Florence Pugh stunned moviegoers this summer as part of the star-studded ensemble of Christopher Nolan’s next epic cinematic release, Oppenheimer, which is now available on internet, DVD, Blu Ray, and 4K.
She made news for an unexpected cause, however, when it was found that she had been censored in some cuts of the film due to a digitally inserted item of clothing.
Cillian Murphy played physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who was in charge of the development and design of the atomic bomb at the Los Alamos Laboratory during WWII, and Pugh played his lover, psychiatrist Jean Tatlock.
The Oscar contender had two long nude moments in the picture, which raised eyebrows in a ‘bizarre’ fashion when it was revealed that her nudity had been covered up for distribution in some countries.
For screenings in countries like as India, Pugh’s nude image was edited by layering on top of a computer-generated black frock – and Oppenheimer’s VFX supervisor has now revealed that it is the sole piece of CGI in the whole film.
And, no, he was unaware of it.
In the original version of the film, Pugh, 27, sat across from Murphy, 47, in a hotel room, both of them supposed to be totally naked.
Pugh was topless in the UK edit of the film when she spoke with Oppenheimer, but her bare figure was concealed by a simple black garment cut straight across her breast and halfway down her thighs in India, Indonesia, and certain Middle Eastern nations.
Andrew Jackson said in Los Angeles, ahead of the home release of Oppenheimer, that he had no clue that cut would be made, stating, ‘It was all very much after the event.’
‘I did think it was quite bizarre that in the film where there were no CG components, that that was the one,’ he added, referring to filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s preference for his movies to contain ‘in-camera’ practical effects, rather than anything created with CGI afterward.
To be clear, this does not imply that the film features no VFX; there are around 200 visual effects shots in total, which includes all practical effects shots as well as those that remove modern aspects in on-location scenes, for example.
Sources close to the picture acknowledged to Variety at the time that Pugh’s sequences were altered, as with any work containing nudity or graphic sex, in order to achieve a release in Middle Eastern nations and India, where such content is not permitted in cinemas.
With Pugh’s CGI LBD in place, India’s Central Board of Film Certification handed Oppenheimer a U/A certification, which means it ‘can contain moderate adult themes, that is not strong in nature and can be watched by a child below 12 years of age under parental guidance’.
When asked about working with a filmmaker like Nolan on FX, special effects supervisor Scott R. Fisher referred to him as “the best there is” due to his love for real effects.
‘All the ideas and things that I sometimes try and want to do on other films, where they’re very quick to try to figure out a CGI or a visual effects solution, he’s the opposite. He wants to push and figure out how to do things practically,’ he enthused.
In fact, Fisher called it ‘kind of ideal’ as a set-up for both himself and Jackson as they merge into one department on Nolan’s movies and ‘work together and figure out how to divide and conquer’.
‘We’re both very much on the same page anyway, and that is the same page as Chris Nolan,’ added Jackson.
‘And he’s a really collaborative director, he wants us to experiment and bring ideas to him, and then we’ll discuss them and develop the ones further that work.
‘So, it’s a really worthwhile and rewarding process of feeling very engaged in the filmmaking rather than just being given a particular task and you go away and do it.’
This is demonstrated to great advantage in one of the special features included on the Oppenheimer home entertainment release, which contains a documentary about the film’s production.
In it, Jackson and Fisher are shown on set and with their team figuring out the best methods to dazzle spectators with some old-fashioned practical movie magic – not that you’d know unless they told you.
The toughest obstacle for the two, who previously collaborated with Nolan on Tenet – for which they won an Oscar – and Fisher also has an Oscar nod for 2015’s Interstellar, was recreating the Trinity Test without using CG.
The pressure was on since it was an identifiable and well-documented nuclear detonation of scary power, something they couldn’t accomplish in real life – but Jackson joked that they dealt with it by ‘leaning in’ to the massive explosion.
‘We kind of knew, right from the start, that was going to be the answer – to make the actual explosion as big as we feasibly could. And then enhance that with slowing it down, which makes it feel much bigger, and then layering up additional components,’ he explained.
‘Because [of] doing so many of the other films with Chris, we knew that we’re going to have to figure out a way to do it on the largest scale we could, and also knowing that we’re going to be out in the middle of the desert and we’re not going to have a lot of leeway to do huge explosions and things like that,’ added Fisher.
‘So, we definitely thought we just had to push it as far as we could with what we could do.’
Fisher is happy, however, that there were no occasions when they felt they had to forgo accuracy or other concerns in order to make Oppenheimer’s effects seem as good as possible onscreen.
While acknowledging that they ‘always think about changes’ and that time is typically an issue, Nolan’s approach lets them let it go.
‘Chris is so, so decisive. He knows what he needs when he sees it, and you kind of move on. So sometimes you’re caught with that, “Oh, if we could it once more, a little better!”
‘But if he’s happy, then we’re happy.’
Oppenheimer is available now on 4K UHD, Blu-ray™ and DVD to download and keep.
