“People got vaporized,” Spike Lee comments on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer｜Arab News Japan

Arab News Japan

Malcolm X’s director, Spike Lee, commented on Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, saying he would have added “more minutes about what happened to Japanese people.” 

Born in 1957, Lee is an American screenwriter and director who is mainly known for exploring issues regarding the black community in his films. Besides Malcom X, he also directed a variety of popular movies, such as Do the Right Thing, BlacKkKlansman, and She’s Gotta Have It. He has won an Academy Award and two Emmy Awards. 

While Lee said that he enjoyed the movie, he told the Washington Post that he would have added more details to the movie, particularly about how Japanese people were affected by Robert Oppenheimer’s actions. 

“How long was that film? If it’s three hours, I would like to add some more minutes about what happened to the Japanese people. People got vaporized. Many years later, people are radioactive,” he said. 

“I would have loved to have the end of the film maybe show what it did, dropping those two nuclear bombs on Japan,” the director added. 

Lee affirmed that this is not criticism; it is just a comment on what he would have done differently, adding that Nolan probably has things he would have done differently in Lee’s movies.