Why Oppenheimer Should (Not) Have Shown Real Nuclear Violence 

Watch my full Oppenheimer discussion with Thomas Flight: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Q3Ycc4HVqhM.html

I don't think inclusion of aftermath is appropriate for this film because Oppenheimer's turmoil is less about the impact of the two bombs and more about the future use of such devices. He fears the total destruction of the planet.

The scene that struck me the most was the meeting where they make a list of possible target cities. The impression was that they were talking about models of school projects of cities and not real cities with thousands of people and animals inhabiting them.

I think Nolan's creative choice of not showing the impact of the bomb was to convey the dissociation of the main character to the audience to elevate our understanding of the main character's conflict, also to reflect on our own actions so we don't end up living with the consequences of our own choices.

I dont think the film needed to directly show it, Just like we didnt see any NAZI's or Japanese soldiers and we literally saw nothing of the war itself. It really drives home how isolated and removed these people were from the reality of war on the ground. This film was a film about these people and what they did, not the real life consequences for anyone beyond the characters. Even in the Strauss stuff we see nothing grander of the world outside. The film is not about the horrors of nuclear war, but the choices these people made.

Film was incredible. The silence during the trinity test was eerie and phenomenal at the same time. You could feel exactly what the scientists went through when watching that spectacle. Exceptional filmmaking from the entire crew

I think it’s deliberate, given that the real and enduring shockwave created by the bomb was the line about lighting the world afire. One atomic blast was insane, but it’s the enduring risk and danger posed by the forever threat of nuclear proliferation that is meant to draw your attention, not simply the spectacle of a single blast

The Ancient Greeks were rightly satisfied to have all the most violent of dramatic events in their tragedies occur off-stage. The audience only heard about them from a messenger! Yet such scenes as the murder of Agamemmnon in his bath by his axe wielding wife, or Jocasta hanging herself and Oedipus gouging out his own eyes with her broaches, remain disturbing and memorable theater after more than 2000 years! Art has these powers and Nolan in Oppenheimer has shown that he has mastered them. As Aristotle desired, Nolan's filmic tragedy does indeed evoke both terror and pity.

I think it was even more powerful to show JUST his reaction to it. It leaves more to the imagination of the horrors wrought upon the inhabitants of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is shown through the brilliant facial acting of Cillian Murphy.

While many people critisize Nolan for doing too much exposition in his movies, Oppenheimer was a masterclass in withholding explicit knowledge. I watched Inception recently and I realized that even though it's very much a dialogue heavy movie, every single spoken line is a necessary one. He truly is great.

As a Japanese myself and I’ve watched the Oppenheimer twice to make sure how I felt was right, it’s really hard to say but the fact is Americans don’t know anything about how awful the atomic bomb caused to Japanese citizens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (I’m not saying they are uneducated. It’s just simply twisted history classes not talking about what exactly happened and what the US did in the WW2. This happens also to Japanese history classes as well. ) So when I watched the scene in Oppenheimer where Oppenheimer did the speech and he stepped into the burnt out body, I found it too shallow to describe how horrible the bomb was if you’ve seen and visited Hiroshima’s museum. Yet, I love Nolan’s movies and how he portraits each movies and I remember once on some interview, he said “I’m not making a documentary movie but the movie in Oppenheimer ”. So from that perspective, Oppenheimer is one of the masterpiece. However, since this historic memory should be remembered outside of Japan, I’m afraid this movie can make the audience to think this historic even as just another “completely different world’s event”. The truth is most of people living outside of Japan don’t know much about how horrible and long-lasting impact caused by the atomic bomb.

The film is not about Oppenheimer, it's about us, the audience. I believe It is an argument to become empathic, and realize how our actions impact others. This is why the core event is not seeing an external perspective of what he caused, but seeing him fully understanding what he has done - even though he can't see the people he has killed. Showing the event would simply be us saying 'ah Oppenheimer has realized what us smart good people already know,' - i.e. would be self-congratulation. Instead, we DON'T see it, and we are forced instead to empathize with Oppenheimer's realization: 'I am a smart, good person - what have I done?' We don't see it because the lesson is ours to learn, not his. Oppenheimer is our avatar, and we are experiencing what he experienced, so that we can see that we make this mistake every single day in our real lives. We say and do things daily on social media that cruelly hurt whole other groups of people; we fail at simple empathy, and think of them as non-humans - because we can't see them, and we can't imagine their lives are as valuable as ours. I pay taxes that are spent on policies that hurt and repress others so that my country can get things from them cheaply - oil, cobalt, you name it - but as a country, we don't think about their suffering as our fault - because we don't see them. Because I don't see them.But when Oppenheimer does not see what happens in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - he does what I don't: he makes a massive leap of empathy. He does what we fail to do every day: he begins to sense his responsibility for the suffering he causes, regardless of seeing it. THAT is the reason it's not shown. We live in a mindset of 'pics or it didn't happen.' We fail to believe the reality of the world outside our little bubbles - see the bubble america created for his team in the film - and so we dismiss the consequences. The movie is shockingly daring to suggest that maybe, just maybe, people outside of our bubbles are real...if we can only take a moment to imagine it...and by leaving us to imagine it in the film. Like the basic law of all horror film: what we don't see is the most frightening thing - and in this case, the horror is realizing our own culpability.

The thing about using Strauss to portray the horror.... Strauss is NOT horrified.

I agree with Nolan not including it. If he would have, he would have had a lot of genuine blowback for using the trauma of the Japanese people for entertainment. And that is a perspective that I care about. But also valuing the artist's intention, in this case the Director/Writer himself, is important to me as well.

I feel like the auditorium scene did a good enough job of communicating the horrors of nuclesr weapons, another bomb scene would feel like retreading ground. Omitting the bomb drop also gives credence to Trumans small role where he claims it is himself who really is responsible as he dropped the thing

One of the other reasons for the inclusion of the Holocaust presentation in Judgment at Nuremberg was that it was 1961 and that kind of raw unfiltered footage wasn't common at the time. "Confront" is definitely the word for it, as the theater was mass media at the time, and undoubtedly that would have been the first time many people had ever seen the video evidence and documentation of the camps in that kind of graphic detail. It was important to show it socially as well as artistically speaking. Oppenheimer is in another era, in which over half a century of Japanese cinema exists that grapples with the horrific results of the atomic bomb's creation, and naked factual material is readily available with a mere google search. So in addition to the artistic choices Nolan made in not showing it, there's much less societal relevance to showing it as compared to Judgment at Nuremberg simply due to the media landscape we exist in today.

Adding the bombs being dropped and/or the aftermath would have felt ... tacked on. It was never the point. I think we sometimes feel like we're not allowed to depict certain events unless we pour every ounce of "inescapable reality" into it to prove we're not turning tragedy into a sort of entertainment. Leave directors/musicians/artists/etc. alone, and let them do what they will with their art without forcing them to jump through hoops to prove they understand "the magnitude of issues."

I left the theater with no idea that archive footage or the Japanese perspective should have been included. As you said, there are many great movies that use that approach. I was deeply affected by Oppenheimer and felt the gut punch plenty.

I saw Judgment At Nuremberg with my parents at a drive-in theater when the film was released. I think that my parents regretted taking me to see the movie because I was deeply disturbed by it. This was coupled in the same period with going through the Cuban Missile Crisis, when everyone was certain it was the end of the world… Decades later, I was working on the television show TJ Hooker, with cinematographer Jack Swain. He told me that he had worked with the precursor of the CIA - the OSS - and had been the cinematographer at the actual Nazi War Criminal Trials at Nuremberg…

An interesting idea. However, I think the omission was a stroke of genius. As you say, Nolan depicts Oppenheimer not able to look at the evidence of the aftermath of the bomb. Also, there is a strong theme of the distance between abstract theory and physical reality. I think this theme extends to theoretical/political morality vs. physical/felt/emotional morality as actually experienced in reality. Oppenheimer couldn't look at the aftermath, I would argue that Nolan insinuates that he couldn't even really imagine it. He stays lofty, abstract and theoretical. One can't scientifically test the reality of morality as one could the equations that built the bomb. Aside from the traumatic confrontation for the audience, showing footage of the devastation in Japan would have been a leap that pulled us out of the experience of Oppenheimer's struggles. You mention that we see Strauss' viewpoint in black and white. However, this is something Oppenheimer could have realistically imagined, pondered, heard rumour of and pieced together. Thus, Strauss's perspective could have still been held and told within Oppenheimer's subjective rebuilding of the events that may have taken place in his imagination -- perhaps enriched by stories he heard from others who were privy after the fact. Crucially, the reality of the devastation of the bomb was avoided. Oppenheimer's later arguments against the bomb -- even in the final scene with Einstein -- were abstract and theoretical. He thinks that its creation may have started a chain reaction which could end the world -- or all life atop it. Nothing to do with the practical and felt experience of those on whom the weapon was actually used, but a logical and theoretical (detached) imagining of its part to play in an a predictive ultimatum. In my opinion, it wasn't a film about the bomb and its use so much as a story of a man who unlocks unfathomable power. Moreover, as soon as it is unlocked it flies from his grasp into that of a powerful government and military with powers of propaganda and patriotism on their side. Oppenheimer -- in true Nolan style -- is portrayed as struggling to actually touch reality. We as the audience are levitated into his world, held tight within it, then suddenly returned to our own.

What I so appreciate about Nolan is that he is respectful about the viewer's feelings. He never shocks with a gory image, his horror is always built up gradually. You can tell when Harvey Dents face is first shows there's a lot of back and forth and we see Gordon's reaction first as an opportunity to brace ourselves. Similarly, he also built up the tension and our tolerance in Dunkirk from not quite showing the boat hitting the mole and later escalating to the oil spill. I really love that about him because it makes me feel safe and it makes me immediately want to watch the movies again.

I think sometimes audiences need to see the real graphic events to understand and fully empathize with what happened. In Oppenheimer though it wasn’t needed , narratively we are seeing events from Oppenheimers point of view and he is trying NOT to see the actual aftermath.

because one of the key aspects of cinema is of course the visual sense, it makes sense to show this kind of scenes and amplify the horror oppenheimer was worried about all the time, im honestly not sure what were the reasons behind Nolan's decision, but there are obvious ones like avoiding the profiting of studios from tragedies, and the more minor problem is that the events will be remembered more from the movie other than the subjective experience of oppenheimer. it really is a never ending conflict between showing the audience something or teasing something and letting the imagination run.

I don't think I've ever felt so much dread in a movie than in oppenheimer when the bomb exploded. It was a beautiful yet terrifying visual. Thinking that actual humans had to experience and endure this brutal and terrifying event. It made me think of the same thing. What I wished for was that more of the consequences for the japanese people to be portrayed. Not actual footage but maybe explanations by other characters. I feel that, the way that the film was portrayed it was to kind to the ones that are responsible for what happened.

I think Nolan chose it right. It's a really sensitive matter, Oppenheimer also had his own wisdom.

I don't think the Nurenberg Trial reasoning makes much sense here. Nuremberg trial showed concentration camp footage because it was something that happened directly under autority of those being judged at the trial. Oppenheimer is plagued by the creation of the bomb because he is a "somewhat good" person and every good person put under this would feel the weight of the indirect repercussions of their actions if they end up being negative, but the reality is that the notion that Oppenheimer was "responsible" for Hiroshima and Nagasaki is as dumb as the notion that whoever created bathtubs is responsible for everyone that was deliberately drowned by someone else on them (wink wink, Tatlock). (Just to jump ahead what I know someone will say, please spare me of the "bathtubs were created for other reasons, bombs are only created to kill people" speech. I used bathtubs to make a joke, but the point would be valid with any other thing, like whoever engineered the rifles that were used in WW2.) Oppenheimer was never put into a "trial" for having created the bomb, nor would it make sense that he did go through a trial to respond to this in the case the bombings were considered a war crime. Any war crime that was commited using his creation have no bearing on him, although he would feel the remorse of it because even with all his moral flaws, he wasn't nowhere evil enough to just brush this off. Its hard to imagine someone that would. Showing Hiroshima/Nagasaki footage would make sense in a Truman biopic. He gave the order. It happened under his authority. He was responsible. Same thing with the footage shown on Nuremberg's Trial - it makes sense because they were directly responsible. Imagine showing concentration camp footage in a biopic of the guy that invented barbed wire. Also, people keep asking why a 3-hour movie named Oppenheimer doesnt go past Oppenheimer to show a bunch of stuff tangentially related to him. I've seen people complaining that the movie "didn't show Kitty's life enough (like it had shown anyone but Oppenheimer's life)", "erased a lgbt character by not discussing Tatlock in depth", "didnt grounded Einstein's disbelief of quantom physics and opposition to the bomb better?", etc etc etc. Like.... really? Three. Fucking. Hours.

I’ve been subscribed to the channel for years and that is the video I appreciate the most. You’re lens on the material are deep and engaging. I do also find that having yourself on camera adds a rich personal depth that makes the experience much more personal. Keep up the outstanding work.

I have to point out, Grave of the Fireflies isn't about the atomic bombings, it's about the fire bombings. For a japanese film that DOES focus on the atomic bombings (and excellently depicts their destructive power) I suggest Barefoot Gen.

Every time we try to hide our past in order to avoid accountability, we inevitably painfully repeat the past we tried to forget. The mind replays what the heart cannot delete because the mind knows what the heart feels.

I want to start off by saying I appreciate the acknowledgement you had about "what the film never set out to be in the first place." There was a lot of critics I feel, who went into this film thinking it was a different film, and then criticized it for not being what it wasn't even attempting to be in the first place. There was an individual making the rounds on news outlets whom I feel is one of these individuals, and criticized unfairly I think, the film with respect to things it never set out to do, or simply misinterpreted things it did do. For example, they criticized the lack of discussion about Nagasaki, and mentioned it only once in an offhanded remark. They are of course referring to the discussion Oppenheimer has with Truman about the bombings, in which Oppenheimer corrects Truman and interjects with, "and Nagasaki," when Truman only mentions Hiroshima, ans subsequently responds apathetically. This is not some offhanded remark, and the lack of discussion was, I think, absolutely deliberate because it portrayed the attitude of the US government with regards to it's use of the bombs, which this scene with Truman illustrates beautifully; they simply did not care. At the risk of digression, I must point out the beautiful commentary on the profession of critics that the film The Menu out on display, front and center. Professional critics, whether it be for food or film, must pull themselves so far out of the experience in order to do that job, that they miss nuance or other obvious intentions that they would have probably noticed were they not so removed from their immersion. They end up reducing the experience to a dull reaction of what it could have been by missing aspects of what they were experiencing that they probably wouldn't have otherwise. As someone who is not a professional critic, I can tell you I IMMEDIATELY felt the poignancy of that scene with Truman when he apathetically acknowledged the fact that oh yeah, Hiroshima wasn't the only city he blew up. I felt like the way in which the film depicted Oppenheimer's struggle with the knowledge of what he had done, especially during the auditorium scene - was enough considering the parameters of what the film was actually about; Oppenheimer, and his relation to his work. It wasn't a film about the bombings, or the bomb itself, or the trinity test. It was a film about how a man struggled with what his efforts had wrought and whether or not it should have succeeded, even though every step of the way, he convinced himself it was necessary and that it would inexorably bring about some ultimate form of world peace. This film made me wonder if some part of Oppenheimer at any point, be it during the creation or after the reality of it's devastation was realized, wished that his work would fail. Obviously not that the atmospheric ignition would come to pass and thus the nuclear bomb be a failure in that respect. But perhaps he had hoped at some point or another, for the failure of ignition, that it might illustrate an impossibility of the theory to be put into practical use, thus eliminating the fear of the Nazis successfully building a bomb. This would eliminate any need to try and practically implement theory further, and would eliminate the fear of the Nazis having a bomb and the Allied forces without one. I absolutely loved the film. I managed to see it in IMAX, probably the first and last film I'll get to see in IMAX, considering the direction society and the planet are headed in over just the next several years. As a fan of the video game series Metal Gear Solid, I have found myself confronted very often, from childhood to the present, with the existence of nuclear weapons, as well as with the notion that my entire life has been lived under the constant, not-totally-unlikely threat of nuclear annihilation. As a child, I only got as far as recognizing that "nuclear weapons" sounds like a bad thing, and it wasnt until i was much older, that i realized the full implications of their existence, and as a result became vehemently opposed to it - as well as thoroughly grief stricken that that existence was reality. The ended of the film only intensified that feeling, the idea that perhaps the world isn't destroyed by the use of atomic weapons, but instead by their mere existence. And in a sense, it did. For after the invention and use of the atomic bomb, the world that existed before ended and a new one was born that was, sadly, not a utopian peace Oppenheimer naively hoped it would be. I loved this video, and I am excited for another philosophical journey in the future into the depths of Oppenheimer.

Not including the footage of the aftermath allows audiences to reflect on present day. It would have potentially cheapened the impact of what happened as well as the turmoil that Oppenheimer faced. Especially at the end, it’s a call to action for the audience to replay history in our minds and realise how this was one of the first dominos a long chain that we aren’t even at the end of.

I knew you collaborated, or had discussions with, Thomas in the past, but I didn’t know it was an ongoing thing. Excited to get into the podcast!

I listened to your podcast and I kept thinking about your discussion about this topic. Plus Judgement at Nuremberg is one of my favorite movies ever, so it was great listening to you talk about it. In my opinion, Judgement at Nuremberg did needed that scene, since it is a court drama, hence it makes complete sense to have those images shown as part of the proof the accusers use to sentence the Nazis. But in the case of Oppenheimer, since it is such a subjective POV movie, it makes less sense. The way it would have made sense, maybe, is in the same one were they're proyecting images, instead of us watching Oppenheimer just looking away all the time, maybe show him just briefly staring at the projector once or twice of a few seconds, so as to show us what he's seeing, and then make him look away. Something like that would've make a punch but wouldn't have taken us away from his POV, and actually understand WHY he can't confront the images, and his guilt in the latter part of the movie, as you say.

I think there's another important thing to take into account on why Oppenheimer didn't necessarily need real footage, despite its effectiveness as it was shown in Judgement of Norumberg: internet. People can see by themselves before, after, or even being inconvenient enough to research "Hiroshima Nagasaki photos bombs" on their cell phones while watching the movie on the theater. The availability of such images were not a reality when Judgement of Norumberg was released.

To me, the not-showing is a way of regarding to the audience as being reasonable, responsible humans. Who can encase themselves in the material on their own terms, in their own time. I also believe that most adults with an interest in history have already seen what there is to see. And feel what there is to feel. Above all: understanding there's no way to truly understand what it meant to have been there. If you weren't. Because there are limits to our imagination. Nolan is very well aware of those. Which might be the mere reason for him making movies in the first place. (?)

Your video's are ASMR of movie analysis genere... always so simple yet thought provoking.

Very thought provoking video! Dude I can't wait for the next video aswell it sounds so interesting.

Thank you for this excellent analysis of a complicated, harrowing topic. Looking forward to the next video...

I must say, I'm as impressed by the thoughtful comments on this video as I am of the video itself! Was a bit worried, given the topic and the average RU-vid comment - but it turns out, you have a truly thoughtful and nuanced audience. I have nothing more meaningful to add to the discussion beyond what has been already said.

I'm so glad you refer to Judgement at Nuremberg, because that was the first movie I thought of while watching Oppenheimer's briefing scene! The question of moral responsibility is definitely something both films try to grapple with in different ways. Great video!

I love your work, thanks for the thoughtful video

To me the movie was all over the place, what did it really focus on? The making of the bomb? The dropping of the bomb? The consequences of the explosions? This movie felt like a personal drama or a character study about a scientist... Therfore the trailer where misleading, the Trinity test was 1/6 of the movie

excellent, meaningful and concise video explaining the artistic implications of showing the devastating power of nuclear weapons on people, or rather the power cinema can have. Also, I see what you did here, you shot all your objective analysis in black and white, and all your subjective thoughts in colour like in Oppenheimer. I love that neat touch.

I very much appreciate your videos talking about war movies and how to represent war in a medium that is supposed to be first and foremost entertaining. I personally tend to avoid these movies, so I'm also not seeing this discussion in my general circles, but it is a very interesting and important one to have. Your work has been eye-opening to me in this regard.

Looking forward to the moving deep-dive into the barbenheimer dichotomy.

This essay is amazing. Wow.

One theme that runs throughout the film is the concept of contradiction being in harmony, illustrated with the fact that light is both a wave and a particle. To that end, Oppenheimer himself and the movie are full of these types of contradictions. One has to ask; is it possible that making and using the atomic bombs was both horrific and the right thing to do? Having read American Prometheus and the Truman biography, both of them believed this to be the case given the context of their time. I love that Nolan doesn't try to answer this question for us.

Maybe I'm biased, but as someone who has studied WWII both in university and on my own time, and even took a whole class about the history of WMDs, but I didn't need to see the effects of the bomb in "Oppenheimer" to understand its horror. I thought it was a clever choice to have the film be from Oppenheimer (and conversely, Strauss') PoV exclusively, as it makes it different from most other war films that insist on showing gory violence any chance they can get (don't get me wrong, it can be very effective, but it's cool to see war films like "Oppenheimer" and "Dunkirk" play with different ways of sending us the message about war). Just like the movie itself was from Robert Oppenheimer's subjective PoV, the interpretation of what should and what should have not been included in the movie is likewise subjective. I respect your opinion, I love your thought-provoking videos, but respectfully I argue the opposite of your essay. I think the gut punch was clear enough. Then again, I am a super empathetic person, especially when watching film (fiction or nonfiction), so Cillian Murphy's performance was gut-wrenching. I think showing the horror, instead of just letting us imagine it, would be retreading old ground that so many other war films have already done.

Oppenheimer was not about Hiroshima, it was about the coming logic of the cold war

I want to argue that Nolan wanted us to actively imagine the violence, not passively see what was shown on screen. I am from South Korea, and I am fully aware that the weapon which helped my country be liberated months earlier also created some of the worst horrors of WW2. I watched the movie just this week, and I know what pictures the American scientists in Los Alamos could have seen on the screen of their theater. When those American scientists gasped in horror, I am sure I and many other Koreans sitting in the theater should have understood what it meant, and many of us could have conjured some of those graphic images within our own minds. I am not sure if Nolan intended to make a connection between me sitting in a theater (in Korea) watching the movie and them sitting in a theater in Los Alamos, but either way, it was a better call not to show actual images of "nuclear violence". Not to mention that I am categorically against the idea of victimizing the Japanese. In Asia, the idea is taboo on the level of victimizing the Nazis. We don't do that here, and that is why only the Japanese make movies depicting themselves as innocent, unilateral victims of out-of-the-blue nuclear explosions. One thing to add: Oppenheimer had its world premier on the week after the date when Trinity happened, South Korea had it premiered the week after the date Fat Man (the same type of bomb as the Gadget) was dropped and exactly on VJ day, aka the day Korea gained its independence from Japan.

Spike Lee has a way of incorporating documentary footage into his narrative films in a that feels jarring in the right way

Waltz With Bashir punched me in the gut with its ending. You could hear a pin drop in that theater when the credits rolled.

Yesss, I've been waiting for this for almost 3 weeks! 😅

First impressions are the reason why Strauss got Oppenheimer wrong, and that's what most people are doing with the movie...

Maybe the intention of Nolan was exactly what you did after seeing the film, looking it up yourself, with as much time as you, or any person who would have done the same, would need to let the real horror sink in. That would be a perfect way to educate the viewer.

Thanks for this video.

I think it was an excellent decision on Nolan by not showing the Japanese nuke aftermath. Because not only dose it feel artistic, but also commercially brilliant. You see when Marvel's "ETERNALS" came out many asian countries where pretty mad about the nuke scene. Because it felt like the movie was trying gain sympathy to ww2 japan. Despite the fact that Japan has committed countless war crimes and racism during ww2 and before. (Bassicly The scene felt like asking sympathy for nazis to them.) So of course ETERNALS wasn't received well. (It's also worth noting that one of the writers said something stupid that just amplify the hate.) So if Nolan did what Marvel did I don't think he would be everyones favorite.

After seeing the movie yesterday, I came out of the theater thinking that Nolan missed the chance to make a great movie into something special. Five years ago I visited Hiroshima and the museum about the bombing and it left a deep impression on me

You forgot barefoot gen. Grave of the fireflys is more about the affects of the war while barefoot gen is literally about the aftermath of the bombs.

I think it was a good artistic choice to not show any footage of the war itself. It's a more real and immersive depiction of how a person might have reacted in that time. We're used to seeing live warfare and horrible things on the media and internet because recording and uploading is so common now, but back then this most certainly was not the case. With how gung-ho Truman was in the film, you could imagine all he knew at the time was big bomb go boom, that's about it. To see how Oppenheimer would react to news of the war solely off of his imagination of what happened to those that suffered the bomb blast was a very powerful moment in the movie: he had no visual proof of exactly how a nuke would kill, he only knew in theory based on the dangers of radiation poisoning and the measurements obtained from the Trinity test.

Fantastic content, as per usual, LSOO. For anyone looking to expand their understanding of the Japanese perspective concerning atmoic weapons, I highly recommend the anime movie "Barefoot Gen". It is a slightly fictionalized biographical account of the author's own experience of the Hiroshima bombing. It is told, not as a justification for using the bomb, or as a protest against its use, but rather as a neutral story about the human capacity to endure hardship.

I have visited both of the nuclear holocaust museums in Japan. I also knew personally a survivor of the bomb that was dropped in Nagasaki (she died in 2005). I don't think this movie could have conveyed the story and done it justice. Yes, they could have shown the nuclear blast and the destruction that resulted. However, it is the human component that could not have been shown in enough detail to do it justice. The small intimate details of even a few of the lives that were snuffed out would have required at least another full scale movie. That is another story to be told in my estimation.

I believe the point of the film is to humanize Oppenheimer as just another flawed human being instead of the genocidal mad scientist people seem to want him to be. Had Nolan depicted the opposing viewpoint of Japan the idea of humanizing Oppenheimer would have been completely lost.

I don’t think the aim of the film was to answer, “what did Oppenheimer do to Japan?” But rather it was answering the question in the trailers, “Are you saying that there's a chance that when we push that button… we destroy the world?” And the answer the film suggests is “actually yes, …but not immediately.”

There's a Frankie Boyle bit that goes something like; "Not only will Americans invade your country and kill you, but years later they will make a film about how killing you made their soldiers sad." With that in mind I think it was wise not to directly show the real life consequences. A western production with a western cast and western director making a shed load of money by recreating the destruction of the bombs would be in bad taste. Having the consequences be allegorical and from the pov of Oppenheimer during the speech was a much stronger cinematic moment. The people working on the project could only guess what the consequences of the bomb were after the moment, so it was emotionally poignant to have the horror be symbolic.

They show him imagining a lot of things, i would have thought a shot of the city being wiped out would have crossed his mind. The trinity test was hard to show the scale of the bomb with because it was on an empty flat plane with no buildings.

finally, i was waiting for this

Sometimes I love your videos, sometimes I don't like them. This one is really good.

The movie is always in Oppenheimer’s perspective. In a few black&white scenes, it’s in Strauss’. So there’s no way they could’ve shown what happened in Japan from a different perspective.

Grave of the fireflies is not about the atomic bomb at all, if you want a japanese animated movie about the lead up to the bombs being dropped you should watch in this corner of the world=

It seems like the more popular opinion is that it was smart of Nolan to not include footage of the bombing in order to remain centered on Oppenheimer's perspective (for the most part) and also to not exploit the people of Japan by directly showing footage of the tragedy. Additionally, I understand that it highlights his disassociation between theory and reality - a main aspect of the film. However, I must say I still find myself being pulled back to the idea that so many Americans, and others around the world, know very little of the ramifications of the 2 bombings in Japan. And of course, some moviegoers will take the time after the movie to research it for themselves. I just wondered afterward if an opportunity had been missed to expose more people to the horrors of nuclear fallout. Not for the purpose of traumatizing the public but to potentially educate and prevent future nuclear events. With that said, if I were in Nolan's shoes I probably would not have shown any footage of the aftermath either.

The mind is a powerful thing. Judgement at Nuremberg may have shown an unequivocal perspective on what atrocities occurred behind closed doors at the camps, it’s beyond a powerful scene and it leaves all stunned and shocked. That being said, the simple words spoken during the scene where the briefer talks of how “stripped clothes were burned onto skin” and “some people thought they had survived” made me think and expect horrific images, not knowing they didn’t come. After a week and a half of seeing the movie, I am still thinking about it, when I think about the movie, it’s the first thing that comes to mind. It’s like being the scene in Seven for lust. Sometimes words alone without images make the deepest darkest horror truly real. Great video love the work.

Another item which was (sadly) omitted by the film was the lab accident in which Louis Slotin sacrificed himself to save the others in the lab. He died 9 days later from massive radiation poisoning. Slotin was from Winnipeg, and I have good friends who live in his former home. Tourists often come by, and there is a small park at the end of their street named after Slotin. Too bad the movie omitted him entirely.

I haven't seem the movie yet, but I wanted to recommend The Atlantic's video on The Atomic Soldiers. It contains some extremely harrowing first-hand accounts of the horror and trauma experienced by soldiers involved in the nuclear tests, as well as the lasting physical and psychological effects they've endured.

Two points I think about the movie's intentions. 1) Nolan usually wants to end his movies with ambiguity, which here I think is used to direct the audience to find more information about the subject matter presented throughout the movie 2) I think the movie isn't really about power of atomic bombs or destructive power of any devices. It is about the power of people. Scientists, military, government officials and the collective of people and groups of people. These both I think are reasons why he didn't show more of the destruction or real footage of the bombings.

the film also feels like a critique of people who urge or advocate for nuclear weapons as if a casual option of conflict resolution. create the horror and become haunted by their decision, no matter the outcome. or create and escalate the horror, yet are so disconnected from reality that they'll sacrifice everything and everyone so long as they lay claim to the credit of the resolution.

I think part of the issue is that the movie was supposed to show how the bomb's existence affected America, not its enemies. The auditorium scene shows that PERFECTLY. The fact that we're all watching this video shows that the movie is compelling enough to make us all research the topic more. Yes you could show a picture of someone's face melted off, or the man that sorted through a pile of charred skulls trying to identify his mother's by the gold teeth, but imagine the inverse, not just in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but across all Japan, teenage girls charging machine guns with spears, and women holding their own children as they jump off of cliffs because Japanese propaganda made them terrified of the U.S. soldiers. Imagine 18 year old boys who were drafted against their will forced to shoot said girls with spears. This movie helps put you in the shoes of the people that lived during this incredibly complex time, and forces you to ask, "If I was given that power, how would I use it."

Thank you for this video. I've been thinking about this topic ever since I saw the movie. Great points for and against including actual media from the bombings.

The film follows Oppenheimer and it follows Strauss. It would have (maybe strangely) been emersion breaking to suddenly cut away from the intense focus of these characters to a scenes from Japan. This isn't really a war movie, it's a political movie set in a time of war.

I don't believe that what I am about to say was Nolan's reason for not including imagery of the aftermath. But what I do feel is that showing images of the aftermath would have most definitely pinned the USA (or even Oppenheimer himself) in a corner and made them the antagonist. Nolan throughout the movie I think does a good job at making several sides the antagonist. Characters kept bringing up the Nazi's and them possibly creating a bomb. He highlights the attitude of Harry S. Truman as careless about the lives lost in Japan. The movie highlights the Soviets and the intel they gathered about atomic bombs and how we got in an arms race with them. I think Nolan does a great job at highlighting that in every part of the world there are monsters and people willing to destroy the world if it means satisfaction and victory (even if that victory very short lived). His scene at the end of the movie where bombs are flying into the air don't seem to have a country of origin. I think he does a good job at not making one side the enemy.

I thought about this a lot and the fact the movie did seem to have a lack of excitement in that sense. But then it made me go back and think about all of the scenes and really understand what the movie's story was trying to tell. It was not about the bomb, but the man, and like you said the conflicts he had to deal with because of his sucess. That scene with Einstein at the end really struck me, Where he said now its up to you to carry this burden. People will hate you, blame you and in the end, give you a medal and congratulate you. But its not for you, its for them...

I haven't seen the film yet, but I appreciate your thoughts on this topic. I feel that nuclear violence is almost too much for us to grasp. It's horrifying to live in a world where this has occurred, and still threatens all of us. I do think it is important to look and see, so that-at least we can try to understand-the horrors that surround us, and affect change where we can. Thank you for the work you do! As always, I'm grateful for your compassionate voice and thoughtful analysis.

Another WW2 movie that implements real footage is 1985 "Come and See". Near the end of the film a group of Nazis responsible for burning down a Belarusian village were presumably going to be burnt to death, but after failed pleas they were infuriatedly shot. The imagery instantly turns to silent footage of corpses of jewish civilians and a man presenting a malnourished naked child as if it were cattle. Some movies may presumably use simillar tactics for shock value but with this film it created a powerful and traumatizing impact when watching. It never pulled any punches.

I have some keep points on Why Christopher Nolan directed Oppenheimer in a progressive conspiracy: The first 0.45 mins: show a sensation about how should we prepare to see the bomb. Second 0.45 mins: The drama about his Oppenheimer life: work and relationship. third 0.45 mins: The slipt second's decisions before the explosion. fourth 0.45 mins: Human reaction after the explosion and the purpose of funding a $2 billion dollar project. fith 0.45 mins: Actions of Mankind after the aftermath. sixth 0.45 mins: endgame. seventh 0.45 mins: The meaning of human actions.

imagine the children and families that were just the right distance from the impact zone where they died agonising deaths over minutes, hours or days.. ending the war came at the moral dilemma of not only killing innocent people but putting them through agonising torture..

Going in, I was hoping they wouldn't show the effects on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not because I didn't want to see it, but because the story isn't about that. This film was a character study about a man grappling with the incalculable consequences of his actions and the events that lead up to it. The implication of things unseen is often better that what we do see. All we need to see is the horror written on Oppenheimer's face. How it effects him is more important to the FILM than how it effects us. It's not about our feelings, its about his.

There are two ignored factors here. First, the horror of Oppenheimer lies in the distance from the consequences, just like most of us are always distant from the horrors in the world. How those horrors creep into our minds like flashes and we have trouble making sense of it opposed to actually being there and witnessing it head on. The second factor is the fact that Oppenheimer isn't about Hiroshima or Nagasaki. It's not about what happened, it's about what is about to happen. It's not about the tragedy and some meditation on what happened. The last line in the film states so clearly with the nod to the chain reaction already starting. It's a movie about the event that kick started our mutual destruction as a warning to ourselves in the now, not as a contemplation of the horrors of yesterday. People seem to miss this very point of the film, that it's trying to slap us in the face and scream to us to stop being so damn naive about how fragile our existence is and how easy we've made the possibility of a world ending event.

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Nolan makes these movies for IMAX, at that size and scale it arguably becomes impossible to depict something without turning it into spectacle, which borders on exploitation of the actual tragedy.

One thing I noticed about this movie was that the parts where Oppenheimer is dominant are in color because he looks at everything without bias. And the parts where Strauss is dominant are all in black and white because he is MOST DEFINITELY biased.

The entire movie is from his perspective, framed by his interrogation. The movie clearly shows how he was sidelined as soon as the army had the bomb. He learned about the bombing at the same time the rest of the world did, from Truman announcing it on the radio. This was long before the TV was invented. There’s no way that he could have seen what happened at Hiroshima. The scene in the auditorium is his own conscience piecing together what he’s seen and heard about it. Including footage from Japan wouldn’t have made any sense at all. But, like Hitchcock, Nolan gives you everything you need to put it together in your own mind without rubbing your face in it.

I was just thinking about this!

I realize why I felt like I didn't need to see it, as I too spent my childhood during the height of the cold war and nuclear extinction was a daily consideration. Also I have seen my share of nuclear holocaust depictions, and am Filipiono who was directly colonized by Japan almost like how we were colonized by the Americans in the early 20th century.

I feel like a huge nuance of the film comes in two ways for me 1. The race towards this type of weapon was created by information flowing out of Germany and the fear of the N**** wielding this type of power 2. The sheer unflinching evil in which President Truman is portrayed. We as audiences know how barbaric the decision to use these weapons was. The American governments cynicism and even pride is the true horror of this film.

In a way, it shows just how isolated they are from the war. A scary reflection of just how isolated the people who will start and escalate a future nuclear war.

The fact that some critics of the movie think the horrors of the bombing aftermath should have been more graphically depicted in the movie I think says more about the critics than about this film. It was presented this way on purpose, and it was done perfectly.

You know a video essay is good when one writes down notes.

It surprises me that knowing that since he was young, at the age of 14, Oppenheimer was diagnosed with dementia praecox\ a form of schizophrenia, that during his time at university he left a poisoned apple on a professor's desk, and tried to strangle his best friend. .. it is known that he was a brilliant subject, with precarious health, hit by strong emotional circumstances, but with little patience to sit down to write a paper. With all that background-why was he-, Oppenheimer, chosen out of all the brilliant contemporaries of his time for such a project? Was someone with those characteristics necessary to agree to take charge in building the lethal artifact? It is also known that the general in charge had an overwhelming personality, but not necessarily a very bright guy. It becomes somewhat obvious that behind everything, there was no interest in the ethical-moral consequences. Get done with the thing and see what happens? What is it known about those who made those decisions? A very different case was that of Professor John Nash, also a contemporary and schizophrenic genius like Oppenheimer, whose Theory of Games is still widely used and who did win a Nobel Prize when apparently the award was not as manipulated as it is now. A few questions that remain around, maybe it's part of Nolans intentions, one of my favorite directors. Greetings from Chile.

Nolan has already answered this. The film is from Oppenheimer's perspective, so how would we be able to see an accurate portrayal of the horrific bombings in Japan? We can only see what our main character can see, we are in his shoes, with the film being a biopic about his life, rather than some sort of record of history.

Great post and thank you for this. My grandfather ( my mother's dad ) flew in the Berlin Airlift and ( I was told ) helped escort the Navy efforts in shipping the Nagasaki bomb ( he didn't actually fly to Japan ). Before he passed, I often asked what my grandfather experienced in those last days of WW2. Some of his quotes about his memories still live in my memory. One of them was about the doubt of dropping the bombs in the first place ( even though allies were fire bombing parts of Japan by then ). My granddad said then, " We had to do what we could to end the war and get back to business. " After seeing the devastation of Berlin in the Airlift as well as hearing about the reports of dead soldiers he had to ship home, my feeling is more than a few WW2 vets felt the dropping of the bomb was less about " saving future lives " and more about creating a political mindset for America. After all, if you examine the history following WW2 ( and is included in some parts of Oppenheimer ), once those bombs were created, the people in power could use " threats " against any nation for political gain. It's sad that this mentality still persists to this day. But, thanks to Nolan for " Oppenheimer, " more people ( on more than a few social media apps ) appear to be commentating on how political power can become corrupt, even when using those who are simply trying/working on finding ways to become better people. Great post! And, thank you for the podcast recommendation ( Cinema Of Meaning )!