this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2023
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Viewers are divided over whether the film should have shown Japanese victims of the weapon created by physicist Robert Oppenheimer. Experts say it's complicated.

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[–] [email protected] 126 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yeah, there is a fucking burnt child on the movie.

[–] [email protected] 75 points 11 months ago (22 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

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...

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 11 months ago (45 children)

Being so far removed from the use of his discovery and put of the loop now the army was done with him is a crucial character moment in the film, and we as the audience are following his story. Having scenes of the bombing, the aftermath of the victims would have undermined that.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I really don't think so. They literally had a scene where they were debriefing the scientists of the effect of the bomb and the types of wounds and deaths it caused. They could of just showed the slides they were going over there.

Still think it's a good movie, and for me this is a minor critique, but still something they could have done.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 11 months ago

The movie is more about the political witchhunt after the fact than it is directly about the bomb itself

[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (8 children)

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?

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

One thing I would add is that the aftermath of the Japanese bombings have been extensively covered in various movies, anime and other media including the traveling Hiroshima atomic bomb museum. It is very important for people to understand what the tragedy that the bombings lead to. But that's an entire movie in and of itself.

Go watch Grave of the Fireflies or Barefoot Gen if you would like to know more.

Edit

This is a great quote that I agree with:

“I don’t think we should depend on Hollywood to tell our stories with the nuance and the depth and the care that they really deserve,” Nina Wallace

Her point is that it's not Nolan's fault that he didn't make the movie about the victims, it's that he wasn't the right person for it. It's a systemic issue that Hollywood hires predominantly white male directors to make movies. They would need a different director who is conscientious about the subject matter to go make the movie about the victims. Of course, there are already movies about the victims that have been made in Japan...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

Do you think that the pro meddling in the middle east voters in the world trade centre that day deserved to die like that?

Genuinely, I don't. I don't think average citizens, even really fucking shitty and ignorant ones, deserve capital punishment for the crimes of those that claim dominion over them.

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