In a reading of Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer, the essay features a cinematic historiography of the creation of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The emphasis is on the role of sound in the film and the interaction of careers, both scientific and military. Much of the analysis is concerned with the contingencies through which Oppenheimer consummated a process that ended in an atrocity: his relationship to Judaism, his love of New Mexico, his aspiration to do applied physics, and his meetings with military officers.
BakhtinMM (1986) The Bildungsroman. In: EmersonCHolquistM (eds) Speech Genres & Other Late Essay. Trans. McGee VW. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 10–59.
BernsteinBJ (1975) Roosevelt, Truman, and the atomic bomb, 1941–1945. Political Science Quarterly90(1): 23–69.
6.
BinetL (2012) HHhH. Trans. Taylor S. New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux.
7.
BirdKSherwinMJ (2024) American Prometheus. London: Atlantic Books.
8.
BroadW (1985) Star Warriors. New York: Simon and Schuster.
9.
Caltech (2024) What is quantum physics? Available at: https://scienceexchange.caltech.edu/topics/quantum-science-explained/quantum-physics (accessed 11 November 2024).
10.
ChowR (2006) The Age of the World Target. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
11.
DargisM (2023) Oppenheimer review: A man for our time. The New York Times, 27 July. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/movies/oppenheimer-review-christopher-nolan.html (accessed 11 November 2024).
12.
DeleuzeG (1986) Cinema 1: The Movement Image. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
13.
DeleuzeG (2002) Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation. Trans. Smith DW. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
14.
DeleuzeG (2006) Masking inaudible forces audible. In: LapoujadeD (ed.) Two Regimes of Madness. Trans. Hodges A and Taormina M. New York: Semiotext(e), 156–160.
15.
DolphijnR (2024) The land and us: A diffractive reading of Marx and Serres on ‘sense’ and ‘the common’. Angelaki29(4): 98–107.
16.
EgoyanA (2014) In other words: Poetic license and the incarnation of history. University of Toronto Quarterly71(3): 886–905.
17.
FoucaultM (1977) Nietzsche, Genealogy, History. Trans. Bouchard D and Simon S. In: BouchardD (ed) Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 139–164.
18.
GoetschJR (1995) Vico’s Axioms. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
HutcheonL (1989) Historiographic Metafiction Parody and the Intertextuality of History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
21.
IbuseM (2012) Black Rain. Tokyo: Kadansha.
22.
IdeW (2023) Christopher Nolan’s volatile biopic is a towering achievement. The Guardian, 22 July Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/22/oppenheimer-review-christopher-nolan-volatile-biopic-is-a-towering-achievement-cillian-murphy (accessed 11 November 2024).
23.
KantM (2000) The Critique of Judgment. New York: Prometheus Books.
24.
LandyM (2015) Cinema & Counter-History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
25.
LindqvistS (2000) A History of Bombing, trans Linda Haverty Rugg. New York: The Free Press.
26.
LuptonC (2005) Chris Marker: Memories of the Future. Chicago, IL: Reaktion Books.
27.
MacKenzieI (1987) Narratology and thematics. Modern Fiction Studies 33(3): 535–544.
28.
MaslinJ (2005) The physics, philosophy and literally, dirty laundry of Robert Oppenheimer. The New York Times, 21 April. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/21/books/the-physics-philosophy-and-literally-dirty-laundry-of-robert.html (accessed 11 November 2024).
29.
MontilloR (2020) Atomic Women. Boston: Little Brown.
30.
MussawirE (2011) Jurisdiction in Deleuze. New York: Routledge.
31.
NolanC (2022) Gadget: Final Shooting Script. Syncopy Inc.
NolanJL (2020) Atomic Doctors: Conscience and Complicity at the Dawn of the Nuclear Age. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
34.
ParkerJA (2007) Narrative Form and Chaos Theory in Sterne, Proust, Woolf, and Faulkner. London: Palgrave/Macmillan.
35.
RancièreJ (2017) Fictions of time. In: HellyerGMurphetJ (eds) Rancière and Literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 25–41.
36.
RobbinsB (2002) The sweatshop sublime. PMLA117(1): 84–97.
37.
RogersT (2024) He won the Turner Prize. But does he still want to be an artist? The New York Times, 6 July. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/06/arts/design/jesse-darling-turner-prize.html?searchResultPosition=1 (accessed 11 November 2024).
38.
RosenstoneRA (1988) History in images/history in words: Reflections on the possibility of really putting history into film. The American History Review93(5): 1193–1199.
39.
RushtonR (2002) What can a face do: On Deleuze and faces. Cultural Critique51(Spring): 291–237.
ShapiroMJ (2016) Politics and Time. Cambridge: Polity.
43.
ShapiroMJ (2019) Punctuations: How the Arts Think the Political. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
44.
ShapiroMJ (2021) Writing Politics. New York: Routledge.
45.
TarkovskyA (2012) Sculpting in Time. Trans. Blair KH. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
46.
US Department of Energy (1945) The Manhattan Project: An interactive history. Available at: https://www.osti.gov/oppenet/manhattan-project-history/Events/1945/surrender.htm (accessed 11 November 2024).
47.
VicoG (1984) The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Trans. Wallace MH and Bergin TG. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
48.
VoegelinS (2006) Sonic memory material as ‘pathetic trigger’. Organised Sound11(1): 13–18.
49.
WaldenJ (2023) Designing the dynamic sound of Oppenheimer – with sound designer/sound supervisor Richard King. Film Sound, 10 August. Available at: https://www.asoundeffect.com/oppenheimer-film-sound/ (accessed 11 November 2024).
50.
WheelerJStrechiR (2023) In the shadow of Oppenheimer. Science History Institute, July 16. Available at: https://www.sciencehistory.org/stories/magazine/in-the-shadow-of-oppenheimer/ (accessed 11 November 2024).
51.
WhiteH (1988) Historiography and historiophoty. The American History Review93(3): 1193–1199.
52.
WilenskyH (1967) Organizational Intelligence: Knowledge and Policy in Government and Industry. New York: Basic Books.
53.
WilkinsonA (2024) Critics notebook. The New York Times, 3 March. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/03/movies/oppenheimer-zone-of-interest-sound.html (accessed 11 November 2024).
54.
WilsonA (2020) The Nature of Contingency: Quantum Physics as Modal Realism. New York: Oxford University Press.
