Interviews - Cast and Crew
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Quick question since you’re very knowledgeable about these events… had Strauss and Oppenheimer known each other even before the Manhattan Project started? I haven’t fully read up on the story so I just assumed that Strauss only came into the picture after the bombs had been dropped and the trails started, I have no idea on if Strauss and Oppenheimer had actually met before that period of timephysicshistoryguy wrote: ↑July 7th, 2023, 8:29 pmThis has been the most intriguing interview so far, in my opinion.
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Well I think it's first important to note that Strauss had dipped his toe into the nuclear story a couple times before he met Oppenheimer. His parents had died of cancer in the mid-1930s, which motivated him to fund nuclear physicists with the hope that they could use their research for cancer treatment (Leo Szilard, later one of the key scientists of the Manhattan Project, was one of them). Later, after the war and as a naval officer, he made the proposal to nuke a fleet of ships to demonstrate to the world that the Navy was still relevant in an atomic world (this would become Operation Crossroads). But Strauss only enters Oppenheimer's story at the end of 1946 (actually, American Prometheus says that the two had met once shortly before the end of the war, but it must've been an inconsequential meeting and I know nothing about it) when he offered Oppenheimer the directorship of Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study (Strauss was one of the Institute's trustees). This is also around the time Strauss becomes one of the Atomic Energy Commission's first commissioners; Oppenheimer is appointed to the AEC's advisory committee the next year, so their relationship also develops that way. So your assumption was essentially correct! Although the trial took place eight years later, long enough for there to be bad blood between the two.KEM wrote: ↑July 7th, 2023, 8:44 pmQuick question since you’re very knowledgeable about these events… had Strauss and Oppenheimer known each other even before the Manhattan Project started? I haven’t fully read up on the story so I just assumed that Strauss only came into the picture after the bombs had been dropped and the trails started, I have no idea on if Strauss and Oppenheimer had actually met before that period of timephysicshistoryguy wrote: ↑July 7th, 2023, 8:29 pmThis has been the most intriguing interview so far, in my opinion.
Also, I wouldn't say I'm very knowledgeable about this stuff; I've just read some books on the nuclear story enough times that I remember some things and can quickly check anything I've forgotten.
I guess the movie will get quite personal with the Lewis Strauss character
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Although Nolan is usually, shall we say, antiseptic in his approach to romance, Oppenheimer represents a significant shift. He told Wired the love story aspect “is as strong as I’ve ever done”. It features prolonged full nudity for Murphy and Florence Pugh, who plays Oppenheimer’s ex-fiancee, as well as sex, and there are complicated scenes with Emily Blunt, who plays his wife, “that were pretty heavy”. Murphy turns coy: “I’m under strict instructions not to give away anything.”
