Exhibition research display object 5: Oppenheimer
24/12/09
Several members of the SALT. CLAY. ROCK. working group saw this 2023 blockbuster film during our research trip to the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains) in Schneeberg’s UNION-Filmtheater, in what is now the former East German state of Saxony. The film is directed by the American director Christopher Nolan and released by the American-owned Universal Pictures. It tells the story of the life travails of nuclear physicist Robert J. Oppenheimer through his studies and as he develops the first nuclear bomb for the US Army during World War Two. A core moment of the film occurs when the United States uses nuclear bombs on Japan, which Oppenheimer enthusiastically supported but soon came to regret. Then, with a further focus on Oppenheimer who was seen as a pioneering hero after the end of the war, the film dramatizes debates around the dangerous brinkmanship of the Cold War, with Oppenheimer arguing for detente. Oppenheimer is portrayed as a broken man whose sensible warnings against nuclear escalation were railroaded and his voice discredited as a result of others’ personal ambitions.

The SALT. CLAY. ROCK. working group found it ironic to be watching the film in the former East, whose concurrent nuclear development the film largely ignored. Nevertheless we appreciated that we had the opportunity to work on the nuclear subject now, in a period of renewed popular attention to the topic brought about by the film, despite the fact that this is also an era of renewed nuclear risks. These real-world risks associated with the nuclear question include talks of nuclear development in Iran and North Korea, and the use of Ukraine’s nuclear energy infrastructure at Zaporizhia and the wastes of Chernobyl, as dangerous prisoners of war throughout Russia’s invasion of the country. There have been allegations that Ukraine has targeted the Russian nuclear power plant at Kursk as well. So in this light, too, we also appreciated the film’s foreboding message.