What a fuss was made in advance about it Trinity nuclear test explosion in the film Oppenheimer by Christopher Nolan. And then you sit in the cinema and think to yourself: That looks more like a lot of TNT or other explosive material (which it is). And on the other hand: I’ve seen it so much better somewhere years ago.
Nolan really wanted to practical effects without computer assistance use for his atomic bomb explosion. This is very laudable, but it only gets you so far. His colleague David Lynch, who is not exactly known for CGI thunderstorms, took a different approach, which in my opinion produced a much more artistic result… even if it didn’t win seven Oscars.
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From the Oppenheimer site of Las Alamos to Twin Peaks
It’s June 25, 2017: Fans of the cult series Twin Peaks are sitting in front of their TVs to watch the eighth part of the long-awaited revival Twin Peaks: The Return. The above New edition continuing 25 years later Up to that point, as one would expect from Lynch, it was challenging and peculiar. However, nothing could alert us to the avant-garde excesses of the episode Got a Light? prepare that is still unparalleled today.
After some sinister machinations by the evil doppelganger version of Agent Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) and a performance by the band Nine Inch Nails, the episode jumps to 1945 Trinity nuclear test in New Mexico. Boom! An explosion in the distance. The image is black and white, the music full of nerve-racking strings, as if we were in the transcendental minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The camera gets closer and closer to the growing mushroom cloud and finally penetrates it.
Particles and elementary particles dance across the screen, new universes seem to be born and suddenly color comes into play with fire. A lot of it is very good CGI, but some of the psychedelic shots make it seem as if Lynch filmed his lava lamp and his mixer at full speed and distorted the result. Brilliant.
But why does Oppenheimer’s nuclear test appear in Twin Peaks?
As with so many Twin Peaks matters, it’s not that easy to explain. The overwhelming sequence doesn’t end with the massive fire color play either. It continues as we see the supernatural mother figure, The Experiment, vomiting a series of rotten eggs. Among them is an orb with the sinister visage of Killer BOB (Frank Silva) – the evil spirit that possessed Laura Palmer’s (Sheryl Lee) killer in the original series.
The Breaking the taboo of the first nuclear explosion has, so to speak, brought evil into the world. With this, Lynch rather casually opens up a completely different can of worms than Nolan. The more interesting pot if you ask me. What does the entry into the atomic age mean for the soul of the world? How much does playing with the new type of fire cost humanity? And what metaphorical forces do we allow into our world?
Nolan’s naturalistic detonation is only juxtaposed with the directly related emotional world of a single man. Which is perfectly fine in the context of a biopic. But in the last scene in Oppenheimer he still wants to remind people of the implications for the world and only manages to do so with very literal images: A roller of fire rolls across the earth… and it leaves me cold.
Where can I stream Oppenheimer and Twin Peaks?
If you would like to compare Christopher Nolan’s realistic version and David Lynch’s artistic interpretation in more detail, you can do so at any time via VOD from Oppenheimer or Twin Peaks. You can find the Oscar-winning historical film as a rental or purchase title from providers such as Amazon, Sky, Apple TV or Google Play. The groundbreaking mystery series, on the other hand, is available with original and revival seasons on Paramount+.