“Oppenheimer” Writer And Director Christopher Nolan On The Terrible Beauty Of An Atomic Explosion

Christopher Nolan’s special effects team built “a library of amazing tricks” for the pivotal scene in “Oppenheimer,” avoiding computer-generated effects in favor of old-school practical techniques.
#Colbert #ChristopherNolan #Oppenheimer
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Stephen Colbert brings his signature satire and comedy to THE LATE SHOW with STEPHEN COLBERT, the #1 show in late night, where he talks with an eclectic mix of guests about what is new and relevant in the worlds of politics, entertainment, business, music, technology and more. Featuring bandleader Louis Cato and “THE LATE SHOW band,” the Peabody Award-winning and Emmy Award-nominated show is broadcast from the historic Ed Sullivan Theater. Stephen Colbert took over as host, executive producer and writer of THE LATE SHOW on Sept. 8, 2015.

[@NewMessage]

I'm gonna watch this full interview backwards, just to make sure I caught all the clues.

[@travisinthetrunk]

Good luck figuring out the proper order.

[@jackielearnsandteaches]

@@travisinthetrunkyeah 🤦🏻‍♀️

[@magnuswiesener9588]

​@@travisinthetrunkYeah, its kinda dumb that the video lengths cover the parts of the thumbnails telling what part it is.

[@mikeyvandee]

😂

[@Ganiscol]

5 bucks say you were watching it in random order despite your best effort to line it up in reverse order. You are no better than the rest of us!

[@DelightLovesMovies]

I can listen to Christopher Nolan talk about films all day.

[@oppenhomies4life]

I’ll agree, he’s such a very awesome director, probably coolest guy, like Blunt says he’s so casual and very easy speaking

[@dineshkumarsnair7964]

Exactly the same.. Very much hardwired and futuristic.. But has empathy too🌹From India...

[@simontobey]

Yes, this is Part 3, congratulations you solved the mystery🥳

[@throfur3489]

I appreciate you stepping up and helping us out navigating these uploads.

[@Barlofontain]

I hope to see you in part 4

[@Arikel]

I've never seen a completely packed theater as mesmerized and quiet than during the Trinity test sequence, you could hear a pin drop and nobody dared to move. It was so beautiful and moving, almost like a religious experience. I'm still in awe at the whole team's talent and so thankful I got to experience it.

[@electricman68]

lol it really wasn’t

[@1119714]

My dad was in a Japanese POW camp when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were hit. He said they saw the flash from the bombs exploding, then knowing the result, he lived with the mental battle of happiness after being released but also the sadness of knowing the result of the explosions and fallout.

[@Katalack635]

Both times I saw Oppenheimer in theaters the Trinity test sequence made me burst into tears like nothing I’ve ever felt. Nolan fucking nailed it.

[@oppenhomies4life]

Definitely, everytime I watch that scene it always scares the sh*t out of me 😂😂 with the wave of breeze

[@eustatic3832]

Don't watch Twin Peaks, David Lynch did it better. Made oppenheimer version disappointing

[@ThatOpalGuy]

@@eustatic3832 there should have been much more time given to actual atomic explosions.

[@Dudeman9339]

ehh... he really didnt. It was a big gasoline conflagration instead of a detonation. There was no shockwave. There is no reason Nolan couldnt have used C4.

[@janetkriegl6720]

Lynch's 'Psycho' violins screeching during the explosion vs. Nolan's silence. Imo, the deadening silence made it far more white-knuckle.@@eustatic3832

[@RichardS2777]

Nolan at his most comfortable and engaging. Great interview.

[@axr-pe9di]

It feels like I'm watching a Nolan movies with all these videos uploaded in different sequence. Apparently this one is part 3 and I've already watched part 5.

[@Noiseheads]

That moment in the film overwhelmed me in a way I couldn't predict.

[@fernandooliveiralino]

Cinema on entire episode of the TV! So nice. Thank you, Stephen.

[@katherineweber8955]

These interviews were terrific. Thank you, Stephen, for your insightful questions and allowing Christopher Nolan to expand on everything. He was an excellent guest. I learned a lot.

[@ciaranmcdaid4717]

He is sooo winning that Oscar

[@joewas2225]

He's been snubbed too many times to be that confident about that.

[@bcm-n7244]

We live in a woke world, where the members of every institution might can choose to appease this insanity or be honorable, so there is still a chance he might not get it.

[@NikhilTanna15]

1:46 Dark Knight Trilogy has some of the best humour - snappy lines that even preceded MCU Phase 1 style

[@nikig2382]

Sadly, the humor in those movies seems to be one of the biggest criticisms. IMO “Does it come in black?” is among the best lines in Begins.

[@simba6698]

Loved the "Let's not BLOW things out of proportion" line from the joker while he's wearing a jacket full of grenades

[@agustinsilvaarmengo3021]

The kids playing in the car in TDK, pretending they're shooting, when a car in front of them explodes

[@NikhilTanna15]

@@simba6698 the way Ledger says it also!

[@lastudentessa]

It's weird that people seem to forget the lightness in TDK trilogy and forget the darkness in the MCU. There is overlap. MCU started the same year as TDK: 2008

[@shikharsav]

I thought it's April because it must be my birthday that I get so many Christopher Nolan interviews with Stephen Colbert!

[@dallasbhowell8485]

Ah yes, finishing a Chris Nolan interview in the middle. Feels VERY appropriate

[@johhny711]

Great interview

[@lbazemore585]

This is a wonderful interview! Thank you!

[@dianthareddy1683]

Hello! I'm a student from India pursuing my Masters Degree in English. I'm currently working on my thesis, presently titled: Exploring Mythical Narrative and its Relevance in British Poetry: Lord Byron's Prometheus and Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer (working title). I found these interview clips immensely helpful as I continue to explore the storytelling styles of the myth of Prometheus. Thank you so much for this content. It is so inspiring to see a renowned filmmaker break down his process so students like myself can gain insight into the art of storytelling today. From a fan, Diantha. Thank you again. :)

[@rjmacready9828]

Arguably the best filmmaker of the 21st century...

[@HungryTacoBoy]

1:46 "And people say there are no jokes in my films."

[@TruthYouNeed]

If the rain and the ripples thing were signifying the before and aftermath as told in this interview. I am blown away by the attention to detail. I don't think most humans are developed to see these types of movies.

[@sianspherica]

So glad you dedicated an entire episode to interviewing him.

[@annsanse2935]

haven't seen oppenheimer yet but the raindrops on the pond comments reminded me of the thoughts i had about sunlight on water and how it's affected as a body moves through it. if everything is made of energy then still water is energy's mirror. not a physicist but that's what i got to thinking.

[@IiIaNgH3LLIiI]

hi mr. intern if you upload all this interview after a week in one video we will watch it in full again, multiple times!

[@UncleCastro]

Interesting to hear Nolan talk about the emotionality in his films when he's known as a generally "cold" filmmaker. Tenet was his least emotional (even though there are great performances in it) and Oppy is to me by far his most emotional film imo in terms of what Oppy and Strauss are experiencing.

[@LeethLee1]

Every time Stephen interviews a goat filmmaker. I feel like I've returned to the real world. And it's wonderful.

[@khanage360]

Omg, the droplets in the pond, the science is sciencing. Damn, this movie is a genius

[@veragrig8645]

Two of my favorite gentlemen ☺️

[@nigelgreen9369]

I also wondered about the raindrops, when I remembered the opening and closing of Alam Moore and Brian Bolland's 'The Kiling Joke' that Nolan must have read at some stage along his Batman journey and so was potentially a sly little homage.

[@Drumming_Monkey]

PLEASE for the LOVE OF TOLKIEN start numbering these interview clips so we can watch them in the right order. EDIT: Wait..they are there..they are just placed beneath the timer in the thumbnail. My graphic designer brain just had a stroke. xD

[@misterdoctor9693]

Yeah, that was driving me nuts.

[@pawgslammer69]

Bruh. I didn’t see those either.

[@Drumming_Monkey]

@@misterdoctor9693 How can something so small be so infuriating?

[@aekelly]

Thank you - yes!!

[@miriamtillman7536]

Colbert is such a well-prepared, intelligent interviewer.

[@nigelgreen9369]

Notably - David Lynch's return to Twin Peaks also featured an entire episode about a nuclear explosion - also silent - and the ripple effect that helped create his and Frost's terrifying vision and universe.

[@swerve361]

Loved how he's referencing Kubrick's quotes about emotional connection to a film. I wouldn't say that the Trinity test was a show stopper but it was captivating enough. 7.5/10 🎉 He's close to achieving something on the level of Apocalypse now or 2001. The style of the film reminds me of the show Genius.

[@user-eq2dx2jp6v]

So dear chris Nolan ❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉🎉 thank uuuu, dear steve, perfect ❤❤❤❤ so many thanks 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@iordanstefan1]

The example about the rain drops, something that seems so insignificant, tells you all you need to know about nolan films

[@eustatic3832]

Imma let you finish, but Twin Peaks had the best A bomb sequence of all time

[@putinscat1208]

It is accurate that there is no sound until the shock wave hits. Sound in other films are added for the audience.

[@DJTaPEDOaCREEPlustForIvanka]

C Nolan looks exactly like the FBI Director Chris Wray. They could’ve been brothers! Nolan should do another superheroes. Smart smart intelligent man n fantastic story teller!

[@user-gt6ye8cr4z]

Nolan's watch... wow. i want it. it would pay my rent for a lil while.

[@burningbothbinaries9889]

Raindrops? the start of Alan Moore Brian Bolland's "the killing joke" which Nolan is very much aware of

[@JEBossTon92]

The greatest filmmaker of our time in my opinion is Christopher Nolan. Simply a genius. No other way to say it.

[@AndrewLakebrink-cz2vl]

I must be the only person that thought it looked like every other gas based explosion and not what they were aiming for. Where's the mushroom cloud and the intense column connecting it to the base of the explosion? There was a segment of the fire that reminded me of a scene of full screen blue fire in the Batman movies. I wonder if that footage was reused but not color shifted.

[@timbeaton5045]

Just as an interesting contrast to this, i also found the infamous A bomb sequence in Twin Peaks The Return, to have a similar fascination and feeling of dread. simultaneously. Nolan and Lynch obviously going with different intent, but both, i think wanting to emphasise the enormity of the event, and it's potential effects upon the world. Certainly people of Lynch's generation, and i fit into that category, grew up with the shadow of imminent global destruction and have been left with those images burnt into our psyches.

[@tube2211ification]

How about uploading these interviews views in order from start to finish.

[@zachariahsmith419]

Colbert is such a wonderful and generous interviewer

[@user-dq5xx9hi4q]

Personally I thought the explosion scene looked weak, at some times looking like a small Hollywood gasoline explosion, ESPECIALLY the brief shot at 4:43. No impression of the real force of a high speed nuclear detonation at all.

[@electricman68]

Exactly.

[@FabledGentleman]

Yes, The trinity test was pretty convincing, the explosion itself was not. It looked nothing like a nuke.

[@elgigantegrande]

I'd suggest checking out Corridor's VFX Artists React episode talking about the explosion. It's a great explosion, but not comparable to an actual nuke

[@theavatar9191]

It’s not supposed to be though. They didn’t set out to recreate a nuclear explosion. They wanted something they could control and replicate as many times as they need to for filming. They wanted to trick the audience into the same dread a nuke would cause them without showing the “beauty” that Nolan talks about from real nuclear explosions

[@elgigantegrande]

@@theavatar9191 but some of the physics were incorrect, and they touch on that as well as practical ways they've could've simulated something much more dreadful with different practices while still keeping it controllable

[@KingofKnowhere]

@@elgigantegrandeI mean sure, but you also have to think about cost and what Nolan ultimately wanted. You’re also forgetting that Nolan was on a bit of a leash after the reception of Tenet, despite working for a new studio in his career in two decades that very much wanted him.

[@ReneeKadlubek-gt9qm]

I love the dark knight trilogy

[@deboracopeland4795]

Melanie Hamlett does a whole video on the carbon footprint of these movies, it’s shocking especially because one doesn’t think about it and aren’t these people for the planet. If you think a movie can’t be made without destroying the planet, go see Godzilla.

[@mikezieminski2355]

The music is too loud making it hard to hear the dialogue

[@yurielcundangan9090]

RDj do entertain

[@Gundam4]

Maybe Colbert can be in Nolan's next flim

[@alexgeorge9533]

anyone else remember stephen's impression of a nuclear explosion? 🤣

[@ReneeKadlubek-gt9qm]

Trinity Cassidy

[@rm1856]

Oppenheimer is a masterpiece. Cillian, Downey Jr., and so many others, the script, soundtrack, and visuals, are all brilliant. I love the mention here of the raindrops in the puddle because as someone who has read about quantum theory and mechanics, I immediately recognized the reference which was beautiful.

[@islamkhalil2243]

Why is it so hard to put part one, part two, part three… in the video title

[@phantomfire8228]

3:40

[@ShaileshDagar]

This is a beautiful watch on Nolan's wrist. Which one is it?

[@YearRoundHibernater]

If you're chopping up an interview, please put which part it is in the title, I know it's on the thumbnail, but youtube puts the length of the video in the bottom right corner so it's unreadable.

[@Stumergeist]

Good movie but people praising the explosion have clearly not seen the real test footage.

[@user-fr5fm7ul8u]

me too😀☺

[@gigalowe]

So Stephen gonna rent out a theater for the marathon right?

[@georgiostemirsidis1966]

Bring Lanthimos on the show!

[@BrennanMartin]

Actually, you ask anyone who does VFX, they do not find the trinity test in this movie as convincing at all. :/

[@ThatOpalGuy]

was hugely disappointed that, watching in IMAX, there was very little atomic explosion in the film. epic fail, nolan

[@imav.20]

nolan describes how the bomb was meant to be seen only. this was something implied into the movie as when i was watching it in the theatre, everyone was silent. we never spoke about "being quiet" or you know no instruction was given, but we were ALLL SILENT. and that my friends was just magical. the instant connection the entire human beings understand just by watching hahah. love it when nolan describes that "it was intentional for people to be silent" during that time.

[@zunipus]

What current physicists rarely deal with, despite Einstein understanding it, is that ALL MATTER IS ENERGY. Energy is all. Energy forms into conformations, most of which we decided to call "matter", then treat "matter" as something that is different from energy, when it is NOT differnet from energy. All is energy. So we have these goofy placeholders we call "Dark Energy" and "Dark Matter" and the fact that all energy has the trait/force we call "gravity" is ignored, resulting in misunderstanding gravity throughout the universe, pretending that only matter has gravity, which is nonsense. All is energy. Then astronomy physicists act as if every single point out in space is "dark" if it looks dark from our Earthly perspective, when in fact NO point in our universe is "dark" ever. And therefore, the gravitational force of energy is everywhere, every place there is energy. This makes the universe vastly more complex than we can ever measure. And at the same time, there is the simplicity of the fact that All is energy, and it's everywhere. Everywhere. /personal perspective lecture

[@alro11]

where did they do the explosions? ugh- so difficult to create something so destructive to the environment and all the people who have died

[@MrFunkinPure]

The explosion was underwhelming. Should’ve thrown some money at the original test footage.

[@JULIOSALT.RDZEUAN31]

This Years he.

[@paulclissold1525]

Dear chris as important as our british and american cousins are your omission of marcus oliphant was what we expect.

[@willywilson2858]

I thought only the Russians had nixie tubes at the time this was going on, could be wrong. makes for a great movie aesthetic

[@flammungous3068]

Liked the movie but my biggest disappointment was the bomb exploding. It just looked like a really big gazolime bomb...which it probably was.

[@vdiitd]

To be honest, the trinity test visual effect was not convincing. It was way underwhelming. Even corridor crew had commented on that.

[@jamiem8680]

Let’s not forget that Colbert has stated publically in interviews that he “hates the English”and that they are all “bastards “ ! I am guessing Nolan is unaware of that !

[@Dudeman9339]

Go watch Corridor Crews breakdown of Oppenheimer. It was a fairly disappointing gasoline conflagration explosion. There is no reason Mr. Nolan couldnt have gotten his hands on some real explosives to show a shockwave from detonation.

[@westwalk9953]

The atomic bomb explosion in the movie wasn’t that great, should’ve just used cgi or used more tnt.

[@johnny_eth]

Interesting that they talked about the explosion because that war the most disappointing and lackluster part of the movie. Instead of a proper detonation and massive plasma and fire ball, we got a poorly edited sequence of gasoline flames or whatever they used. The scale was completely wrong. Christopher used cgi to render the black hole in interstellar, surely he had the time and budget to do a proper stimulated nuclear explosion.

[@user-eq2dx2jp6v]

Quantum 😂😂😂😂 deepak 😂😂

[@user-eq2dx2jp6v]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@daveanolik8837]

I get it that you optimize viewer engagement and increase eyeballs and clicks when you segment interesting content into chunks… but c’mon! Such a pain in the ass. Release a full, un-chopped interview for us grown ups with attention spans longer than 2 minutes!

[@nooneofconsequence1251]

Honestly the worst part of this otherwise great film was the wholly underwhelming atomic explosion in it. I know Nolan dislikes using CGI in his movies but it really hurt the film in this case, same as it did the beach evacuation scenes in Dunkirk where the beaches appeared mostly empty (they didn't have the budget to hire 300,000 extras) as opposed to real life when they were teeming with people. Just use some CG, man... it's a tool to help just like anything else filmmakers use...

[@captprice0079]

Nope

[@dollarsaurus01]

Agreed, it’s honestly kind of pretentious and counterproductive of him because he’s so insistent on realism. It’s the same in Interstellar where during certain spacecraft shots you can tell you’re looking at a scale miniature because of the way it moves

[@samuelbarber6177]

This seems to be something most people disagree with me on. I bloody love that scene and it was the scene that actually convinced me the film was a masterpiece.

[@AST-erisked]

You wanting to see the "spectacle" of the bomb makes me believe that you completely missed the point of the movie.

[@nooneofconsequence1251]

@@captprice0079 I'm sure you're a nice person but your opinion sucks as much as your ability to articulate it.

[@MSMrk9]

Does the game work? 😂

[@tanopo7951]

First!

[@vinny142]

What I find so amazing about Nolan movies is that nobody talks about the story of his movies, they only talk about how his movies look. People are fascinated by the marketing around the movie's production and simply don't seem to actually watch the movie, they just look at it. No seriously, try to find a movie review that talks about the story of Oppenheimer. I dare you. The onslaught of superhero movies with pretty bad CGI has led to a phenomenon called superhero-fatigue, but which is actually a bad-CGI-fatigue. Movie studio's, not hindered by morals, have turned this around and have manufactured a "CGI-fatigue" and are now marketing movies as "No-CGI", and remarkably the audiences are falling for it. Audiences loved Top Gun for being shot entirely practically becaue Cruise said "No CGI on the jets". THis is weird because his famous F14 is so old that there are no more flying units of it left. Theyb *cannot* shoot a flying F14, yhet Cruise simply insists that they did, and you fell for it. But it's far worse, you see getting actual combat jets is expensive so they used stand-in planes to film the manouvres and then digitally replaced those with completely fake CGI versions for the movie. There are basically no shots in the new TopGun movie where you see actual planes. For Oppenheimer, Nolan did what he always does: start with a base of actual images of real objects, and then digitize that and add all the stuff that they cannot do for real. Oppenheimer has a metric ton of shots where what you see never actually existed, but you don't notice, so the marketing dept will happily lie to you if that makes you drewl over how great the movie is... well, how great it looks... because what is the stroy of Oppenheimer? Nobody knows, nobody cares, the movie looks pretty! Did you know they invented black-and-white IMAX film just for this movie? Wow... ofcourse they could do that digitally in post, but that doesn't sound fancy, it's a Nolan film, they have to brag about how inifficiently they did something to make you think you are watching a better movie.

[@theavatar9191]

Literally what makes Nolan standout are his screenplays, his often complex and anti-hero protagonists, and the overarching themes that he threads throughout the story. All the technical stuff that gets brought to attention are for pure film lovers, but that’s not the majority of people who watch his films. I know people who have 1 or multiple of his films as some of their favorite films and they don’t even know who he is, and if I explain the technical reasons as to why his films stand out, they look at me like I’m talking mumbo jumbo.

[@ahilor]

I mean it's not hard to find the story of Oppenheimer, he's well known due to the creation of the atom bomb and Nolan only did a retelling of his story from the book "American Prometheus" so you can read the book or watch the film or do both, it's not suppose to be that convoluted as compared to some of his other films.

[@Danilo_DMA]

No partner. the greatest quality of his films is in the script, the script is what guides a film, Nolan's quality is poor writing, this comes from his film Following. The Dark Knight has sensational scenes, the joker's interrogation scene was brilliant, everything written. Nolan loves using physics theories. In Interstellar the script was also brilliant, it used modern physics concepts very well in the story, it gave emotion to the story of a father and a daughter. In Inception there was a figure around the protagonist returning to his family, the concept of exploring someone's subconscious and introducing an idea, all the dialogues were good. Nolan sticks to the writing, the visual part only has weight if the story is good, otherwise the criticism would be overwhelming, good photography doesn't save a film.

[@ThatOpalGuy]

Did he say NUCULAR EXPLOSIONS? LOL.

[@elqord.1118]

Sadly going for a practical effect really ruined it

[@tiburc10]

The bomb explosion in Oppenheimer was awful and lame and did NOT looked like an nuclear explosion at all. CGI would have been a better option 100% if done right and Nolan has all the power to hire the best people to do it.

[@muntasirjahanid0035]

It wasn’t threatening, the moment the bomb exploded I lost the interest of watching the rest of the boring movie

[@sybaritesphynx8057]

Another Christopher Nolan movie about a troubled male character 🥱🥱😴😴😴

[@robbo_96]

It's been out months 😂 and "troubled male character" can apply to almost every movie ever made lol, it's called character depth

[@freem8son86]

breaking news: a specific director returns to specific themes in his artistic expression! Wild!

[@kingace6186]

This is a film about J Robert Oppenheimer, father of the nuclear bomb. You expected sunshine and rainbows???