15 Things You Somehow Missed In Oppenheimer

9. Oppenheimer's Bad "Dutch"

Oppenheimer Flag
Universal

Early on in the film, Oppenheimer gives a lecture on quantum mechanics in Dutch, having spent six weeks learning the language in order to do so.

For the scene, Cillian Murphy asked the film's Dutch-Swedish cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, to speak the required sentences so that he could play them back and learn them phonetically.

To those who don't know the Dutch language, Murphy seems to do at least a passable job, though many Dutch-speaking viewers reported confusion during this scene, that they couldn't understand what was being said as Murphy's garbled verbiage sounded more like German.

The gaffe went viral shortly after the film's release due to many feeling that such a mistake was surely beneath the exacting standards of a $100 million Christopher Nolan movie. 

How hard could it have been to just... hire a Dutch language coach for Murphy, rather than relying on a cinematographer who, by his own admission, hasn't lived in the Netherlands for 20 years?

Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.