Will Kathryn Bigelow Movie Influence Our Nuclear Future?

Experts raises issues and lessons but will it have more after-effects than "Oppenheimer"?

My latest film, “The Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero—and Nuclear Peril Today” has been airing over PBS stations and now streaming for free (key links to watch now and more here). A companion book is now available, and you can read more or order here.

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Several weeks ago, I previewed the new Kathryn Bigelow nuclear thriller “The House of Dynamite” (terrible title) —which is now up at Netflix and is at #1 as is most popular new flick, after just two weeks in theaters. I’m now watching it but will withhold a report for now and rather cite some smart people who have their own assessments and lessons.

First, Fred Kaplan, longtime national security writer at Slate (after years of newspaper writing), has a new piece, which as of now you can read past the paywall. Fred wrote a monthly column for me when I was the editor of Nuclear Times—starting (ouch) 43 years ago this month. He was already a nuclear expert and would soon pen the book “Wizards of Armageddon.”

As you’ll see he likes the movie very much although most of his piece amounts to fact checking. But he finds most of it (scarily) accurate indeed.

Just a couple of brief excerpts:

I’ve been researching and writing about nuclear war—its history, politics, science, and strategy—for more than 40 years. None of the many books and films that I’ve consumed on the subject have filled me with such overpowering dread as Kathryn Bigelow’s new movie, A House of Dynamite. It is very realistic, and thus by definition frightful.

Fred wrote for us about the classic “The Day After” TV movie in the mid-1980s when it became the most watched TV film ever. Now he offers this sober reminder:

Reagan did watch the movie at Camp David. He wrote in his diary afterward, “It’s very effective & left me greatly depressed.” But it did not turn him away from his arms buildup. To the contrary, it made him all the more determined “to do all we can to have a deterrent,” so that “there is never a nuclear war.” Other events, in real life, altered Reagan’s attitude and actions.

For the same reasons, I doubt that A House of Dynamite might sway Donald Trump toward advocating nuclear arms cuts. More likely, the movie might impel him to spend even more money on his “Golden Dome,” a project that he thinks will fulfill Reagan’s dream but will wind up costing, even by today’s projections, as much as $1 trillion and probably still won’t work.

In any event, A House of Dynamite is a movie of our time, worth watching, mulling, debating, and asking officials why they are doing so little about everything.

Meanwhile, the esteemed Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has posted at least four new pieces. With limited time right now, I will simply post their own useful summaries and links:

What we should be talking about after watching Bigelow’s ‘A House of Dynamite’ nuclear thriller

By Mark Goodman

‘A House of Dynamite’ is a welcome and useful reminder that the dangers of nuclear weapons never went away—and an invitation to discuss how to deal with them, writes a former senior scientist at the US State Department. Read more.

A conversation with Kathryn Bigelow, director of ‘A House of Dynamite,’ and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim

By John Mecklin

“I mean, we talk a lot about the fact that the nuclear threat has fallen out of focus for a long time for the general public. But there is this incredible community of policy experts and journalists who’ve never stopped thinking about it, worrying about it, analyzing it,” says Noah Oppenheim. Read more.

‘A House of Dynamite’: Bigelow’s latest thriller shows why nuclear bombs are only part of the danger

By Erik English

“The film doesn’t want viewers to ask themselves how to thwart a nuclear attack on the United States. Rather, it wants the viewer to question the value of having nuclear weapons at all.” Read more.

A Bulletin resource guide to viewing ‘A House of Dynamite‘

By Avery Restrepo

If you’ve watched Netflix’s recent nuclear movie, you may have some lingering questions. The Bulletin archive has answers. Read more.

Bigelow:

I think, in fact, if anything, we realize we’re not protected, we’re not safe. There is no magic situation that’s going to save the day. I’m sure you know a lot more about this, and Noah knows a lot more than I do, but from my cursory reading, you could spend $300 billion on a missile defense system, and it’s still not infallible. That is not, in my opinion, a smart course of action…

Well, I’d like to see people decide they don’t want to live in a world that’s this volatile or this combustible. And then of course, the next step is to reach out to their representatives and try to, you know, create a movement.

Then we have Tom Nichols of The Atlantic:

The Military’s Missile Defense System Cannot Be as Good as It Says

Kathryn Bigelow’s new movie, A House of Dynamite, is more accurate on this point than the Defense Department itself.