In the film industry, as in politics, timing is everything. it’s time nuclearOliver Stone’s new documentary could hardly have been worse.
The documentary, which premiered out of competition at the Venice Film Festival on Friday, September 9 and will be sold worldwide by the Gersh Agency, is a call to world powers to invest heavily in nuclear energy as the only realistic alternative to fuels. fossils. Fight against climate change. It’s a thoughtful and well-reasoned argument, endorsed by many experts and backed by encyclopedic facts and figures that, thanks to Stone’s skills as an editor and storyteller, don’t overwhelm the film’s 105-minute runtime.
Sadly, the nuclear debut comes as Russian and Ukrainian forces battle over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, with daily coverage of bombings, explosions and fires around Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine. Just as Stone asks us to revisit the nuclear issue, headlines announcing the threat of “another Chernobyl” are reviving old fears about nuclear power.
“It’s the sensational side of the story that’s always easy for the media to do because it makes good copy,” says Stone, “but when you talk to the experts there’s no reason to believe that.” [Zaporizhzhia] It could be close to Chernobyl… and even the final death toll in Chernobyl as we went through the movie was very low compared to worse accidents in other industries.”
Joshua S. Goldstein, an international relations scholar whose book, Brilliant futureCo-written with Swedish nuclear engineer Stefan Stonest, it was a source of inspiration. nuclearAnd whoever co-wrote the film with Stone sees the current media fear as a continuation of the Cold War’s core fears.
“I’m 69 years old and I remember crawling under a table at school getting ready for what to do in the event of a nuclear attack,” Goldstein recalled. “It’s completely traumatic. We were all, as the film tells us, traumatized and fearful of the threat of nuclear weapons. But then he turned to something nuclear. And so the oil and gas industry saw an opportunity to make people fear a competitor. And then he took his own life.”
nuclear Illustrating how nuclear weapons and atomic energy were linked in the public imagination, cross-photos of clouds of nuclear mushrooms with the radioactive 3-eyed fish from The Simpsons.
“The funny thing is this image: nuclear waste is green, it is mixed in barrels and thrown away, without safety protocols. Which is completely false. But the fear is there,” says Goldstein. “I hope our film can make people understand nuclear energy better and be less afraid of it.”
the main argument nuclear is that the dangers and risks of nuclear power have been overestimated and exaggerated, and that, given the real and growing threat of climate change, nuclear power is the only solution. nuclear It seems welcome because Sweden is using nuclear power to quickly decarbonize and is nervous about countries like Germany retiring from nuclear power after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.
nuclear Presented as practical and non-partisan: “I think we’re very unbiased,” says Stone, but some audiences may find it difficult to see beyond the presenter’s past. Stone, arguably one of the most politically divisive figures working in film today, narrates the film and appears on screen in much of it.
@Brilliant future
nuclear Filming began years before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the ongoing war certainly shapes the reaction to the documentary. Stone made headlines in 2017 for allegedly hugging the Russian president in his 2017 documentary series. Putin’s interviews. Inside nuclearThe director repeatedly praises Russia for its promising approach to nuclear energy as a model for the US and other countries.
“You can say that the United States and Russia are now at odds, and yes, that is terrible and wrong, but I have said from the beginning, like in Putin’s documentary, that there is no reason for the United States and Russia. Let’s not be partners,” says Stone.
Goldstein strongly disagrees.
“There’s about 45 seconds in the whole movie where he says we need to cooperate with Russia and China,” he notes. “I talked to Oliver about this several times. Obviously, this is very optimistic and a very long-term view, because it is clear that some kind of cooperation is not taking place at the moment.”
Stone remains open and candid about his politics in interviews. the hollywood reporter He criticized the United States for “competing with Russia” through NATO expansion and thought that dictatorial China and Russia “can sometimes achieve much more” in the fight against climate change than Western democracies.
success or failure nuclear It will depend on how willing the audience is to ignore the film’s messenger and focus on the message.
“This movie is not about politics, it’s not politics,” says Stone. “The future of humanity is more important than all this nonsense.”
Source: Hollywood Reporter
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
