The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer

The documentary tells the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer. He was one of the leading nuclear physicists in America. During the Second World War he was put at the head of the Los Alamos laboratory. He led the scientific team that built the atomic bomb. The bomb ended the war and the man became a national hero. Afterwards, though, the wind turned against him. In 1954 he was interrogated over claims of communist ties. The committee took away his security clearance. That decision ended his public career. Oppenheimer withdrew to the institute at Princeton. The film asks why this happened. The account starts in his childhood and moves forward step by step. His difficult adolescence is part of it. Former colleagues and historians speak. His words at the hearing are read from the transcripts. The hundred and nine minute documentary tells the rise and the fall of a scientist. It is an American production David Grubin finished in 2008.