For “Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan reconstructed Los Alamos “in secret.”

A whole town full of newly constructed nuclear facilities in the isolated highlands of New Mexico, where all the participants were bound by oaths of secrecy?

The narrative encompasses not only the storyline of “Oppenheimer,” but also the process by which Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-nominated film about the development of the atomic bomb was produced.

Field producer for Ghost Ranch David Manzanares told AFP on a recent tour of the site of the film’s Los Alamos sequences, “This is the most I’ve ever spoken about it.”

He remembered, “It definitely took on the air of secrecy.”

Numerous wooden houses, offices, security checkpoints, and even a church constructed just for the movie are still standing a few kilometers from the closest paved road, behind gates labeled “RESTRICTED AREA.”

The buildings are spaced apart by gorgeous mountains with a purple tinge, and the Boulevard is dusty.

An hour’s drive away, the actual Los Alamos is a contemporary town that still houses a massive, top-secret federal laboratory tasked with protecting the US nuclear arsenal. Numerous interior scenes made advantage of its old architecture.

However, Nolan chose this remote region of the southwest US state to serve as the town for exterior sequences, building a recreation of its main street from the 1940s.

The renowned British director is known for his insistence on providing his performers with real, useful settings to work from.

Real scientists from Los Alamos were used as extras, and the movie’s atomic bomb explosion was filmed with very little assistance from computer effects.

Because of this, the town model had to be constructed in its entirety, giving Nolan the flexibility to shoot from any aspect at any time.

However, Manzanares and his Ghost Ranch crew were not even permitted to admit that the movie had been filmed there until a month after the movie’s July release.

He said, “There was no posting, there was no conversation.”

“That’s just the way business is conducted on a Christopher Nolan shoot.”

On July 15, 2023, Matthew Bolton (left) and Jan-Christoph Zoels (middle) carry a placard during a protest in New York City. AP
A roadside rest area in Los Alamos, New Mexico, has been painted to resemble the historic security gate that all Manhattan Project personnel traveled through on June 26, 2023. (AP) Notas

A acquaintance of Manzanares’ who manages locations for motion pictures phoned him in the middle of October 2021, inquiring as to whether he knew of any spotless locations with expansive, panoramic views.

Although the buddy would not tell what the project was, she did reveal that it was set in 1940s New Mexico, which was enough to make Manzanares speculate given the excitement already surrounding Nolan’s next major motion picture.

Ghost Ranch seemed a good match, and Nolan personally visited the following month.

“He was immediately enamored with it,” Manzanares said.

Nolan approved it and then added a caveat: “Oh, by the way, we need a double of it.”

The film had to start with a scene when the scientist played by Cillian Murphy shows a US army commander (played by Matt Damon) an abandoned location that was to be the new base for the Manhattan Project.

They would have to start filming on the Los Alamos town set proper the next day.

The team got to work after locating two “mesas”—the raised rock shelves that make up the unique highlands of northern New Mexico—that were sufficiently alike.

That winter, crews braved several blizzards to prepare the set for eight intense days of filming, while the A-list actors holed up in a nearby hotel.

“Everyone, even the actors,” was covered by the secret, Manzanares recounted.

“They would get pages, they’d go to their hotel room and read, but they couldn’t take the script out.”

US authorities pledge to give cleaning at the nuclear lab top priority in honor of Oppenheimer
A roadside rest area in Los Alamos, New Mexico, has been painted to resemble the historic security gate that all Manhattan Project personnel traveled through on June 26, 2023. (AP)
“Oppenheimer” evokes a troubled past for those in New Mexico impacted by the covert atomic bomb project rattlesnakes

For a movie of its size and notoriety, the secrecy surrounding “Oppenheimer” was not wholly out of the ordinary.

Media agencies are always looking for behind-the-scenes pictures, insider information, and script snippets that might potentially reveal important plot points ahead of time.

The “laboratories” of the fictitious town were taken down after the Los Alamos scenes were finished, along with the telephone poles that would have quickly collapsed due to strong winds.

However, the filmmakers consented to keep around a dozen wooden buildings intact, marking the first time this has been permitted for a Ghost Ranch movie shoot.

This meant that when shooting was over, the set had to be kept a secret for almost a year.

In the future, the location will host further films, including Westerns.

But in the meantime, starting the next month, the ranch owners will begin providing a “Oppenheimer Tour.”

They want to profit if, as predicted, the film takes home many Oscars on March 10, including best picture.

Workers have been working for months to get the isolated location ready for the weather.

Black widows and rattlesnakes were discovered when Julia Haywood, the tours manager at Ghost Ranch, went up there.

She said, “It’s safe as hell now.”

A roadside rest area in Los Alamos, New Mexico, has been painted to resemble the historic security gate that all Manhattan Project personnel traveled through on June 26, 2023. (AP)
Kai Bird muses on the journey and cultural significance of the Oppenheimer film, saying, “I was brought to tears.”