Clickbait outrage. The movie showed what the bomb does to people without feeling like it was exploiting the suffering of innocent victims for the sake of a summer blockbuster.
The article even explains how: "In another scene, Oppenheimer gives a speech and, while looking into the crowd, visualizes some of the predominantly white audience as the victims of his bomb."
It's an effective scene. Sometimes what you don't show (negative space) is as powerful as what you do show.
Yeah, there is a fucking burnt child on the movie.
The story is not about bombing Japan.
Yes, that was a war crime. Yes, that was terrible.
But if you know the story of Oppenheimer, or seen the movie, he did not decide anything. The military took over at that moment in time.
So if it was a movie about the military, this had to be shown. But it is about him. So a suggestion (as is clearly in the movie for about the last hour or so) is more than enough of you ask me.
He decided to make the bomb. He knew what bombs are used for.
Agreed, but that is not what the movie is about.
He did say (no one knows what he believed) that just having the bomb would mean world peace…
Then he was a fool who's actions contributed to the murder of hundreds of thousands.
His reasoning was if the US didn’t make it, the Nazis would, and that would be even worse. He never wanted to make the bomb, it was just the lesser of two evils.
Making the bomb was a good decision, dropping two over civilians after the war finished was genocide.
And exactly that is the struggle he had. He even informed the president (who told him to fuck off in a polite way)
You're totally right and the discussion (as so many these days) is completely bollocks.
Since when should the public have the right to demand what an artist ought to put in his work or must not omit. I don't get it...
Americans in general hate to acknowledge the war crimes they commit. I think it was more about a business decision than anything else.
Show me a culture that likes to recognize the war crimes they commited as war crimes.
The Japanese seem to do way more of sweeping their dirty laundry under the rug from WWII under the rug than Americans.
And no, that's not trying to excuse Americans of acknowledging their own war crimes. Every culture should own their past and do their best to learn from their mistakes.
I have not seen the film yet, but it seems like this is a biopic about Oppenheimer, not a WWII movie.
Also, do directors need to infantilize their audience by directly showing "this was bad. Here is why this was bad"? Like, obviously the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were devastating. If you have basic history knowledge you should already know that, and know that those bombings were a direct consequence from what was depicted in the movie with out it being spelled out for you.
The movie is more about the political witchhunt after the fact than it is directly about the bomb itself
The movie doesn't show away from the affects of a nuclear explosion, but it does show the distance that the gadget creators had to the gadget's victims. There is no mistaking the destructive power of a nuclear weapon. It just happens to be that the destruction isn't a direct response that the inventor deals with.
Film is told from Oppenheimer's perspective, I see no problem with it. Especially as it is shown that he had trouble with moral questions over creating a bomb and using it. And there is a really powerful scene with him being troubled with the Japan bombing and imagines bomb being detonated while he gives speech.
They were victims. The nukes were war crimes. Show the victims.
Ultimately though a lot of Nolan's films are coded for a Conservative viewpoint going back to the Batman trilogy. There's still quite a bit of it here, even if this movie is intended to depict the honesty of nuclear weapons.
Ultimately though a lot of Nolan's films are coded for a Conservative viewpoint
Wat
Sure show the Japanese victims, but then you need to show why they were victims in the first place. So you need to show Japanese Imperialism that committed atrocities in Nanking and the attack on Pearl Harbour.
Maybe we could go further and show that Japanese Imperialism was driven by the existential threat of Western Imperialism, which does not in any way lessen the horrors committed by Imperial Japan.
Sometimes the whole story can’t be told in a single film. Not all of it is important to the message or topic the author, director and producers wish to send or examine.
The Japanese had decades of atrocities under their belt by the closing of world war II. There was the Bataan Death March, Siam, occupation of Manchuria, invasion of Singapore, Guam, Philippines, attack on Pearl harbor, and many many other Acts of War that the empire of Japan engaged in. Unlike others mentioned, unit 731 and the rape of Nanjing. They were utterly ruthless.
Hell, there was that one Japanese imperial soldier who was still murdering foreigners like 30 years after the war freaking ended!
So to say that Japan didn't deserve having atomic bombs dropped on it I believe is disingenuous. The people of Japan supported the war and were very militant, unlike the Japanese of today. They believe that they could conquer all of Asia and they try their hardest to do so. They were also prepared to fight to the death to defend their home island. During the preparation and bombing of Japan, the Russians were also preparing in amphibious invasion of Japan. This would have split the Japanese islands into Russian and American administered Islands, like what happened to Germany in the post-war.
The two nuclear bombs dropped on Japan killed roughly 150,000 people. That is less people than died at the siege of Stalingrad in Russia. That is less people than died in a few weeks at the Battle of the Somme during world War I.
The fact is that War sucks, and it's not just the soldiers who suffer and die - it's the civilians as well. We should never forget that, and that there's one thing that the Japanese will tell you today is that we should avoid war at all cost. Whether you agree with that or not, is for you to decide.
Heh, first it was criticism of the credits, now is what should and shouldn't be in the movie. If you know better, why don't you make your own movie that will put Nolan to shame?
will Japanese directors show the camps of sex slaves they have in China or Korea? of course not
so there is your answer
Whataboutism is not helpful.
Well of course it's not, the us government wants to remind everyone that the bombings were a 'nessicary evil' that bs is still taught in schools. Not being a conspiracy guy but I cant imagine a high budget highly publicized movie would rock the boat like that. If you want to hear about sloughing go listen to the last podcast on the lefts 6 part magnum opus on the Manhattan project.
Well of course it's not, the us government wants to
The movie does a decent job portraying why nuclear bomb development was so much more complex than simply a necessary evil, a good, or an unnecessary evil. It's just not a simple topic with easy answers.
The left is not in agreement about the usage or development of the bombs.
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