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Podcast: The New Yorker Radio Hour Extras
Episode: Adapting Robert Oppenheimerâs Story to Film, Plus Greta Gerwig on Becoming a Director
Description: In making âOppenheimer,â which opens in theatres this weekend, the director Christopher Nolan relied on a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 biography of the father of the atomic bomb, âAmerican Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,â by Kai Bird and the late Martin J. Sherwin. Bird is credited as a writer of Nolanâs movie, and he spoke with David Remnick about the ambivalence that the scientist expressed publicly about the use of the bomb, which led to a McCarthyist show trial that destroyed his career and reputation. âWhat happened to him in 1954 sent a message to several generations of scientists...