If you know me at all, you know how much I’ve been looking forward to Oppenheimer.1 For what it is, I was very satisfied; I was continually impressed by the cinematography, costuming, acting, and the score. (I’m no film critic, if you put Cillian Murphy in a Nolan movie I’m watching it.)
My doubts around the movie since it was announced have revolved more around what it is rather than how it is. Is it possible to tell a first-person account of the making of one of the worst war crimes in history without presenting the storyteller as justified?
Probably not, and I’m not sure Nolan lost sleep trying to make it happen.
Narratives
Oppenheimer has been a point of re-engagement with the real dangers of nuclear weapons, to one extent or another, for thousands of people. That said, I consider it fairly unlikely that most audience members who are unfamiliar with nuclear weapons are going to seek out substantially more information on the subject. This places a responsibility on the storytellers to their audience: the responsibility to tell the story well, in a way that benefits humanity, and is unlikely to contribute to the development of dangerous ideas.
A fantastic article by Ben Loehrke, Nickolas Roth, and Luisa Kenausis for the Stanley Center blog communicates the importance of narrative in policy work, as well as storytelling’s “privileged role in communications, social dynamics, and cognition.” This cognitive bias towards storytelling comes with corresponding dangers.
A story is subjective in its telling. It portrays a moment in time from the perspective of a narrator in the present….Even when aware of this, human brains are so eager for stories that it’s easy for stories to bypass filters for critical thinking. That makes stories powerful at transmitting and storing information. If not taken critically, stories can bias sensemaking and social cohesion in potentially harmful ways.
As an unavoidable component of its very existence, Oppenheimer reifies the existing imbalance between the narratives of those who built the bomb and those who suffered its consequences. Martin Pfeiffer, anthropologist and nuclear abolitionist, refers to the movie as both biopic and “myth.” This dynamic is reinforced by the film’s ongoing comparisons of Oppenheimer to Prometheus, a tragic figure who was unjustly punished for doing good.
The official historian of the Manhattan Project and Oppenheimer’s aide, David Hawkins, says that Leslie Groves reported to Oppenheimer in 1943 that they were aware the Nazis had abandoned their attempt to build an atomic bomb — Oppenheimer shrugged, and continued pushing scientists at Los Alamos on their work.2 Oppenheimer truthfully shows the man’s lack of disagreement with the targeting of civilians, and reluctance to speak out against its use. Instead, he “squandered” the prestige granted to him by his complicity with the American war machine, and contributed nothing beneficial to humanity in his time on Earth.
The few moments where the film depicts Oppenheimer’s potential regret over the horror he helped unleash onto hundreds of thousands of people are understated and brief. Would it even be right to ascribe feelings of guilt to a man who seemingly felt none?
Alex Wellerstein, a historian of nuclear technology,3 reiterates that despite the film’s lackluster efforts to portray some hesitation to use the bomb, everyone knew the bomb was built to be used as soon as the Manhattan Project began. Contemporary approval of this usage was far from universal, and scientists did speak out, but there is no scenario where the teams who built it had reason to be surprised that their superweapon was dropped.
Given these historical details, we can see how Oppenheimer has tried to shoehorn in suggestions of a moral conundrum which likely did not occur to the man himself, at least in the way it was presented. This begs the question of why Nolan would tell Oppenheimer’s story and not one of the many stories of its largely unknown victims, like the downwinders, or of people who are regarded as more positive figures in nuclear history, such as Vasily Arkhipov.
Maybe he wasn’t interested in nuclear risk; maybe it pertains to dangers more specific to today.
Arms Races
Given the relatively low rates of prose literacy in the United States, I also consider it unlikely that many Oppenheimer viewers are going to come away with the views Nolan might have been trying to get across in his portrayal of Oppenheimer’s actions (to be charitable to the director).
Nolan is aware of how current artificial intelligence researchers “refer to the present moment as an ‘Oppenheimer moment’.” It’s currently unclear how far away we are from artificial general intelligence, or how destructive such a technology might be, which reminds some of the “close to zero” percent chance of the Trinity Test igniting the atmosphere. The director acknowledges that AI researchers "look at his story for some guidance as to what is their responsibility,” but he considers the development of the atomic bomb as providing no “easy answers.”
Oppenheimer’s pursuit of science for its own sake echoes modern researchers who simultaneously believe AI has the potential to be dangerous to humanity and yet continue to advance AI capabilities. His fruitless quest for international regulations on atomic weapons, meanwhile, does not seem to resonate with his contemporary counterparts.
Conclusions
In telling a story about reality, the morals stay murky; bad things happen to good people, and bad actors aren’t always punished for misdeeds. It’s easy to compare this narrative with one of the most famous fictional tales inspired by the Manhattan Project: Godzilla.
For those of you who haven’t seen the 1954 classic, the monster is eventually stopped by a horrifying superweapon: the “Oxygen Destroyer,” developed by a reclusive scientist named Serizawa. Serizawa is excruciatingly reluctant to reveal his creation to the world, even though it has the potential to prevent the complete destruction of Tokyo by a prehistoric monster, because he is sure the government will force him to make more Oxygen Destroyers and create a new arms race with the potential to destroy the world.
Sounds familiar.
Rather than worry about the blood on his hands after the fact, however, Serizawa takes fate into his own hands. Instead of allowing his work to do incalculable harm to humanity, he chose to die. Even though he knew other scientists could reinvent his discovery, Serizawa wanted no part in the ensuing arms race. After using the Oxygen Destroyer to save Tokyo and destroy Godzilla, he chose suicide, taking his secrets — even if they could be reinvented — to the grave.
Serizawa could have remained alive at the end of the film, giving the team an opportunity to tell another version of nuclear proliferation around the world. Unlike Oppenheimer though, Godzilla offered a new vision: where people have the potential to undertake heroic acts and make the moral choice, rather than hiding behind the inevitability of conflict.
Oppenheimer does not have this potential to offer positive visions or narratives. It’s the first-person narrative of a man who did something unspeakably horrible and then failed to do anything redeemable for the rest of his life. It’s unlikely to prevent other people from doing horrible things in the future, although it remains to be seen if it will inspire anyone to do good acts. I’m pessimistic.
In conclusion, if they really wanted to make a movie called “Oppenheimer,” it should have been about Kitty.
For more on this subject, I recommend reading additional statements from downwinders advocacy groups. There’s a wonderful online art exhibition from the Albuquerque Museum. I also recommend the “Open Letter from Atomic Bombing Survivors, victims of Nuclear Testing and Youth Campaigners,” directed to Christopher Nolan, which received no reply.
And Barbie, but that review is for my other blog.