That haul was richly deserved. Nolan pulled off an improbable coup, making a three-hour blockbuster about a physicist who supervised other physicists in the writing of equations. “Oppenheimer” has earned nearly a billion dollars at the box office so far — and rightly been acclaimed as a great work of cinematic art.
The movie’s biggest impact, however, is to make us look at — and think about — history that we’d rather pretend never happened. Its subject, J. Robert Oppenheimer, led the Manhattan Project that created and tested the world’s first nuclear weapons. As Murphy’s portrayal vividly shows, Oppenheimer was haunted by his world-changing accomplishment. He had ensured that the United States and the Allies would win World War II — but at the cost of giving humanity the means to destroy itself.
Oppenheimer was conflicted about arming one nation with just two such weapons. Today, nine countries — the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — combined have thousands of nuclear warheads, many of which are hundreds of times more powerful than the U.S. bombs that claimed over 100,000 lives in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
There are some who argue that nuclear weapons, because of the unthinkable horror of using them, have paradoxically helped keep the peace. But we are at one of those moments when the world is dancing dangerously close to the edge: Russian troops being held at bay by NATO-supplied arms in Ukraine; China threatening a takeover of Taiwan; and Israel conducting an invasion of Gaza that is partly a proxy war against Iran. “Oppenheimer” reminds us how costly one false move could be.
“The Zone of Interest,” which won the Oscar for best international feature, also offered a history lesson with implications for the present day. It depicts the life of the family of the German officer who ran the Auschwitz death camp during the Holocaust. One especially chilling scene shows the commandant’s wife deciding where to plant azaleas in her garden — while on the other side of a thin wall, Jews were being systematically slaughtered on an industrial scale.
It was hard not to see a direct line between “The Zone of Interest” and the recent resurgence of hateful, unapologetic antisemitism. A few years ago, I’d have said that ancient demon was dead and buried. I would have been wrong.
The film’s writer and director, Jonathan Glazer, connected those dots in his acceptance speech. “All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say, ‘Look what they did then,’ rather, ‘what we do now,’” he said. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It’s shaped all of our past and present.”
But Glazer went further, linking his film’s lessons of the past to the ongoing brutality of Israel’s war in Gaza. “Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” he said. “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”
The historical epic that received no love Sunday night was director Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which was nominated in 10 categories but came away empty-handed. Perhaps the film was hurt by its daunting length, 3 hours and 26 minutes. Or maybe its subject — the murders of Native Americans in Oklahoma by White men who stole the Osage Nation’s oil-rich land — hit too close to home.
There was nothing but love, however, for Ken — the doll, as portrayed by Ryan Gosling. The year’s biggest box-office success, “Barbie,” lost to “Oppenheimer” as best picture; and the film’s headliner, Margot Robbie, and director, Greta Gerwig, weren’t even nominated. But Gosling’s performance of “I’m Just Ken,” one of the movie’s songs, was the showstopping highlight of the evening.
It was a kaleidoscopic production number that paid homage to Marilyn Monroe’s performance of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” in “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” but with the “guy” instead of the “gal.” The extravaganza included stars-in-their-own right, Simu Liu and Kingsley Ben-Adir, among the the multitudinous chorus line and rock star Slash playing guitar, while Gosling showcased the song-and-dance chops that fans remember from “La-La Land.”
Being Ken looked like a lot more fun than wrestling with our country’s dark history. Somehow, though, we need to find time and focus for both.
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