The ‘real’ Oppenheimer: discover an interview in French with the father of the atomic bomb

With Oppenheimer’s theatrical release, many viewers will (re)discover the man nicknamed “The Father of the Atomic Bomb.” Or you want to learn more about the American physicist who provided scientific direction for the Manhattan Project immediately after the first nuclear explosion on July 16, 1945.

If Cillian Murphy his features and his piercing blue gaze J. The “real” Oppenheimer. A video from the RTF, dated June 5, 1958, posted on the INA Youtube channel speaks to this.

Faced with Pierre Desgraup on the set, while he refused all other interviews offered by the French media, Robert Oppenheimer answers the journalist’s questions in almost perfect French (only a hint of an accent can be heard) in a special and impromptu show, filmed days before his departure for the United States.

Pierre Desgraup presents the interview with mention “A show like all the others” with a figure that is not “There is no man like anyone else”who opened “This atomic age (…) that plunges us alternately into suffering and hope”. While the world is in the midst of the Cold War, Robert Oppenheimer, now director of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study, shares his philosophical and moral vision of science.

I believe that what is unique about a scientist is that he must not only seek the truth, but also proclaim it.

In less than 17 minutes, the interview montage discusses key issues such as the moral duty of scientists and governments, the concepts of suspicion and secrecy, the extent of a country’s power, and the nuclear threat of war or the complex. But the fundamental question of whether we can (should?) suspend science or not. without any “Simple Answers”.

Robert Oppenheimer in particular shares his vision of the constant search for knowledge that drives humanity: “Man’s purpose is to know all he can and to live by that knowledge. It is a difficult destiny, but if a man does not try to live by knowledge, he is not properly human at all.” (CIS)

For information, the American scientist is accompanied on the set by Louis Leprince Ringet, a French physicist and the grandfather of actor and director Gregoire Leprince Ringet. A difficult year for the tandem of Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache.