of the Manhattan Project, he has no idea what the impact of his involvement will be .
In a race against time, Oppenheimer and his team must develop a nuclear weapon before the Nazis can get there. But as the “father of the atomic bomb” he finally has to watch as his invention wipes out the two Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – and hundreds of thousands of lives with them.
“Oppenheimer” will be released in German cinemas on July 20th.