Nudity in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has been censored in other countries, with Florence Pugh being covered by a CG dress.
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer is the director’s first R-rated film in twenty years, but the film’s nudity hasn’t been accepted everywhere in the world. It’s been reported that Oppenheimer has been censored in several countries outside of the U.S.
The censored scene involves Florence Pugh’s Jean Tatlock as she speaks with Cillian Murphy’s J. Robert Oppenheimer. In the original version of the scene, Pugh is naked, but she’s been given a CG black dress to cover her body.
The altered Oppenheimer scene can be found playing in Indian and Middle Eastern theaters, which typically don’t allow movies that feature sex or nudity. Variety notes that Oppenheimer was passed with a U/A certificate in India.
Oppenheimer was edited to pass with a U/A certificate by India’s film certification standards. Movies with the U/A certification “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,” according to India’s Central Board of Film Certification.
While Christopher Nolan was “appropriately nervous” about filming his first sex scene, he was adamant that this aspect of Oppenheimer was included in the movie. “When you look at Oppenheimer’s life and you look at his story, that aspect of his life, the aspect of his sexuality, his way with women, the charm that he exuded, it’s an essential part of his story,” Nolan said. “It felt very important to understand their relationship and to really see inside it and understand what made it tick without being coy or allusive about it, but to try to be intimate, to try and be in there with him and fully understand the relationship that was so important to him.”
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin, the movie stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the enigmatic man who must risk destroying the world in order to save it. In addition to Murphy, the film also stars Emily Blunt as his wife, biologist and botanist Katherine “Kitty” Oppenheimer, Matt Damon as General Leslie Groves Jr., director of the Manhattan Project, and Robert Downey Jr. as Lewis Strauss, a founding commissioner of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. The rest of the cast includes Florence Pugh, Benny Safdie, Rami Maleck, Josh Hartnett, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Angarano, Dane DeHaan, David Krumholtz, Alden Ehrenreich, Matthew Modine, and many more.
The double feature of Oppenheimer and Barbie has been setting box-office records as audiences flock to both movies. You can check out a review of Oppenheimer from our own Eric Walkuski right here, and be sure to let us know what you thought of the film as well.
