James Cameron called Oppenheimer a “moral cop-out” for not showing the effects of nukes on Japan.
In a new interview with Deadline, Cameron, who’s making a film about Hiroshima, gave his perspective on director Christopher Nolan’s decision not to depict the fallout of the atomic weapons.
“Look, I love the filmmaking, but I did feel that it was a bit of a moral cop-out,” said Cameron. “Because it’s not like Oppenheimer didn’t know the effects. He’s got one brief scene in the film where we see — and I don’t like to criticize another filmmaker’s film – but there’s only one brief moment where he sees some charred bodies in the audience, and then the film goes on to show how it deeply moved him.”
“But I felt that it dodged the subject,” Cameron continued. “I don’t know whether the studio or Chris felt that that was a third rail that they didn’t want to touch, but I want to go straight at the third rail.”
In 2023, Nolan spoke to journalist Brent Lang about why he didn’t depict the aftermath of the atomic bombs in Oppenheimer.
"The film presents Oppenheimer's experience subjectively," Nolan said. "It was always my intention to rigidly stick to that. Oppenheimer heard about the bombing at the same time that the rest of the world did.”
“I wanted to show somebody who is starting to gain a clearer picture of the unintended consequences of his actions,” he continued. “It was as much about what I don't show as what I show."
Cameron is currently planning on making a film that will cover the impact of the atomic bombs in Japan. He promised one of the last survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs that he would direct a film that’s based on Ghosts of Hiroshima — the upcoming book from author Charles Pellegrino that covers the stories of people that experienced the bombs, “based on years of forensic archaeology combined with interviews of more than two hundred survivors and their families,” per Blackstone Publishing.