CHENNAI : Christopher Nolan’s 2023 magnum opus Oppenheimer was not merely a blockbuster, but part of a cultural obsession that engulfed the world last year. A cinematic masterpiece – that explores the life of J Robert Oppenheimer, the ‘father of the atomic bomb’, and his struggle to reconcile scientific breakthrough with its devastating consequences — the making of the blockbuster was nearly as fraught as the Manhattan Project itself. Recently in Bengaluru, Kai Bird, co-author of the Pulitzer-winning American Prometheus, on which the film is based, recalls the decades-long, ‘production hell’ that the project had to overcome.
“Even before it won the Pulitzer, it caught the attention of a major Hollywood director and was optioned for adaptation,” Kai recounts, adding, “Marty (Sherwin; co-author) and I were thrilled; it’s not every day a 720-page book gets this opportunity. Four years passed, a script was written, but it turned out to be rather dull. That attempt fell through, and another party took over the rights.”
The years ticked by, punctuated by disappointing scripts. “The feedback was that it was too historical, complex, and controversial. Plus, they questioned who had ever heard of Oppenheimer,” says Kai wryly. One particular Hollywood attempt at making the subject more ‘interesting’ didn’t go well with the authors. “Marty and I found that script so flawed that we compiled a memo detailing 108 historical inaccuracies,” he shares, adding that it included bizarre elements like a ghost reciting poetry and a hallucinatory scene where Oppenheimer imagines poisoning physicist Edward Teller.
It was only in 2021, nearly 15 years after American Prometheus first evoked Hollywood interest, that the duo heard that Christopher Nolan’s next project would be about Oppenheimer. “We weren’t sure if it would be based on our book. Following inquiries by our agent, I received a call for a meeting with Nolan. He was unlike any other Hollywood director I’d met — down-to-earth and intelligent in a quiet intimidating fashion,” Kai recalls, adding, “He mentioned reading our book in March 2021 and writing a 200-page screenplay over the next five months. The meeting left Marty and I optimistic. But tragically, he passed away soon after, never meeting Nolan, but aware that the film might finally materialise.”
What did Kai think when he finally got to see the film? “I was deeply moved. Nolan had accepted two of my suggestions, and the film was a major artistic achievement and quite faithful to the book. Watching it alone, I was brought to tears, thinking of what Marty would have thought of it,” shares the 72-year-old, who stresses the story’s deep contemporary resonance. “Sam Altman, a pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence, recently suggested that we are on the verge of another ‘Oppenheimer moment’. What he means is that we should be trying to regulate this new tech and wrestle with some philosophical problems it represents. Exactly the way Oppenheimer was trying to wrestle with the introduction of the atomic age,” he shares, adding, “Oppenheimer wanted us to pay attention to scientists. Unfortunately, because of what happened to him during the McCarthy period, it sent a message to all scientists to not get out of their narrow lane of expertise. Don’t pretend to be a public intellectual, don’t talk about politics or policy because they could come after you and destroy you. As a consequence, we have very few public intellectuals who are full-blown scientists. That’s incredible since we’re in a world drenched in tech and science.”
Meanwhile, Kai spent a few of his formative years as a teenager in south India. Speaking of his experience about being back in Bengaluru, Bird says, “It is great being back for the first time after 1968. I actually spent the last two years of my high school at the Kodaikanal (International) School in Tamil Nadu and it is terrific to be able to revisit south India. That experience, growing up in the Middle East, and India helped mould me as a journalist and later as a biographer which gave me a multicultural outlook to the world. And that, no doubt, informed my writing.”