Widescreen Master reviews… Oppenheimer

About the film

Cillian Murphy plays the role of a real-life physicist, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who led a team of scientists to build the world’s first atomic bomb in the Second World War.

The film follows his life, from his studies as a student, his two marriages and his involvement with the Manhattan Project, to his life after the bomb was dropped where he lost his security clearance and could not continue working. He had deep regrets about what he had help to create.

Here is Jamie’s review:

I saw Oppenheimer in the IMAX in the Printworks in Manchester. It is about history and the past, the making and the dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan in the Second World War.

The film moves between two points in time. It uses black and white for the scenes set in 1954 and colour for all other time periods. There is a lot of talking and it is not always easy to follow. There were fantastic bits where we saw inside his mind as he imagined atoms colliding.

I went with Matt and Simon. Matt loved the sound design of the film – this is what he said:

The sound design was an integral part of the film. A lot of the emotions came from the sound design.

It filled every corner of your being, but it was not overwhelming.

The use of silence was really effective when the bomb went off. You saw the explosions and then waited for the sound to hit.

The countdown of the bomb going off was full of tension. The effects were great and I was on the edge of my seat. I like that Albert Einstein was in the film. His scenes are important to the story. There was lots of close up and you could see every line in the actors’ faces. I like that.

Seeing it on the big IMAX screen was amazing – it was so good.

Simon will tell you why we travelled to Manchester to see it:

The Printworks in Manchester is one of only three cinemas in the UK (and 30 in the world) which is showing Oppenheimer in 15/70mm film format. Nowadays nearly all films are shown digitally. This happened recently from 2010 onwards.

Before then films were shown on ‘film reels’ through a film projector. 15/70mm is the biggest film format available and gives the most detailed images possible. You could really see the detail and film has a texture and feel that digital does not have.

For more details please see: https://blog.sciencemuseum.org.uk/a-projectionists-guide-to-oppenheimer/

Oppenheimer is available to watch in cinemas now and will be released digitally later this year.

USA, 2023
Certificate: 15
Length: 3 hours
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Christopher Nolan (based on the book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin)
Cinematography by: Hoyte van Hoytema
Edited by: Jennifer Lame
Music by: Ludwig Göransson