Oppenheimer officially ushers in the era of quanxiety
Nolan’s movie reveals more the nightmares of the director than of the protagonist: the anxiety of quantum physics has all the characteristics to become generational.
Nolan’s movies are not easy to follow, both for the topics covered and for the product of intensity and speed of his treatments (in the old classical physics, we would have called it momentum). But they are also the only ones that are really worth seeing in the 21st century. His genius escapes the logic of product re-branding à la Barbie, refuses to bow to the toxic narration of Tarantino’s revenge, and points straight to the point of the matter, at the origin of all evils (ok, and of all goods): quantum physics.
A pièce in 4 movements for quanxiety
His film on Oppenheimer is the last act of this pièce made up of four movements (Inception, Interstellar, Tenet and Oppenheimer itself): a backward performance in his obsessions, which compared to Tenet can use the figure of a great physicist — and the corollary of almost all the greatest that surround him — to dig into his mind, and percolate new fears to add to the catalog of his most sensitive and aware audience. Which so far is only a part, perhaps a small one, of the varied audience of this great film which is also a great film, because Hollywood wanted it that way. This journey in the…
