Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan reveals why there's no CGI in the movie

Christopher Nolan's aversion to CGI, or computer-generated imagery, is a thing of legend. The director likes to rely on practical effects and often his VFX supervisors and production designers have to build elaborate mechanisms to bring his ideas to fruition. His upcoming Oppenheimer is no exception. The film is a biopic on Cillian Murphy's J Robert Oppenheimer (often remembered as the father of the atomic bomb), but it is also a thriller and as per some, a full-blown horror film. It is centred around the Manhattan Project and the Trinity nuclear test. The film recreates the first use of the atomic bomb in the New Mexican desert

Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh also star in it.

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Oppenheimer is entirely devoid of CGI, claims Christopher Nolan

In a recent interview with Collider, Nolan said that Oppenheimer does not have any CGI whatsoever. And every scene, including the fiery blast scenes we have seen in the trailer, was shot using practical effects. Nolan explained, "One of the first people I showed the script to was my visual effects supervisor, Andrew Jackson. He’s very well-versed in CG, but he’s also very well-versed in practical effects and understands the value of that. I showed it to him very early on, and I said, 'Okay, what we need in this film is a thread between the interior process of Oppenheimer, his imagining, his visualising of atoms, molecules, those interactions, those energy waves. We need a thread that runs from that right through to the ultimate expression of the destructive power when that force is unleashed. It has to live in the same family'."

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Computer graphics are versatile but safe

He added, "I think computer graphics, they’re very versatile, they can do all kinds of things, but they tend to feel a bit safe. That’s why they’re difficult to use in horror movies. Animation tends to feel a little safe for the audience. The Trinity Test, ultimately, but also these early imaginings of Oppenheimer visualising the Quantum Realm, they had to be threatening in some way. They had to have the bite of real-world imagery. The Trinity Test, for those who were there, was the most beautiful and terrifying thing simultaneously, and that’s where we were headed with this film."

Oppenheimer release date

Oppenheimer will be released on July 21.

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