I’d like to share what Oppenheimer’s brilliance did to one American. My Mom is a genealogy nut and about 25 years ago she connected with a distant cousin to my father. They often met to discuss their converging family trees. During one seemingly ordinary met up, Cousin started to weep and was unable to speak. He opened up and shared with her his greatest shame. It seems his home life was filled with violence so he decided to runaway by enlisting during WWII.
During 1945, he found himself stationed in the Mariana Islands north of Guam. Late one evening he was working with a team loading a B~29 plane for a combat mission the next day. Being a young grunt he just did as he was told. Officers in the hangar seemed a bit jumpy and were frequently going out to take a smoke. They had finished up loading and securing a large bomb on board. Cousin’s last task was help secure the cargo doors on the Enola Gay.
Early the next morning the Enola Gay and it’s crew of 11 or so men glided over the target city dropping their payload. The uranium bomb known as “Little Boy” detonated over Hiroshima turning everything in sight to a waste land.
Cousin learned of the bombing when the the Enola Gay returned and the pilot was given a hero”s welcome. For decades afterwards,Cousin carried deep shame and never ending guilt because he unknowingly helped to kill tens of thousands of innocent Japanese.
Like a stone dropped into a pond, the ripples became all encompassing.
Susan - and Stephen - kudos for this terrific deconstruction (or “de-strutting,” in Susan’s words) of the movie *Oppenheimer*, which riled me enough after I saw it to get me to read the actual biography *American Prometheus*. The thing is, with all the critical hoorah about the movie, I first doubted my own response. But reading the bio confirmed for me that the movie turned a complex man into a far more simplistic hero. He was tortured certainly by the aftermath of what he and the Manhattan Project had wrought, but showing it from his perspective in no way compensates for the actual horrific destruction of those bombs and their impact on the Japanese, something Stephen addresses quite movingly.
One of my main takeaways from *American Prometheus* is that Truman and his military advisers were far too hasty in dropping those bombs - and that it was quite likely a chest-thumping show of force meant as a warning to the Soviet Union post-war. Yes, this breaks the usual “America had to do it” narrative - and what a better movie this would have been if that had been the big reveal. I have more to say, but I think this piece gets a lot of my criticisms across with excellent insights and counterpoints. Thank you both 🙏🏽
As usual, I’m more focused on the art/aesthetic side than the morality. But in this case, they appear to lead me to the same conclusion. I don’t want to see this film.
I’ll send a more detailed email, but I’m mentioning this here in case you don’t see the email—
Your usual thorough report here on the various tricks a filmmaker/writer does to send a message gives me an idea for a collaboration we could do.
I’m reading a book now (title redacted) for a book club. I like the themes and message, but I feel the actual aesthetic experience sometimes struggling to get my attention. There are times when the prose reads like a blurb for the book, because the main character is a stand-in for the author, and it’s third person, so there’s a lot of “Joe/Jane spent a few sleepless nights wondering why does (redacted) have to be so hard? Why do people like me have to struggle so much to sort out our feelings about (redacted), and why do we have to accept the loud message from society that (redacted) isn’t important?”
I think that when Nolan uses his cheap tricks, and when a well-intentioned writer uses their version, one may be infuriating while the other is underwhelming, but in each case it seems like a dubious result aesthetically.
It seems to me that a three hour movie, or a 400 page book, ought to make at least a little room here and there for the audience to put things together on their own.
The Barbie movie gives us a message, but it’s also entertaining, and as goofy as that movie was, the message is complex and delivered graciously. It’s funny how the yoking of the two films shows the stark difference between a pompous lecture and a conversation that treats the viewer with respect.
I agree wholeheartedly and must say that my favorite line from your post is: “Why does every idea in Oppie’s head need to be represented visually with an explosion? Is it to keep the audience awake during a very long film with a lot of science-talk in it?” 👏👏
I’d like to share what Oppenheimer’s brilliance did to one American. My Mom is a genealogy nut and about 25 years ago she connected with a distant cousin to my father. They often met to discuss their converging family trees. During one seemingly ordinary met up, Cousin started to weep and was unable to speak. He opened up and shared with her his greatest shame. It seems his home life was filled with violence so he decided to runaway by enlisting during WWII.
During 1945, he found himself stationed in the Mariana Islands north of Guam. Late one evening he was working with a team loading a B~29 plane for a combat mission the next day. Being a young grunt he just did as he was told. Officers in the hangar seemed a bit jumpy and were frequently going out to take a smoke. They had finished up loading and securing a large bomb on board. Cousin’s last task was help secure the cargo doors on the Enola Gay.
Early the next morning the Enola Gay and it’s crew of 11 or so men glided over the target city dropping their payload. The uranium bomb known as “Little Boy” detonated over Hiroshima turning everything in sight to a waste land.
Cousin learned of the bombing when the the Enola Gay returned and the pilot was given a hero”s welcome. For decades afterwards,Cousin carried deep shame and never ending guilt because he unknowingly helped to kill tens of thousands of innocent Japanese.
Like a stone dropped into a pond, the ripples became all encompassing.
Susan - and Stephen - kudos for this terrific deconstruction (or “de-strutting,” in Susan’s words) of the movie *Oppenheimer*, which riled me enough after I saw it to get me to read the actual biography *American Prometheus*. The thing is, with all the critical hoorah about the movie, I first doubted my own response. But reading the bio confirmed for me that the movie turned a complex man into a far more simplistic hero. He was tortured certainly by the aftermath of what he and the Manhattan Project had wrought, but showing it from his perspective in no way compensates for the actual horrific destruction of those bombs and their impact on the Japanese, something Stephen addresses quite movingly.
One of my main takeaways from *American Prometheus* is that Truman and his military advisers were far too hasty in dropping those bombs - and that it was quite likely a chest-thumping show of force meant as a warning to the Soviet Union post-war. Yes, this breaks the usual “America had to do it” narrative - and what a better movie this would have been if that had been the big reveal. I have more to say, but I think this piece gets a lot of my criticisms across with excellent insights and counterpoints. Thank you both 🙏🏽
As usual, I’m more focused on the art/aesthetic side than the morality. But in this case, they appear to lead me to the same conclusion. I don’t want to see this film.
I’ll send a more detailed email, but I’m mentioning this here in case you don’t see the email—
Your usual thorough report here on the various tricks a filmmaker/writer does to send a message gives me an idea for a collaboration we could do.
I’m reading a book now (title redacted) for a book club. I like the themes and message, but I feel the actual aesthetic experience sometimes struggling to get my attention. There are times when the prose reads like a blurb for the book, because the main character is a stand-in for the author, and it’s third person, so there’s a lot of “Joe/Jane spent a few sleepless nights wondering why does (redacted) have to be so hard? Why do people like me have to struggle so much to sort out our feelings about (redacted), and why do we have to accept the loud message from society that (redacted) isn’t important?”
I think that when Nolan uses his cheap tricks, and when a well-intentioned writer uses their version, one may be infuriating while the other is underwhelming, but in each case it seems like a dubious result aesthetically.
It seems to me that a three hour movie, or a 400 page book, ought to make at least a little room here and there for the audience to put things together on their own.
The Barbie movie gives us a message, but it’s also entertaining, and as goofy as that movie was, the message is complex and delivered graciously. It’s funny how the yoking of the two films shows the stark difference between a pompous lecture and a conversation that treats the viewer with respect.
I agree wholeheartedly and must say that my favorite line from your post is: “Why does every idea in Oppie’s head need to be represented visually with an explosion? Is it to keep the audience awake during a very long film with a lot of science-talk in it?” 👏👏
Susan,
For another view on the decision, here's my post on Paul Fussell's "Thank God For The Atom Bomb."
https://robertsdavidn.substack.com/p/thank-god-for-the-atom-bomb