Maybe the world has already ended.
The other day I was watching a YouTube video about a bunch of dudes and one woman who went out into the Mohave desert to geographically lay out all of time. They place white lights in the desert floor over a span of 4.3 miles for all pre-human history in the universe and then, right at the end, in a span of only six inches, red lights for all of human history. Six inches of humanity at then end of 4.3 miles of time. The dudes—and one woman—fly a drone high in the air to frame the entire expanse. Humanity is a blip. The beginning and end of all we are is a single instant.
Christopher Nolan has similar things on his mind in Oppenheimer. If the invention of the atomic bomb is the event that eventually razes humanity from existence, then Nolan’s film is a chronicle of the moment the lights went out. It is a devastating film. It knows a proper response to the reality of the atomic bomb is to be devastated. It’s as devastated by the fact of the bomb as it is by the human failings that motivated its invention and continue to perpetuate its terror. If the bombs ever destroy us all, it’s a shame there won’t be anyone around to watch Oppenheimer and understand how we could have let this happen.
There is another way to respond to this film. It’s a response Nolan has modeled in his other end-of-the world stories. That response is love. Faced with the inevitable end of all, love. Love might be the only thing that can pull us through. Those films—Interstellar and Tenet—are fantasies though. Oppenheimer is that most rooted-in-reality of all genres, the biopic. Carrying hope out of Oppenheimer requires you to have carried it in with you. Can you love after staring inevitable destruction in the face? Thinking about Oppenheimer, I stare in the mirror and see Cillian Murphy’s haunted features. Can I see anything else?
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Believing in a God who orchestrated that 4.3 mile long expanse of time like a father taking a family on a long road trip so they would be in the right place at the right time to witness a miracle in the sand and in the stars, and rooting that faith in the witness of a Savior who sustains all things, gathers all things, and holds all things together, I see more than Oppenheimer’s devastated features. I do see the love that Nolan has previously encouraged me to see. I pray it does more than win the day. I pray it is beyond winning and losing entirely, that love is the reality of existence itself, that an atom split explodes with such power because we are getting closer to the source of all.
The mushroom cloud eventually dissipates. The flash of light fades away. You consider the 4.3 mile stretch of lights and then you notice the desert itself. It’s bigger than the blast, bigger than the biopic, bigger than any camera could ever frame, even that of a filmmaker with as much vision and ambition as Christopher Nolan. God, it is beautiful.
Maybe the world has already ended.
The other day I was watching a YouTube video about a bunch of dudes and one woman who went out into the Mohave desert to geographically lay out all of time. They place white lights in the desert floor over a span of 4.3 miles for all pre-human history in the universe and then, right at the end, in a span of only six inches, red lights for all of human history. Six inches of humanity at then end of 4.3 miles of time. The dudes—and one woman—fly a drone high in the air to frame the entire expanse. Humanity is a blip. The beginning and end of all we are is a single instant.
Christopher Nolan has similar things on his mind in Oppenheimer. If the invention of the atomic bomb is the event that eventually razes humanity from existence, then Nolan’s film is a chronicle of the moment the lights went out. It is a devastating film. It knows a proper response to the reality of the atomic bomb is to be devastated. It’s as devastated by the fact of the bomb as it is by the human failings that motivated its invention and continue to perpetuate its terror. If the bombs ever destroy us all, it’s a shame there won’t be anyone around to watch Oppenheimer and understand how we could have let this happen.
There is another way to respond to this film. It’s a response Nolan has modeled in his other end-of-the world stories. That response is love. Faced with the inevitable end of all, love. Love might be the only thing that can pull us through. Those films—Interstellar and Tenet—are fantasies though. Oppenheimer is that most rooted-in-reality of all genres, the biopic. Carrying hope out of Oppenheimer requires you to have carried it in with you. Can you love after staring inevitable destruction in the face? Thinking about Oppenheimer, I stare in the mirror and see Cillian Murphy’s haunted features. Can I see anything else?
—
Believing in a God who orchestrated that 4.3 mile long expanse of time like a father taking a family on a long road trip so they would be in the right place at the right time to witness a miracle in the sand and in the stars, and rooting that faith in the witness of a Savior who sustains all things, gathers all things, and holds all things together, I see more than Oppenheimer’s devastated features. I do see the love that Nolan has previously encouraged me to see. I pray it does more than win the day. I pray it is beyond winning and losing entirely, that love is the reality of existence itself, that an atom split explodes with such power because we are getting closer to the source of all.
The mushroom cloud eventually dissipates. The flash of light fades away. You consider the 4.3 mile stretch of lights and then you notice the desert itself. It’s bigger than the blast, bigger than the biopic, bigger than any camera could ever frame, even that of a filmmaker with as much vision and ambition as Christopher Nolan. God, it is beautiful.
Elijah Davidson is Co-Director of Brehm Film and Senior Film Critic. Subscribe to Come & See, his weekly newsletter that guides you through the greatest films ever made, and find more of his work at elijahdavidson.com.
