Among all the 2023 new movie releases, Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has become one of the most successful films of the year behind Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and The Super Mario Bros. Movie. Across the past few months, the epic biopic has received tons of praise, which includes filmmakers Denis Villeneuve and Paul Thomas Anderson commending Nolan for his accomplishment. Do The Right Thing writer/director Spike Lee, however, had one notable issue with Oppenheimer he recently pointed out.
Spike Lee is noted for being inspired by historic events for his critically-acclaimed films, from 1992’s Malcolm X serving as a biopic about the African-American activist, to Lee being inspired to tell a fictional story about veterans of the Vietnam War with his most recent movie, 2020’s Da 5 Bloods. Here’s what Lee had to say about Oppenheimer:
[Nolan] is a massive filmmaker… and this is not a criticism. It’s a comment. If [‘Oppenheimer’] is three hours, I would like to add some more minutes about what happened to the Japanese people. People got vaporized. Many years later, people are radioactive. It’s not like he didn’t have power. He tells studios what to do. I would have loved to have the end of the film maybe show what it did, dropping those two nuclear bombs on Japan. Understand, this is all love. And I bet he could tell me some things he would change about “Do the Right Thing” and “Malcolm X.”
During an interview with The Washington Post, Spike Lee shared that while he was impressed by Oppenheimer, he noticed the omission of any conversation or attention regarding how the father of the atomic bomb’s story directly affected the Japanese people when the United States detonated atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki following Robert Oppenheimer serving as the principal leader of the Manhattan Project.
The two atomic bombings are briefly referenced in Oppenheimer, but there is never mention of the great and tragic impact of them on Japan. Between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, it’s estimated that over 200 thousand people died, and the survivors who were around the area faced horrible side effects from the radiation, such as leukemia and cancer.
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Spike Lee isn’t the only person who has taken issue with this aspect of Oppenheimer, as it has also mustered up controversy among Japan and Japanese people as well. For example, Naoko Wake, professor of history at Michigan State University and author of American Survivors: Trans-Pacific Memories of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, told the LA Times that Nolan’s movie “leaves out so much” and cites “missed opportunities in terms of how Japanese survivors’ experience” were not at all featured in the film.”
Oppenheimer has not been released in Japan and has no opening date. When Barbie and Oppenheimer photoshopped posters were going viral, Warner Bros’ own Japanese arm condemned its North American arm for interacting and retweeting the images. WB apologized, sharing it “regrets its recent insensitive social media engagement.” As Lee’s comments communicate, his thoughts on Oppenheimer are made on his end with “love,” and he welcomed commentary from the filmmaker from his own films as well.