From Page to Screen: Launching ‘Oppenheimer”

Lucky me! Just a few monthsafter Oppenheimer picked up seven Oscars—including Best Picture—at theAcademy Awards ceremony, I heard Kai Bird explain in depth how it all came tobe. Bird, who donned a tux to attend the flashy ceremony at Hollywood’s DolbyTheatre, is the co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy ofJ. Robert Oppenheimer. This massive 2005 biography of the theoreticalphysicist who during World Wart II led the Manhattan Project, resulting in theworld’s first atomic weapons, became the source material for Christopher Nolan’sblockbuster film. (The research leading to the completed book was begun byBird’s friend and co-author Martin J. Sherwin, an historian who passed away in2021.)

 Though Bird and Sherwin wonthe Pulitzer Prize and other major honors for their 721-page opus, the motionpicture industry didn’t immediately get on board.  Like most Hollywood stories, this one took itstime in moving from page to screen. That was one big takeaway from this year’s14th annual Biographers International Organization, a New Yorkgathering of old pros and biography newbies all of whom love the idea ofaccurately and compellingly putting a life into words. The session at which Birdappeared was titled “From Book to Film: Selling Options, Scripting, Producing.”The speakers, in addition to Bird, were biographers A’lelia Bundles and JackEl-Hai, both of whom had their own Hollywood stories to tell.

 Needless to say, cynicismabounded at this gathering. Someone called up an old Hemingway story about how,when you sell your work to Hollywood, you stand at the California state lineand toss in a bag containing your magnum opus. In exchange, the Hollywoodmoguls toss back to you a sack full of money. Today the writer/producer dynamicis much more complicated, though, and the money is generally less. Happily,sometimes things work out.

 Longtime journalist JackEl-Hai has had two biographical works optioned by Hollywood. The Lobotomist,his in-depth story of the doctor who invented the questionable procedure, hasnever quite made it to the screen. But The Nazi and the Psychiatrist –afterseveral false starts—was recently filmed in Europe with a cast headed byRussell Crowe and Rami Malek. Having watched the filming in progress, Jack is thrilledthat the project, now titled Nuremberg, will be out by the end of thisyear. Meanwhile, A’Lelia Bundles’ award-winning work on the life of her owngreat-great-grandmother, Black cosmetics and hair care entrepreneur Madam C.J.Walker, was transformed into Self-Made, a Netflix miniseries starringOctavia Spencer. Bundles has high praise for Spencer, but not for the execs whogarbled the true story of her ancestor, adding cat fights and other materialshe deemed offensive but was powerless to reject. (Her contract gave her scriptreview, not script approval, a very big difference.)

 As for Oppenheimer, thematerial was originally optioned by Sam Mendes. He was coming off his Oscarwins for American Beauty, but couldn’t land the financing he needed.Several additional options followed: one produced a script filled with 108different historical inaccuracies, like Oppy maliciously poisoning rivalphysicist Edward Teller at a cocktail party, leading to a dramatic (but whollybogus) death scene. At long last, a billionaire with a physics background cameaboard, then approached Nolan, who cranked out a brilliant 200 -page scriptretaining virtually all the complexity of Bird’s and Sherwin’s scholarly study.When Bird pointed out a few small issues involving historical accuracy, hiswords were respected and corrections made. That’s why Bird calls himself today“the luckiest biographer in the history of the planet.”