At least they can now pronounce “Oppenheimer”
What the movie of the summer has done for me. Plus: Teslas take great photos.
In case you missed it, here is my op-ed from the Wall Street Journal last weekend, and instant contender for the most profound piece I have ever written. It was headlined “The Perks and Pitfalls of Being an Oppenheimer,” which I like, at least in part because it chimes with the title of one of my favorite movies, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the best ’80s teen flick not made in the ’80s. Anyway, my op-ed:
“Maybe people will now pronounce my name correctly.”
That’s been my stock reply over the past few months, as friends and colleagues, as well as strangers I must have met once and given my email to, have sent me endless variations on the question, “What’s it like to be the movie of the summer?”
In case you’ve missed it—in which case you live a web-, TV- and ad-free lifestyle that I envy—the Hollywood hype machine has spent the past six months insinuating Christopher Nolan’s new movie “Oppenheimer,” a biopic about the father of the atomic bomb, into our collective couch-potato consciousness. The movie was released on July 21 and is already a hit, bringing in $81 million on its opening weekend.
It’s a strange twist of fate for the name that my family has carried for centuries, one we likely picked up in the small town of Oppenheim, on the banks of the Rhine, an hour southwest of Frankfurt, Germany. For most of our history as Oppenheimers, my relatives were presumed to be related to Joseph Suss Oppenheimer, who was the banker for Duke Karl Alexander in Stuttgart. That Oppenheimer was hanged in 1738 after being convicted on various trumped-up charges, and his name was assured a place in history by Joseph Goebbels, who made “Jew Suss” the subject of a 1940 Nazi propaganda movie.
By that time, Oppenheimers were more likely to be asked if they were any relation to Sir Ernest Oppenheimer (1880-1957), chairman of the De Beers diamond consortium in South Africa. (His heirs continue to be a big deal in their hemisphere.) In the U.S., they were often presumed to be related to the Oppenheimers of what’s now OppenheimerFunds, the mutual-fund company.
Alas, my branch of the family comprises neither diamond barons, nor mutual fund purveyors, nor world-class physicists like the subject of the new movie, who was name-checked in Sting’s 1985 song “Russians,” which contains the line that Nolan says first alerted him to the historical figure: “How can I save my little boy / From Oppenheimer’s deadly toy?”
My folk came to the U.S. in the mid-19th century and made our way in unglamorous industries like manufacturing steel drums and exporting farm equipment (to Cuba, among other places, where some money my grandfather made selling cultivators was sitting in the National Bank of Cuba when Castro claimed it for La Revolución). Whenever I get asked if I am related to the diamond Oppenheimers or the mutual-fund Oppenheimers, I can only answer, “I wish.”
But what all Oppenheimers have, no matter the size of our bank account, is a great name. It has terrific mouth feel. People like saying the whole thing, especially when annoyed to see one of us: “Hello, Oppenheimer.” It also lends itself to an easy, memorable nickname, “Oppy,” which several generations in my lineage have borne. And to many people, especially those encountering it for the first time, it simply sounds funny. Many’s the time I have answered the phone to hear a telemarketer say, “Hello, Mr. Opp…Mr. Oppen…” and then just give up and start giggling, as if the name is too ridiculous to waste any more time on.
I have no beef with those who are completely flummoxed. After all, four syllables is a lot. I reserve my impatience for the people—and there are many of them—who pronounce the name as Open-heimer, which reveals them to be indifferent to the rich histories of bankers, diamonds, mutual funds and atomic energy. In my experience, the people who say Open-heimer can’t be reasoned with. You can correct them, and they’ll repeat it right back at you: “That’s what I said—Open-heimer!”
So my hope is that this, my summer as an eponym, does something more than drive Christopher Nolan’s Oscar hopes and make people squint at me, searching for a resemblance to Cillian Murphy. I dare to imagine that it will help more people get my name right. Mission impossible? Perhaps. “Oppenheimer” is no “Barbie.”
Also very chuffed about the illustration. I have not yet asked if the guy on the left is supposed to actually look like me:
My father called me yesterday to say that Jeanine Herbst, the news reader on NPR, has committed the Open-heimer sin. I haven’t been able to find tape online, but I have written to her and will report back.
And now, Barbie
But the movie I actually went to see last week was Barbie, which I give a B+ to. If it had all been as good as the musical numbers, it would have been an A+:
But you know what was totally A+? The atmosphere at the movie theater where I saw the movie in downtown New Haven. I went with my chum Liam, and the place was packed. Full-on mobbed. On a Tuesday night. I’d say about 80 percent female, racially super-diverse, religiously diverse, too—some Muslim women, a couple teen Chabad Jewish friends of my daughter—and over half the people wearing at least some pink. Also: people kept their phones off during the movie, not something I expect of a youthful audience in this day and age; but it’s as if they were respecting Barbie, you know?
People kept their phones off during the movie . . . it’s as if they were respecting Barbie, you know?
So I leave the theater all high on the communal experience. Add to that the articles I have read about how Barbenheimer has saved the movies, and I am making plans to up my attendance at the cinema.
And then, just a few days later, I get a text from Liam, my film buddy, telling me that the theater where we saw the movie is closing. If that’s true, then, coming on the heels of the shuttering of CINE 1-2-3-4—the one off Exit 8, you know—a couple years back, we will have zero first-run movie screens in New Haven, Connecticut.
I have not confirmed this yet, but if it’s true, it’s pretty heartbreaking. A quick Google search suggests that there are also no active film societies at Yale, which is a sad thing to read when you first saw Dazed and Confused back in 1993 at the Yale Med School Film Society—which got it as a first-run movie.
Which actually makes me wonder—with no first-run screens going, is this a moment when college students, or other interested cinephile parties, could step in and get some first-run movies to show somewhere, anywhere, here in the Elm City? I know nothing about who gets rights to show what where. What I do know is that I like seeing movies on the big screen. Always have, always will.
Tesla and the art of photography
As I have written, I somehow ended up with a car manufactured by a Bad, Bad Man, which means that if I drive by a virtue-signaling Prius or Subaru, I have to duck my head lest the other drive infer incorrect things about my politics.
That is the downside of owning a Tesla.
One upside of owning a Tesla—aside from the fact that it’s a really, really fun car to drive—is that, wouldn’t you know, the side camera that turns on when you engage the turn signal, showing you the traffic on the side where you are planning to turn, has the most beautiful palette. Every photo from this Tesla side camera looks like a ’70s-era Kodachrome taken in Laurel Canyon. I took out my phone and snapped this pic of the Tesla pic; the quality of a picture-of-a-picture isn’t great, but I hope you get the idea:
Soundtrack by Jackson Browne, or Tom Petty?
Wishing you a cool, pleasant week, with good movies and good tunes.