'Oppenheimer' Script Published, New 'Downwind' Film Streams Today

Plus: the Tatlock murder mystery....

It’s in vain to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.— Charles Dickens

Greg Mitchell is the author of a dozen books, including “Hiroshima in America,” “Atomic Cover-up,” and the recent award-winning “The Beginning or the End: How Hollywood—and America—Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.” He has directed three documentary films since 2021, which have all aired over PBS (and “Atomic Cover-up” coming this fall). He has written widely about the atomic bombings, and their aftermath, for over forty years.

The much-praised screenplay by Christopher Nolan for his Oppenheimer has now been published in paperback, although out of stock at Amazon most days. I received my copy yesterday and will begin analyzing it in coming days here. It’s over 2oo pages and sells for $17.89. My friend Kai Bird, co-author with Marty Sherwin of the book on which the movie is based, American Prometheus, supplies an intro.

Skimming, it appears that it is almost word-for-word from the movie script. I see only very occasionally a line I don’t recall in the movie (on viewing it twice) or a few words missing. But extremely close to what was seen and heard on the screen, for better and worse. Yes, that sex scene between Oppie and Tatlock is even more awkward on the printed page, if such a thing is possible. (“Hot, sweaty, a little brutal.”) Ditto for Kitty imagining Tatlock straddling Oppie as he testifies at his security hearing.

One quick nugget: Perhaps you’ve missed the social media controversy over the movie suggesting that Tatlock was actually murdered, held under water. I missed the brief hint myself in both viewings. Apparently a gloved hand appears as she bathes in the tub….Well, the printed script indeed relates the bogus assassination scenario—but only as one of Oppenheimer’s many “visions,” not necessarily fact or real. (While we’re at it, here is a major new essay on the film’s mishandling of poor Tatlock, including ignoring her influence on Oppie and her bisexuality.)

Reading the script can prove a little difficult when it reflects what Nolan had revealed months ago: That he wrote it largely in a first-person mode, so many scenes in the screenplay are introduced by Oppenheimer reporting that, say, “Fuchs handed me my pipe. I dusted it off” or he spotted an interesting woman across the room at a party. And: “Kitty watches Tatlock, also naked, straddle me, head on my shoulder…..”

This lies flat on the page—it’s not voice over (or V.O., in script form)—but does prove that Nolan aimed from the start to focus on Oppie’s view of people and events. More on the script soon.

I should note that also just published: an expanded edition is my book Atomic Cover-up, now with several thousands words of mine re: Oppenheimer. And it’s on sale as an ebook for just $3.99 (vs. more for the paperback).

Streaming on Amazon Prime and Apple+ starting today is the new 94-minute doc, Downwind, produced by Matthew Modine and narrated by Martin Sheen, with Michael Douglas, Lewis Black and a large number of Native Americans and other downwinders, who suffered in the path of fallout from Trinity and then hundreds of our nuclear tests in Nevada. Have not watched it yet and few reviews so far but trailer is posted above.

Martin Sheen’s antinuclear activism goes way back, to our younger years in the early 1980s, when I was the editor of Nuclear Times. Sheen really walked the talk, not your typical antinuker at all, as he was allied with the civil disobedience wing of the movement, and close to the Berrigan brothers and others who served prison terms for their troubles. Sheen got arrested himself dozens of times, such as below at the Nevada test site in 1988. He also aided or narrated (or appeared in) numerous films on the issue.

From the filmmakers:

We initially focused on St. George, Utah, 135 miles west of the Test Site and a city that has experienced tremendously high leukemia and cancer rates. As we delved deeper into the topic, zooming out, we discovered that fallout from worldwide nuclear weapons testing was distributed globally -- and also haphazardly.

Despite a moratorium on testing, the Nevada Test Site remains operational and off-limits with the possibility that testing could resume any day.

Our film intends to expose a tragic and largely forgotten chapter of United States history and the ongoing health consequences for Americans, addressing the current state of Downwinders, the hopeful expansion of a government compensation program called the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) -- and the continued tenacity of heroic activists who won't be stopped in their pursuit of government accountability and humanitarian justice.