Christopher Nolan Revealed Oppenheimer's Unique Script Technique No One's Ever Done Before
The upcoming Oppenheimer movie will be outstanding in Nolan's career: not only will it potentially be the longest one, but it also has a very unique script.
Oppenheimer is one of the most anticipated movies of 2023.
It seemingly has everything it needs to succeed: a dramatic plot about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the creator of the first nuclear weapons; a genius director behind it, Christopher Nolan himself; and a talented world-famous star as its lead actor, Cillian Murphy.
Still, as it turns out, there's more to the movie than we already know.
According to director Nolan, in Oppenheimer, he used a rather unique script-writing technique he's not certain anyone's ever used before.
The director believes that it allows the entire team, including himself and Cillian, to better understand the focus of the movie.
The interesting part about the method Nolan used for Oppenheimer is that the entire script is written in the first-person, which helps reveal the scientist's inner world.
"I actually wrote in the first-person, which I've never done before. I don't know if anyone's ever done it before. But the point of it is, with the color sequences, which is the bulk of the film, everything is told from Oppenheimer's point of view — you're literally kind of looking through his eyes," shared Christopher Nolan.
While Nolan has never tried writing a script in the first-person before, he's fairly certain this is a groundbreaking method that no one in the entire industry has used before.
According to the director, the first-person POV helps both the filming crew and the audience better understand what was going on in the protagonist's mind.
"It was a reminder to everybody involved in the project, 'Okay, this is the point of view of every scene.' <...> This is a story that you experience with him — you don't judge him. You are faced with these irreconcilable ethical dilemmas with him," explains the director.
Right now, this idea sounds fairly absurd. Scripts are typically created in a way that is convenient for everyone involved, not just the lead actor; in the case of Oppenheimer, Cillian Murphy has a great first-person POV, and all other actors have to read about their characters in the third-person. Sounds rather clunky, but…
Perhaps if Oppenheimer turns out to be truly marvelous, some other directors will pick up after Christopher Nolan and try out his method.
And who knows, maybe, we're witnessing a revolution in movie script writing right now!
Source: Empire