Thanks for the detailed reply.physicshistoryguy wrote: ↑June 25th, 2023, 3:18 am(Testing out my ability to break up a quote into smaller chunks that I can comment on one at a time; interesting that I never thought about whether I could do that before.) Right, if that one split-second shot in the TV spot wasn't there, I'd still be saying that we wouldn't see the bombings depicted (Trinity's arguably the better climax, and if you've shown that, then why show the bombings? It's Oppenheimer's story, and we're nailed to his perspective, so it's better to see the aftermath and the reaction to the bombings). But the inclusion of the shot means we almost certainly will be seeing Little Boy in action over Hiroshima in some form. I don't think we'll be seeing a full sequence depicting the bombings in all their horror, but probably some brief scene with him visualizing the bomb working, as you said. Perhaps a montage flipping back and forth between Oppenheimer hearing the news of the bombing and the bombing itself from Little Boy's perspective (justified as Oppenheimer's imagination, maybe, given how much of himself he metaphorically put into the bombs) with Truman's speech in the background as a voice-over ("The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed!" has gotta be in the film somewhere).Oku wrote: ↑June 25th, 2023, 12:46 amI don't think that we're gonna see the bombings directly; all evidence points to the contrary. What we will be seeing, I assume, is the main character's inner visualizations of the bomb's internal workings, of which that shot is a part. (I mean, Mr. Nolan told us as much--that we would be entering his mind.)
So, watching it in slo-mo again, I see little specks on the inner surface of the gun (dust? imperfections in the material that are catching the light?) that remain fixed from one frame to the next, which suggests to me that the camera is fixed and not traversing up the gun barrel.Oku wrote: ↑June 25th, 2023, 12:46 amAlso, I remember that you praised the shot at 0:03 in that TV spot for rectifying a long-standing inaccuracy of the mass being fired into the cylinder, when it really was the other way around.
But I'm rewatching in slo-mo, and I'm confused. How are you so sure that it's the cylinder being fired at the mass?
Like, the way that that shot is composed, it could easily be the cylinder standing still and the mass approaching/being fired at the cylinder/camera, no?
Contrary to legend, Oppenheimer never regretted his work on the Manhattan Project (and, in his final years, he was frustrated at those who assumed he was regretful or sought to tell his story as a simplistic morality tale). He saw it as his wartime duty, although it was something he had terrible qualms about, especially after the war. Think of his confession to Truman where he feels like he has blood on his hands. Or a 1946 speech where he said that America "used atomic weapons against an enemy which was essentially defeated." Or a 1956 comment that the bombing of Hiroshima could have been "a tragic mistake." But these were qualms, expressions of discomfort, misgivings, and not outright regret. In 1960, when visiting Tokyo, he said "I do not regret that I had something to do with the technical success of the atomic bomb. It isn't that I don't feel bad; it is that I don't feel worse tonight than I did last night." And in 1964, he wrote to David Bohm, a former grad student, about a play based on his security hearings, which featured a fictionalized monologue where Oppenheimer’s character expressed Faustian sentiments: "What I have never done is to express regret for doing what I did and could at Los Alamos; in fact, under quite dramatic circumstances, I have reaffirmed my sense that, with all the black and white, that was something I did not regret... My own feelings about responsibility and guilt have always had to do with the present, and so far in this life that has been more than enough to occupy me." So Oppenheimer's attitude towards all this is fiercely complex. Did he regret his role in the making of the atomic bomb? Nope, but neither was he gung-ho about it or felt it was wholly necessary. He saw it as his duty during the war, and it was one he performed brilliantly by all accounts. After all, that's what the "I am become death" speech is all about: the god Vishnu is trying to persuade the prince - Oppenheimer himself, as he saw it - to do his duty and fight in a war he wants no part in. (More on this can be seen in Alex Wellerstein's posts on the subject: https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2014/05 ... imer-gita/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/ ... omic_bomb/).Oku wrote: ↑June 25th, 2023, 12:46 amAnd there is another thing that I would like cleared up/settled.
It's commonly assumed that Mr. Oppenheimer regretted his invention, what with the whole famous "I am become death" speech with his saddened expression and whatnot.
But I vaguely remember reading here or somewhere that Mr. Oppenheimer and co. weren't really horrified at the fact that the bomb was used per se, but rather, they felt blindsided by the fact that it had been used on Japan when they thought the whole point of it all was to race against and use it against Germany?
And that he never regretted his invention as is commonly assumed, but to the contrary, went to his grave firmly believing in the necessity of his invention?
How accurate are these two claims?
I wouldn't say that Oppenheimer and the others were blindsided by the bombs' use in Japan. The initial motivation for most at Los Alamos was to race the Nazis to the bomb, sure, but by the end of 1944, at least, it became pretty apparent that there was no Nazi bomb to worry about (in fact, they had dropped out of the race a year before Los Alamos even opened), and that gave many scientists the opportunity to really think about the consequences of what they were doing (although only one scientist as far as I know, Joseph Rotblat, quit entirely). Some, mostly in Chicago and Oak Ridge, drew up petitions and reports advocating against nuking cities but Truman never saw them, not that the bombings would have been deterred anyways. But I don't think it's fair to say that bombing Japan was a surprise to those in the project, if that answers your question.
So wait, I'm confused; is the barrel shot accurate then or not?
And I hope that the film stays true to that, i.e. that Mr. Oppenheimer never really regretted his invention. It would be too easy to go the modern-day, revisionist route of showing Mr. Oppenheimer brooding, sulking, and doing the whole "Oh my God, what have I done??" thing that many seem to be taking for granted will be the core moral/theme of the film.
