MARIA DUARTE and ANDY HEDGECOCK review Sunny Dancer, Tony, Songs of Forgotten Trees, and The End of Oak Street
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What about the victims?
CAROL TURNER points out the failure of the film Oppenheimer to face up to the real-life consequences of nuclear warfare
Color photograph of the Trinity test, 15 July 1945; J. Robert Oppenheimer (in light colored hat with foot on tower rubble), General Leslie Groves (large man in military dress to Oppenheimer's left), and others at the ground zero site of the Trinity test after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, some time after the actual test.
[United States Army Signal Corps/CC; Federal government of the United States/CC]
JOHN GREEN relishes a powerful and moving drama that explores the lived realities of west London’s Punjabi community
MARTIN HALL welcomes a plea for greater compassion between believer and non-believer via the framework of philosophical enquiry
MATTHEW HAWKINS welcomes an engaging and nourishing account of the queer subculture that flourished in London between WWII and partial decriminalisation
RON JACOBS welcomes the political lessons for today, about organisation and withdrawal from conflict, made by an erudite and conversational biography
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN’s big-name, big-budget film, Oppenheimer, opened last Friday amid considerable interest. Within 24 hours international box office returns had topped $174 million. It has already been nominated for a variety of awards.
This three-hour film, which tells the story of the atomic bomb through the eyes of theoretical physicist and Manhattan Project director Robert Oppenheimer, is a visually captivating and complex tale, with sufficient dramatic tempo to hold the audience’s attention over a long period.
The filmic success of Oppenheimer sits unhappily alongside its cinematic impact, however. It is, I believe, a flawed cultural creation.
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Expanding Britain’s nuclear capability increases the risk of nuclear confrontation. It does not keep us safe – it makes us a target, argues CAROL TURNER