James Cameron has criticised Sir Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning blockbuster Oppenheimer after signing up to direct a film on the fallout at Hiroshima.
Titanic and Avatar director Cameron, 70, is helming a screen adaptation of upcoming book Ghosts of Hiroshima.
The book by Charles Pellegrino is based on ‘years of forensic archaeology’ alongside over 200 interviews with survivors of the atomic bomb dropping in August 1945 and their families.
Discussing his approach for the upcoming film, Cameron shared his vision and how it differed quite drastically from that of Sir Christopher and his 2023 hit movie.
Known for being outspoken, Cameron gave his frank opinion on what the film did – and didn’t – cover and speculated as to why.
‘It’s interesting what he stayed away from. Look, I love the filmmaking, but I did feel that it was a bit of a moral cop out,’ he told Deadline, adding that ‘it’s not like Oppenheimer didn’t know the effects’.
‘He’s got one brief scene in the film where we see — and I don’t like to criticise another filmmaker’s film – but there’s only one brief moment where he sees some charred bodies in the audience and then the film goes on to show how it deeply moved him.
‘But I felt that it dodged the subject.’
The scene shows Cillian Murphy as titular physicist J Robert Oppenheimer having a nightmare after seeing slides depicting casualties and the impact of his work, leading to him to imagine the face melting off a young woman who was played by Sir Christopher’s daughter, Flora, in a cameo.
However, despite its box office and awards success – grossing over $975million (£708m) and winning seven Oscars – Cameron is not the first to question the film’s apparent reluctance to engage with the horrific outcome of its protagonist’s work.
The two bombs dropped on Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki are thought to have killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people.
Cameron added: ‘I don’t know whether the studio or Chris felt that that was a third rail that they didn’t want to touch, but I want to go straight at the third rail. I’m just stupid that way.’
Sir Christopher previously shared his reasons for choosing not to depict the bombings in detail, explaining: ‘I think really, as a filmmaker, you can’t be overly conscious about why you choose to do things. You have to run on instinct to a degree.
‘But the feeling for me as a filmmaker was very strongly that to depart from Oppenheimer’s experience would betray the terms of the storytelling.’
He shared (via NBC) that Oppenheimer learned about the bombings taking place on the radio, ‘the same as the rest of the world’, which he found ‘a shock’ when realising that was the case while reading the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography American Prometheus.
‘Everything is his experience, or my interpretation of his experience,’ the Memento director continued. ‘Because as I keep reminding everyone, it’s not a documentary. It is an interpretation. That’s my job.’
Cameron, who has said his film will be ‘apolitical’, has also revealed he expects Ghosts of Hiroshima to be the lowest-grossing film of his career, given the topic.
While that might sound a surprising statement, given his status as king of the Hollywood blockbusters it makes a little more sense.
He currently boasts three films in the top five list of highest-grossing movies ever, with Avatar in the top spot on $2.92billion (£2.12bn), its 2022 sequel Avatar: The Way of Life at third and previous long-running number one Titanic at four.
Third instalment Avatar: Fire and Ash is due for release in December, while Sir Christopher will be back next summer with his take on Greek epic The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon.
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