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With so many different formats of Oppenheimer showing in London, I couldn't resist giving this a second run, this time in 70mm instead of 70mm IMAX. And while I think my initial review captures my thoughts and feelings best, at the slight remove granted by a second viewing on a less overwhelmingly massive screen, a few more threads came into focus. Most particularly how Nolan complicates the idea of people as figures of constancy, paralleling the American government's position that if you were once a commie, you will forever be a commie, with Oppenheimer's own grim sense of destiny, all his fates and visions driving him to the creation of the bomb, that all encompassing end point for modern physics, a death drive that mirrors Oppenheimer’s inability to close that once-opened door with Jean Tatlock. That both of those fates stir Oppenheimer to seek flagellation and sympathy in equal measure serves as the best comment on his false martyrdom.
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