Voices Radio: Oppenheimer A Review by Eric Mann

OPPENHEIMER: Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy have made one of the most important revolutionary films of our time The story of “the father of the Atom Bomb” who came to see its destruction, fought for nuclear disarmament, and was red-baited and crushed by U.S. imperialisms', post-war, pro-Nazi, anti-communist crusade Eric Mann’s reads a draft of his future Counterpunch Article Selection from Eric Mann’s reading of his review: Oppenheimer is a breakthrough in film’s role to rescue the heroic history of the communists and anti-fascists during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and to expose the two party anti-communist frenzy that marks U.S. politics today. It is one of the finest political films I have seen—up there with the Battle of Algiers, Reds, The Spook Who Sat By the Door, and all of our other 5 or ten favorites. It is the story of a brilliant nuclear physicist, Robert Oppenheimer, who was close to the Communist Party, worked for the veterans of Spanish Civil War (code for the Communist Party) worked to organize a union of scientists, and was most known as “the father of the atomic bomb. In the last great scene of so many in the film, Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein are talking. Oppenheimer, only recently canonized by U.S. imperialism, is now being red-baited and villainized for opposing the nuclear project he began, Einstein advises him, “They will punish you, then time will pass, and then when they no longer fear you they will bring you back, give you a medal, but remember, they are doing it for themselves, not you.” Oppenheimer, tells Einstein, “When I first talked to you about the Atom Bomb, I told you the worst possible outcome was that it would start a chain reaction that could blow up the world.” By that he meant that the single bomb was so powerful, like the Meteor, that it could literally trigger a series of explosions that could ignite oxygen in the air. Now, looking at the arms race and U.S. imperialisms' lead in it, Oppenheimer observes, “I was wrong about the immediate consequences, but now,