All business comes to a halt when a Christopher Nolan film comes to town. His Oppenheimer is finally here after much hype—and it’s expectedly impressive in conception and craft. As an Indian viewer exposed to our biopics that thrive in romanticisation and deification, I was struck and surprised by the refusal of this film to valourise the man on whom the film is based: Dr J Robert Oppenheimer. It’s important to remember that this film is wholly funded by American companies, distributed by an American company, and made by a half-American filmmaker. This American film’s objective is to capture the psyche of Oppenheimer, a pivotal figure behind one of the most significant moments in American history: The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Given that even recent surveys show that most Americans believe the bombings to be justified and to have caused World War 2 to end, there was tremendous interest to see how a filmmaker of the stature of Nolan would approach his first-ever biopic—one based on the life of the father of the atomic bomb, no less.
The film wins on several counts. First, the obvious. It does not celebrate the bombings, as you might expect. What’s a more impressive win is how it captures the American pride around it as a detached observer. In a scene just after the twin bombings, watch Oppenheimer (an incredible Cillian Murphy) being the toast of the nation while his admirers fawn over him. The film processes all the maniacal cheering as a deranged expression, while Oppenheimer is shown in a daze, not exactly in control of the words that seem to be flowing through him. Should Oppenheimer have stopped the bombings? Did he regret taking over The Manhattan Project? And the crucial question of them all, how must we judge him? The film doesn’t slap its judgments but offers helpful hints (“Genius is no guarantee of wisdom”). It simply shows Oppenheimer’s conflict… and allows us to process his pride and patriotism, his regret and vulnerability, his competence and comeuppance… and make our judgments, if we must. Through this, it allows us to process his humanity, flaws and all, and the most important lesson: That the world isn’t black or white and that sometimes, people are forced to choose between two frightful choices.
All of this nuance, this exploration of grey, starkly contrasts Indian cinema’s general treatment of biopics. We seek to celebrate and deify; we seek to sell heroism, not humanity. Where a film like Oppenheimer draws out the human from the ‘hero’, our biopics reduce the human to a ‘hero’. Our cameras often revolve around the biopic protagonist in reverence and awe—like in Shabhaash Mithu (the biopic of cricketer Mithali Raj). We make a biopic of a tortured personality like Savitri (Mahanati), but we are reluctant to show her as anything less than an angel parading on earth (as indicated by a constant aura around Keerthy Suresh in the film). We make a film about J Jayalalithaa (Thalaivi), a politician who has her share of admirers and detractors, but the story conveniently ends before her big mistakes occur. We chart the achievements of Nambi Narayanan (Rocketry: The Nambi Effect), but we flinch from touching the uncomfortable dynamics at his home. Sanju, MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, Azhar, the list of biopics that whitewash the protagonist’s story is endless. Any fall that occurs in the narrative for the protagonist is often just a tool to amp up the heroism and not a real attempt at exploring their flaws or humanity.
Is this a natural consequence of hero worship? Has our ability to tolerate ‘human protagonists’ also been altered by the influx of superhero cinema—in which stories are just a collection of ‘mass moments’ designed to get a collective cheer? A real shocker during my experience of watching Oppenheimer was when a large section of the audience clapped and celebrated the scene when the Trinity test detonation occurs, and Oppenheimer mutters, in meditative melancholy, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” This isn’t a hero moment at all, quite the contrary, but it didn’t seem to matter for an audience that had waited a long time looking for something to clap at. Is this why our biopics—and generally our films—are eager to sell easy heroism? There’s a bigger question here. Is heroism uttering a line from the Bhagavad Gita as the detonation of an atom bomb occurs? Or is it hanging your head in remorse at realising the consequences?
A deeper understanding of people and their fallibility—in reality or in biopics—requires empathy and, more importantly, patience, which seems now in such short supply. For the patient, the three-hour Nolan film is a breeze; it might feel like a never-ending series of dry conversations for the easily distracted. None of this is to absolve Nolan’s Oppenheimer from any legitimate criticism. For instance, the film doesn’t concern itself with the damaging aftermath of the Trinity test; there’s little place for women in the film; the personal relationships aren’t exactly etched out well. However, as a biopic, there’s plenty in it for us to learn from. But we don’t seem too fussed about this. Instead, I already notice that the rising complaint about this film concerns using a Bhagavad Gita line in a bedroom scene. Oh well, normal business seems to have resumed.
Sudhir Srinivasan
Executive Editor, Entertainment
(sudhir.sreenivasan@gmail.com)