World Premiere

American Experience: The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer

Monday, January 12, 2009
6:30 ET to 9:15 pm ET
New York

In Person

David Grubin (RFK, LBJ, and Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided); David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck; The Bourne Ultimatum); Roy J. Glauber (Nobel Laureate, Physics 2005); Mark Samels (Executive Producer of American Experience)
Moderated by Oppenheimer biographer Martin Sherwin

J. Robert Oppenheimer, forever known as “the father of the atomic bomb,” is one of the most influential and controversial scientists of the 20th century. His troubled life and enduring legacy are richly illuminated in award-winning filmmaker David Grubin’s latest documentary for American Experience, The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer.  Grubin expertly interweaves interviews with family members, colleagues, and scholars with dramatic re-creations featuring acclaimed actor David Strathairn (Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck), seeking to understand why fifties America turned against the brilliant physicist who headed the Manhattan Project’s top-secret laboratory in Los Alamos. The documentary dramatically traces Oppenheimer’s trajectory from one of the leading minds in the scientific world to a suspected Communist sympathizer during the dark years of McCarthyism.

After the screening, biographer Martin Sherwin will discuss with the panel the impact and implications of Oppenheimer’s travails, which continue to intrigue a new century, as most notably in the recent Metropolitan Opera production of Doctor Atomic.

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