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atmospheric ignition
Fuchs claimed Hitler claimed he wasn't German
what would Pash have thought of Putin?
using the gadget against Nazi Germany
great news -- deadline extended to register for Tonya's upcoming talk!
an important documentary that I hope will be released soon
anyone seen this movie?
loved this early view of Tonya's life
Happy Birthday to Tonya!!
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True.
Although not really shown in the movie, in real life Edward Teller was disabled, having lost most of his right foot in an accident in his youth so he had to rely on a prosthetic foot. At times in the movie he appears to be walking with a slight limp which I'd guess was more pronounced in real life.
Far, far more interesting to me than whether Cillian is, or is not, Jewish or whether Oppie is, or is not, Jewish, is the fact that Cillian is Irish.
Very, very interesting because Ireland is one of a very, very small handful of countries to successfully maintain their neutrality for the duration of World War II.
I wonder whether the apple was partly a nod to Manzanar Internment Camp, the first of the internment camps for Japanese Americans to open in 1942.
Minor correction: Oppie has relations with three--not two--women in this story. The third one--the one Berardinelli probably missed--is Ruth Tolman (Louise Lombard).
Both Lawrence and Groves strongly hint that Oppie's relationship with Ruth is an open secret. At one point, Lawrence asks Oppie "don't you have somewhere to be?" At first Oppie has no idea what Lawrence is talking about. Then V. Bush and Richard Tolman enter the room, having traveled north from Caltech to Cal. This reminds Oppie that he does in fact have somewhere to be--with Richard's wife Ruth given that Richard is spending the week away from their home in Pasadena.
Then Groves tells Oppie that Richard Tolman has praised Oppie's "integrity", but also notes that Richard understands science better than people. By this Groves seems to mean that Richard is not enough of a judge of people to have noticed the clues that his wife is having an affair with their housemate, colleague, and friend.
I agree.
Spoiler alert:
<spoiler>About three minutes before the credits start to roll in this three hour film, a Senate aide finally comes to an accurate conclusion. The aide finally figures out that Strauss just isn't that important a guy. It would have been better if Nolan himself had reached the same conclusion--Strauss isn't all that important--maybe an hour earlier in the film and given Strauss (Robert Downey Jr) substantially less screen time.
Strauss is a significant enough to Oppenheimer to certainly warrant some focus--but he dominates this film to an extent not justified by his actual role in Oppenheimer's life.</spoiler>
The sex may have been hetero, but the real life person (Tatlock) depicted having sex may have been bi rather than hetero.
According to the article the sex was justified due to the intensity of the emotional connection. I agree, but would also say that for the same reason Tatlock (Pugh) needed more screen time beyond the sex scene.
The sex should be in there, but the relationship between Tatlock and Oppie needed to be explored in greater depth in other ways beyond just the sexual aspects. According to Pugh, Nolan has admitted as such.
Yes, I'm aware that Hitler himself wasn't German, although he would probably never have admitted as such. Hitler, originally from Austria, did naturalize in Germany in 1932 or so, but the validity of the naturalization has been challenged posthumously.
The question from the movie, though, is whether Hitler ever claimed to Fuchs that Fuchs wasn't German. The specific exchange from the script was:
Oppie: How long have you been British?
Fuchs: Since Hitler told me I wasn't German.
I'm trying to understand what Fuchs (or Nolan) intended by this line, since Fuchs wasn't Jewish and I'm not aware of what the context would have been where Hitler told Fuchs that Fuchs wasn't German.
I've seen the movie multiple times and I'm still not quite sure which side Chevalier was on.
Oppie notes--correctly--that sharing such info with the Soviets would be treason. Chevalier agrees and the discussion ends there.
What isn't clear to me is whether Chevalier is encouraging Oppie to commit treason, or is opposed to treason and is warning Oppie of Eltenton's potentially treasonous activities. The interaction is too brief for me to be sure--and given that the real life incident this was based on was also apparently quite brief, Chevalier's exact motives may have died with him and never be known for sure.
This is essentially my point. The decision to use the gadget against Japan is often framed--including by most people in this film--as being one of saving both American and Japanese lives by averting the need for a full scale invasion.
I agree with this understanding as far as it goes, but what often seems overlooked (including in this film) is what role Stalin might have played in a full scale invasion of Japan. It seems to me there would have been great political pressure in the US to allow Stalin as big a role as he was willing to take, as allowing Stalin a significant role would have reduced what were expected to be very heavy American casualties. Of course, this would have come at the price, as you've said, of Stalin having significant influence in post-war Japan. It appears to me that Stalin was indeed gearing up to have the USSR play a major role in the invasion.
So it is true that using Fat Man and Little Boy greatly reduced both American and Japanese casualties, but what is often left unsaid is that the use of these weapons also greatly reduced Soviet influence in post-war Japan, and I'm sure that was part of the calculation too. (No doubt Soviet casualties were also reduced, but that wouldn't have been Truman's motivation.)
So there was a clear strategic reason to use nuclear weapons against Japan in August 1945. I'm not, however, seeing the same strategic advantage in nuking Hitler in early 1945 even had the weapons been ready by then. To cite just one reason, Auschwitz had been liberated by Jan 1945, so few lives would have been saved in the Holocaust by nuking Hitler in the early months of 1945. The strategic situation in Japan was very different.
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