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Oppenheimer - second episode

1. Original Title: Oppenheimer - second episode
2. Author: Peter Prince
3. Director: Barry Davis
4. Photography: Michael Steinke and Hans-Dieter Sasse
5. Music: Carl Davies
6. Scenografia/ Design:
   Austen Spriggs
7. Starring:
   Sam Waterston (J. Robert Oppenheimer)
   Jana Sheldon (Kitty Oppenheimer)
   David Suchet (Edward Teller)
8. Production: BBC Television in association with WGBH Boston
9. Executive Producer: Peter Goodchild
10. United Kingdom
11. 60 min.
12. 1980

An artist is a filter of reality, an eye through which a neutral event becomes special and personal. A director, as an artist, interprets historical events according to his objective; a television drama director has to use popular language to describe any kind of subject. This makes Barry Davis, the director of the series produced by BBC entitled Oppenheimer, particularly praiseworthy: he dramatized one of the worse events of human history – the making of the atomic bomb- with the right kind of language and the appropriate sensitivity.

This is the second of seven episodes; it’s Autumn 1942 and the USA has decide to enter the Second World War, following the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbour. General Groves is worried about the construction of the bomb, as it is necessary to make it as soon as possible, before the Germans. He meets the young, bright scientist Oppenheimer, and decides that the only way to speed up the research is to set up a group of scientists working together. The Manhattan project is born, with the best international scientists all working on the atomic bomb, lead by Robert Oppenheimer. The episode concludes with the image of Oppenheimer celebrating New Year’s Eve with his family: he is not yet aware of the fatal consequences that his role will have on human history.