Even over a year after its culture-shaking release,Oppenheimeris still breaking records.
Florence Pugh appears in theOppenheimeras Jean Tatlock.
Though Jean does not have a lot of minutes on screen,her story is crucially linked withOppenheimer’s.
Jean Strong was an English professor at Berkeley and instilled in Jean a great love of literature.
Tatlock graduated from Vassar in 1935 and then went to Berkeley to complete prerequisites for medical school.
However, he continued to occasionally see her even after marrying Kitty in 1940 (viaRadioTimes).
Custom Image by Ana Nieves
They read the transcript of the night to Oppenheimer during his hearing, with Kitty present.
On January 4, 1944,Jean Tatlock was found dead in her bathroom.
She had knelt on a pile of pillows and submerged her head in her bathtub, drowning herself.
Oppenheimer is a film by Christopher Nolan, which follows the theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man behind the atomic bomb. Cillian Murphy will play the titular role, with the story based on the book American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin.
Tatlock was found by her father and her death was ruled as a “suicide, motive unknown”.
I wanted to live and to give and I got paralyzed somehow.
I tried like hell to understand and couldn’t…
While the connection has never been confirmed,the Trinity Test may have been named for Tatlock.
A fan of the poet John Donne, Tatlock reportedly introduced Oppenheimer to his work.
In the movie, these conspiratorial ideas are suggested by Oppenheimer having visions of Tatlock’s death.
One potential suspect who could have killed Tatlock is Boris Pash, played menacingly by Casey Affleck inOppenheimer.
Pash was an army intelligence officer in the CIA who was in charge of counterintelligence in the Bay Area.
However, these claims are circumstantial at best.
She had a hard one.
Perhaps that’s why Christopher Nolan apologized to her when he offered her the part (viaVanityFair).
I was like, ‘yo don’t apologize.’
If that meant the chance to work with Christopher Nolan, all the better.
How Accurate Was Oppenheimer’s Portrayal Of Jean Tatlock?
