Oppenheimer
Christopher Nolan wrote and directed Oppenheimer, a 2023 epic biographical thriller film. It stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist dubbed the “father of the atomic bomb” for his participation in the Manhattan Project, the World War II project that created the first nuclear weapon. Based on Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s 2005 biography American Prometheus, the film follows Oppenheimer’s career, with a focus on his studies, direction of the Manhattan Project during World War II, and eventual fall from grace as a result of his 1954 security hearing.
The film also includes Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer’s wife “Kitty,” Matt Damon as Manhattan Project chief Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, and Florence Pugh as Oppenheimer’s communist girlfriend Jean Tatlock. Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh make up the ensemble supporting cast.
Plot
In 1926, 22-year-old PhD student J. Robert Oppenheimer struggles with anxiety and homesickness while studying under experimental physicist Patrick Blackett at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge. Oppenheimer is upset with Blackett’s attitude and leaves him a poisoned apple, which he later collects. Visiting physicist Niels Bohr recommends that Oppenheimer pursue theoretical physics at the University of Göttingen instead.
Oppenheimer finishes his PhD there and meets fellow scientist Isidor Isaac Rabi. They later met theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg in Switzerland. Oppenheimer begins lecturing at the University of California, Berkeley, and the California Institute of Technology, with the goal of expanding quantum physics research in the US. He marries Katherine “Kitty” Puening, a scientist and former communist, and has an intermittent romance with Jean Tatlock, a disturbed communist who later appears to have killed herself.
Nuclear fission is found in December 1938, and Oppenheimer recognizes its potential for weaponization. During World War II, U.S. Army Colonel Leslie Groves appoints Oppenheimer as head of the Manhattan Project, which aims to produce an atomic weapon. Oppenheimer, who is Jewish, is primarily concerned that the German nuclear research program, commanded by Heisenberg, would produce a fission weapon for the Nazis.
He assembles a team at Los Alamos Laboratory that includes Rabi, Hans Bethe, and Edward Teller, as well as physicists Enrico Fermi, Leo Szilard, and David L. Hill from the University of Chicago. Teller’s calculations show that an atomic bomb may set off a catastrophic chain reaction that would burn the atmosphere and destroy the Earth. After consulting Albert Einstein, Oppenheimer decides that the chances are acceptable. Teller tries to leave the project after his idea to build a hydrogen bomb is denied, but Oppenheimer persuades him to stay.
Following Adolf Hitler’s death in 1945, several Project scientists raised questions about the bomb’s significance through the Szilárd petition; Oppenheimer believes it would finish the Pacific War and save lives.
The Trinity test is successful, and President Harry S. Truman authorizes the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which prompts Japan to surrender. Despite widespread plaudits, Oppenheimer is disturbed by the huge damage and deaths. He subsequently sees Truman, and after expressing his own remorse, Truman berates Oppenheimer because he holds himself accountable for the choice to deploy the bomb. Oppenheimer advocates limiting future nuclear weapons development, which Truman rejects.
Oppenheimer’s position as an advisor to the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) sparks debate, while Teller’s hydrogen bomb rekindles interest in the expanding Cold War. AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss resents Oppenheimer for humiliating him publicly by rejecting his worries about exporting radioisotopes and suggesting discussions with the Soviet Union after they successfully exploded a bomb of their own.
Strauss surreptitiously orchestrates a private security hearing before a Personnel Security Board about Oppenheimer’s Q clearance in 1954, hoping to neutralize his political influence. However, it becomes evident that the hearing’s conclusion is predetermined. Oppenheimer’s previous communist connections are used, and Groves and other associates’ evidence is twisted against him. Teller testifies that he has lost trust in Oppenheimer and proposes revocation. The board revokes Oppenheimer’s clearance, harming his public image and diminishing his influence over nuclear policy.
During Strauss’ Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of Commerce in 1959, Hill spoke about Strauss’ personal reasons in orchestrating Oppenheimer’s demise, prompting the Senate to reject his candidacy. In 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson bestows the Enrico Fermi Award to Oppenheimer as a sign of political rehabilitation. A flashback reveals that Oppenheimer and Einstein never mentioned Strauss during their 1947 talk. Instead, Oppenheimer voiced concern that they had launched a chain reaction—a nuclear weapons race—that would eventually kill the globe.
Killers of the Flower Moon
Martin Scorsese directed and produced Killers of the Flower Moon, a 2023 American epic Western murder drama film that he co-wrote with Eric Roth based on David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book of the same name. It is set in 1920s Oklahoma and centers on a sequence of killings of Osage Nation members and relations following the discovery of oil on tribe lands. The tribe people kept mining rights on their reserve, but a corrupt local political leader attempted to take their money.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone head an ensemble cast that includes Jesse Plemons, Tantoo Cardinal, John Lithgow, and Brendan Fraser. It is Scorsese’s sixth feature film partnership with DiCaprio, his tenth with De Niro, his second with both stars together, and his eleventh and final with composer Robbie Robertson, who died two months before the film’s premiere. The picture is dedicated to Robertson.
Plot
The plot is centered on the Osages, who found oil in their land and turned to be very rich at the beginning of the twentieth century. Nonetheless, by reason of a statute, they were adjudged as “incompetent” to handle this newfound wealth and assigned white legal guardians.
Ernest Burkhead goes back home after being a veteran of World War I to live with his brother Byron and uncle William King Hale on Hale’s ranch. However, Hale appears as if he is an ally of the Osages but he is secretly directing the killing of rich tribal members so that he can acquire their oil rights. Ernest works as a cab driver and meets Mollie Kyle an Osage woman whose family owns valuable oil rights and marries her. They combine Roman Catholicism with Osage traditions during their wedding ceremony and have three children.
Influencing Ernest, Hale lets him know that if more people from Mollie’s family keep dying; then he could inherit more headrights. Among them are Minnie, her sister, Lizzie her mother and other siblings including Anna. In addition, this panicked the other Osage members. The film includes some scenes from the 1921 Tulsa race massacre that intensifies their fear of similar violence.
Hale continued with his ruthless scheme by ordering for Reta who was Mollie’s last sister in law together with her husband Bill Smith to be assassinated. On his part Hale bungles it thereby necessitating punishment being meted out to him. In spite of obvious crimes, local law enforcement officials refuse to investigate due to Hale’s influence.
Meanwhile Ernest continually poisons Mollie while she is battling diabetes against her will under orders from Hale who presents himself as a friend until she dies. She traveled with a delegation from the Osage tribe seeking President Calvin Coolidge’s help in Washington D.C., even as she was growing sicker each day from diabetes. Thomas Bruce White Sr., an agent of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), was sent to do the investigation. As a result, White arrested Hale and Ernest when he found out the truth.
Furthermore, White also persuaded Ernest that would reveal everything about Hale. Eastern’s account is constant and he tells the truth despite numerous attempts to discredit him on the witness stand while trying to look after his remaining family and lost a daughter to whooping cough. After learning of Ernest’s role in her poisoning Mollie divorces him.
Afterwards, a radio drama recounts what happened next: Ernest and Hale were convicted and they got life sentences before being eventually paroled amid protests from Osage community. Byron escaped jail terms because his case ended in a hung jury. However, due to lack of evidence Shoun brothers who had poisoned them were never charged by any court. Mollie remarries and dies in 1937, buried alongside her family members. In the end of this particular film there is a modern day Osage pow-wow which symbolizes their everlasting spirit as a tribe.