Books (and movies)
Jul. 12th, 2023 09:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lizbeeI used to think I didn't really enjoy watching movies. But a couple of years ago, I realised that the only movies I was actually seeing were MCU films. I've been making an effort to widen my movie viewing, which mainly means I've watched a lot of mainstream Oscar-bait and also extremely successful action movies that aren't comic book adaptations. I have a Letterboxd account and everything!
Obviously I am seeing Barbie and Oppenheimer in the same week. (Not the same day, that would probably give me a migraine.)
My Barbie prep consisted of spending a morning thinking about the specific ways I played with Barbies, and then going out, buying the cheapest doll Kmart had to offer, and ordering a bunch of bundles of clothes off eBay. (You can't just buy fashion packs the way you could when we were younger -- I mean, you can, but they're expensive, hard to find and not great quality. Meanwhile, clothes made for the OG Barbies with the tiny waist more or less fit the current standard body type, you just might have to resign yourself to the fact they won't do up in the back. Yes, I am looking at making my own Barbie clothes. No, I am not embarrassed.)
There doesn't appear to be an Oppenheimer doll, so for that movie, I read the biography on which it's based: American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. This is a super dense book, and took the entire week to read, BUT it is not excessively heavy on quantum physics. It does, however, have a lot of university politics and the fairly delightful detail that mathematics departments are extremely high drama compared with, say, any humanities department. (The authors posit that this is because mathematicians tend to reach their intellectual peak at a very young age, and so find themselves with little meaningful work, whereas a poet or historian can continue doing significant work until his or her retirement. "Teaching" in this instance does not count as meaningful work.)
Oppenheimer emerges as a complex and interesting man, and basically decent in a way I didn't expect. Arrogant, but in a particular way where he is good to his subordinates and an absolute asshole to his superiors if he finds them lacking. The authors spend a remarkable amount of time describing his frail body, his high cheekbones and his piercing blue eyes; clearly this is the role Cillian Murphy was born to play.
I'm especially interested to see how the movie depicts Oppenheimer's wife, Kitty, who seems to have been a complex person -- splitting the book's sources roughly by gender, men regarded her as either a broken bird or a heinous bitch, and women said she was "complicated". She and her husband both seem like they were incredibly hard work, but I feel like part of the criticism of Kitty is that she wasn't very good at softening him or making him more socially acceptable. Like, she knew that was her job as The Wife, but she didn't have the skills to do so and wasn't terribly interested in learning. And you know what? Fair.
Obviously I am seeing Barbie and Oppenheimer in the same week. (Not the same day, that would probably give me a migraine.)
My Barbie prep consisted of spending a morning thinking about the specific ways I played with Barbies, and then going out, buying the cheapest doll Kmart had to offer, and ordering a bunch of bundles of clothes off eBay. (You can't just buy fashion packs the way you could when we were younger -- I mean, you can, but they're expensive, hard to find and not great quality. Meanwhile, clothes made for the OG Barbies with the tiny waist more or less fit the current standard body type, you just might have to resign yourself to the fact they won't do up in the back. Yes, I am looking at making my own Barbie clothes. No, I am not embarrassed.)
There doesn't appear to be an Oppenheimer doll, so for that movie, I read the biography on which it's based: American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. This is a super dense book, and took the entire week to read, BUT it is not excessively heavy on quantum physics. It does, however, have a lot of university politics and the fairly delightful detail that mathematics departments are extremely high drama compared with, say, any humanities department. (The authors posit that this is because mathematicians tend to reach their intellectual peak at a very young age, and so find themselves with little meaningful work, whereas a poet or historian can continue doing significant work until his or her retirement. "Teaching" in this instance does not count as meaningful work.)
Oppenheimer emerges as a complex and interesting man, and basically decent in a way I didn't expect. Arrogant, but in a particular way where he is good to his subordinates and an absolute asshole to his superiors if he finds them lacking. The authors spend a remarkable amount of time describing his frail body, his high cheekbones and his piercing blue eyes; clearly this is the role Cillian Murphy was born to play.
I'm especially interested to see how the movie depicts Oppenheimer's wife, Kitty, who seems to have been a complex person -- splitting the book's sources roughly by gender, men regarded her as either a broken bird or a heinous bitch, and women said she was "complicated". She and her husband both seem like they were incredibly hard work, but I feel like part of the criticism of Kitty is that she wasn't very good at softening him or making him more socially acceptable. Like, she knew that was her job as The Wife, but she didn't have the skills to do so and wasn't terribly interested in learning. And you know what? Fair.
no subject
Date: 2023-07-12 12:42 am (UTC)I'm adding American Prometheus to my reading list. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2023-07-12 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-07-12 02:22 am (UTC)