FEATURE:
Blonde Bombshell
IN THIS PHOTO: Barbie star Margot Robbie is photographed for Vogue in May 2023/PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan James Green
Hot Pinks and Business Greys: The Cinematic Double Header of Barbie and Oppenheimer
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NOT there is a direct link to music…
IN THIS IMAGE: Grave greys and fabulous pinks: Cillian Murphy in Oppenheimer and Margot Robbie in Barbie/COMPOSITE CREDIT: Universal Pictures/Album; Alamy Stock Photo (via The Guardian)
but there is an upcoming cinematic battle that sort of reminds me of some of the showdowns we used to see in music. I guess the most famous one was between Blur and Oasis back in 1995. That epic Britpop battle between Blur’s Country House and Oasis’ Roll with It resulted in narrow victory for Blur. Even though both songs were beyond the bands’ best, the fact that there was so much press and interest in this showdown was thrilling! There were interviews where Oasis would dig at Blur or vice versa. You do not really get it much these days. It is a shame, because there was drama and build-up that created this kind of strange excitement and tension! I guess the fact people chose their camps and there was this showdown between fans was not great. Even so, I do look back fondly at some of the great music tussles. In cinema, you occasionally get these battles. There is little to connect Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. Both are very different films, but they each come out on 21st July. Of course, you can go and watch both…but which do you see first?! I am going to discuss both films in detail. Both are expected to be among the most popular films of 2023. Barbie stars Margot Robbie in the titular role. Unlike Britpop’s greatest single battle, there is n animosity or any sort of rivalry between Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan. The former is an exceptional visionary who is a brilliant director, actor and writer. Having recently directed incredible films such as Little Women (2019) and Lady Bird (2017), this is a film that will firmly break her into the mainstream. With a $100 million budget and actors like Ryan Gosling (playing Ken), Margot Robbie and Emma Mackey in the cast, it is going to be a hit! You can see from the trailers that it is going to be the film of the summer. I think that it may even surpass Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer at the box office. What a treat to get two huge and extraordinary films in the same week!
I wanted to bring in some details about each film, before rounding things up. I am a massive fan of both Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie. Gerwig is an amazing writer and director. I think that Barbie will be the funniest film of the year. More than that, it will expand our understanding of Barbie and this iconic cultural figure. More than a blonde pin-up doll, we will see various versions of Barbie through the film. Someone who can do anything, it is going to be an empowering and inspirational film. Writing with Noah Baumbach, Gerwig shows Barbie and Ken expelled from the Barbie utopia to the real world. Barbie was being less-than-perfect. We will see the joy and plastic of the Barbie world, before she is taken out of that to the harsh reality of our world. I do think that the film will get a lot of five-star reviews and award nominations (maybe for the screenplay and direction, in addition to Margot Robbie for her lead role). Given the fact that Barbie is up against Oppenheimer, there has been a lot of discussion about the film. Because of the incredible promotion and marketing of the film, a lot of articles have been written. I want to bring a few in. Unlike Oppenheimer, there is a lot of partnership and promotional possibilities that are being utilised (you’d worry if Oppenheimer found many easy commercial and partnership deals!). The Guardian, who have written a few articles about Barbie, explore the incredible marketing of the film. How there will be a lot of interest in the film which could then see sequels and spin-offs happen:
“When Margot Robbie first read the script for the Barbie film, which she stars in and co-produced, her first thought was: “They’re never going to let us make this movie.”
Mattel, the doll’s manufacturer, had jealously guarded her image for more than 60 years. It would never agree to a movie that not only riffed on Barbie’s sometimes controversial history, but included among its comic characters none other than a “weird and insensitive” CEO of Mattel. Right?
The answer to that question is opening in cinemas in three weeks’ time – in what the company’s (real-life) CEO has said he hopes will be the beginning of a new franchise of Barbie movies – and an unstoppable wave of lucrative commercial opportunities.
Cinephiles may be intrigued by the pairing of arthouse favourite Greta Gerwig (who co-wrote and directed the movie) with the ubiquitous plastic doll, but for her makers this is an unmissable opportunity to break Brand Barbie out of toyland – and paint all kinds of other products bubblegum pink.
IN THIS PHOTO: Barbie’s Malibu DreamHouse is being made available to rent via a partnership with Airbnb/PHOTO CREDIT: Airbnb/Reuters
Mattel has signed licensing deals with more than 100 brands, it said this week, meaning that this summer as well as dressing in Barbie apparel from Gap, Primark or Forever 21, wearing her shoes from Aldo or inline skates from Skatehut and sporting her makeup (NYX Cosmetics and others), you can also relax on a Barbie x Funboy pool float while enjoying Pinkberry’s Barbie-branded frozen yoghurt
Entertaining? Why not serve your drinks in Barbie x Dragon glassware, scented by themed Homesick candles – but take care not to spill anything on your Barbie x Ruggable rug. Afterwards, you can book an Airbnb break, pack your luggage, play on your pink Xbox and then brush your teeth using “the pinkest oral beauty collection ever”. There are many, many others.
Barbie is the bestselling doll in the UK – last year six dolls were sold every minute – “and that’s before the movie even comes out”, said Melissa Symonds, executive director for UK toys at the consumer analyst Circana. Almost a third of toy sales, she said, are already licensed from films or other media – think Harry Potter, Star Wars and Minecraft.
Although many toy brands hope to extend their name into other sectors, not all succeed. What’s notable about this occasion, Symonds said, is the extent to which those behind Barbie “haven’t just gone down one supermarket aisle”.
Gary Pope of specialist marketing agency Kids Industries added: “Barbie was in an interesting place before it began, because it’s probably the biggest girls’ brand on the planet, and the only brand that really truly owns a colour as well.
“So before they’ve even got out of the traps, they’ve got a fantastic place to play.”
Licensed merchandise has always been important to big movie events, said Ben Roberts of the industry magazine License Global, but we are long past the days when just slapping a Batman logo on a lunchbox would do. “It’s a lot more holistic than that,” Roberts said. “Licensed products are not just linked to a movie, they are part of a brand’s lifecycle.
Mattel, he said, was careful to create “multigenerational touch points” in its licensing, “so that no matter where you are in life, you can engage with the brand in that way”. It’s become particularly central as generations Y and Z – absolutely steeped in diverse media as they grew up – have matured to become kidult fans with purchasing power, he said. “Fandom has become such a large part of our culture now. And fandom is the biggest driver for licensing.”
From the studio’s point of view, too, merchandising is increasingly important in guaranteeing overall profitability, said , director of theatrical insights at film analytics specialist Gower Street. That’s particularly important on megabudget action blockbusters, but also on less predictable movies which may defy easy categorisation – including Barbie, he said.
Expectations were initially modest for the movie, as no one quite knew what it would be, said Mitchell. “This is a film about a toy, essentially, but it is being made by some arthouse film-makers.” But as snippets of the movie have built buzz – and the coincidence of its launch on the same day as Christopher Nolan’s atomic bomb drama Oppenheimer has led to a rush of viral memes comparing them – industry hopes are rising for Barbie, he says.
“Warner Bros and their partners are doing everything they can to make Barbie stand out. And it’s working … it has a very good chance of being the breakout film of the summer.”
The birth of Barbie
She’s been beloved by generations of children, and decried by feminists for promoting an unhealthy body image, but 64 years after she was launched by Mattel, Barbie is still going strong – all the more astonishing given the revolution in women and girls’ lives since.
But Barbie’s surprising origins go back even further still – and are a lot saucier than many parents of young girls realise.
The first Barbie doll, dressed in a black and white striped swimsuit and heels, was launched by Mattel in the US on 9 March 1959. In that first year, 300,000 dolls were sold.
Though recognisably the same doll as today, her vampish looks (catlike, heavily lidded eyes, archly raised eyebrows) were directly taken from Bild Lilli, the German doll who was herself the spin-off of a racy comic strip in the tabloid Bild.
Lilli, in the cartoon version, was a highly sexed seductress and gold digger with a large bosom and quick wit. She was such a hit that the newspaper licensed toymaker O&M Hausser to make a doll, sold from 1955.
Her big moment came when Ruth Handler, who had founded Mattel with her husband, came across the doll on a trip to Europe with her daughters and decided to make an American version named after her daughter Barbara (Ken, who followed in 1961, is named after the Handlers’ son, which perhaps helps explain the dolls’ curiously chaste romance). Mattel acquired the rights for Bild Lilli in 1964”.
With a film like Barbie and the associated commercial and historic value of the brand, the marketing campaign for the film has been especially itinerant, hectic and colourful! I wonder what Margot Robbie’’s next film projects are going to be, and whether she does something similar to Barbie - or whether she goes into a full-on comedy. Looking at her film roles so far, Robbie definitely has a love and appreciate for the past. Exploring different decades. It seems the new Barbie film is split between the modern-day and, when it comes to the dream and utopia world, maybe the 1980s. The Guardian took us inside the marketing machine of the magnificent Barbie:
“Barbie, which opens in Australia on 20 July and in the UK and US the following day, is expected be one of the biggest movies of the year. Directed and co-written by Lady Bird and Little Women’s Greta Gerwig, and starring Robbie, Gosling, Ferrera, Issa Rae and a teeming ensemble cast, the expectations are as stratospheric as Astronaut Barbie’s space station.
On Pitt Street Mall, the clamouring crowd is decked out in all shades of pink – magenta, fuchsia, cerise, rose, neon and the rest. There are months-old babies in pink beanies, older women with hot pink-striped scarves, and a person in a rainbow-coloured tulle mermaid skirt. The stars greet fans lined-up along the Mall, signing Barbie dolls in boxes and taking photos before ascending the stage for a Q&A; in a refreshing sartorial moment, Robbie takes a selfie with a man in a Slipknot hoodie.
“Barbie was part of my childhood but one which was hidden,” he says. “I went to my sister’s room and played with her Barbie. To see that in real-life with this movie, it means a lot. It’s important to celebrate everyone and every type of person.”
Gerwig’s Barbie movie, produced through Robbie’s production company LuckyChap Entertainment, has been at pains to emphasise its inclusivity. The cast includes Barbies and Kens from all backgrounds and body types, with trans actor Hari Nef as Doctor Barbie.
IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie takes a selfie with fans/PHOTO CREDIT: James Gourley/Getty Images
During a media event the day before at Sydney’s Bondi beach, Gerwig says the target audience for the film is anyone from eight to 108. “It’s a movie that I think can really cut across generations and genders. Everyone can find a pink, glittery existential dance party in their heart.”
Gerwig’s mother wasn’t a fan of Barbie – which only made her child-self more interested in the toy. “I had a lot of hand-me-down Barbies, so I got a lot of Barbies who were like Kate McKinnon’s Weird Barbie. They didn’t have shoes and their clothes were backwards.”
After Robbie brought her on to the project, Gerwig went to Mattel headquarters, where the business opened up their archives for her.
“They took me through everything from 1959 until now,” she says – a deep dive which compelled Gerwig to re-position what Barbie’s legacy means to fans today.
“If there were rules, I think we broke all of them. That was part of the fun, in a way. Like, ‘Tell me what your sacred cows are and I will do something naughty with them’.”
‘Everyone can find a pink, glittery existential dance party in their heart,’ says director Greta Gerwig. Photograph: Caroline McCredie/Warner Bros/NBC Universal
Gerwig wanted to tap into the full gamut of emotions surrounding the Barbie brand, and all the different feelings – positive, negative and neutral – it evokes.
“If you love Barbie, you’re going to love it, if you hate Barbie, you’re going to love it,” Robbie says. “But if you just like a good movie, you’re going to love it”.
In another article from The Guardian the two biggest films of the year so far are weighed up. It is easy to pit them against one another but, as they will each have their successes and audiences - and many will see both films -, this is more a spotlighting of phenomenal filmmakers bringing something awe-inspiring to the screen. I cannot wait to see how audiences react to Barbie and Oppenheimer when they hit cinemas on July 21st:
“The 39-year-old Gerwig is arguably as big a selling point as Robbie or Gosling, as well as a guarantor of quality control. The three-time Oscar nominee directed Lady Bird and Little Women, as well as co-directing with Joe Swanberg the long-distance love story Nights and Weekends, back in the days when she was the doyenne of the lo-fi indie “mumblecore” movement. Her co-writer on Barbie is her partner, the director Noah Baumbach, with whom she wrote gems such as Frances Ha and Mistress America. Back in 2010 when she was promoting Greenberg, the bittersweet Baumbach comedy which became her Hollywood springboard, she spoke of her childhood habit of jumbling up the letters in her name: “In second grade, I’d be writing ‘Great Gerwig, Great Gerwig’ on everything,” she said. These days, it’s more than just an anagram.
Her opponent is the 52-year-old Nolan, a five-time Oscar nominee who has heft on his side. His is the weightier directing CV (12 films), with Oppenheimer his longest yet: he recently confirmed that it is “kissing three hours”, which makes it more than an hour longer than Barbie. This is serious, spectacular event cinema, shot with Imax cameras and booked long ago into all that format’s venues – to the apparent chagrin of Tom Cruise, whose latest Mission: Impossible adventure opens a week earlier but will be relegated to smaller screens the instant Oppenheimer drops.
Nolan’s cast is every bit as impressive as Gerwig’s; as well as the perpetually haunted Cillian Murphy as the physicist Robert J Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, Nolan has assembled Florence Pugh, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Rami Malek, Robert Downey Jr, Gary Oldman and Kenneth Branagh. The chances of any of them rollerblading à la Gosling in Barbie are negligible, which may help explain why Gerwig’s film is on track to have the more impressive opening weekend. Not that Oppenheimer will exactly bomb.
Barbie also has the edge when it comes to marketing opportunities, as might be expected of any movie adapted from merchandise. This goes way beyond the valley of the dolls: among the many tie-in products is an inflatable Barbie pool-float golf-cart, a Barbie dog’s basket, and an electric toothbrush capable of 36,000 sonic vibrations a minute – the same effect you get from watching Oppenheimer in Imax.
Unlike Barbie, Nolan’s film probably doesn’t have its own Exclusive Oral Beauty Partner, though given his protagonist’s chain-smoking tendencies there may be a teeth-whitening deal in the offing. And we shouldn’t rule out Oppenheimer throwing its hat in the ring when it comes to headgear. As far back as 2010, one plaintive user on thefedoralounge.com was searching “for a lid like the one the famous nuclear physicist wore,” citing a “2½-inch snap brim and a very thin ribbon” and concluding that “such a hat would be positively atomic”. Factor in the Cillian Murphy effect – this is the man who helped popularise the Peaky Blinders newsboy cap/undercut combo – and the Oppenheimer fedora and brown wool coat could be the look to replace Barbie’s summery pink once the nippier months roll around.
Some mild shade has already been thrown between the film’s respective camps on social media. “Greta Gerwig could do Oppenheimer but Christopher Nolan couldn’t do Barbie,” observed one tweet. Another overreached by proposing that “Margot Robbie could do Oppenheimer but Cillian Murphy couldn’t do Barbie” – clearly the work of someone who has never seen him in Breakfast on Pluto or Peacock. But the encouraging thing about the Barbie v Oppenheimer discourse is that, by and large, it has not followed the contours that often prevail in our online interactions. For anyone who loves cinema, the vibe feels closer to a cuddle than a cage fight.
There is real genius in this tactic of opening films catering for different audiences on the same day (known as counter-programming). The canny part is not what separates Nolan and Gerwig but what unites them: despite a clear contrast of style and sensibility, both directors possess a comparable skill, intelligence and passion, and tend to inspire loyalty in their fans. This same situation could never have arisen had Oppenheimer been pitted against, say, The Super Mario Bros Movie. Though that film is a smash, having grossed more than $1bn worldwide to date, it has nothing in it to propel cultural conversation along with profits.
Opening two films together that share similar DNA would also produce less of a spark. The experience of going to an afternoon screening of Ghostbusters on opening day in December 1984, then coming out and going straight back in to see Gremlins at teatime, was thrilling for my friends and me as 13-year-olds (especially as Gremlins was rated 15), but it was a routine sort of double bill on reflection: both were comedies that trafficked in the scary or supernatural.
What makes the combination of Barbie and Oppenheimer sing is that it is unlikely but not nonsensical. And though the films’ subjects are markedly different, there will be some overlap between their audiences. The major Rorschach test of our era, one Twitter user has suggested, will be whether you follow Oppenheimer with Barbie or vice versa. It’s no longer the case of “either/or” that it first appeared to be but rather “which one first?”. The Picturehouse chain is even extending the double bill idea by screening a selection of both directors’ past work in the coming weeks; audiences can see Lady Bird take flight alongside Interstellar, or pair Little Women and Dunkirk in a double bill of wartime stories, albeit from different wars.
Contrary to the way the rivalry was initially framed, this is no replay of the hostile Blur v Oasis Britpop war of the mid-1990s. Even the formulation of Barbie v Oppenheimer misrepresents the tenor of this unusual pairing: shouldn’t it be the more harmonious Barbie x Oppenheimer, in the style of today’s brand collaborations? Whichever film prevails financially, the result will be less meaningful to audiences than what these movies represent in a post-pandemic landscape that has seen famished exhibitors begging for new product”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan James Green
Depending on what order you see them, many fans are planning a double feature on 21st July! Logically, I would see Oppenheimer first and then Barbie. That way, you maybe save the best/most anticipated second. Tonally, too, Oppenheimer is going to be far heavier – so you then need that lift from Barbie. Both are epic in their own way. It does seem that Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie are going to see Oppenheimer. Rather than see this as two films scrapping it out at the box office – Barbie is expected to turn over more profit; Oppenheimer might fare better when it comes to reviews (but both will get five-star reviews across the board!) -, this is more of a celebration! Two incredible filmmakers bringing their visions to the screen. Both are huge in terms of their scale and looks, though you could not find two more different cinematic experiences. I am interested in both, but I am more familiar with Christopher Nolan’s work. The amazing British director is one of the most imaginative and consistently brilliant of his generation. Nolan’s new film id a biographical thriller film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical physicist who helped develop the first nuclear weapons. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film stars Cillian Murphy as Oppenheimer, with a supporting ensemble cast including Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., and Florence Pugh. Here are some more details:
“Discover all the details about Christopher Nolan's highly-anticipated film, Oppenheimer. From the star-studded cast to the release date and streaming details.
When Warner Bros made the controversial decision to release its movies simultaneously in theaters and on HBO Max throughout 2021, Christopher Nolan voiced his discontent.
Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy as theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, known as one of the fathers of the atomic bomb. (Universal Pictures)
Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy as theoretical physicist J Robert Oppenheimer, known as one of the fathers of the atomic bomb. (Universal Pictures).
IMAGE CREDIT: Universal Pictures
The eminent director, who had a long-standing partnership with Warner Bros, decided to part ways with the studio.
However, it didn't take long for Nolan to find a new creative home. It was Universal that emerged victorious, presenting Nolan with an irresistible deal that would make any dentist's teeth ache.
With a blank canvas and unlimited resources at his disposal, Nolan set his sights on bringing the story of Oppenheimer to life.
Curious about Oppenheimer? You've come to the right place.
Hindustan Times delved deep to uncover all the details about this highly-anticipated film.
From the release date to the cast, plot, and more, we've compiled everything you need to know about Oppenheimer.
Oppenheimer release date
Nolan's partnership with Universal has shed light on the planned release strategy for his upcoming film, Oppenheimer.
Known for his meticulous approach to filmmaking, the mastermind behind Inception is leaving no room for compromise. As reported by The Hollywood Reporter, Nolan has set forth specific requirements for the war movie.
One of the key demands is a substantial theatrical window of at least 100 days. This means that Oppenheimer will have an extended period exclusively in theaters before any other distribution channels. Plus, there will be a three-week buffer period both before and after the film's release, during which Universal will not premiere any other movies.
Oppenheimer cast
Oppenheimer boasts an extraordinary cast led by the talented Cillian Murphy, who will portray the eponymous scientist. Joining Murphy are renowned actors and actresses such as Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr., Florence Pugh, and Matt Damon, ensuring an all-star lineup that is sure to captivate audiences”.
I am interested in this WIRED interview. Oppenheimer’s writer-director Christopher Nolan was asked about the film. It is a great insight into one of the most important and spectacular cinematic minds the world has ever seen. It seems his latest film is going to rank alongside his very best work! I hope that audiences are suitably buckled and braced when they go and see Oppenheimer on 21st July:
“WHEN WIRED HEARD that Christopher Nolan and his producer—and wife—Emma Thomas were coming out with a biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer, we were perplexed. At least for a moment. It is hard for WIRED to resist a Nolan–Thomas film. Nolan has a real love of science, just like us. (We know this because, well, it's pretty obvious in some of his movies, but also because Nolan guest-edited an issue of WIRED back in 2014 when his film Interstellar came out and we got him to geek out over physics.) Add to that, the duo like to bend their audience's minds. And their eyeballs. They make superhero movies! It's so much chum for WIRED.
So, Oppenheimer. A biopic, a look back at history. Alas. WIRED parlance is more often about looking ahead. (Not that we didn't like Dunkirk.) So we kinda thought maybe we weren't the magazine to dive into this one.
But we couldn't get the idea out of our minds, because so many conversations in the office and in meetings and around technology were about the potentially apocalyptic time we are living in. Climate, war, yes. But also, generative AI. Over and over, I was hearing people compare this moment to the mid-1940s, when we stepped across the threshold into the nuclear age, or to the years when Oppenheimer was heading up the project to build the bomb in New Mexico.
Here comes the full disclosure: I know something about Oppenheimer, and his path to Los Alamos. I helped edit a biography about him and three women who were central to his life, written by my mother, Shirley Streshinsky, and the historian Patricia Klaus. I started to want to know what Christopher Nolan thinks of the time we are in, considering he has spent his last few years steeped in the time so many people kept referring to. Perhaps Nolan and Thomas line up with WIRED interests all over again.
The Big Interview
So I headed to LA, to a quiet neighborhood where the couple keep an office. I had hoped to talk to them both, and as I entered a glass-walled, stylish conference room overlooking a garden, happily, Thomas was standing there too. I burbled something about how often her name gets left out of interviews. She thanked me for that. Turns out she couldn't stick around. But toward the end of my conversation with Nolan, he told me, “Everything we do is in lockstep. I mean, she's the best producer in Hollywood, without question.” And their latest film, though it's set firmly in the past, might just be their most forward-looking yet.
IN THIS PHOTO: Christopher Nolan/PHOTO CREDIT: Magnus Nolan (Christopher Nolan’s teenage son)
MARIA STRESHINSKY: Maybe this is presumptuous, but looking at your films in reverse, it feels like your and Emma's work has been, all the while, leading up to Oppenheimer. In ways, it makes so much sense.
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN: I don't think that's at all presumptuous. It's how I feel about the film.
(Also, I don't mean to say your career is over.)
I've tended to feel this way with every project I've done. Because I'm trying to build on what I've learned before. Every time you finish a film, there are questions left hanging. And so with the next film, you kind of pick up the thread. In the case of Oppenheimer, very literally, there is a reference to Oppenheimer in Tenet [Nolan's previous movie].
So he's been in your head for a while.
Oppenheimer's story has been with me for years. It's just an incredible idea—people doing these calculations, and looking at the relationship between theory and the real world, and deciding there's a very small possibility they're going to destroy the entire world. And yet they pushed the button.
It's very dramatic.
I mean, it's literally the most dramatic moment in history. In history.
PHOTO CREDIT: Magnus Nolan
A lot of people may not know that when we dropped the bomb in 1945, it was not only a horrifying moment but maybe also the one in which it was understood that humans could now wipe out all humanity.
My feeling on Oppenheimer was, a lot of people know the name, and they know he was involved with the atomic bomb, and they know that something else happened that was complicated in his relationship to US history. But not more specific than that. Frankly, for me, that's the ideal audience member for my film. The people who know nothing are going to get the wildest ride. Because it's a wild story.
His personal story, you mean.
And they need to, because, you know, he's the most important man who ever lived.
You have a line in the movie, someone says to Oppenheimer, You can get anybody to do anything. Something like that. He was a brilliant manager. He was brilliant at knowing, in that room, those scientists are doing x, and in that other room, those scientists are doing y. He was the one who could keep it all in his mind.
He knew how to motivate people through the theatricality of his persona, the projection of his own brilliance. He gave all the scientists and officials and everyone a focal point.
IN THIS PHOTO: Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy stars as J. Robert Oppenheimer) is told mostly from the perspective and narrative of the titular character/PHOTO CREDIT:: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures
He had real charisma.
Charisma. That's the perfect word. It made it all come together. The film deals with this a lot, the idea that these academics, these theorists could come together and build something with their own hands of this magnitude, of this importance. It's miraculous.
Speaking of building something of magnitude, I was at the TED conference in Vancouver recently, and one of the most interesting sessions was a series of talks about generative AI. So many of the speakers mentioned the atomic bomb, nuclear weapons. The last speaker was a technologist—who happened to grow up in Los Alamos, by the way—who talked about the inevitable growth of the use of AI in weaponry. He ended his talk by saying that the only way to keep world order was to have better AI weapons. That it was a deterrent. Which sounded a lot like how people thought of the atomic bomb. Feels like you couldn't have planned your film release for a better time.
I think the relationship is an interesting one. It's not the same. But it's the best analogy—which is why I used it in Tenet—for the dangers of unthinkingly unleashing a new technology on the world. It's a cautionary tale. There are lessons to be learned from it. Having said that, I do believe the atomic bomb is in a class of its own as far as technologies that have changed and endangered the world.
And the origins of these technologies weren't the same.
There is a fundamental difference. The scientists dealing with the splitting of the atom kept trying to explain to the government, This is a fact of nature. God has done this. Or the creator or whoever you want it to be. This is Mother Nature. And so, inevitably, it's just knowledge about nature. It's going to happen. There's no hiding it. We don't own it. We didn't create it. They viewed it as that.
IN THIS PHOTO: Nolan and his dog, Charlie, in Los Angeles/PHOTO CREDIT: Magnus Nolan
In other words, they felt they were just revealing something that was already there.
And I think you'd be very hard-pressed to make that argument about AI. I mean, I'm sure some will.
You must've grown up in the shadow of the bomb.
I grew up in the 1980s in the UK, and we had the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, all that. People were very, very aware. When I was 13, me and my friends, we were convinced we would die in a nuclear holocaust.
But you didn't, and the world moved on.
I was talking to Steven Spielberg about this the other day. He grew up under the threat of the Cuban Missile Crisis in the '60s. Same thing. Absolutely. There are times in human history when the danger of nuclear warfare has been so palpable and tactile and visible to us that we're very aware of it. And then we can only be worried for so long, and we move on. We worry about other things. Um, the problem is that the danger doesn't actually go away.
Right. I mean, I feel like a month ago we were all worried that Putin might be serious about using a nuclear weapon.
What I remember from the '80s is that the fear of nuclear war had receded in favor of fear of environmental destruction. It was almost like we couldn't sustain the fear of it for that long. We have a complicated relationship with our fear. And yes, Putin has been using that doomsday threat and that fear to saber-rattle. It's extremely unnerving.
As unnerving as the threat of an AI apocalypse?
Well, the growth of AI in terms of weapons systems and the problems that it is going to create have been very apparent for a lot of years. Few journalists bothered to write about it. Now that there's a chatbot that can write an article for a local newspaper, suddenly it's a crisis.
We, folks in the media, have been doing that for years. Navel-gazing. Some of us are writing about AI because it can put us out of a job.
That's part of the problem. Everybody has a very—call it a partisan point of view. The issue with AI, to me, is a very simple one. It's like the term algorithm. We watch companies use algorithms, and now AI, as a means of evading responsibility for their actions”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Greta Gerwig/PHOTO CREDIT: Blossom Berkofsky for Crash
We have heard from Christopher Nolan. The man in the red corner. Now, in the pink corner, is the amazing Greta Gerwig! There is an interview I will get to where she and Noah Baumbach – who are in a relationship with each other – discussed Barbie. First, here is some detail and revelation regarding cultural influences on Gerwig:
“What are the seminal books or plays that you have always loved? The ones that helped you become a writer? And then what are your recent favorites?
I loved Woody Allen and Monty Python and comedians in that way, and then movie musicals like, “American in Paris,” “Singing in the Rain,” “Oklahoma” and the great Agnes de Mille choreography, were really big for me. And then it wasn’t until I got to college that started getting into cinema proper as an art form. I’ve always been a reader, and I think for me that my jam, as it were, were those 19th century novels were really big for me. The Austin, the Brontes, Dickens, Herman Melville, and the Russians. Anna Karinina was a huge one. There’s a section in “Anna Karinina” where he goes into the dog’s mind, it’s so perfect, and I couldn’t believe it. In any case, those were really big for me. And then, because of theater, Shakespeare was everything. We would go to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival every year, and I’d see two plays a day for a couple of weeks and that was very formative.
How old were you then?
From about the ages of about seven or eight to eighteen. It was an incredible way to experience theater. In high school, it was all Edward Albee and Tom Stoppard. A Tom Stoppard quote from “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” was my senior quote, which is incredibly nerdy. Albee had a kind of rhythm that I instantly connected to. It’s just awful and funny and wicked, and similarly, Tom Stoppard was just so frothy. For a high school student, it felt like you were part of the insider baseball with him, because he was always with the references, and then you’d go look up the reference, and you’d learn another thing which is the same way I felt about Woody Allen, because he’d always reference movies and books and then I’d go find them. When I got into college, I worked at a theater company downtown- I did lights and sound at Richard Foreman’s theater, the Ontological-Hysteric Theater Company- and through that group (nobody knew who I was, I was just a chubby eighteen year old who was good at lights) but that opened me up to different theater downtown, and Will Eno was a big playwright for me. I was finding my people, and what I was interested in and so those were all very formative. I read Milton, and it killed me- I couldn’t believe it. The idea that even poetry is a state of sin because it’s fallen, because it’s metaphor? I felt like I had to stay inside for the weekend when I read it.
PHOTO CREDIT: Blossom Berkofsky
What would you say right now would be your favorite authors?
I’ve really gotten much more interested in female writers and artists, and playwrights, and filmmakers -and I don’t think this is unusual- but I think I had sort of unconsciously internalized that the the way I think of when someone says, “Do you want wine?” I automatically think “they meant red wine. If they meant white wine they would have said white wine. Wine is red wine, is that artists are men. If it’s a woman artist, they’ll tell you it’s a woman artist.” I haven’t even totally started dismantling it until really recently. There’s the biggies of course – Austin, the Brontes, Virginia Wolf, but I really didn’t have a sense of who the women were who were my heroes and I think now, I have had the privilege to work with some of these people… the French filmmaker Claire Denis and Agnes Varda, and now Mia Hansen-Love, she’s amazing, and I recently those Ferrante books holy shit… those Ferrante books destroyed me. As a poet, Eileen Myles and Kay Ryan and for fiction Renada Adler, I felt like there was a whole world that I was stepping into. My then favorite playwright right now is Annie Baker. I felt like when I saw her play for the first time in like 2007, “Circle Mirror,” I had that feeling that was “This is not the best play by a woman, this is the best play… she is the best writer. It’s not a B-side. It’s she is better. She is better than them” I felt this surge of pride and jealousy. I’m almost, at this point, excluseively interested in what women are doing, and I’m sure that it will change in a way and of course I love male writers. I mean I think, I feel very lucky to be at the time I’m in. Living through what’s happening. I still can’t believe how unequal it is.
What’s your opinion about men everywhere in film, on film sets, etc? When you first started, were you intimidated?
I don’t mind talking about it. It’s a boys’ club. And I think that part of it is that boys are given- not to be too sociological- but I feel like boys are given machines to play with. Girls are not given machines. Boys are given computers and cameras and tools, and I think there’s an immediate intimidation factor with girls with the tools that they don’t… But I’ll tell you… I know a lot of male filmmakers and most of them don’t know anything about those tools, they just feel confident about it, but they don’t know more about lenses than you do. They don’t know. I mean, the DP knows about lenses. But a lot of them don’t know what they’re what they’re talking about- not really. And it’s a really, I mean its an invisible thing.
Do you construct your crews, now that you have some say in the matter, around picking really nice people, or talented, or…
I always want the best people to be the people. The reason that I am attracted to both film and theater and dance for that matter, and music, is that they’re so incredibly collaborative, and that they are always made by groups. You’re never just executing something, you’re bringing your whole self to it, and I want people who bring their whole selves, and feel ownership over it. I still hate, I shouldn’t say it because maybe I’ll eventially take one, but I’m not crazy about the “film by” credit. I think you directed it, and you wrote it, but the film is not by you. It’s not. That’s an absurd statement to make. It’s by the people that made it. And I think what I look for is people that have a little spark of the commune in them because for me that’s what I’m drawn to. People tend to construct film sets as if they’re military operations with a pyramid power structure with the director at the top and then you go on down. I’m much more interested in “everybody owns the factory.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Blossom Berkofsky
Do you still go to Church?
Oh yeah. I think it’s largely based on Catholicism rather than Christianity because that was the education I was raised in, and I feel that Buddhism is beautiful, Judaism is beautiful, and Islam. But that wasn’t the tradition I came up through, so I think I heard the Dalai Lama say, “You don’t need to become a Buddhist. Be what you are. Just be kind,” and I thought, “Oh that’s right.” It always felt like a bit of an act to me, to take on a religion. I think whatever works for people then good.
What kind of dance do you do?
I take a lot of hip hop, Jamaican dance hall, and house dancing and it’s really hard and I’m not good at it. I’m just the awkward tall blonde girl standing in the back, but it’s good for the soul. It’s hard for me to exercise just for the purpose of exercising, I’m like, “what are we doing?” It always felt like doing math to me like the way it’s taught like, “I can solve this equation for you but why? What are we doing? I’m just moving these numbers around, this is dumb. There’s no higher purpose.”
What do you see for yourself in your future?
I think in the short term, I’m directing a movie I’ve written this summer.
What’s that about?
It’s sort of a Mother-daughter movie, and it’s about an eighteen year-old, and her last year living at home before she goes to college, and her mother and their family and their town and it’s starring sioirse tonana and she’s great, and she’ll be great. I direct that in August and September, and I think what I’ve been doing and what I’ll continue to do is that I want to write and direct films about women. That’s what I want to do. I’ve been writing them, and acting in them and producing them, but think it’s sort of the next step and I’d like to make a bunch of them. I really think that the last ten years, about 2006 around when I graduated from college until now, I apprenticed in film and I feel like it’s time. I’m real”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Clement Pascal for The New York Times
The final interview is from the New York Times. Earlier in the year, they spoke with Barbie’s writers Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach. I have enormous admiration for Baumbach but, in Greta Gerwig, we have someone who can conquer American cinema – which, as you will see, is an ambition she is more than capable of achieving! At a time where female directors are still largely overlooked and under-celebrated, one of the world’s best directors is going to break barriers, start conversations and lead to change in the way female directors are perceived and appreciated (or not in many case):
“In the beginning, did people think she was the Hollywood ingénue riding on Mr. Baumbach’s reputation? I remind her of the time Barbra Streisand asked Steven Spielberg to watch an early cut of “Yentl,” and then a lot of people falsely assumed he had directed it. Ms. Gerwig grinned and said she showed Mr. Spielberg an early cut of “Little Women” to get his notes, and no one assumed he had directed it.
Ms. Gerwig said that before she started directing, some people assumed that she was just contributing some extemporaneous lines to films she was starring in and Mr. Baumbach was directing, like “Frances Ha” and “Mistress America.”
“People would say things like, ‘Did you help to write the script?’” she recalled. “I was like ‘No, I co-wrote it.’ I think the more work I did and the more authorship I took on, the less that was something that was a question mark. People are more like, ‘Oh, she probably did write those with him because now we can see this work or that.’ That assumption of ‘Oh, you probably didn’t do this really,’ that’s gone away.”
Mr. Baumbach wryly said it goes the other way now, with people talking about “Frances Ha” as though it’s Ms. Gerwig’s sole creation.
PHOTO CREDIT: Clement Pascal for The New York Times
‘Her Ambition Is to Conquer American Cinema’
Saoirse Ronan, a star of “Lady Bird” and “Little Women,” said that Ms. Gerwig, like the director Steve McQueen, was “a bundle of energy, ideas and inspiration. She was constantly rewriting scenes to make the script as tight as she could. She’ll work all the hours that God sends.”
Ms. Ronan said that in “Lady Bird,” a nun tells her character that the greatest form of love is to pay attention. “That came from Greta directly,” she said. “She pays absolutely incredibly sharp attention to everyone and everything around her.”
Amy Pascal, a producer of “Little Women,” was equally effusive. “She barged into my office and said, ‘You have to hire me to write “Little Women,” and I want to direct it, and here’s why. I want to tell the story in a completely different way.’” She told Ms. Pascal: “It’s about money.”
“She was able to decipher the book to tell it in a really modern way,” Ms. Pascal said. “Her ambition is to conquer American cinema.”
Ms. Metcalf said the key to Ms. Gerwig’s success as a director is dogged preparation. “She does all of the homework before anybody gets to the set,” she said, eschewing the usual mad scramble. “There’s a lightness there. She takes away all the pressure.” Instead of being the type of director who withholds praise from “the children” and whispers about the actors behind the monitor to make them paranoid, Ms. Metcalf said, Ms. Gerwig “keeps a bubble around you, so no negative feelings are allowed in.”
Before they began filming “Lady Bird,” Ms. Gerwig brought the cast over to her New York apartment and showed them a shoe box of mementos she had kept from high school, saying, “Here’s how I see the character.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Greta Gerwig with Noah Baumbach at the White Noise U.K. premiere in October, 2022/PHOTO CREDIT: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images
“That clicked with me in a way that was rare,” Ms. Metcalf said. “That made it so real to me. It was the first time I was playing a fictional character where I actually was able to think of it as a real woman.”
Ms. Gerwig and Mr. Baumbach both like to blend autobiographical elements into some of their movies. Does it ever feel like you’re sucking out each other’s emotional DNA, I asked her, or studying each other for good material?
“He’s working on something right now, and I’ve been reading it as he’s working on it and I said, ‘You know what?’ and I gave him this little story and a good line and then he put it in,” she said. “And then I read another draft and I was like, ‘Listen, if you’re not going to use that line, I’m going to use it.’ He said, ‘No, no, no, I’m going to use it. Don’t worry.’
“Some little things are flattering,” she continued. “There was something in ‘Marriage Story’ with the Scarlett Johansson character, Nicole,” who was widely understood to be a stand-in for Ms. Jason Leigh but shared some of Ms. Gerwig’s traits. “In the beginning, when Charlie and Nicole are talking about each other and he says, ‘She makes tea and leaves it all over the apartment and she leaves the cabinets open.’ And my friends watched it and were like, ‘That’s you. You do those things.’ I was like, ‘It’s true. It is me”.
PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan James Green for Vogue
I shall leave things be soon. It is great seeing the directors and writers of both films talk about their experiences and get more spotlight. It is normally the case that the actors promote the film; that is where the weight is. Because Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan are both such incredible and influential directors, we get to hear more from them. Margot Robbie has spoken about the film with Vogue:
“In 2018, Robbie sensed an opening. So she had a meeting with the new CEO of Mattel, Ynon Kreiz, at the Polo Lounge. That meeting was about pitching LuckyChap, the production outfit she runs with her friend Josey McNamara and her husband, Tom Ackerley, to Mattel. “We’re LuckyChap,” she says. “This is our company. This is what we do. This is what we stand for. This is why we should be the ones to make a Barbie movie. And this is how we’d go about it.”
LuckyChap didn’t have a specific concept in mind, but they did know this much. “We of course would want to honor the 60-year legacy that this brand has,” Robbie says. “But we have to acknowledge that there are a lot of people who aren’t fans of Barbie. And in fact, aren’t just indifferent to Barbie. They actively hate Barbie. And have a real issue with Barbie. We need to find a way to acknowledge that.”
There were bigger meetings with Mattel, and then meetings with Warner Bros., where LuckyChap had a first-look deal at the time. Eventually Robbie started talking to Greta Gerwig about writing and directing. “I was very scared it was going to be a no,” Robbie says. “At the time this was such a terrifying thing to take on. People were like, You’re going to do what?” But Gerwig said yes, on the condition that she could write the script with her partner, Noah Baumbach. “It felt sparky to me in some way that felt kind of promising,” Gerwig tells me later. “I was the one who said, Noah and I will do this.” (Baumbach: “She broke the news to me after we were already doing it.”)
PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan James Green
LuckyChap wanted Gerwig and Baumbach to have full creative freedom. “At the same time,” Robbie says, “we’ve got two very nervous ginormous companies, Warner Bros. and Mattel, being like: What’s their plan? What are they going to do? What’s it gonna be about? What’s she going to say? They have a bazillion questions.” In the end LuckyChap found a way to structure a deal so that Gerwig and Baumbach would be left alone to write what they wanted, “which was really fucking hard to do.”
Gerwig and Baumbach did share a treatment, Robbie adds: “Greta wrote an abstract poem about Barbie. And when I say ‘abstract,’ I mean it was super abstract.” (Gerwig declines to read me the poem but offers that it “shares some similarities with the Apostles’ Creed.”) No one at LuckyChap, Mattel, or Warner Bros. saw any pages of the script until it was finished.
When I ask Gerwig and Baumbach to describe their Barbie writing process, the words “open” and “free” get used a lot. The project seemed “wide open,” Gerwig tells me. “There really was this kind of open, free road that we could keep building,” Baumbach says. Part of it had to do with the fact that their characters were dolls. “It’s like you’re playing with dolls when you’re writing something, and in this case, of course, there was this extra layer in that they were dolls,” Baumbach says. “It was literally imaginative play,” Gerwig says. That they were writing the script during lockdown also mattered, Baumbach says. “We were in the pandemic, and everybody had the feeling of, Who knows what the world is going to look like. That fueled it as well. That feeling of: Well, here goes nothing.”
Robbie and Ackerley read the Barbie script at the same time. A certain joke on page one sent their jaws to the floor. “We just looked at each other, pure panic on our faces,” Robbie recalls. “We were like, Holy fucking shit.” When Robbie finished reading: “I think the first thing I said to Tom was, This is so genius. It is such a shame that we’re never going to be able to make this movie.”
PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan James Green
LuckyChap did make the movie, of course, and it’s very much the one Gerwig and Baumbach wrote. (Alas, that joke on page one is gone.) If you saw the trailer released in December, you’ve seen the opening of the film. It’s a parody of the Dawn of Man sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But instead of apes discovering tools in the presence of a monolith, little girls smash their baby dolls in the presence of a gigantic Barbie. Robbie-as-Barbie appears in a retro black-and-white bathing suit and towering heels. She slowly lowers a pair of white cat-eye sunglasses and winks.
I saw more of the movie one morning at the Warner Bros. lot. After the Kubrick spoof we go on a romp through Barbieland, “a mad fantasy of gorgeousness,” as Sarah Greenwood, the film’s set designer, puts it later. Barbie wakes up in her Dreamhouse and embarks on the Perfect Day, accompanied by an original song that serves as soundtrack. (I am not allowed to say who sings it.) Everything everywhere is infused with pink. “I’ve never done such a deep dive into pink in all my days,” Greenwood says. Barbie’s perfectly fake, color-saturated world retains many of the quirks and physical limitations of the toy version. Her environment isn’t always three-dimensional, and the scale of everything is a bit off. Barbie is a little too big for her house and her car. When she takes a shower, there is no water. Her bare feet remain arched.
The swimsuit Robbie wears in the Dawn of Woman sequence is a replica of the one worn by the first Barbie doll in 1959. Over the course of the Perfect Day, Barbie changes clothes constantly. The progression—poodle skirt, disco look—amounts to a survey of Barbie fashion over time, says Jacqueline Durran, the film’s costume designer. (Wisely, the survey does not include the more retrograde outfits in Barbie’s past, such as the Slumber Party ensemble of 1965, which came with a little bathroom scale set at 110 pounds and a book titled How to Lose Weight that advised: “Don’t eat.”)
“The key thing about Barbie is that she dresses with intention,” Durran tells me. “Barbie doesn’t dress for the day. She dresses for the task.” The task might involve a leisure activity, or a form of employment. One scene pokes fun at the way the Barbie universe seems to blur such distinctions. “My job is just beach,” Ken explains.
PHOTO CREDIT: Ethan James Green
Ken is played with daft aplomb by Ryan Gosling. “The greatest version of Ryan Gosling ever put on screen,” in Robbie’s estimation. (Gosling: “Ken wasn’t really on my bucket list. But in fairness, I don’t have a bucket list. So I thought I’d give it a shot.”) In Barbieland, Ken is basically another fashion accessory. “Barbie has a great day every day,” we are told in voiceover delivered by Helen Mirren. “Ken only has a great day if Barbie looks at him.” Mattel introduced the first Ken doll in 1961, in response to letters demanding Barbie get a boyfriend. “Barbie was invented first,” Gerwig points out. “Ken was invented after Barbie, to burnish Barbie’s position in our eyes and in the world. That kind of creation myth is the opposite of the creation myth in Genesis”.
I may do another feature on Barbie closer to the release, as the interview with Vogue is incredible and deep. I will try and catch both films, because 21st July is going to be an epic day for cinema! Whichever side you are on – or, if like many, you are going to see them both -, it will be an amazing experience! I think that Barbie might triumphant when it comes to box office, but Oppenheimer is going to be an amazing spectacle and a typically mind-blowing Christopher Nolan picture! Reviews are going to be massive I am sure. As Barbie and Oppenheimer are such enormous and hyped films, there will be a tonne of glowing reviews. I wanted to look at both of them as, in some ways, this is like a great music battle. Even if it is a more loving and positive one compared to, say, the Britpop battle of 1995 between Blur and Oasis, it has made me think about music. We do not really get times when two big albums come on the same day and there is this build up.
COMPOSITE CREDIT: Little White Lies
If cinema can still have this very epic and dramatic air to it where there is this lead-to two films going up against one another, maybe music needs more of that. I am not sure what the modern equivalent would be. Maybe a Taylor Swift or Madonna album going against a new Radiohead release? They are just random examples, but it would be amazing if music had its Barbie vs. Oppenheimer (or, more correctly and kindly Barbie x Oppenheimer) moment where we got this lead-up and big trailers. People deciding which album they were going to buy. In any case, I am excited for July 21st: a date that will see the year’s most-anticipated films delight audience. The blonde icon Barbie up against the explosive Oppenheimer. With Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s funny, inspiring and dazzling script up against a typically complex, intelligent and deep Christopher Nolan effort, it will be a sensory experience seeing both! That is the main takeaway from this: rather than choose between two cinematic titans, you really must…
GO and see both!