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“Oppenheimer continues to impress with its box office results, as Christopher Nolan's film about the man behind the atomic bomb earned $12.6 million at the domestic box office on Monday. Cillian Murphy stars as the titular character, in a gripping drama about a man coming to terms with the consequences of his actions. The film's domestic tally has passed $95 million.” Collider
The right praises the movie, and defends the decision to drop the atomic bombs.
”It’s understandable that Oppenheimer would have qualms about the unfathomable horror inflicted on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (even if he always defended his work during World War II), but launching these attacks was clearly the right decision. The revisionist arguments that they were unnecessary don’t hold up to scrutiny and amount to just-so counterfactual history…
“Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Truman talked after the war of estimates of the costs of an invasion of Japan going as high as 1 million U.S. casualties… There is simply no way around the fact that defeating Japan was going to require a cataclysm one way or the other — whether from the air or the ground, whether a form of destruction very new or very old, whether sudden or drawn out…
“Imperial Japan was aggressive and remorseless. Its attacks on Pearl Harbor and treatment of U.S. prisoners were enormities enough. But it killed perhaps as many as 20 million people in China alone. Everywhere it went, from Nanking to Manila, it brought large-scale, bestial cruelty. And, as it was wrestled onto the defensive, it resolved to fight with the irrationality of a suicide cult.”
Rich Lowry, National Review
“Without the stunning demonstration of Allied power, it's unlikely that Emperor Hirohito would have succeeded in securing an unconditional surrender. Recall that the military attempted a coup when Hirohito wanted to surrender after the atomicbombings. It's not hard to see that the war would have gone on for much longer [without them]…
“The more important counterfactual relates to the Soviets, who declared war on Japan right after the bombings. A Soviet invasion of Japan, which likely would have persisted absent the bombings, could have resulted in the island's division, much like that of Germany or North Korea. A communist half of Japan would only add to the death toll of the ideology, which killed 100 million in a century of execution.”
Tiana Lowe Doescher, Washington Examiner
“‘Oppenheimer’ is liberal, but it isn’t woke. That’s an important distinction in the case of art and a rarity in modern Hollywood…
“There’s a notable moment after the first test of Oppenheimer’s atomic weapon in which he waves to a crowd of Americans gathered to celebrate the achievement. In the scene, we see men and women, GIs and civilians. Behind Oppenheimer flies an American flag raised on high as he raises his hat and smiles… The moment was appropriate and stirring…
“The Manhattan Project remains an immense accomplishment at a time in which our world was so deeply threatened with being plunged into a dark age. This success would set the stage for many fantastical American achievements over the following 75 years… [The movie] captures some of the greatness that Americans still long for.”
Jarrett Stepman, Daily Signal
The left generally praises the movie, and worries about the dangers of nuclear weapons.
The left generally praises the movie, and worries about the dangers of nuclear weapons.
“78 years after the first atomic bomb was tested at Trinity Site in New Mexico, we are living in a dangerous nuclear moment. Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons over the war in Ukraine. China has expanded its own once-small nuclear arsenal, even as it has declined to engage in arms-control treaties with the US, which itself will spend about $750 billion over the next decade revamping its nuclear weapons. Countries in the Middle East, like Saudi Arabia, are vying to create civilian nuclear programs…
“Can Oppenheimer remind us of these dangers and push us to think critically about how the Manhattan Project has led to this reality?… One question that [historian Alex Wellerstein] asks his students is, ‘What are the conditions that you think it would be acceptable for the United States to deliberately burn 100,000 civilians alive? That’s a really ugly question, right? Like, that really gets you into really dark territory. But I like using it because it pushes you out of the familiar justifications.’”
Jonathan Guyer, Vox
“[One scene] highlights the arbitrary nature of warfare and underscores the immorality of bombing civilian sites. As Oppenheimer and government officials discuss the possible target cities in Japan for the first A-bomb, Secretary of War Henry Stimson strikes Kyoto from the list. He explains that it is an important cultural center for Japan and that he and his wife honeymooned there. So Hiroshima it is… [But] After the bombing, Oppenheimer presents us no images of the devastation…
“Did they believe that gruesome footage would stand as too much of an indictment of Oppenheimer and undercut the audience’s sympathy for him? Might it be too overwhelming for multiplex-goers?… This move is reminiscent of the actions that Hollywood and the US government took decades ago to suppress the most shocking images of Hiroshima.”
David Corn, Mother Jones
“Though I’m not completely on board with the critique that Oppenheimer fails to address the invention of the A-bomb from a Japanese point of view—it is, after all, based on a biography of the weapon’s inventor, not the infinitely larger and more tragic story of that invention’s victims—it is notable that the only glimpse we’re provided of the bomb’s real-world effect on human bodies comes in the form of a hallucinatory vision…
“Though the entirety of the film is an anticipatory shudder inspired by the horrors to come, those horrors remain placeless and abstract, never linked to the hundreds of thousands of individuals whose lives the bomb either ended or damaged irreparably. Still, for younger audiences to whom the name Oppenheimer means little, this mostly historically accurate telling of his story will be a bracing lesson, and to those of us who grew up in the atmosphere of the Cold War, it can serve as a terrifying reminder.”
Dana Stevens, Slate
