Oppenheimer： Science needs explorers, not ＂martyrs＂

The film reviews the life of Robert Oppenheimer, the "father of the atomic bomb" in the United States, and focuses on his experience of commanding and manufacturing the first atomic bombs that can be used in actual combat in human history and his political persecution at the beginning of the Cold War.

Generally speaking, biographical films are based on historical events and the life experience of the protagonist, and adopt a straightforward narrative method. However, Nolan, the director who is known as "the contemporary genius of Hollywood", obviously doesn’t want to fall into such a trap, but chooses the post-modern expression mode of double-line narration and disrupting the timeline. The film is launched from the dual perspectives of Oppenheimer and his political enemy Strauss. In order to distinguish them, the story line of Oppenheimer’s perspective uses color pictures, while Strauss’s perspective uses black and white pictures to show the opposition between the protagonist and the villain in the simplest and most direct way. Combined with the avant-garde film narrative technique, full-film shooting and real-life shooting replace the unique picture texture of computer special effects, which brings a kind of "immersive" feeling to the audience in front of the screen, which not only highlights the absolute control of Nolan, the director of the film, but also shows the highly mature execution of Hollywood film industry.

However, compared with the exquisite aestheticism in form, the shallowness in the ideological core of the film is also obvious — — The whole film tries its best to portray Oppenheimer as a "scientific martyr" who suffers from internal suffering and external slander at the same time, and constantly swings between adhering to his own principles and compromising the environment. After repeated "trials", he finally becomes a god. Such characterization does increase the artistic appeal of the film, but its side effects are also quite obvious, that is, while trying to exaggerate the tragedy of Oppenheimer’s personal experience, it ignores and even deliberately hides the social and historical motivation that really caused his life tragedy.

Although Oppenheimer was born in the United States in history, his family came from the upper class in Europe and received a complete European education since childhood. As an adult, Oppenheimer received higher education in the top universities in Europe and became a famous physicist with international influence at a young age. After returning to the United States, he was hired to teach at the University of California, Berkeley, and founded the Oppenheimer Center for Theoretical Physics named after him. He is a pioneer of quantum mechanics in the United States, and this alone is enough to make him famous in the history of American science. By the first half of the 20th century, with the subversion of the traditional Newtonian mechanical system by the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, physics, as the cornerstone of the human science building, is facing an unprecedented revolution. Although the center of theoretical science was still in "old Europe" at that time, the United States, located in the New World, was trying to catch up from the field of experimental science by taking advantage of its national strength and technology. In the film, Oppenheimer’s university "neighbor" — — Ernest Lawrence, an experimental physicist and inventor of cyclotron, can be regarded as a concrete representative of this trend. Oppenheimer’s birth experience naturally made him a bridge between the scientific circles of old Europe and the New World. However, it was his strong spiritual temperament of European liberal intellectuals that had a fundamental conflict with the conservative ideology based on Puritan ethics in mainstream American society at that time.This cultural conflict is actually the real source of Oppenheimer’s life tragedy.

The film attributed the conflict between Oppenheimer and Strauss to Strauss’s "eating the belly of a gentleman with the heart of a villain", which was a personal feud between them. But in real history, the conflict between them stems from the opposition of different values. Oppenheimer, based on the tradition of humanism formed in Europe since the Renaissance and the Reformation, believes that people and countries can reach a consensus through communication, without resorting to force. People like Strauss, who struggled all the way from the bottom of society to the upper class, can be said to be a vivid example of the "American Dream", but it is also because of his complicated life experience that it is difficult for him to have absolute trust in others, and his style is introverted and sensitive, and he is conservative in his ideas and believes in the supremacy of strength. Therefore, in Oppenheimer’s view, calling Strauss a "shoe dealer" and pointing out his misunderstanding of the use of isotopes only tells the truth, and the joking tone is just a harmless humor. However, for Strauss, Oppenheimer is using the prestige of his scientific community to try to ruin his hard-won bright future, so his persecution of Oppenheimer is just a kind of legitimate defense. On a deeper level, Strauss is the embodiment of the extremely pragmatic philosophy believed by the young "industrial empire" of the United States — —In order to achieve the goal ("making an atomic bomb"), a scientist with a "stain" can be entrusted with a heavy responsibility, and once he loses the use value, he will be abandoned as a lost piece of clothing immediately, and there is no moral burden.

However, as shown in the film, Oppenheimer’s real pain does not come from external persecution, but from his contradictory mentality after Prometheus. Prometheus in western mythology was originally a member of the Titan God. Out of pity for mankind, he stole the sacred fire from the sacred land to bring warmth to the world and taught all kinds of "magic skills" originally belonging to the gods to mankind. This angered Zeus, the king of the gods, and as a punishment, he imprisoned him on the top of the mountain and let the giant eagle peck at his liver every day. In reality, western scientists are often promoted by the media as the contemporary Prometheus. Some great scientists who are now in the history books did not bother to make their scientific research achievements public before their death, but only as a pastime to meet their own spiritual pleasure needs. With the outbreak of the industrial revolution, the influence of scientific research achievements on technological progress has become more and more obvious, and the social status and social reputation of scientists have been improved. However, with the deepening of scientific research, the former scientific research model of "Frankenstein on an isolated island" is becoming more and more unsustainable. To achieve a major breakthrough in scientific research, scientists must try to use more social resources, and even the power of the whole country. It is impossible to build an atomic bomb only by the intelligence of scientists, without the cooperation of American national will and super national strength. Therefore, if Oppenheimer really thinks that he created the atomic bomb on his own and is condemned by his conscience for the uncontrolled use of the atomic bomb,It can only be said that his understanding of human history and real politics is too naive, and he is a kind of bourgeois-like moaning.

Back to the film itself, Oppenheimer is easily associated with the domestic film "Born Out" with similar themes. Objectively speaking, from the perspective of film technology and artistic expression, Oppenheimer is indeed slightly better. But this comparison is meaningless. Born Out is a main theme film of China, while Oppenheimer is a typical Hollywood commercial blockbuster. The different positioning of the two naturally brings completely different presentation methods. What’s more, when we rise to the ideological level, the two judge each other — — Scientists in Oppenheimer are lonely and don’t understand the world, but they are determined to act as fire thieves and show miracles to the ignorant world, while ordinary people become background boards; In Born Out, the intelligence of intellectuals is closely bound with the will of the country and the wishes of the people. They give up their personal honor and disgrace and devote themselves to the great rejuvenation of the nation. The two reflect the fundamental differences between the founding spirits of contemporary China and the United States.

Today’s world is in a great change that has never happened in a hundred years, and international relations are in an unprecedented great change. In the past, the myth of "science has no borders" and "global scientific community" constructed in the context of western-led globalization narrative is being shattered. On the other hand, mankind has been in the field of basic science for more than half a century, and there has been no revolutionary progress by leaps and bounds like that in the first half of the 20th century. The development dividend brought by scientific development to all mankind is drying up. The fundamental reason is that the drooping fruits on the "tree of science" have been picked up, and to pick the fruits on the high places, we must raise the strength of all mankind and continuously invest human, material and financial resources. To truly realize this, we must truly make the "community of human destiny" become the ideological consensus of all mankind. For artists and science communicators in contemporary China, this is an unshirkable historical responsibility. To achieve this goal, we must first strengthen the "four self-confidences" ideologically, strive for perfection in artistic creation, and try our best to be close to the needs of the overwhelming majority of the people in terms of communication methods. Only by truly treating the people as masters of history, combining scientific theory with people’s social practice, and closely linking the development of science and technology with people’s well-being can science become a torch to illuminate the direction of human progress.(Author: Liu Jian, Associate Professor of Tianjin Art Vocational College and Director of Tianjin Popular Science Writers Association)