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katherine bigelow She is extremely calm when she talks about nuclear holocaust.
This doesn’t mean he’s indifferent about the subject—quite the contrary. Oscar-winning filmmakers discuss this with serious, genuine seriousness. But he doesn’t need to overstate the danger, whether in conversation or in his new film “A House of Dynamite.” The reality of how this will all work out is quite hair-raising.
After all, eighteen minutes isn’t a lot of time to decide the fate of a civilization. But it may be all that US leaders have left to face an imminent nuclear attack that could launch from somewhere CalmThe film, out in theaters on Friday and streaming on Netflix on October 24, will take audiences inside the White House Situation Room and US Strategic Command to see what can happen in those precious few moments.
nuclear paradox
The intersection of military and geopolitics is familiar territory for Bigelow, whether it’s exploring the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden in “Zero Dark Thirty” or the tension of spreading explosives in Iraq in “The Hurt Locker.” Nuclear weapons have also been in his films: “K-19: The Widowmaker” was about the Soviet Union’s first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine. His most acclaimed works always seem to begin with a deep dive into real-world scenarios.
“I find myself again and again at the intersection of art, information and journalism, and in this case, the military,” Bigelow told The Associated Press. “It always starts with a question I’m curious about. To find the answer, I have to do these movies. It’s quite a cumbersome way to approach it.”
A child of the Cold War, Bigelow, 73, remembers practicing duck and cover. For as long as he can remember, nuclear destruction has been a fact of life. Although the threat has not diminished – nine countries currently either say they have nuclear weapons or are believed to have them – Bigelow believes there is public interest. The word is still in the headlines almost daily, but the conversation is definitely elsewhere.
pound the alarm
To understand the frightening paradox of living in this “house of dynamite,” he teamed up with Noah Oppenheim, a career journalist and screenwriter who chaired NBC News from 2017 to 2023 and who shares his nuclear passion. He spoke to numerous current and former military officials from multiple administrations to create a story about that 18-minute period from three different perspectives. It will start with missile defense and move up the food chain to the decision-maker: the US President.
Oppenheim said, “There are a lot of people who would be involved in this kind of crisis and this kind of decision. And one of the ironies is that the people who spend the most time practicing for this, who have the most expertise, are actually the ones at the lowest rung on the ladder.” “The chairman The United States is the only one that has the authority to decide what to do. “But it’s possible that no matter who the president is, and this has been true since the beginning of the nuclear age, he hasn’t spent a ton of time thinking about this.”
When asked how much time the President or Secretary of Defense spend training for it, a former official told them, “Less than an hour.”
A complex game of 3D chess
Putting it all together, Bigelow laughed, as if playing a game of 3D chess. The actors’ schedules immediately shattered their dreams of shooting it together. Instead, it will involve a complex choreography of phone calls, zoom screens, and various sets of commands to link together multiple people involved in the Situation Room, the Pentagon, US Strategic Command, FEMA, and Fort Greeley, where they will launch “ground-based interceptors.”
There were three- and four-star generals on set as technical advisors who were ready to answer questions big and small about anything from the chain of command to how an officer can handle the “nuclear football.”
“I was in a room of real soldiers,” said Rebecca FergusonWho plays the role of a situation room watch floor senior duty officer. “It speaks to who he is as a director, it fuels the realism of this moment in this room.”
Equally important was the idea that behind the suits, the training and the security clearances, there were humans with lives. Ferguson’s character stayed up all night with his sick child. The North Korea expert (Greta Lee) is on leave. The National Security Advisor is getting a colonoscopy and his deputy (Gabriel Basso) is acting in his place (and running late for work).
“It’s so important to humanize such an abstract and horrific situation,” Bigelow said.
The Secretary of Defense, played by Jared Harris, is grieving his wife and is too distracted to think that his estranged daughter would be much help.
“There’s something fascinating about playing stories like this, opening the window, when possible, to those moments of human frailty,” Harris said.
No, Idris Elba is not playing Barack Obama
Many reviews have already suggested that Idris Elba’s election as US President is a nod to Barack Obama. But this was not the intention of the filmmakers. In fact, Bigelow and Oppenheim attempted to make the film as non-partisan as possible. He was not interested in having conversations about which party was in charge, even with his actors.
“The President has been portrayed in films many times,” Elba said. “What Katherine wanted for this segment of the film was for the character of the President of the United States to be human. To be relatable.”
The biggest question is who launched the missile. Some argue that it is North Korea. Others think it’s Russia. One says it might just be a jilted submarine captain. The attacker was deliberately left ambiguous.
“You can’t be on anyone’s side because there is no side,” Ferguson said. “There’s a system in place, and the question is: Is it flawed? Is it good? That the president can push a button and nuke the world. Do we support that? Do we know that?”
we are our own villains
Like his other geopolitical-themed films, “A House of Dynamite” straddles the line between entertainment and journalism, conveying important information in an exciting cinematic way, and allowing people to clearly feel the danger and stakes.
“She puts people in the shoes of bomb techs or CIA analysts or STRATCOM or missile defense people and makes you really understand on an internal level what it is and what these people face and what we need collectively,” Oppenheim said.
Filmmakers these days are often unsure about what they want audiences to take from their films. Many will talk about a desire to inspire “conversation” and “debate,” but will not go as far as declaring their position. But Bigelow is refreshingly direct about her hopes for “A House of Dynamite.”
“Nonproliferation should be the No. 1 topic we’re dealing with right now,” Bigelow said. “We invented them…we are our own villains.”