Oppenheimer’s controversial sex scene is actually crucial to its bomb sequence
People are mad about J. Robert Oppenheimer. It’s not because of his work as director of the Manhattan Project, or even his leftist politics and ties to the Communist Party. This time, it’s because of Oppenheimer, the new biopic from Christopher Nolan — specifically the sex scene between Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) and his real-life partner Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh).
The scene scans as a bit hokey, perhaps because of Nolan’s long-standing directorial impulse to present most things as straightforwardly as possible: Tatlock and Oppenheimer are having sex. His heart doesn’t seem in it, and she stops, grabs his copy of the Bhagavad Gita off his shelf, straddles him, and asks him to read the Sanskrit aloud. Then she returns to having sex with him as he reads, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
This quote is, of course, important later in the movie. It’s what the real Oppenheimer said ran through his mind during the first detonation of the atomic bomb, something Oppenheimer depicts in recreating that test. In a way, this scene (which is, no matter how you slice it, a lot) feels not unlike the “Han Solo” scene in Solo or how Indy got his hat and whip. But there’s more to it — and, importantly, more to how these two moments from Oppenheimer inform each other.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Oppenheimer — to the extent there are any in a historical drama.]
As Nolan takes great pains to communicate when portraying the Trinity test, the scientists at Los Alamos surprised even themselves with the destructive power of the bomb. It’s hefty subject matter, but Nolan keeps the focus relatively tight. Even while surveying the varying reactions scientists and soldiers have to that first test detonation,
Read more on polygon.com
