![]() ![]() ![]() Some of these films, like 1983’s WarGames, were self-aware enough to work. ![]() Hollywood reflected this change as the meticulous films of the 60s began to give way to a new type of cold war thriller – one in which every villain seemed to speak with a Russian accent and wield some sort of vague existential nuclear threat that would be defeated by a red-blooded American. America was just beginning its nuclear arms race with Russia and the nuclear conversation felt very much alive to the average American.īut the American public grew weary of always being on high alert. When these films were released, it had been less than 20 years since Americans dropped the first atomic bombs on Japan. The same year, Stanley Kubrick defined the absurdity of a society that uses a nuclear arsenal to achieve “peace” in his film Dr Strangelove. Sidney Lumet’s 1964 film Fail Safe is as serious a commentary on the questions around nuclear deterrence as has ever been presented on the screen. It was here that I began to notice Hollywood’s love affair with nuclear weapons.Įarly on, Hollywood gave us a lot to chew on. And on those late nights, weekends or holiday shifts when nothing was going on, my crew partners and I would turn to movies to get us through our shifts. But it is also a 24/7/365 shift schedule. To be sure, the job of air force missile operators is often very busy. It may surprise you to hear that I watched a lot of movies while on alert. During that time, I worked nearly 300 “alerts”, or shifts in underground launch control centers, where I oversaw maintenance, security and launch operations for 10 nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). From 2012 to 2017 I worked as a nuclear missile operator in the US air force. The questions that the film’s director, Christopher Nolan, places at the center of Oppenheimer don’t feel theoretical to me. ![]()
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