The Oscars countdown is coming to a close! On the fourteenth episode of All the Film Things, my friend and writer/ director Samy El- Kamel is back to discuss my favorite film of the year, the latest masterpiece by Christopher Nolan: Oppenheimer! This episode is explicit and spoiler- filled.
Oppenheimer, a film that many have considered Christopher Nolan’s “magnum opus”, is an epic biographical drama film based on a true story following J. Robert Oppenheimer, the head of the Manhattan Project, from the making of the atomic bomb to the world he created after making the atomic bomb. While the description of the film makes it seem like a straight biopic, it is very much a Nolan film. This film is based on the book American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. After collaborating on six films together over the past twenty years, this is the first time Nolan cast Murphy in a lead role. The film has an all- star cast, including in addition to Murphy, Robert Downey Jr, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Josh Hartnett, Jason Clarke, and Rami Malek. Oppenheimer received the most nominations (with ten) at this year’s upcoming Oscars, including the award for “Best Picture”. We are a little over a month away to learning how many Oscars Oppenheimer will take home!
Samy is one of my very favorite ATFT guests and this is his sixth appearance on the show. Samy and I are both massive Christopher Nolan fans… which I think the audience will very much pick up on. So much so that we both made sure to see Oppenheimer four times in theaters. There was no one else I could have recorded this episode with. Check out Samy’s Youtube channel Barefoot Python Media to watch his videos including his ranking of Christopher Nolan’s films, the future of physical media, and his director/ cinematographer reel. Click here to watch and subscribe to the Barefoot Python Media Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BarefootPythonMedia/videos. We recorded this episode on January 21, 2024. Since I was editing the previous ATFT episode (on Killers of the Flower Moon), I couldn’t analyze Oppenheimer as extensively as I had hoped and tend to do with Christopher Nolan films so I didn’t talk about the film as much as I hoped but that is completely okay because the episode turned out incredible.
In this episode, Samy shares additional facts behind the true story of Oppenheimer’s life while also analyzing the man himself further. Since Oppenheimer is (only) three hours long, Christopher Nolan couldn’t portray everything in the true story. Through Samy, I learned the subtle ways in which Christopher Nolan captures the true Oppenheimer. We also discuss the trademark Nolan qualities in Oppenheimer such as parallel editing, non- linearity, and how both of those qualities come together to play with time. While the film is mostly analytical, the last section is more of a casual conversation surrounding Nolan, recent videos Samy created for Barefoot Python Media that are available on Youtube, and a little prank Samy pulled that had me laughing so hard.
The next episode will be the big Oscars special! Due to upcoming production assistant opportunities, this episode may not be released on February 28. Stay updated by following @all.the.film.things on Instagram!
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