Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer has both colour and black-and-white scenes for this reason
Stills from Oppenheimer
Director Christopher Nolan's highly anticipated film Oppenheimer opened to packed theatres across the world on Friday. The three-hour-long bio-thriller opens with a flurry of scenes, not necessarily connected to each other,which bounce back and forth between black and white and colour. The film's initial shots can be confusing for most viewers and may even seem slightly incoherent.
The usual assumption, which applies to most films, is that scenes in colour showcase the linear timeline of the narrative while black and white scenes depict significant flashbacks into the past. But this rule does not apply to Nolan's Oppenheimer. The film does not use black and white and colour to denote past and present.
What do Oppenheimer's colour and black and white scenes signify?
The scenes featuring J Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) are seen in colour - whether he is in college as a student or in the latter half of his life. He also appears in black-and-white sequences, much like Lewis Strauss (played by Robert Downey Jr).
Both the characters are shown in two colour schemes,in both past and present. The colour schemes, though signify different points of view. The stark contrast in colour schemes is used to highlight the juxtaposition between the film's protagonist, Oppenheimer, and his eventual nemesis, Strauss.
Scenes in colour are from Oppenheimer's point of view. Those in black-and-white are supposed to be from Strauss' account.
According to a report in The Insider, the production notes of the film state that Nolan wanted Oppenheimer's perspective in colour with occasional cutaways to evocative, surreal imagery that symbolically expressed his interior world. The scenes that centre on Strauss would be in black and white.
According to Nolan, the challenge of the film was, "to tell the story of a person who was involved in what was ultimately an extraordinary destructive sequence of events, but done for the right reasons, and tell it from his point of view."
Critical Response to Oppenheimer
The film has received positive reviews from most critics across the world. WION's Kshitij Rawat wrote that the film is packed with great performances and called Robert Downey Jr's performance as a 'revelation'. "The biggest revelation of the movie comes from the unorthodox casting of Robert Downey Jr as Lewis Strauss, a senior member of the United States Atomic Energy Commission. Downey Jr, mostly renowned for playing Tony Stark or Iron Man, delivers an astonishingly restrained and introspective performance that delves into the enigma of human conscience. His portrayal is one of quiet power, a stark reminder that even amidst the grandest schemes of science and war, the weight of ethical contemplation remains as heavy as the heart of an atom."Read the full review of Oppenheimer here.
