movie musings
I saw Oppenheimer yesterday, my first movie in a theater since Black Panther 2 last year. I picked that over Barbie because I figured Barbie would be in theaters longer, so I'd have more opportunity to see it. I probably wouldn't have gone to see either of them yet, but a friend wanted to go and my hesitation over how full it might be (because COVID has me wary about that sort of thing in ways I probably wouldn't have been before) wasn't strong enough to outweigh the prospect of us also starting to figure out where we're going to go for the solar eclipse in April. (I didn't travel for the full solar eclipse a few years ago, and I decided I want to see it this time.)
It's a striking movie. Lots of recognizable faces and one or two that seemed familiar but I couldn't place (one of those was Josh Hartnett, as it turned out, LOL), which was fun but also a little distracting sometimes. They did some interesting things with the sound design, and while sometimes the political posturing in the plot was hard to follow in terms of who was doing what and why (especially with so many characters whose names I may or may not have remembered!), the fact that they were telling a story simultaneously in three time periods was done well enough that I don't think I ever got confused. And even though we all know that the atomic bomb was developed and successfully tested, I still held my breath as they did the test explosion.
I found it interesting how much time was spent exploring some of the context and various factors (and personalities) at play in the development and use of the atomic bomb, as well as the fact that Oppenheimer himself had varying opinions about it at different times. I have complicated feelings about the bomb and its uses in Japan, so I appreciated that they represented some of the differences of opinion about the uses of nuclear weapons both in Japan and afterward.
My feelings are caught in the tension between two things: 1. The effects of the bombs on Japan and its people were devastating and terrible, and 2. Grandpa (mom's dad) was on a ship as part of the invasion force headed to Japan at the time of the bombings. If the U.S. hadn't bombed Japan, it's hard to say how much fighting would've happened when the army arrived and whether Grandpa would've survived it. So it's entirely possible that, without the bombings, my family wouldn't exist. It's also quite possible he would've made it home alive, there's just no way to know.
But because it happened the way it did, some of the photos I've seen of the aftermath in Japan were taken by my Grandpa, but I only got to see them after he died. I never heard him talk about any of it--and had no idea there were photos! from September 1945!--while he was alive. I knew he'd been in Japan after the bombs, but didn't find out until a few years ago that he'd already been en route to Japan when it happened. It's a little weird to think about how connected I am to this bit of history, and also how many others can say the same thing, y'know?
It's a striking movie. Lots of recognizable faces and one or two that seemed familiar but I couldn't place (one of those was Josh Hartnett, as it turned out, LOL), which was fun but also a little distracting sometimes. They did some interesting things with the sound design, and while sometimes the political posturing in the plot was hard to follow in terms of who was doing what and why (especially with so many characters whose names I may or may not have remembered!), the fact that they were telling a story simultaneously in three time periods was done well enough that I don't think I ever got confused. And even though we all know that the atomic bomb was developed and successfully tested, I still held my breath as they did the test explosion.
I found it interesting how much time was spent exploring some of the context and various factors (and personalities) at play in the development and use of the atomic bomb, as well as the fact that Oppenheimer himself had varying opinions about it at different times. I have complicated feelings about the bomb and its uses in Japan, so I appreciated that they represented some of the differences of opinion about the uses of nuclear weapons both in Japan and afterward.
My feelings are caught in the tension between two things: 1. The effects of the bombs on Japan and its people were devastating and terrible, and 2. Grandpa (mom's dad) was on a ship as part of the invasion force headed to Japan at the time of the bombings. If the U.S. hadn't bombed Japan, it's hard to say how much fighting would've happened when the army arrived and whether Grandpa would've survived it. So it's entirely possible that, without the bombings, my family wouldn't exist. It's also quite possible he would've made it home alive, there's just no way to know.
But because it happened the way it did, some of the photos I've seen of the aftermath in Japan were taken by my Grandpa, but I only got to see them after he died. I never heard him talk about any of it--and had no idea there were photos! from September 1945!--while he was alive. I knew he'd been in Japan after the bombs, but didn't find out until a few years ago that he'd already been en route to Japan when it happened. It's a little weird to think about how connected I am to this bit of history, and also how many others can say the same thing, y'know?