Oppenheimer was right not to show Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings

It's, therefore, no real surprise that following its impressive opening weekend in cinemas, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has led to its fair share of online squabbling. Nor is that necessarily a bad thing - disagreements about a film's perspective and biases are healthy and often necessary.

But one particular criticism that has been levelled at Oppenheimer from a number of viewers – including a co-chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament's London branch – seems to be rather misguided, both a misreading of what Nolan was trying to say with the film and a misunderstanding of its form and structure.

Specifically, that argument is that by not overtly showing the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the unspeakable horrors faced by the victims, the film is trivialising their impact.

So why did Nolan opt not to show the bombs? Well, when you think about how the film is framed, the answer to that question is rather straightforward. As the writer/director himself made clear prior to release, Oppenheimer unfolds from two different perspectives: scenes shot in colour show the point of view of Oppenheimer himself, while those in black and white present that of Lewis Strauss, played by Robert Downy Jr.

As neither of these men saw the bombings themselves – Oppenheimer heard about them on the radio – it would not make any narrative sense for the film to show them, taking us out of the immersive character study we've been watching. This is a film primarily about Oppenheimer's psyche before, during, and after the construction of the bomb, and the omission of this scene is therefore fitting: part of what makes the bombing so chilling is how detached from its consequences the orchestrators were, and this is brilliantly conveyed by the absence of these scenes.

There's also the issue of the film's structure – much of which is built around a reenactment of the Trinity test. The first two hours slowly build toward this climactic moment, and Oppenheimer's reaction as he watches it – wrestling with both pride in his scientific accomplishment and horror at what he may have wrought – is essentially the essence of the film.

For the final hour, the film then slightly changes tack as we watch the central character reckon with the ramifications of his invention, leading up to his final utterance that he has put the world on an irreversible journey towards nuclear destruction. Putting in another huge explosion scene after the Trinity test would only serve to destroy the film's pacing and rhythm, which has clearly been thought out by Nolan with a specific goal in mind.

So that's why the bombings weren't shown from a narrative point of view, but what of the argument that this somehow trivialises the impact they had on the hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

Well, this argument might hold water if the film was some kind of hagiography painting Oppenheimer as a brilliant figure whose actions had no consequences, but this is very clearly not the case. This is why he becomes increasingly tortured as the significance of his creation becomes more apparent, and why the film ends with the idea that a nuclear holocaust is a realistic possibility.

The film works so well precisely because we are aware of the horrors – and showing the bombings outright in this instance would be nothing but gratuitous. Accounts of the suffering of those victims who so cruelly and horrifically lost their lives are vitally important, but that is not the job of this film – which is intended not as an objective history lesson about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but as a character study of the man who created the bomb.

Read more:

• What was the Chevalier incident in Oppenheimer?
• Was J Robert Oppenheimer a member of the Communist Party?
• What was J Robert Oppenheimer’s relationship to Albert Einstein?
• Oppenheimer review: Cillian Murphy is stunning in explosive epic
• Meet the cast of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer
• Oppenheimer true story: Who was J Robert Oppenheimer?
• Where was Oppenheimer filmed? Filming locations explained
• How did Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer film atomic bomb sequences?
• Who was Kitty Oppenheimer? Oppenheimer’s Emily Blunt role explained
• Who was Jean Tatlock? Oppenheimer’s Florence Pugh role explained
• Who was Lewis Strauss? Robert Downey Jr role in Oppenheimer explained
• Who was Leslie Groves? Matt Damon’s Oppenheimer role explained
• Oppenheimer’s Emily Blunt and Matt Damon praise “mesmeric” Cillian Murphy
• Cillian Murphy gives opinion on Oppenheimer: ‘I tried not to judge him’

Oppenheimer is in UK cinemas now. Check out more of our Film coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on tonight.

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