The Titanic director, who is planning an adaptation of nonfiction book Ghosts of Hiroshima, says Nolan’s film ‘dodged the subject’ of the atomic bomb’s devastating impact on that city
Sure, but the major shift in his life was over the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and yet they do it entirely off screen. “Tell don’t show” isn’t typically considered a trait of great film making/story telling.
And, yes, they did show Robert’s imagination of the cheering audience being burned alive, which was horrifying. But it could also be argued that it is a bit insensitive to the real loss that they had to use white American people burning alive as stand ins to give you that visceral emotional punch instead of the actual Japanese people that actually died.
Also, no story should ever assume the audience is intimately familiar with history. It only becomes common knowledge by exposing people to it over and over. If you assume everyone knows it and so nobody ever shows it again, people never have a chance to gain that knowledge that makes it common. Particularly for something as steeped in propaganda as this event was. I’m a pretty well educated person and I have regularly learned shit in my adult life that my history lessons casually glossed over. The Nuclear bombing of Japan, specifically, is 1000% one of the most glossed over events in American education, in my experience.
Sure, but the major shift in his life was over the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and yet they do it entirely off screen. “Tell don’t show” isn’t typically considered a trait of great film making/story telling.
And, yes, they did show Robert’s imagination of the cheering audience being burned alive, which was horrifying. But it could also be argued that it is a bit insensitive to the real loss that they had to use white American people burning alive as stand ins to give you that visceral emotional punch instead of the actual Japanese people that actually died.
Also, no story should ever assume the audience is intimately familiar with history. It only becomes common knowledge by exposing people to it over and over. If you assume everyone knows it and so nobody ever shows it again, people never have a chance to gain that knowledge that makes it common. Particularly for something as steeped in propaganda as this event was. I’m a pretty well educated person and I have regularly learned shit in my adult life that my history lessons casually glossed over. The Nuclear bombing of Japan, specifically, is 1000% one of the most glossed over events in American education, in my experience.