"Oppenheimer" is a 3-hour epic about the life of J Robert Oppenheimer.
"The film bends time by blending Oppenheimer's 1954 security clearance revocation hearing with the 1957 Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the nomination of former AEC chairman Lewis Strauss. Christopher Nolan flips back and forth from Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing to the Commerce Committee public hearing, as if they are being held contemporaneously. All of the committee scenes are shot in black and white, with the clear intent to cast the Strauss hearing as a comeuppance moment in the vein of the McCarthy v Joe Welch's Army hearing, in which Welch said:"You have done enough.
Oppenheimer is assured that just asking the question means he isn't a bad person thus absolving Oppenheimer of the moral guilt he clearly never had. While married, Oppenheimer met up with former lover and always communist Jean Tatlock for sex.
At the tail end of the movie General Leslie Groves, the man who oversaw the Manhattan Project, admits during Oppenheimer's security clearance hearing that Oppenheimer would not be granted a security clearance based on the 1954 guidelines.
"Oppenheimer"s final act demonizes Lewis Strauss and lionizes Oppenheimer.
Strauss is cast as the antagonist, because why not? Strauss and Oppenheimer didn't agree on how to deal with the Soviets' nuclear buildup.
Kennedy didn't cast his no vote because he was upset over Strauss' opinions about Oppenheimer.
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