One of these is listen to podcasts. A young colleague of mine recommended The Rest is Politics, part of Goalhanger Podcasts which I was surprised to learn was owned by Gary Lineker. Another recommendation was Goalhanger’s We Have Ways of Making You Talk, a WW2 podcast, and it was from these two that I ventured into The Rest is History (TRIH).
TRIH did a two part podcast on J. Robert Oppenheimer, and I found it riveting. It drew heavily from a book titled American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The podcast mentioned the film, and I was very keen to see it, particularly as I knew it was unlikely that I would get round to reading the book, and the audiobook weighed in at 26 hours.
I’ve seen three of Nolan’s previous films, Dunkirk, Memento, and Intersteller, and would probably rate then in that order. Dunkirk was masterful, wonderful use of sound, and clearly the work of an auteur. I went into the cinema with high expectations. I wasn’t disappointed, but I wasn’t immediately blown away either. It is, however, undeniably a good film, with stunning visuals, fascinating use of sound, and silence, good performances. But I don’t think it quite captured the depths and/or heights of Oppenheimer’s complexity. The film included a episode in which Oppenheimer attempted to poison one of his professors, but left out other occasions of violent acting out. The film was strong on his exceptionalism, but a little weaker on that which made him something of an outcast at various points in his life.
The first part of the podcast was called The Father of the Atomic Bomb, and the second part was titled The Witch Hunt. The film was strongest on Oppenheimer finding his metier as programme director of the Manhattan Project. But it was weaker on what followed, when Oppenheimer was persecuted by paranoid “reds-under-the-bed” politicians and jealous academics. Nolan did skilfully set the scene of Oppenheimer’s adjacency to communism, but didn’t do as well in the pseudo-courtroom drama that dogged his later life.
The film lasts for three hours, and the scenes that I felt were weakest came in the final 30 to 40 minutes. All that being said, though, I plan to go back to the cinema to watch it again, which I think is great cinema does. At the moment I’d give it a solid 7/10. Perhaps with a rewatch, that will increase.
I’m reading a book at the moment called Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas, by Glenn Kenny. Kenny interviewed Scorsese in 1989 for a magazine dedicated to home video called Video Review. Scorsese applauded the VHS revolution, saying that it was a good thing for people to be able to build up a library of films. But he also said that he worried about “the shorter attention span encouraged by television and video.” Well, we do have Tik-Tok, YouTube, Tweets, three word political slogans and what does feel like a dumbing down of culture. But we also have brilliant longform and in-depth podcasts, journalists like Patrick Radden Keefe, and of course films lasting for up to three hours by Christopher Nolan and others.
And Oppenheimer is definitely worth three hours of your time to watch.
I’d love to hear from anyone who has read American Prometheus, or is interested in discussing Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, the morality of the bomb and the bombings and so on.
⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys.
TRIH did a two part podcast on J. Robert Oppenheimer, and I found it riveting. It drew heavily from a book titled American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer written by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. The podcast mentioned the film, and I was very keen to see it, particularly as I knew it was unlikely that I would get round to reading the book, and the audiobook weighed in at 26 hours.
I’ve seen three of Nolan’s previous films, Dunkirk, Memento, and Intersteller, and would probably rate then in that order. Dunkirk was masterful, wonderful use of sound, and clearly the work of an auteur. I went into the cinema with high expectations. I wasn’t disappointed, but I wasn’t immediately blown away either. It is, however, undeniably a good film, with stunning visuals, fascinating use of sound, and silence, good performances. But I don’t think it quite captured the depths and/or heights of Oppenheimer’s complexity. The film included a episode in which Oppenheimer attempted to poison one of his professors, but left out other occasions of violent acting out. The film was strong on his exceptionalism, but a little weaker on that which made him something of an outcast at various points in his life.
The first part of the podcast was called The Father of the Atomic Bomb, and the second part was titled The Witch Hunt. The film was strongest on Oppenheimer finding his metier as programme director of the Manhattan Project. But it was weaker on what followed, when Oppenheimer was persecuted by paranoid “reds-under-the-bed” politicians and jealous academics. Nolan did skilfully set the scene of Oppenheimer’s adjacency to communism, but didn’t do as well in the pseudo-courtroom drama that dogged his later life.
The film lasts for three hours, and the scenes that I felt were weakest came in the final 30 to 40 minutes. All that being said, though, I plan to go back to the cinema to watch it again, which I think is great cinema does. At the moment I’d give it a solid 7/10. Perhaps with a rewatch, that will increase.
I’m reading a book at the moment called Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas, by Glenn Kenny. Kenny interviewed Scorsese in 1989 for a magazine dedicated to home video called Video Review. Scorsese applauded the VHS revolution, saying that it was a good thing for people to be able to build up a library of films. But he also said that he worried about “the shorter attention span encouraged by television and video.” Well, we do have Tik-Tok, YouTube, Tweets, three word political slogans and what does feel like a dumbing down of culture. But we also have brilliant longform and in-depth podcasts, journalists like Patrick Radden Keefe, and of course films lasting for up to three hours by Christopher Nolan and others.
And Oppenheimer is definitely worth three hours of your time to watch.
I’d love to hear from anyone who has read American Prometheus, or is interested in discussing Oppenheimer, the Manhattan Project, the morality of the bomb and the bombings and so on.
⏩ Brandon Sullivan is a middle aged, middle management, centre-left Belfast man. Would prefer people focused on the actual bad guys.
 and some thi...&p[url]=https://www.thepensivequill.com/2023/08/oppenheimer.html&p[images][0]=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ6gtFfTd8Y3mX38k2PJor54VC5hbihitO63SSsBWmhq7vqp4ArH4cgCkDp-TDFCmSFgDPONR2W9nE-xoVp89dXydbkamGK2pfW8LjlK6zl4NzBBUyT0_WEt8TGIfRNdaTjg9HpUzNGDRwp-2gI5rijqE3L2SZh6Ltmw_Xo2haUiFJTesCw46DHC0QzzM/s320/11%20Movies.jpg){kind=link}
Storyville - The Trials of Oppenheimer on BBC iplayer (89 mins.) is worth a watch.
ReplyDelete'5 generations of cancers': What 'Oppenheimer' movie fails to tell us about the Manhattan Project
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen the movie yet, but I had read this recently:
ReplyDeletehttps://foreignpolicy.com/2023/06/03/atomic-bomb-oppenheimer-hiroshima-nagasaki-world-war-ii-history/
The other Asians don't show much sympathy for the Japanese laments about the casualties.
Incidentally, St. Andrew's School in Dublin holds the log book of the Enola Gay, the plane which dropped the Hiroshima bomb.
Two things are, I think, important now - One is certainly the history of the Euromissiles, the SS20 systems introduced by the Soviets and the European and American response in the form of the Pershing and Cruise: While the Soviet empire was on the point of dissolution due to the Polish uprisings and economic crisis, a broad range of European leaders hosted the missiles in spite of mass protests. Those protestors, now pretty grey and wrinkly, seem to be a major part of the Irish neutrality movement today.
ReplyDeleteOne protestor was, if I recall, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, but she was overruled.
ReplyDeleteThe second question would be what utility they would have today: Less than before, maybe almost none. Given the choice, there are some reasons, but none decisive, why Ireland could have its own or exercise the option to let others operate them on our territory, but NATO membership doesn't require this, I believe.
ReplyDelete