Modern tools bring historical movies to life. Take Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, for example – now available for purchase on 4K and Blu-ray (a format Mr. Nolan prefers over streaming). So much of the conversation around this Golden Globe nominee is that it was best experienced in the cutting-edge IMAX format. And if you could make it to a theater that was screening the film in 70mm IMAX, all the better for you. Yes, the movie is steeped in historical realism, but some amusing modern tricks went into the filming of Oppenheimer – including the use of an iPhone by Nolan’s costume designer, Ellen Mirojnick.
Oppenheimer is Mirojnick’s first feature with Christopher Nolan, though her credits over the years have included Showgirls, Face/Off, The Greatest Showman, and Maleficent. She had her work cut out for her on Oppenheimer, costuming the magnificent cast that had come together for Nolan’s latest, but also accounting for the fact that parts of the film would be filmed in color, and other parts in black and white, to account for the point of view of Robert Downey Jr.’s character, Lewis Strauss. During an exclusive interview with CinemaBlend, Mirojnick explained how she approached this obstacle, and how an iPhone came to her rescue. She said:
For some people designing for black and white, I mean, when you do design for black and white, there are times that you have to choose different colors to register. For example, red might register a particular tone of gray. Our film, there was the challenge of designing for black and white, but we had a stipulation. And that stipulation was that everything that you designed for black and white could or would be shot in color, as well. So, as a result, I used the gray scale. That was the most effective way for me to understand if it was going to be a good choice or not, in terms of fabrications. And in terms of colors, I would use the iPhone, and the black-and-white filter, to be honest with you. That's what I would use at first, to see if the fabrication was a good choice before showing to Chris. And then maybe working with him and showing him what it would look like to see if he responded to it.
What a simple, yet ingenious, idea. And very amusing to me, given the fact that Christopher Nolan confirmed in an interview that he doesn’t have a smartphone, doesn’t use one, and seems to avoid all technology like that. Classic Nolan.
Lucky for us, his collaborators understand how these modern tools can be used to perfect their approach in a given scene. And in speaking with Ellen Mirojnick, she went on to explain how the iPhone really honed the look of Robert Downey Jr.’s character, the Chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. Said Mirojnick:
In suitings, in the wovens on Strauss, I had to deal with different decades, and I had to deal with different shapes of suits. Double breasted and single breasted, different lapel shapes, and so on to indicate the decades. But also, it was the different colorations of the gray scale. The first time, when we see him at the institute, for example, in a double breasted suit, that particular tone of gray has a blue cast to it. It doesn't have a cold cast, like a brown or gray kind of cold cast. It has a little bit warmer blue cast to it. And so in choosing a shirt – blue, I wouldn't, just because of Oppie – but to make sure that the tone matched in the shirting, that was really, really very important. And you could only see that contrast if you did look at that black and white filter on the iPhone.
The work done on Oppenheimer shows through every frame. There’s a reason why celebrities are sneaking into screenings of the movie, and Downey Jr. is praising his “Oppenhomies” while doing the awards press circuit. We expect this film to do very well in the run up to the Oscar nominations, so expect to learn even more about it as 2023 draws to a close.
