''The Bomb'' is a 2015 American

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

about the history of nuclear weapons, from theoretical scientific considerations at the very beginning, to their first use on August 6, 1945,(re

William L. Laurence William Leonard Laurence (March 7, 1888 – March 19, 1977) was a Jewish American science journalist best known for his work at ''The New York Times''. Born in the Russian Empire, he won two Pulitzer Prizes. As the official historian of the Ma ...

Pulitzer prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

-winning science journalist for the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'') to their global political implications in the present day.https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/pbs-special-bomb-seeks-story-atomic-weapons-32720033 The two-hour

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

film was written and directed by Rushmore DeNooyer, who noted the project took a year and a half to complete, since much of the film footage and images was only recently declassified by the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

. According to DeNooyer, “It wouldn’t take very many bombs to really change

life on Earth Life on Earth may refer to: Science * Life * Earliest known life forms * Evolutionary history of life ** Abiogenesis Film and television * ''Life on Earth'' (film) (''La Vie Sur Terre''), a 1998 Malian film * ''Life on Earth'' (TV series), a 197 ...

, ... The idea that there are thousands of them sitting around is pretty scary. I don’t think people today realize that. They don’t think about it. I don’t think they are scared. But in a way, they should be.”

Mark Dawidziak Mark Dawidziak (born September 7, 1956) is an American author and critic. Early life Dawidziak was born in Huntington, New York, on September 7, 1956. He is a graduate of Harborfields High School, class of 1974. Journalism career A journ ...

, of the '' Cleveland Plain Dealer'', summarized the film as follows: "''The Bomb'' moves swiftly to cover

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

and

Nagasaki is the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. It became the sole port used for trade with the Portuguese and Dutch during the 16th through 19th centuries. The Hidden Christian Sites in the ...

, the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

, the

arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and t ...

, the

Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...

, the witch hunt, the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

, test-ban treaties, the "Star Wars" initiative, the anti-nuke movement, the

collapse of the Soviet Union The dissolution of the Soviet Union, also negatively connoted as rus, Разва́л Сове́тского Сою́за, r=Razvál Sovétskogo Soyúza, ''Ruining of the Soviet Union''. was the process of internal disintegration within the Sov ...

and the rise of new nuclear threats." According to

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

Richard Rhodes, “The

invention An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an i ...

f 'The Bomb' F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...

was a millennial change in

human history Human history, also called world history, is the narrative of humanity's past. It is understood and studied through anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Since the invention of writing, human history has been studied throug ...

: for the first time, we were now capable of our own destruction, as a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

.”

Participants

The documentary film is

narrated A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether nonfictional ( memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller, novel, etc.). Narr ...

by Jonathan Adams and includes the following participants (alphabetized by last name): * Jonathan Adams ( narrator) * John Andersen (former Nuclear Weapons Engineer) * Hal Behl ( aeronautical engineer;

Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development undertaking during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project w ...

) *

Walter J. Boyne Walter J. Boyne (February 2, 1929 – January 9, 2020) was a United States Air Force officer, Command Pilot, combat veteran, aviation historian, and author of more than 50 books and over 1,000 magazine articles. He was a director of the National ...

(former U.S. Strategic Air Command pilot) * Alan Carr (

; ''The Forgotten Physicist'') * Lynn Eden (historian; ''Whole World on Fire'') * John Hopkins (former Director, Nuclear Weapons Program) *

Lilli Hornig , birth_date = , birth_place = Ústí nad Labem, Czechoslovakia , death_date = , death_place = Providence, Rhode Island, U.S. , education = Bryn Mawr College ( BA)Harvard University ( MA, PhD) , workp ...

(

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

;

) * Sergei Khrushchev (historian; ''Khrushchev in Power'') * Amy Knight (historian; ''How The Cold War Began'') * Charles Loeber (former Nuclear Weapons Engineer) * Elaine Tyler May (historian; ''Homeward Bound'') * Glen McDuff (former Nuclear Weapons Engineer) * Laura McEnaney (historian; ''Civil Defense Begins at Home'') * Robert Norris (historian; ''Racing for the Bomb'') *

William Perry William Perry may refer to: Business * William Perry (Queensland businessman) (1835–1891), businessman and politician in Queensland, Australia * William H. Perry (businessman) (1832–1906), American businessman and entrepreneur Politics and ...

(former

U.S. Secretary of Defense The United States secretary of defense (SecDef) is the head of the United States Department of Defense, the executive department of the U.S. Armed Forces, and is a high ranking member of the federal cabinet. DoDD 5100.1: Enclosure 2: a The se ...

) * Roger Rasmussen (retired U.S. Army engineer; Trinity witness) * Richard Rhodes (historian; ''

The Making of the Atomic Bomb ''The Making of the Atomic Bomb'' is a contemporary history book written by the American journalist and historian Richard Rhodes, first published by Simon & Schuster in 1987. It won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, the National Book A ...

'') * Svetlana Savranskaya (historian; ''The Soviet Cuban Missile Crisis'') *

Martin Sherwin Martin Jay Sherwin (July 2, 1937October 6, 2021) was an American historian. His scholarship mostly concerned the history of nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation. He served on the faculty at Princeton University, the University of Pennsylv ...

(historian; '' American Prometheus'') *

George Shultz George Pratt Shultz (; December 13, 1920February 6, 2021) was an American economist, businessman, diplomat and statesman. He served in various positions under two different Republican presidents and is one of the only two persons to have held fou ...

(former U.S. Secretary of State) * Lester Tenney (American

POW A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...

) * Jonathan M. Weisgall (author; ''Operation Crossroads'')

Gallery

Image:Walter Boyne B47 Pilot.jpg,

(former U.S. Strategic Air Command pilot) Image:Sergei Chruschtschow 2010.jpg, Sergei Khrushchev
(

) Image:William J Perry cr 2015.jpg,

(former

) Image:Richard Rhodes.jpg, Richard Rhodes
(

) Image:George Pratt Shultz.jpg,

(former U.S. Secretary of State)

Reviews and criticism

-winning American conservative journalist and commentator

Dorothy Rabinowitz Dorothy Rabinowitz is a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist and commentator. She was born in New York City, and attained a bachelor's degree at Queens College. She worked toward a doctorate at New York University from 1957 to 1960, but did ...

, of the

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

, writes, "

Documentaries A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in term ...

commemorating the atomic bomb’s first use are rarely deficient in drama, and this overstuffed yet altogether gripping work is no exception. Its assortment of uninhibitedly blunt commentators doesn’t hurt either." According to David Hinckley of the Daily News, "...some of the most powerful moments

f the film F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...

focus on people, not technology." Robert Lloyd of the

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

noted, "...much of this tale, as accidental as it also feels inevitable, is one of individual egos warping history, of scientists at war with politicians, of evil scientists at war with good ones, of wounded bureaucrats out for revenge." Verne Gay of

Newsday ''Newsday'' is an American daily newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties on Long Island, although it is also sold throughout the New York metropolitan area. The slogan of the newspaper is "Newsday, Your Eye on LI", and f ...

concludes, "''The Bomb'' is a decent overview but with insufficient analysis or perspective ..."

, of the ''Cleveland Plain Dealer'', reports, "

he film is He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

part history lesson, part science class, part sociological study, part political thriller and part cautionary tale ... " Neil Genzlinger of the

observes, "The arms race is dutifully chronicled and the anti-nuke movement too, but only in its final minutes does the program get around to noting that nuclear bombs are still with us and that countries other than the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

have them. There’s a brief suggestion that if

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

ever go at it the whole world will suffer from collateral damage, but the thought doesn’t linger. It’s as if ''The Bomb'' doesn’t want to intrude on the present by reminding us that the genie released 70 years ago August 6, 1945">Little_Boy.html" ;"title="n Little Boy">August 6, 1945is still at large."

Related films

In the 67th Berlin International Film Festival, the experimental 2016 film ''the bomb'' by Kevin Ford, Smriti Keshari and Eric Schlosser was premiered. It featured archive footage about the atomic bomb along live music by The Acid.

References

External links

* at th
PBS WebSite/1
* at th
PBS WebSite/2
* . * *

Peace Museums A peace museum is a museum that documents historical peace initiatives. Many peace museums also provide advocacy programs for nonviolent conflict resolution. This may include conflicts at the personal, regional or international level. Peace m ...

Hiroshima

Federation of American Scientists - Worldwide Nuclear Forces Guide

Video (14:25) - Time-Lapse Map of All 2053 Nuclear Explosions on Planet Earth (7 Countries, 1945 - 1998)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bomb 2015 television films 2015 films 2015 documentary films Documentary films about nuclear war and weapons Documentary films about United States history American documentary television films Films set in the United States Films shot in the United States 2010s American films

Participants

Gallery

Reviews and criticism

Related films

See also

References

External links