Documentary Description
J Robert Oppenheimer was one of the most celebrated scientists of his
generation. Shy, arrogant and brilliant, he is best known as the man
that led the Manhattan Project to spectacular success.
As the years progressed he also grew into a scientific statesman,
leading a government agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, which was
trying to develop ways to avoid a nuclear arms race. His attempts at
politics, though, were a lot less successful than his scientific
endeavours. As he grew more powerful, he started to make serious enemies
amongst the establishment, particularly a friend of President Truman's -
Lewis Strauss.
This film tells the extraordinary story of the rise and fall of
Robert Oppenheimer. David Straithairn, whose previous recreation of this
era in Good Night and Good Luck was Oscar-nominated, plays Oppenheimer
trying to defend himself as he was effectively put on trial for being a
communist. Re-creation is mixed with expert testimony from a definitive
range of commentators, ranging from Oppenheimer's Manhattan Project
colleagues to academics like Martin Sherwin and Priscilla MacMillan.
Narrated by Zoe Wanamaker, whose own father experienced the virulent
anti-communism of McCarthyism first-hand, it weaves Oppenheimer's
biography with the dramatic events of his trial and its tragic
aftermath. Emotional and compelling, it is a film that, in a time when
non-proliferation is firmly back on the agenda, tells us a lot about the
perils of mixing science and government.
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