Credited cast: | |||
Hans Bethe | ... | Self | |
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Holm Bursom | ... | Self |
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Haakon Chevalier | ... | Self |
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Stirling Colgate | ... | Self |
Freeman Dyson | ... | Self | |
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Jon Else | ... | Interviewer |
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Susan Evans | ... | Self |
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Francis Fergusson | ... | Self |
Paul Frees | ... | Narrator (voice) | |
Leslie Groves | ... | Self (archive footage) | |
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Elizabeth Ingram | ... | Self |
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Robert Krohn | ... | Self |
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Dave MacDonald | ... | Self |
Joseph McCarthy | ... | Self (archive footage) | |
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Dorothy McKibben | ... | Self |
Scientists and witnesses involved in the creation and testing of the first ever atomic bomb reflect on the Manhattan project and its fascinating leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer, who upon completion of his wonderful and horrible invention became a powerful spokesperson against the nuclear arms race. Written by Neal Grigsby <ngrigsby@uclink2.berkeley.edu>
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.