Timing is everything they say. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ and production company, Smartypants, are demonstrating that as a truth. Following Oppenheimer’s seven Academy Award wins, including best picture, the partners have released an anthem film that reinforces the institution’s legacy.
Oppenheimer viewers will recognise the Institute as a key institution featured in the film, in footage and photographs featuring other great minds like Albert Einstein, Emmy Noether, Kurt Gödel and Hetty Goldman, and founders Abraham Flexner, Louis Bamberger and Caroline Bamberger Fuld.
A pivotal location shared between Nolan’s Oppenheimer and the anthem video is the Institute’s pond. In the feature film, the pond (the construction of which took place during Oppenheimer’s directorship) formed the setting for imagined conversations between the protagonist and founding IAS Faculty member, Albert Einstein. In the anthem video, viewers can see Brad Bolman, a Member of the Institute’s School of Historical Studies, standing next to the pond. Another iconic IAS location included in both works is the exterior of Fuld Hall, the first building to be completed on the Institute’s campus in 1939. Robert Downey Jr. welcomed Cillian Murphy’s Oppenheimer to the Institute with the famous FULD HALL signage in the background, and scholars Jonathan Davis-Secord, Sarah Davis-Secord, Penelope Lisa Deutscher, and Durba Ghosh, are seen exiting the building beneath this same sign in the anthem video.
Smartypants blended very rare archival footage of the early scholars and laureates navigating the campus and teaching seminars cut against modern-day lectures and meetings, which take place in the same buildings, rooms, and offices to this day.
The juxtaposition of past and present emphasises the Institute’s long-standing dedication to solving society’s fundamental problems by gathering great minds across many sectors.
As its longest-serving director, J. Robert Oppenheimer represents a leadership model designed to unite multiple disciplines, not just math and natural sciences, but history and social science. Smartypants shows, not tells, this history through depictions of long-stored archival footage, paired with organic representations of the modern-day diverse body of scholars.
Established in 1930, the Institute has served as a model for protecting and promoting independent inquiry, prompting the establishment of similar institutes around the world, and underscoring the importance of academic freedom worldwide.
Smartypants director, Merete Mueller, commented, “The entire IAS campus feels like a place out of time. At every turn, we ran into famous pieces of history, saw desks and chalkboards where momentous discoveries had been made, and visited the pond and woodsy paths where iconic thinkers had wandered lost in thought. It was so fun to capture this and the ongoing conversation between history, the present moment, and exciting visions of the future.”
IAS Spokesperson Lee Sandberg, added, “There is a unique parallel between past and present at IAS, which has stood for and remains a haven for the free pursuit of knowledge in an otherwise volatile world. Values, such as bridging disparate fields and engaging with society, which took shape through the Oppenheimer years, remain as relevant today as ever to addressing global challenges.”
Credits:
Production Company: Smartypants
Executive Producers: Anna Bick Rowe, Eric Nichols
Director: Merete Mueller
Senior Producer: Amy Shand
Associate Creative Director: Christiana Mecca
Writer: Lilian Mehrel
Director of Photography: Drew Levin
Steadicam Operator: Kevin Jacobsen
Additional Crew: Mike Guaspari, Edgar Velez, Kevin Jacobsen, Derek Sexton-Horani, Gabe Solorzano, Jordan Gairey, Megan Miller, Dylan Brown, Joy Wu
Post-Production Manager: Kristin Thompson
Editor: Charlotte Savage
Assistant Editor: Collin Friesen
Colour Grade: Alexia Salingaros, Forager
Colour Producer: Lindsey Mazur, Forager
Sound Design: Bobb Barito
Footage Courtesy of: IAS, Pond5, Filmsupply, Artgrid, University of Toronto, Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, The White House, The New York Public Library, Alamy, American Institute of Physics
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