The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer

Produced for PBS' excellent American Experience series, filmmaker David Grubin's The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer combines historical documentary with dramatic re-enactments to examine the personal and professional life of one of the 20th century's most important and enigmatic scientists. As “the father of the atomic bomb,” J. Robert Oppenheimer was the unlikely civilian director of the top-secret Manhattan Project aimed at designing, building, and ultimately testing the first nuclear weapon in the remote desert of New Mexico during World War II. Hailed as a hero after the A-bombs dropped on Japan served to end the war, the brilliant yet tormented Oppenheimer was subsequently denied security clearance and subjected to humiliating investigations during the paranoid, Communist-hunting years of the McCarthy era. Featuring interviews with eminent historians and scholars, as well as several of Oppenheimer's colleagues and contemporaries, the dramatized sections star actor David Strathairn as Oppenheimer, facing government interrogations that left him depressed, disillusioned, and devastated. Revealing the man in all of his complexity—socially immature, frequently cruel, yet undeniably brilliant—this is recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (J. Shannon)