This summer’s cinema blockbuster season has been hyped as the saving of the big screen, and all indications are that this hype is coming true.
Because I love the cinema, it’s what I’m hoping for.
The passion with which Hollywood writers and actors are picketing while their strike appears to have no end matches the passion with which I show up at the theatre. Judging from all the pink at the concession stands, a lot of other people feel this way too.
Being with an audience is a singular experience that can only be described as the purest of peer pressure. An empty theatre says as much about me as a packed house. The movies I choose to see give me conversation material and belongingness. They show my place in the mainstream. And when a hush falls over the crowd, or the place erupts in laughter, I share the shivers and the joy.
When I sit in a darkened theatre, with surround sound, I expect to be black-hole-engulfed in a story that will take me the full spectrum of feeling and make me leave my popcorn alone and forget to open my Twizzlers. If it’s a story that can give me a reason to believe that I could do that, then I’m all in. And the ultimate black hole is 3D. But that’s for another day.
Let’s dive into “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” the mononymous films that somehow ended up showing side-by-side this summer. I did “Barbie first, opening weekend at the Gettysburg Majestic, and because Oppenheimer Director Christopher Nolan emphasized the importance of the full IMAX experience, I saw Oppenheimer at an IMAX theater in Frederick. I couldn’t agree more.
It was good to separate the two by twenty-four hours because they each deserve the afterglow of having seen a really good film. Not only were the precipitating events historic, but one could argue that seeing these films could alter the course of, if not the world, at least our conversation moving forward.
We are all a part of the whole story, and each of these stories is about a singular event that changed our world forever.
Co-founder of Mattle Inc. and inventor of the Barbie doll Ruth Handler thought about the lack of adult dolls and brought forth Barbie. American physicist Robert Oppenheimer thought about making a nuclear bomb, which blew up two cities in Japan and propelled us into a cold war.
Both were thinking about a world they would like to create. Neither could see the future. Only in hindsight can we see how one person’s imagination can change the way people think.
Directors Nolan and Gretta Gerwig have taken us on a journey both backward and forward. They’ve stretched our perceptions and given us some great conversation material.
Barbie wakes up every day in a delightful mood. But one day she realizes something is different. And in the course of the day, Ken has some realizations, too. And they do it in the most hilarious way.
Barbie is such a fun movie that I don’t want to spoil any of it for you. You’ll see your old Barbie, and if you didn’t have a Barbie, you’ll be able to take part in the conversation about how Barbie messed us all up and made men have way too high expectations for us. Or the one about how Ken is just Ken. Or is he? He gets fingerprinted, too. But Weird Barbie upstages them all at times. I’m glad she gets her moment of fame. She’s so cool.
Oppenheimer wakes up in cold sweats and is tortured for the rest of his days. Not only by his mind but also by the investigation that hounded him after WWII. Cillian Murphy’s portrayal of Oppenheimer made me wonder how the actor’s mental health is now. I can’t imagine playing that part and not being affected by it personally.
Interesting note: Someone I know whose word is impeccable and unquestionable said that Oppenheimer came to Gettysburg frequently in his later years.
The rumble in the floorboards the IMAX produces brings you into the room where it happened. The tension created by the wait for the detonation that we all knew was coming is part of Nolan’s genius. The dissonance created by the relationship between Oppenheimer and Matt Damon’s General Groves as they grapple with the decisions they are making causes me anxiety just writing about it.
When you meet someone their brain doesn’t show, their body does. When you drop a bomb, the victims’ ideologies aren’t affected, their bodies are. Both of these films ask us to feel something we haven’t before. And know something about how much control we have over our own course in history.
We don’t live in Barbieland and we don’t want to drop any more bombs either. What these films did for me, besides being highly satisfying nights at the theatre, was make me think about how I can make a difference.
It’s time to do something about this. Change my perspective. Change my world. If these films do one important thing, it is to show how one person can affect so much. It really is a small world after all.
In only one weekend we can have some fun, learn some history, and move forward looking at ourselves and our world a little more clearly. No more rose-colored glasses. Pink eyewear and porkpie hats are the way to let the world know you’re a little bit wiser now.
Deb Collins has been in central Pennsylvania since 1989. Her children graduated from Gettysburg Area High School at the turn of the century and now live at opposite ends of the turnpike, Chelsea in Pittsburgh and Jake in Philadelphia. Raised in Connecticut, Deb enjoys the milder climate and the proximity to so many major cities that Gettysburg provides.