How Oppenheimer (2023) contributes to history
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- Опубліковано 12 лип 2024
- Time to review the Oppenheimer movie and it really holds up well. Not only was it amazingly well put together, but it actually has an interesting twist that lends a new interpretation of this important figure and his legacy. But just to refresh, let’s go over Oppie’s bio before we get into how director Christopher Nolan made a truly fascinating film that contributes something to historical interpretation.
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Bibliography
Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York: Vintage Books, 2006). amzn.to/3MYgBTv
Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko, The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University, 2008). amzn.to/35cXFdF
Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb, with new foreword (1986; New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012). amzn.to/3qcKUgm
Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (New York: Penguin Books, 2013). amzn.to/3MFP8EX
Ferenc Morton Szasz, The Day the Sun Rose Twice: The Story of the Trinity Site Nuclear Explosion (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984). amzn.to/3MCKHe7
Tom Zoellner, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock that Shaped the World (New York: Viking, 2009). amzn.to/43rvZgO
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Wiki: Oppenheimer is a 2023 epic biographical drama film[5][6][7] written for the screen and directed by Christopher Nolan.[8] It stars Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer, the American theoretical physicist credited with being the "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project-the World War II undertaking that developed the first nuclear weapons. Based on the 2005 biography American Prometheus by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, the film chronicles the career of Oppenheimer, with the story predominantly focusing on his studies, his direction of the Manhattan Project during World War II, and his eventual fall from grace due to his 1954 security hearing. The film also stars Emily Blunt as Oppenheimer's wife "Kitty", Matt Damon as head of the Manhattan Project Leslie Groves, Robert Downey Jr. as United States Atomic Energy Commission member Lewis Strauss, and Florence Pugh as Oppenheimer's communist lover Jean Tatlock. The ensemble supporting cast includes Josh Hartnett, Casey Affleck, Rami Malek, and Kenneth Branagh.
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Hashtags: #history #oppenheimer #ABomb #review #BasedOnATrueStory
Chapters
0:00 intro
0:57 reality
26:15 scholarship
29:25 accuracy
36:52 spoilers
41:04 outro
Gary Oldman played Churchill, Truman, and now all we need is for him to play Stalin.
Child 44 has him as Soviet police, so close enough
well, he already was Victor Rezonv. Jokes aside, may I suggest R. Jungk "Brighter than a thousand suns"?
Robert Duvall did a rather good job with the role
Now do Barbie
It would make it whole.
And do Zone of Interest
Unironically, yes he should do this. There’s at least some stuff to discuss.
Can you killers in the flower moon next?
Feels more like an Atun Shei topic ngl
My master’s thesis actually discusses fears of communism and nuclear apocalypse in Christian sermons around 1958-1970. Watching Oppenheimer actually encouraged me to delve deeper on such topics.
When I volunteered at a veterans home, I met a guy named Carl, who was a worker on the nuclear tests. He was tasked once with delivering Oppenheimer’s rolls Royce from Kansas City to Los Alamos. He even had tea with the man. Was very interesting learning things from him.
Talk to old people everyone, you’ll hear incredible stories.
The film never commits to her being killed or committed suicide it just shows both as a way to cast doubts on it from Oppenheimer himself
The issue with naming someone after a living ancestor is an Ashkenazi-specific custom; Mizrahim and Sephardim have no such prohibitions.
Good to know. Could you give me a source on that? I'd like to be able to post a correction
Cillian Murphy definitely deserved that Oscar.
Yep and personally Nolan should do more films like Oppenheimer.
Barbenheimer the phenomenon largely prevented a new social media schism of men supporting Oppie and women supporting Barbie. The meme had essentially silenced most of the extremes but it did help that most did find Oppie a lot more boring than other Nolan films whilst Barbie didnt take itself too seriously.
The main message of the film, an emotional meta-warning that ties everything together I think, is just under the surface, and breaches it right at the end of the second act. In the rally at the Los Alamos gymnasium, during his speech, the audience reacts to what he is saying with such gusto and enthusiasm that it makes for a horrific contrast to the abstract imagery playing out amongst them from Oppenheimer's perspective.
The most powerful destructive force in the world is NOT a nuclear chain reaction due to fission or fusion.
No, it IS the chain reaction of *fear* and *fervor* that leads to the decisions to weaponize it.
Responding to your cat's cameo, just rescued a new kitty, Theodore von Karman, Theo for short.
Adorable name
Hopefully you and Theo have many, many years together.
Gotta read American prometheus
I just started reading it.
32:07 My interpretation of the gloved hand in the scene of jean's death wasn't that the movie suggesting someone had assassinated her but rather that gloved hand was meant to represent Oppenheimer, in that, in that moment Oppenheimer felt responsible for her death, or that metaphorically, he had been the one who drowning her
I interpreted it as being deliberately vague to imply either possibility.
I liked the movie, and I'm glad to know that it's so historically accurate. In fact, some things seemed too perfect to be real (the association between oppenheimer and los alamos for example).
If I have to say something against the movie, I would have liked some more hints about the timings of the events. It's clear that the "trial" and the hearings for Strauss happen after the war, but it's not clear - to me at least - when all of the other things of oppie's youth happen.
Thanks for continuing these videos.
Oppenheimer was like Faust who sold his soul to the Devil for fame and fortune, and lived long enough to pay the consequences.
Should he go unpunished for facilitating the construction of the doomsday devise, I don't know but he was...
In the movie my focus was on the bomb and not the individuals.. The prospect of nuclear annihilation is still with us on this very day..
I am from the duck and cover generation and the PR about the Bomb was everywhere.. Around the mid-80's, just before the Soviet collapse, warnings to the public about a nuclear holocaust all but disappeared... We have two generations of people whose concept of nuclear bomb has been turned into a cartoon.. This makes today a very dangerous time....
Yeah ... or the planet has been wrecked so thoroughly by your generation and the one following, that nowadays' young people just don't care anymore. They won't be having an easily habitable planet anymore anyway. But please ... keep on painting yourself as superior.
I would think that It's more that as a scientist (and in no way was he alone in this) the idea of actually bringing various theories of physics (which had previously only existed as laboratory experiments or mathematical models) to actual reality was simply too intriguing to resist. Plus the actual reality of what they were making easily got lost in the intense drive, in time of war, to get an atomic bomb made. I mean, let's face it - the Manhattan Project could have just ended up as the world's most expensive science experiment and Oppenheimer would today be an obscure historical side-player.
Of course I agree, but the Manhattan project was fateful success. I was careful not to say that Oppenheimer was not the inventor of the devise but his organizing abilities made it possible.. The same could be said of General Groves involving logistics There were many bright men involved in this project. @@faeembrugh
You know i almost cried at " i believe we did" dialogue and visuals that followed, the thought that we could annihilate ourselves because of a chain reaction was the actual 'domino effect'. What made me almost cry was the idea that i might see the bombs drop and the nuclear Armageddon begin with my own eyes is a nightmareish thought i never be in.
We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, and a few people cried, and most people were silent.
I remember the line from the Hindu scripture' the Bhagavad-Gita Vishnu' is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him, takes on his multiform and says
"Now I am became Death' the destroyer of worlds"
I suppose we all thought that' one way or another
J Robert Oppenheimer
Technically it was Krishna(as an avatar, but still)
Boy this movie really dropped the Woppenheimer on everyone's expectations.
Ah yes the tale of Sloppenhiemer and that bomb af head
I think this Is the best video you have done in a while.
Gonna watch this with the family soon and am very excited.
Be warned: there are s*x scenes. 😬💀
So glad to see you are continuing to produce you're consistently excellent edutainment. With all the headwind YT directs at History creators it would be understandable if your ouput rate diminished. You would be missed.
HE DID THE THING!!!!!!!
Hey one of my professors at IU Bloomington was cited! Linenthal is great!
This along with Godzilla minus one is worth movie of the year and both winning the Oscar was worth it. Nolan should do more biographical historical films. Personally I liked both films.
an interesting part of this story is Truman's intention behind what he said. It's a real Rorschach about your views about him as a figure. I believe he intended to keep with his "the buck stops here" mentality and was disgusted at what he perceived as an attention-seeker butting in to his domain and into things Oppenheimer didn't understand
The Making of the Atomic Bomb is such a good book.
Very good video as allways
Interestingly, the petition scientists wanted to send to Truman (and General Groves blocked) anticipated a nuclear arms race, but it did not anticipate how many people would not be killed by the blast, but die slowly from radiation sickness.
Probably why they didn't use the Trinity test footage is because it wouldn't have fit with the IMAX and 70mm formats on which the film was shot
Well, it took you 8 months for this video. But for what i see, it's worth it.
39:45 i understood that reference
It only became available for download in December. So it took me 3 months (and it was actually complete a month ago). That's pretty quick for me
@@CynicalHistorian anyways, i'm happy with this video.
32:07 in fairness to Nolan, he did not portray Gene Tatlock's death as being a definite assassination, but instead mostly portryed it as suicide, then suddenly switching it to homicide, as if the two possibilities are overlapping. The uncertainty is presented well imho.
My parents and I enjoyed the film overall.
Same here.
Congratulations on the PhD!!!! Dr. Cipher!!!
Your sources ought to list Tsuyoshi Hasegawa's book on the atomic bomb as well as Alex Wellerstein's research into it.
Hasegawa's work is falling out of favor due to it's bias by omitting known facts that run contrary to his hypothesis especially in regards to what forced Japan's surrender, it is also inherently flawed due to more recent documents being released by the Japanese government that include the records kept during the council meetings that discussed the atomic bombs as well as the personal diaries of both the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister that directly contradict Hasegawa's assertions.
You are lying. Hasegawa's book is still widely respected and it's still seen as a major source that contributed new scholarship, cited by recent scholars like Alex Wellerstein among others. Not everyone may agree with Hasegawa's conclusion but he brought new research that emphasized the contingency of the surrender.
Did this video get demonetized? I’d have thought this review would get more views than it seems to have, especially when it came out near the Oscars where Oppenheimer won multiple awards.
It's monetized, so I dunno why it's lagging so much on views
I am now VERY tempted to ask you to say 'Be very quiet, I'm hunting Rabbits'. :-P 41:39
Can you do the Film killers of the flower moon next?
I'd love to see history buffs tackle this movie
Thanks!
And thank you!
It’s only fair to cover Barbie next. The comments have spoken.
Great video, Joe! And let me belatedly congratulate you on earning your PhD!
Thanks. I somewhat recognize your name. Have we met before?
To be fair I never thought he didn’t fight. I just took it as the annoyance as fighting accusations from people that don’t get or care the basis of science or how scientists think.
Cant be more then a day!!
kino is back on the menu
a "stint" is by definition short, no need to say "short stint"
Nice
history professor + physics = comedy
I'm of the opinion that we should perhaps drop our terra-centric view,
that our self-immolation will make a wit of difference
to the universe.
It’ll make a wit of difference to us. It’s easy to fall into that rabbit hole of “the universe is so big, why does it matter” forgetting that no matter how vast it is, we still exist. And, speaking personally, I’d be damned if I had to leave the world in a worse state than how I found it.
@@samuelbarber6177 I agree. it will make a wit of difference to us, but it's not a rabbit hole if it is reality. I think we'll have to get our act together if we wish to avoid that ignominious fate.
it is in our hands.
Movie was OK, the background music never stops the whole way through it, which was really annoying
Another Nobody trying to be Anybody sticking to Somebody ! 😊
What'chew talkin' bout Willis!?
IDK my takeaway is the Oppenheimer was politically ambitious, tried to climb the ladder of DC, and fell mostly to his own hubris.
Babe wake up, new Cynical Historian video dropped.
🎉
The movie sparked my interest to go into a Nuclear operations. Prometheus gave us the fire, figured we try to use it warm the house instead of burning it down.
Have you seen the docudrama Hiroshima?
You’ve insulted me. I’m an idiot.
Wait…
My grandfather was an atomic bomb survivor. He was stationed on the aircraft carrier that was 90 miles away from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was a horrible abusive alcoholic after ww2 and scarred many generations of us still to this day. Half of us half MS , Lupus , and many have passed from Cancer. Sorry, I despise this man ! He should be vilified forever and so should the us government for this crime against humanity.
What, not one word about Teller?
The problem is Penn does all the talking, so he gets remembered.
97th
" Many persons have inquired concerning a recent message of mine that "a new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels." : Often in evolutionary processes a species must adapt to new conditions in order to survive. Today the atomic bomb has altered profoundly the nature of the world as we knew it, and the human race consequently finds itself in a new habitat to which it must adapt its thinking. : In the light of new knowledge, a world authority and an eventual world state are not just desirable in the name of brotherhood, they are necessary for survival. In previous ages a nation's life and culture could be protected to some extent by the growth of armies in national competition. Today we must abandon competition and secure cooperation. This must be the central fact in all our considerations of international affairs; otherwise we face certain disaster. Past thinking and methods did not prevent world wars. Future thinking must prevent wars."
Albert Einstein
Cynicalheimer
20:44 actually, the German "au" as in Strauss is pronounced similarly to the English "ou" as in "ouch".
So rather "Strouss" than "Stross".
false, you don't get to dictate how he pronounced his name
@@CynicalHistorian
Then it's his or probably his ancestors individual fault.
It is (or should be) "Strauss" (not "Strawz") just like in Levi Strauss. ..or Johann Strauss. ..or Richard Strauss.
Obviously someone was smart, when introducing the name Kreißler/Chrysler to the new world.
names change, as all things do. There's no "should be." You'd do well to learn that when on a channel dedicated to history
@@CynicalHistorian
Strauss = Strauss.
So if he's pronounced Strawz and the other American Strausses of German descent are pronounced Strauss, obviously someone failed the standard.
If they wanted to be called Strawz, they should've written their name accordingly.
@@damianm-nordhorn116 It's English. I dunno why you hate him so much, but this is a dumb hill to die on. Stop being so ignorant
I was disappointed that the sex scene was the only reason why the movie was rated R. when I came into the movie knowing that it was rated R I thought it was because they would show the aftermath of the bombing.
I would have preferred that they did show the victims because I am for the use of the nuclear weapon even if it does cause such damage. And my hope is showing people aftermath they would still come to the same conclusion that using the nuclear weapons was the right choice . Of course, it would’ve been odd to put in the movie the planned casualty race of an invasion of Japan but one can only hope that people would actually take the time to look that up.
Imagine actually saying with a straight face unironically that you are for the use of nuclear weapons despite the well documented horrific damage it would do if nuclear weapons were all fired at once.. Are you feeling okay dude?
Oppenheimer is a true story? No way. In other news the sky is blue
😂
YES! I was waiting for this one!!
You have this movie, a great example of a historical drama that is well put together, and respects what actually happened. And then you have Ridley Scott’s poor excuse of “historical” drama with that Napoleon schlock
I wonder if Napoleon would have benefited from a framing device to set it as a series of flashbacks or correspondence with Josephine? Then the inconsistencies could be hand waved as being a result of an unreliable narrator.
Christopher Nolan: Bases his film on a real factual account of Oppenheimer’s life. Taking some dramatic liberties, but mostly sticking to agreed upon facts.
Ridley Scott: Historians should just get a life and stop bothering me.
Gotta say, I prefer Nolan’s approach.
@@samuelbarber6177 It's a shame that a well respected director who made the Alien films and others has now chosen to reduce himself to a rude man-child who thinks people won't take him seriously without an Oscar.
Now do the Rosenbergs