The Day After Trinity

I have never worked directly with nuclear weapons but after viewing this movie, I wished I had.

That said, let me state unequivocally that my heart breaks for the suffering of the victims of these terrible weapons, as I sorrow for all victims of war and it's associated atrocities.

What I mean is that this documentary filmmaker has achieved the rare goal of so involving me in the time, place and action of these events, that when the movie ends, it's like saying goodbye to very dear friends.

I don't think I've seen another movie that so effectively combines still shots, interviews, background music and narration. This film should be boring and it is anything but.

Most of the scientists interviewed here have passed on and I mourn both the loss of their lives and the loss of the age. The age that was a time that America excelled in everything it put it's mind to.

A previous reviewer identified the tension between the delight of scientific discovery and the tremendous moral responsibility for the results. I agree; it is deeply moving to witness the obvious delight the scientists have in reliving what may have been the best years of their lives while attempting to resolve the deep struggle with the suffering it occasioned.

(Documentary quote referring to the Atomic bomb's detonation) - "Thank god it wasn't a dud!"

And, I ask you - Do 2 wrongs (Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor & America's A-bombing of Hiroshima) make a right?

Well, if you were to have asked "The Father of the Atomic Bomb", Robert Oppenheimer, that very question following all that took place in 1945, he, I'm sure, would have very likely replied back with a flat "No!".

Anyway - In order to fully appreciate this documentary (which is now 35 years old) and comprehend its historical relevance completely, the viewer must first be willing to look beyond its glaring production deficiencies in order to realize the incredible story that it tells just below its surface flaws.... And, as we all know - It's a story that literally changed the very course of man's future, forever.

*Note* - Robert Oppenheimer (born in 1904) died in 1967 from throat cancer. He was 62 at the time.

I came to look at this television documentary shortly after seeing Christopher Nolan's OPPENHEIMER (2023). The principal difference in the story is that in Nolan's movie, he tries to mislead the security forces about his sources concerning Russian spying at Alamogordo, and is later surprised to discover that it centered around Haakon Chevalier; in the documentary, he is the source for suspicions about the man.

It's not enough to change the story about Oppenheimer, but with the same set of facts, one can construct many stories. Nolan's movie is much more about Oppenheimer's personal life, and begins much earlier. This offers a viewpoint of his activities after the war, to control and limit the damage caused by his work. Each takes advantage of considerable hindsight to reach very different conclusions, both of which seem impeccable given the facts chosen by each. Based on having seen both within a short period of time, I can only conclude that they are both brilliantly done, and both badly lacking in completeness.

I first saw this documentary in 1981 and I am not exaggerating when I say it changed my life. A few years later I took an 18 month unpaid leave from my professorship to work as a full-time volunteer trying to defuse the nuclear threat. While many factors contributed to that decision, "The Day After Trinity" certainly was one of them.

The thing that impressed me most about this film was that it showed me how we can fool ourselves as to our motivation. We think we base our decisions on a rational foundation, but this film helped me to see places in my own past where I had made major decisions and not been totally honest about some of my motivation. We have socially acceptable and socially unacceptable reasons for doing things and hide the socially unacceptable ones even from our own consciousness. But they are at work in the unconscious, where they can take over and do great harm. Watching this film made me vow to do my utmost never to do that again. (It's not as easy as it might sound!) It is not light fare, but definitely worth watching. Aside from what a viewer can learn from it, the film is very well done, with much high drama.

Jon Else's documentary, The Day After Trinity, is about the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a genius who helped develop the atomic bomb and whose life ended in criticism by Joseph McCarthy. The film also documents the establishment of Los Alamos and the length of time that led up to the Trinity test along with interviews of the people who worked with Oppenheimer. It is the best document involving nuclear weapons that I have seen and I highly recommend it to those would like to know more about the people who assisted on the world's most dangerous weapon. The actual footage of the hoisting of the bomb is excellent.