Films Fall 00

6 September in class. The Genius behind the Bomb, Nova, 1992

Documentary tells the life story of Leo Szilard, the man who persuaded Albert Einstein to write President Roosevelt about the possibilities of atomic energy, and thus set in motion the massive effort leading to the first atomic bomb. Szilard, who patented the idea for nuclear chain reactor, and took part in the first nuclear chain reaction in 1942, later called it "a black day for mankind."

10 October in class. The Day after Trinity, Jon Else 1980

A documentary on the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, focusing on his role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.
People who worked with J. Robert Oppenheimer discuss the man, his role in the development of the atomic bomb, his fall from grace during the McCarthy era, and his desire to see nuclear proliferation controlled.

25 October in class. The Atomic Cafe, Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty, 1993.

A collage of scenes culled from newsreel footage and government archives of the 1940's and 1950's. Focuses on American concern about nuclear war, and on various more or less ineffectual hypothetical approaches to dealings with nuclear devastation.

22 November in class Doctor Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick, 1964.

Black comedy in which the President and his advisers struggle ineptly to avert war after a psychotic Air Force general launches a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union because he fears the Russians are poisoning the water supply in the United States.

The Film and Video Library