Tag: Christopher Nolan

John Papsidera Speaks: September 25th, 2026, Nashville Film Festival Interview

On September 26, 2026

In Interviews, Movies, Politics, Pop Culture, Reviews

John Papsidera, Connie Wilson and Director Jason Reitman after the “SNL” Premiere in 2024,

After a thrilling film introduction with scenes from many of the 240+ films that John Papsidera cast, the Nashville and L.A. based casting director talked about his switch from acting, which he had studied, to casting movies instead of acting in them.

Papsidera remembered a long-ago casting call for a Pepsi commercial based on the original “Top Gun” and becoming aware, as he left the casting site, “I can’t do this, I didn’t have the confidence or the wherewithal to allow a camera to study me, to peer into my soul.That takes a huge amount of courage and guts to do that. And I didn’t have it, And I reaiized that.”

So, I ran restaurants for a bunch of years in New York and then moved to Los Angeles and got into casting, “

He went on to say that casting is about saying yes.

Moderator question Q1: “You got your start in casting huge action pictures like ‘Clear and Present Danger.’ What did casting movies like that teach you about story versus star power?”

A1: “Did it teach me anything?” (laughter) “Those were films that were very much centered on star power and very much centered around the stars. Now, Harrison Ford, I have to say, was very interested in the rest of the cast and the story of “Clear and Present Danger.” Other stars and directors, not as much. So, it gave me an insight into the politics more than anything else. It gave me an insight into how the business works, how the studio works in the nineties and the early two thousands, to a great degree.”

Q2: “In speaking of those time periods, I have to bring up ‘Austin Powers.’ Austin Powers became one of the defining comedies of its time. At the time, did it feel like you were working on something this special, or did its success surprise everyone?”

A2: “Nobody wanted to do ‘Austin Powers.’ (audience laughter) Mike had just done ‘So I Married An Axe Murderer.’ It failed and this was his next movie after that and literally it was begging people to do the movie in a lot of ways. So, no, it wasn’t that way and then—it irritates me—the movie was a big hit and everybody signs up for two…there’s Tom Cruise and there’s Nicole Kidman—and it was slogging the first movie to really get it cast, but it was Will Ferell’s first movie and it was a lot of people’s first film that came out of SNL and came out of the improv and Groundlings and places like that.”

Q3: “That must have been a really fun casting experience, I would imagine.

A3: “It was fun. It was. Mike was heavily involved. Jay Roach directed that movie. And, yes, it was a very fun movie to cast, and it was also the very first film that I cast by myself. It was a unique experience.”

Q4: In 2000, you launched your own company, Automatic Sweat. What convinced you it was time to build your own company?

A4: I’d never been more broke. I was partners with another casting director. She deemed it not worth her time to do Austin. She was spending all of her time on another movie that we were doing together and so I went off and did it myself. Subsequently, we then started on “Face-Off” right after that, the John Woo movie, and she came to me and said—wait a minute—well, I know why she said it, it was John Travolta and Nick Cage and she said, ‘I think I want to do this one on my own.’ I’m like, ‘That’s not how it works when you’re partners.’ So I was forced—it really forced my hand—to go and start my own company.”

Q5: ‘Is there a story behind the name Automatic Sweat?”

John Papsidera, casting director par excellence, speaking at the 57th Nashville Film Festival on September 25, 2026,

A5: “A homeless man said it to me. He used to hang out around my offices. He said, ‘Life ain’t anything but an automatic sweat.’ And I thought, truer words were never spoken.”

Q6: “You’ve cast nearly every Christopher Nolan film since Memento in 2000, including ‘The Odyssey’ that many people have probably seen recently. What did that first collaboration look like?”

A6: “I’ve said this before. It’s probably one of the easiest films I’ve ever cast. Because Chris didn’t know anybody. This is how relationships work..the same producers called me and said we have this little movie, Would you be interested? And I said I was, so they sent me the script and I had to read it three times before I understood it (laughter from the audience) And he said to me, ‘Bring me your favorite actors,” and so I did. And it was incredibly easy. Maybe 3 weeks. Incredibly fast and thrilling.”

Q7: Nolan is known for building a repertory of people across films?

A7: We do talk about that at times. There’s a couple things that play into that. Early on in our relationship we’d talk about this and he’d say, ‘Well, we have Michael Caine.’ It kind of came out of that. As the years have passed, I’ve kind of had a different window into Chris’s mind. He is a control freak and he wants to know exactly what people are going to do, He’s not looking for people to create. He’s trying to fit the piece in the Swiss clock that is already in his head. He just wants you to be a little cog in the machine. He doesn’t want you to re-invent the machine. And so it’s a very different way of casting, So, it’s a very different type of casting than of me doing a search and a hunt and going in search of the perfect pieces just for him that will line up with how his vision is, as opposed to a Jason Reitman, who is much more exploratory , much more of “Let’s try this; let’s improv that,” Chris’s much more of a control freak And so, over the years, I think it becomes an easier thing for him to say, ‘Oh, yes, I can see this person doing that.”

Q8: Over the years, have you ever seen a shift away from that, where you can see it going a different way?

A8: Going back to ‘Inception,’ Chris had not known of Marion Cotillard, and I knew her and loved her. Rebecca Hall is another one. She had done very little. She went on tape and she had done a lot. I saw Rebecca’s tape and sent it to Chris and it really started her career in a big way. We didn’t know what she would do with it. We sent it to DeCaprio and never heard back. We sent it to Joaquin (Phoenix) and he met and explained how he didn’t like, nor did he want, to make big movies. It’s ironic, because he was in one and won the Academy Award for playing the Joker. We met with Heath (Ledger). It was exhilarating and exciting and he understood that it wasn’t about trying to fill the comedic shoes of Jack Nicholson, but that the Joker was an anarchist and that he just wanted to tear it all down. And that was his take on the Joker. So, yes, there have been some examples that are exciting to me that were not in the usual way”

Q9: You said something about when you were meeting with him it was exhilarating,

A9: It’s hard to describe. I truly believe that it’s a magic that if you believe in the process it shows up in different ways. I’m just in the process right now, I was in L.A. this past Monday for screen tests for a huge show for Amazon and we had screen tests for the lead female. And one of them is just electric. You feel it. There’s something palpable. It’s chemical. It is the thing that keeps me coming back. I play golf—badly—and people will say, ‘Oh, that shot will keep you coming back for 6 months.’ The idea of being in a room with the artist, those moments when you feel it, it’s indescribable and exciting. It’s a little bit about where magic meets practicality.

Q10: With having such a long relationship with Christopher Nolan, what has that taught you about the trust that is necessary between a director and a casting director?

A10: I think there’s always a question mark as to how much someone trusts you or not, It depends on how much you go out of the guidelines. Chris still will not forgive me for bringing in, on “Memento, Crispin Glover. I love Crispin Glover. I think he’s an amazing unpredictable actor, exactly the type of guy that Christopher Nolan does not like. Unpredictabiility not wanted, I’ve learned that. So it kind of depends on what you’re looking for, how you go down that road with directors, but the game is to gain their trust—at least as their confidante and they trust your opinion. I’m blessed, at this stage in my career, that I have it with many directors and I’ve done it long enough so that people will say, “What’s John think?” But that’s the job. You want them to seek your counsel.And you want them to know that you’re not just telling them what they want to hear, that you are not just being a cheerleader or a yes-man, but you are telling them the truth. Does that answer that question?

Q11: Walk me through your process. What happens from the time you get a script until you cast a character?

A11: It’s much like being an independent casting director, I’ll read a script, I’ll see what I think about it. I’ll have a meeting with the actor or producer and talk about who I see in those roles or why. And if they get the job and if they are available, we then start a process. We’’ll start to get reads in. We funnel that to the producers and directors. And then we negotiate a deal.

Q12: How do you judge rapport among actors, especially when you’re building an ensemble?

A12: I think mostly this is world creation. And, in a movie, you want it to be grounded in a real world. So you want actors with like minds in that they can put ‘em together. I liken it to a painter painting a picture. Certain colors need an accent next to it, It’s really about creating a world with a certain soul.

John Papsidera interviewed onstage at the national Museum of African American Music at the 57th Nashville Film Festiva on September 25, 2026.

Q13: How much do you push back against a director?

A13: You weigh all these variables, A studio, a director, television director has a page. I could call an executive director and say, “You’re wrong. That kid is amazing” in Scooby Doo,, It depends on relationships. Had I not done Wednesday with that director I probably wouldn’t have called. You only have so much creative freedom.

Q14: The difference between an in-person read and a taped read?

A14: It’s a really divided thing. I’ll start with the pros: it has opened the door to casting much more than anything else in my career. In the old format, casting calls had to get the job done and you would have a group of 40 or 5o or 100 actors and you knew they would be good. Those are the actors who have been displaced most and you hear them complain about it a lot. It’s those people who were in the small, select group and now you can look at a much broader group. We will go back and ask them to re-do, re-tape. We have years of relationships. (Richie Montgomery in Carnivale and Kingfish stands up in the audience to testify to working with Papsidera early on, ) Really having personal connections and insights into an actor in a personal way helps, but more people get seen and you have control in a taped session. You as the actor get to do it a hundred times till you get it the way you want it, so embrace the power of having it, because actors do not get the chance to be powerful often enough.

Q15: How many of these auditions are you watching?

A15: Fourth Wing project. We’ve seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of actresses and actors for the 2 lead roles. For Scooby Doo, we probably saw 600 kids. I’m working on a Christie McQuorry film that will be a smaller process. For Oppenheimer I saw a large number of people. For a Taylor Sheridan movie we see hundreds of men. They don’t build men the way they used to build men.

Q16: Iconic ensembles…The Dark Knight…Batman Begins….Inception….

A16: I was looking through breakdowns today and I get to select actors who I like who I think are good actors. The common thread that runs through it is my taste. At the end of the day, it’s the smartest and the brightest actors who are available (and the budget).

Q17: How do you balance known versus unknowns?

A17: In “The Odyssey” those characters going in lived in people’s minds for a long time. They were next to God. So we wanted the super heroes of our time. So, to do that we intentionally went with the known stars. There are plenty of times when I look at movies and I look at the names to remember and there was no need for a name to be changing a wagon wheel by the side of the road. It felt like it was important in “The Odyssey”.

Q18: Do you have a philosophy about when to cast an unknown versus these veterans?

A18: It sort of depends on budgets, and things way out of my control. Casting a budget is the first thing we do on every project. They will just take the money, so we’ll find somebody who will do it for that. It’s a battle to try to find enough money. You try and find interesting people. So many of the Dunkirk actors have now gone on. We had so many amazing guys who have had amazing careers. It is a hugely satisfying part of the job. It take so many people to find them. That story of Lana Turner being discovered at Schwabb’s. That happens so rarely, if ever. It usually is a manager calling me and saying “I saw somebody in a play, etc.” Yes, it’s true that I put Charlize in “Two Days in the Valley” and it was her first job, but it’s because a manager called me up saying, “You’re looking for a 6 foot Scandinavian girl. I was behind one in the bank line. Would you meet her?” And I said yes. I believe in saying yes and great people come from all kinds of places.

Q19: How do you stay confident in your choices, even when you have seen so many actors>

A19: I don’t know. It’s really not based on ego.It’s based on a lot of different things. Honestly, now that I’m thinking about that question, it’s probably because I’ve looked at the 600 other people that aren’t getting it. When you’ve looked at so many other things that aren’t it, you have an incredible amount of faith that that IS iit. And so I think that’s probably where that passion comes from. I don’t know how to do it, other than being passionate about it, So, I say to people all the time, if you want an opinion, ask me, because I’ll give you one.I’ve got plenty of opinions, but I think that is my job. To not have an opinion and to not help guide and create you’re abdicating your job I you don’t have an opinion and if you don’t take a position, you don’t campaign for what’s best.

Q20: You’ve had such an amazing career, over 240 films, I’m curious if you have one that sticks out to you because it was an amazing experience, or that sticks out to you for reasons that might not be so obvious?

A20: I mention ‘Dunkirk,’ I love Dunkirk, if only because of finding so many guys and it was very un-Chris-like, even though it was told in 3 different time frames, because he can’t help himself. I read it, and the process with Chris is that I’m one of the first people to read the script when he finishes. He’ll call and tell me to come over and read the script, I do, and then he comes in afterwards and says, ‘What do you think?’and “Who do you think?’ And when he walked in after ‘Dunkirk’ I said to him, ‘It’s a sweet love letter to England,’ and he said, ‘Yeah. It is.’ It’s a very different emotional thing for Chris to write that. “Inception’ I love. I love ‘The Offer.” I’m really proud of ‘The Offer, ‘ the mini-series that he did about the making of ‘The Godfather.’ I think it’s cast really, really well, and we tried not to just do ‘The Sopranos’ casting, So, we worked a lot of different ways to do that. Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” I’d known all those guys since college. They called me and said, “We shot this little thing on a video and we’re going to try to make a pilot. Will you help us?” I said, ‘Yeah, Sure.” So I was in the first season of “Sunny.” I love “The Madison,” something very emotional that Taylor doesn’t really write all the time. He’s a very masculine writer, not necessarily writing women. In fact, when you ask Taylor Sheridan how he writes women, he’ll say, ‘I write them just like men.’ And I think “The Madison” is very different, and I love it. Because I’m proud of all of those casts. I had a different relationship with each of them. “Life Itself” is another movie that nobody talks about—a Dan Fogelman movie—I thought it was very beautiful, and it got no love. But that having been said, my relationship with all of my movies is to employ actors and watch them do what they do. And helping a director create art.

Q21: This is really my last actor question: Are there one or two pieces of advice you could offer for the actors here who are doing those self-tapes?

A21: At Florida State I taught a class about acting for the camera and after the semester was over and I thought about it, I thought, ‘If there was one thing I could give those student actors, it would be confidence.’ It’s telling that I started this interview with a story about how I didn’t have confidence, myself,as an actor, but if there’s one thing, it truly is confidence: it separates the wheat from the chaff. You feel it in the room. I used to tell my students that, before an audition, they ought to go in the bathroom and do a Superman pose in the mirror: whatever it takes for you to feel confident when you walk in the room. Producers feel it. Directors feel it. They don’t want Nervous Nelly on the set with them.And it doesn’t mean being cocky. It means finding that peace within you that you’re confident. If it’s something that you love to do, take any opportunity to do it. I think that’s it. Certainly be smart about choices; certainly make choices. Certainly have multiple choices in your head. I’ve always found it alarming that actors will come in and they’ll be given the grace to do it again and they’ll do it exactly the same way. It’s not about doing it differently from A to Z. It’s not about being a weirdo. It’s about being smart and a professional. Choices and confidence is what I would give everybody as advice.

Q22: Beyond casting, you’ve created an art facility, The Salon at Automatic Sweat, I’m curious if collecting art and curating art is sort of curatorial.

A22: I think so. I guess so. I think back to where that even came from, It’s fascinating to me. Most of my collection, if they are portraits, the faces blur and I think it is an off-shoot of seeing so many tapes all day long. I love the idea of it. In my collection, it’s like the memory of a face, but the faces are almost eradicated. (His wife pointed it out.) I think it speaks to so much of my inner life. So much of what I do all day long is judge, judge, judge. It’s very hard to turn it off and a piece of art that I love, I don’t have to judge it, I can enjoy it. And I think that’s the same when I show artists, which is seeking out stuff that I enjoy,

Q23:You split your time between Nashville and L.A. Do you find that splitting your time that way gives you a different perspective, and what do you make of Nashville’s growth in those areas?

A23: It certainly has changed my perspective of the business. Again, they might like to hear it; they might not. The rest of the world does not care about the things that L.A. and the business, per se, has prioritized. And that is hard to break through, to get them to hear that, because they are surrounded by it. When I live here, they hear Chris Nolan’s name and they don’t care. They hear Taylor Sheridan and they say, “You do what?” I think that’s the reality of the world, and you are creating entertainment for everybody and the demographics of ‘you gotta have this’ and “you gotta have that’ (in a movie) and I say, “Guys: the rest of the world doesn’t give a shit about this.” And so it’s changed my perspective a lot about that. I’m thrilled for Nashville trying to embrace the business and grow, I think it’s a sad reality that California has lost so much of the entertainment business. I’d rather see business go just around the United States and not to Canada or England just because of tax credits and opportunities.

Q24 (Audience): In the casting of Elliot Page in “The Odyssey” was it you or was it Christopher Nolan saw something there that would benefit the movie?

A24: I’m glad that you thought it was a positive…I’m assuming that. It’s sad to me that this world is in a place where it’s at where an artist gets attacked, and not only Elliot, or Lupita, but Chris as a filmmaker. We’re making art. We’re making paintings, We’re not making political statements. The nonsense that it should have been this or it should have been that. Are you going to walk by the Mona Lisa and say, “Oh! She should have been smiling.” It’s insane, and I think it’s a divisive statement of our times which is not fair to anybody. Elliot came up—I’ll give credit where it’s due—Kelly Bush is his publicist and she asked, ‘Is there anything for Elliot in the movie?’ And we all thought about it for a minute and then it struck us that Sinon was the weakest among the characters in the story, and that he didn’t want to go to war. (I’m going to get emotional about this) And he went.And we thought there was something really special about Elliot playing that role. I said a couple of weeks ago, ‘I wish it were a tad more emotional. I wish he were screaming in pain outside of that Trojan Horse, but I thought it was a lovely moment and I just cast it,

A.I.

The last audience question was about the use of A.I. in movies. Papsidera came out in favor of live characters, saying “It’s innate.” He added “I think that replacing human beings with computer images mimicking human beings is not something I want to see. But, then, I’m not a big cartoon guy, I’m a grown ass man. “ He admitted that he didn’t know enough about it. “It’s a horror in some ways. It’s a horror in a lot of ways. It started at camp fires with cavemen telling stories. It’s why we go into a dark hall with flickering images telling stories.” Papsidera did acknowledge that there might be budgetary advantages.

MOST HOPEFUL ABOUT THE INDUSTRY?

Audience question: What are you feeling most hopeful about?

Answer: “Do you know me? I tend to be a half glass guy. I am hopeful that maybe stories break through and people return to personal stories in independent films and that we see the last of…I don’t want numbered films…I don’t watch a lot of 2’s, 3’s and 4’s. (sequels). I hope that it turns to storytelling and less product being made, but they’ve opened the gates to the guys who care about data and algorithms and not really telling stories that shape your lives. I hope that people will return to telling stories that matter and thatshape our lives. Those are things that shape human beings. I don’t find that in Avengers #6.”

Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer:” Instant Classic

By Connie Wilson

On July 30, 2023

In Uncategorized

Oppenheimer, c. 1944

Roughly one-half of the movie “Oppenheimer” focuses on the unjust way Robert J. Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, was persecuted after he performed so spectacularly in heading up Los Alamos and giving the United States the atomic bomb to end World War II in Japan. Oppenheimer was denied a security clearance during kangaroo court hearings in 1954, which basically meant he could no longer work in his field. He continued to lecture, but he was ruined.

Director Christopher Nolan has made one of the—if not THE—most important film in a very important career. This $100 million depiction of how the United States came to create the atomic bomb at Los Alamos is a dense subject. The movie was based on the 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning book “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer” by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin (2005). Prometheus, of course, was the god who gave fire to mankind. For his crime he was chained to a rock and a vulture ate his liver each day, which grew back each night.

There are so many characters in the book and it appears that Nolan has attempted to wrap his creative mind around all of them and present every character onscreen. I applaud him for taking the dense text and transforming it into this three-hour epic film. The “L.A. Times” critic said: “Arguably Nolan’s most impressive work yet in the way it combines his acknowledged visual mastery with one of the deepest character dives in recent American cinema.”

At three hours, it’s a long film.

It’s deep, all right.

I felt fairly dense myself after trying to follow all of the twists and turns in the plot. I was especially ill-prepared when it comes to quantum physics, having dropped out of Physics in high school after two days. (That act was almost a replay of “Peggy Sue Got Married” where Kathleen Turner gets up from an algebra test and announces that she happens to know that she will never need this stuff in the future.)

VISUALLY

The movie, shot on 70 mm film, has stunning imagery, especially in the early parts. (Later sections that deal with the security clearance hearings in offices are more black-and-white). I was immediately reminded of the sweeping panoramas of filmmakers like Terrence Malick (“Days of Heaven,” “Tree of Life”), or David Lean (“Dr. Zhivago”), or Stanley Kubrick (“2001: A Space Odyssey”). No less a movie maven than author David Morrell commented on the different color palettes employed throughout the film.

The movie does not show the actual dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed 220,000 people, but, instead, gives us the test explosion in New Mexico, called Trinity. Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema deserves Oscar nominations for his work. I disagree with the critic who said you didn’t need to see this one on the IMAX big screen. If ever there was an argument for IMAX, a film like this is it. (Last one I shelled out for IMAX treatment was the remake of “West Side Story.”)

If I may wander from the actual film’s words for a moment, supposedly Oppenheimer’s brother, Frank, also a nuclear physicist (who was also hounded from the field) said that his brother’s words after the test were, “I guess it works.” That is not in the film. But the lines that do appear, with Matt Damon and others articulating them, describe the after-effects of the Trinity test blast. Says a witness to the Trinity blast, “I hope you learned something.” To which Matt Damon’s character responds, “We learned we’re going to need to be lots further away!”

That’s about as close to humor as this film will get.

CAST

Cillian Murphy, who visually resembles Oppenheimer (and was actually up for the lead role in a previous Oppenheimer treatment), has worked with Nolan on 6 films. He uses his preternaturally large blue eyes to good advantage in portraying this tortured genius. Murphy supposedly subsisted on a diet of fruits, nuts and figs and very little else to keep the elfin stature of the real man intact throughout filming. In real life, Oppenheimer was said to often forget to eat, so that seems apropos.

The number of Oscar-winning or nominated actors in the film is a tribute to the director’s stature. I will probably accidentally omit someone, but Robert Downey, Jr., is bound to be an Oscar nominee for his pivotal role as Lewis Strauss, the two-faced politician who set Oppenheimer up for ruin because of personal animus and Cillian Murphy comes into his own as a leading man.

Others in the cast include Josh Hartnett in a welcome return to form, Gary Oldman, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Conti (who plays Einstein), Matthew Modine, Alden Ehrenreich, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Tony Goldwyn, James D’Arcy, Jason Clarke and Matt Damon. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some of the bigger “name” actors or actresses, but the wealth of talent is very deep when you’re casting an Oscar winner like Malek in a small part. All of the actors complimented Nolan, the mastermind. Some critics have mentioned the relatively meager parts for women, as opposed to the meatier male roles. This “it’s a man’s world” depiction is true to the period, however.

Personally, I related to the four-times married Kitty (Emily Blunt), shown at her wit’s end with two squalling toddlers and stuck in the quickly thrown-together town built for the Manhattan Project scientists in Los Alamos. She mentions that there is “no kitchen” upon being shown the house for the first time.

Oppenheimer had his hands full with prima donna scientists who constantly quit or are in conflict, but Kitty was stuck in the house with two extremely colicky kids. Baby Peter is even taken to a friend’s house by his father when his constant crying becomes too much for the couple. Younger daughter Katherine (“Toni”), who was born at Los Alamos in November of 1944 is only seen as an infant in the film. She grew up and studied to be a United Nations interpreter but was denied a security clearance because of her father’s fifties security clearance hearings. This was 10 years after Oppenheimer’s 1967 death from throat cancer. In 1977, after that denial, Toni—who had inherited the St. Thomas cottage where her parents lived in later life, hanged herself. She left the family cottage and grounds to St. Thomas for the use of the public.

PERSONAL LIVES

Oppenheimer was a World Class womanizer. Matt Damon has an exchange with Oppenheimer where he says, “You’re a dilettante, you’re a womanizer, unstable, theatrical, neurotic!” Oppenheimer’s affair with Florence Pugh (virtually unrecognizable with dark hair) portraying paramour Jean Tatlock causes much conflict in the film. The couple see each other shortly after Oppenheimer’s second child is born.

A troubled soul who ultimately committed suicide, Jean Tatlock WAS a Communist. This bit of personal information on Oppenheimer’s affair was brought out during the 1954 kangaroo court hearings with Oppenheimer’s wife Kitty (Emily Blunt) sitting there to hear it, as Oppenheimer is interrogated by Jason Clarke (“Pet Semetary”). Still, Kitty and J. Robert stayed together.

Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey, Jr.) pretended, to Oppenheimer’s face, to be a friend. He was as two-faced as they come and set Oppenheimer up for his fall, out of vindictive animus. Strauss (who was angling to become the Secretary of Commerce) felt he had been held up to ridicule during testimony that Oppenheimer gave. One dispute was over the exporting of radioactive isotopes to Sweden. The testimony used in the screenplay showed Oppenheimer saying that radioactive isotopes were “less important than electronic devices, but more important than, let us say, vitamins.” In the screenplay the comparison became “a bottle of beer.”

Another change from reported wording seemed to be in what President Truman (portrayed by Gary Oldman) actually said after meeting with Oppenheimer in the Oval Office. In the movie, Oppenheimer tells Truman that he feels he has “blood on his hands.” This is because of how conflicted Oppenheimer is regarding the death of 220,000 Japanese civilians when the bomb was dropped. Oppenheimer is urging (somewhat naively) international cooperation on the use of nuclear weapons, with an entity like the United Nations in charge. The generals and the Army and the politicians do not see it his way.

Truman, during a visit with Oppenheimer in the Oval Office, hands him a handkerchief after his comment about regulating nuclear weapons internationally and then, when Oppenheimer walks out of the Oval Office, tells his Undersecretary of State, Dean Acheson, “I don’t want to see that son-of-a-bitch in this office ever again.” In the movie, the script has Truman saying, “Don’t let that crybaby back in here.” The profanity is probably more accurate, because Truman was known for his salty language. (They didn’t call him “give-’em- hell-Harry” for nothing.)

MORAL VACILLATION

Oppenheimer vacillated over his feelings of guilt over the deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the dropping of the bomb he created.

After the successful drop. The screenplay has him telling a jubilant room full of Los Alamos employees, “It’s too soon to determine the results of the bombing, but I’ll bet the Japanese didn’t like it. I just wish we had had it to use against the Germans.”

At another point in the plot, this line appears, “Nobody knows what you believe. Do you?”

Repeated throughout the piece, however, is this refrain: “Just because we’re building it doesn’t mean that we get to decide how it is used.”

Matt Damon’s character, General Leslie Groves, tells Oppenheimer, “We’ve given them an Ace. It’s for them to play the hands.” Another repetition of this thought: “The fact that we built this bomb does not give us the right or responsibility to determine how it is used.” All of these lines seemed to be justifications. After all, Oppenheimer was the American Prometheus, “the man who gave the Americans the ability to destroy themselves.” As Nolan says at another point in the screenplay which he wrote, “The day will come when people will curse the name Los Alamos.”

MUSIC

Leslie Goranssen’s music has been singled out as one of the best scores of the year (Oscar?.) Terms like “masterful” and “mercurial” were used. I kept noticing how many of the scenes that had subtle background music would be totally unremarkable without his musical contribution. The use of stamping feet was unique and original.

OVERALL

For tension, structure, sense of scale, startling sound design (very impressive when viewed in IMAX) and remarkable visuals—not to mention the superb cast of actors—this one is going to be hard to beat. Yes, it is overlong and dense and made me feel woefully inadequate to understand the quantum physics discussed, but phrases like “Power exists in the shadows” were universal and I had to agree with the remark attributed to Wernher von Braun, who said, of Oppenheimer’s poor treatment by Lewis Strauss and the bureaucracy, “In England, Oppenheimer would have been knighted.”

On a personal level, since Wehrner Von Braun of Hitler’s rocket program ultimately ended up in Iowa City, Iowa (my alma mater) for the remainder of his life after fleeing Nazi Germany, I thoroughly agree.

I have personally met and spoken with at least five of the actors/actresses onscreen in “Oppenheimer” at various film festivals, those being Gary Oldman (in Chicago for “Soldier, Sailor, Tinker, Spy” in 2011), Kenneth Branagh (in Chicago with “Belfast” in 2021), Casey Affleck (in Chicago with “Gone, Baby, Gone” in 2007), Emily Blunt, in Austin at SXSW for “A Quiet Place” (2018), and Jason Clarke at SXSW for the remake of “Pet Sematary” (2019).

It seems fitting to end the review of this extraordinary film with the quotation from the Bhagavad Gita that Oppenheimer repeats, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” Hits Theaters

By Connie Wilson

On September 14, 2020

In Local, Movies, Reviews

Director Christopher Nolan started tinkering around with the concept of time many years ago on a much smaller budget with 2000’s “Memento.” I liked it so much that, on a visit to the Twin Cities, I took a girlfriend and her husband to see it, my second time. It was unique, original, interesting, exciting and it didn’t run 150 minutes. It was even nominated for Best Original Screenplay at that year’s Oscars.

We’ve now been treated to “Memento’s” successors from Christopher Nolan: “Insomnia (2002); “The Dark Knight Trilogy” (2005-2012); “The Prestige” (2006); “Inception” (2010 (8 Oscar nods); “Interstellar” (2014); and Dunkirk (2017) (nominated for Best Picture and Best Director). No less an authority than Martin Scorsese said, “Christopher Nolan creates beautifully made films on a big scale.”

Nowhere is that scale more evident than in “Tenet,” which was budgeted at $205 million. It filmed in Estonia, Italy, the UK, Denmark, India, Norway, and cities such as Kiev, Mumbai, Washington, London, and Oslo.

The battle action scenes recall “Dunkirk.” The espionage plot summons memories of “Inception.” A whole lot of people talking through masks echoes “Bane” in The Dark Knight Rises.” (We learn that the reason so many people are wearing masks is that, if you go back through time, you have to take your own air and try not to come into contact with your former self.)

Oddly enough, I actually wrote an entire novel for Lachesis Press (Nova Scotia) where the hero travels back through time (“Out of Time”). The original plot premise was not mine, but a collaborator’s, who then disappeared, writing only one page of the entire two hundred and fifty and giving a whole new meaning to the term “collaboration.”

Time travel as a theme presented many unique difficulties (which I was on my own to figure out). Considering that I dropped out of Physics in high school after Day One, imagine how thrilled I was to read about wormholes and other arcane concepts. Even though I was a fan of television’s “Fringe” when it was on the air, love the works of Philip K. Dick, and have watched numerous films where characters travel through time (“Time After Time,” “Déjà Vu,” “Looper,” “Somewhere in Time,” “12 Monkeys,” et. al.). I remember asking that very question of my instructor in a screenwriting class dedicated to turning my novel into a film script.

“Can a person from the future confront himself in the past?” I asked.

My professor said, “Nobody has ever traveled through time, so do whatever you want.”

Wise words.

My hero (Dante) did confront and speak to himself in the past, and I will reveal one tiny spoiler by telling you that John David Washington confronts himself in a fight scene, because I know that revelation will not ruin the scene for you.

Playing around with time is not a new concept for Nolan. “Memento,” his break-through film, did just that. However, it was far easier to understand what was going on in “Memento” than it is in “Tenet.”

My notes include this phrase: “Color me confused.”

One critic, in a waggish moment, commented on John David Washington’s facial hair by saying that it probably grew there while he was waiting for Nolan to explain the plot to him. The script line I wrote down indicated that the plot has to do with trying to prevent WW III by using a type of inverse radiation manufactured by fusion. (If that confuses you, join the club.) Another film critic, Mark Keronode, said of Nolan that he is “living proof that you don’t have to appeal to the lowest common denominator to be profitable.”

This, as it turns out, is predictive, as the film has already managed to eke out two and one-half million more dollars than it cost. But it is not the entertaining, original film that garnered Best Original Screenplay Oscar nominations for Nolan. World-wide, the film has made back its considerable investment. It had the potential to be a studio-bankrupting movie like “Heaven’s Gate,” but it is garnering appreciation for the scope of the project, at least, and is currently about breaking even, with a worldwide take of $207,500,000.

I’m not going to explain the opening scene, set in the Kiev Opera House, because to do so would be a spoiler, but suffice it to say that it sets up the first of many magnificent settings. I kept thinking of the tour of locations used in “Game of Thrones.” I wish there was such a tour of the various sets used in “Tenet.”

Others have said the non-stop action, coupled with the gobbledy-gook explanation(s), reminded them of a James Bond movie. To them, I say, “Fair enough.” But with Bond you often got memorable musical themes like “Goldfinger’ or “Live and Let Die.” Here we are saddled with a pounding often-overly-loud and not-very-melodic score by Ludwig Goransson. [The composer’s name says it all.]

The cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema is gorgeous and the film does confirm that, as “Variety” said, Nolan is “the premier big-canvas storyteller of his generation.” “Tenet” also confirms Michael Mann’s verdict on Nolan as “a complete auteur” but the overly complicated explanations just bore the bejesus out of the audience.

So, everything is going backwards in this film. We’re going to learn about the Grandfather Paradox (don’t ask) and reversing time and hear lines of dialogue like, “Each generation looks after its own survival,” and “You have a future in the past.” There will be discussions about the meaning that will rival the interpretations of the meaning(s) of the ending of “12 Monkeys” (1995), a Bruce Willis time travel opus.

John David Washington is dubbed “the protagonist” in this one. He gets no actual character name. This bit was just used in another Bruce Willis film (“Hard Kill”) where my podcast guest of last week, Sergio Rizzuto (aka, the bad guy) was simply referred to as “the Pardoner,” but at least in that film the explanation involved ripping off The Canterbury Tales. Here, it is just the way it is, without any explanation.

John David Washington (son of Denzel; star of “BlackKlansman”) partners with Robert Pattinson (“Twilight”) as Neal, his partner, in this one. The female co-star is a blonde 6’ 2” actress named Elisabeth Debicki. Since Washington only stands 5’ 9” and the female lead is three inches taller and wears three inch heels most of the time, she appears freakishly tall in many scenes. I have a theory that she was cast in the part because she was one of the few actresses tall enough to be able to extend her leg from the back seat of a car and unlock the door lock with her toes without moving from the back seat. This could be wrong, but that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Debicki’s character “Kat” is married to international arms dealer and all-around bad guy Richard Branagh as Andrei Sator. She tries to kill him twice. As they say, no love lost here. Kat loathes her abusive husband, but they have a son (Max) and she is being blackmailed into staying with Andrei via threats that she will lose her son if she doesn’t do exactly what he says. On a very basic level, “Tenet” is about the extremes of absolute power.

Debicki displays very little warmth in the exchanges with her small son, and his part is so small that he doesn’t even rate a line. There is also no chemistry or love story between the Amazonian Kat and Washington, so the obligatory “I must go back through time to rescue Kat” struck me as a not-very-convincing old trope. For that matter, so was the “small weapon that can inexplicably end the world somehow” a concept used before.

I had just reviewed a Bruce Willis shot-in-Cincinnati movie (“Hard Kill”) in which there is a mysterious weapon that could end the world as we know it; the weapon was about the size of a pack of cigarettes. I complained then that how it worked was never clear and commented on its size. This film features another small weapon and the need to gather all the digits of an algorithm to activate whatever it does, which is never quite clear, although it is explained to us over and over and over.

“Tenet” spends roughly two hours of its 150-minute run time explaining what is happening, why it is happening, and what might happen next.

So much for “Show, don’t tell.”

Despite those lengthy explanations, the movie is still incredibly difficult to follow. Scene after scene of Washington, Pattinson, Branagh, and Debicki trying to convey the plot becomes exhausting.

It’s “Tenet’s” biggest failing and, while its cinematography, sets, most of its actig and its non-stop action are impressive (especially the highway chase scenes that run backwards), it comes off as an overlong exhausting effort.