Hiroshima and Film

[Ono Seiko and Aaron Gerow]

2 good responses from the original inquiry on H-Japan.  The first is the 
kind of response I'd expect from my former boss at the U of Iowa library!

-----------------------
(1) From: Hideyuki Morimoto <hmorimot at library.berkeley.edu>

The following titles might be of some relevance to a study on "Atomic bomb
victims in motion pictures" as well as on "Nuclear warfware in motion
pictures" in relation to "Hiroshima-shi (Japan)--History--Bombardment,
1945" as well as to "Nagasaki-shi (Japan)--History--Bombardment, 1945."

Hibakusha cinema : Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the nuclear image in
         Japanese film / edited by Mick Broderick.
       London : New York : Kegan Paul International ; New York :
         Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1996.

Broderick, Mick.
       Nuclear movies : a critical analysis and filmography of
         international feature length films dealing with experimentatio...
       Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., 1991, c1988.

	+++++

Barefoot Gen / Orion Home Video presents a Streamline Pictures
         production. [videorecording]
       [Los Angeles, CA] : Orion Home Video, c1995.
       VHS.

Black rain / Toei Company ; Angelica Films. [videorecording]
       New York : Fox Lorber Home Video, 1991.
       VHS.
       Electronic location:
         Credits from Internet Movie Database
         http://us.imdb.com/Title?Kuroi+ame+(1989)

Hiroshima, mon amour / Marguerite Duras ; Alain Resnais.
         [videorecording]
       Los Angeles, CA : Embassy Home Entertainment, 1987.
       (Series: International collection)

Hiroshima, the people's legacy / NHK Japanese Broadcasting
         Corporation ; producer, Atsuhiro Ohno ; ... [videorecording]
       New York, N.Y. : Electronic Arts Intermix, [1982], 1975.

Survivors [videorecording]
       San Francisco, CA. : Mouchette Films [production company] :
         CrossCurrent Media [distributor], 1982.

	+++++

Nagasaki journey = Nagasaki jani / Independent Documentary Group.
         [videorecording]
       Oakland, CA :  Video Project [distributor], [199-?]
       VHS.

Rain of ruin : the bombing of Nagasaki / Oregon Public
         Broadcasting. [videorecording]
       Oakland, CA :  Video Project [distributor], c1995.
       VHS.

=======================================================================
Hideyuki Morimoto
Japanese Cataloger
East Asian Library              Voice:    +1-510-643-0892
208 Durant Hall                 FAX:      +1-510-642-3817
University of California
Berkeley, CA  94720-6000        Internet: hmorimot at library.berkeley.edu
=======================================================================

2) From: Uday Mohan <umohan at bellatlantic.net>

I sent this to Kevin Heffel directly but I thought I'd send it to the
list as well (I'm away from my regular computer, so my email address is
not the same as the one with which I've subscribed to h-japan).

I believe some folks have mentioned the two Broderick books, the AEMS,
and the Peace Center at Wilmington College--all good resources.  The
UCLA film and tv archives also has some films on the subject, as does
the Truman presidential library.

Someone mentioned David Desser's essay: the full cite is "Hiroshima in
Film," _Swords and Ploughshares_, vol. 9, nos. 3 & 4, 1995 (bulletin of
the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament, and International Security, U
of Illinois, Urbana-champaign).

There are many other scholarly resources that deal with Hiroshima and
film/photos/tv to varying degrees.  Some of these books include Kyoko
Hirano's _Mr. Smith Goes to Tokyo_, Monica Braw, _The Atomic Bomb
Suppressed_, Paul Boyer's _By the Bomb's Early Light_ and Fallout_;
Robert Lifton and Greg Mitchell's _Hiroshima in America_; Allan
Winkler's _Life Under a Cloud_; Spencer Weart's _Nuclear Fear_; and
Laura Hein and Mark Selden's _Living with the Bomb_.

Some articles include: Erik Barnouw, "The Case of the A-bomb Footage,"
in _Transmission: Toward a Post-Television Culture_, 2d ed., ed. P.
d'Agostino and D. Tafler; Samuel Marx, "The Bomb Movie," _Michigan
Quarterly Review_, 35, winter 1996; Bryan Taylor, "Nuclear Pictures and
Metapictures," _American Literary History_ 9, fall 1997, and "'Fat Man
and Little Boy': The Cinematic Representation of Interests in the
Nuclear Weapons Organization," _Critical Studies in Mass Communication_
10, 1993, 367-394; Michael Yavenditti, "Atomic Scientists and Hollywood:
'The Beginning or the End'?," _Film & History_ 8, no. 4, 1978; Nathan
Reingold, "Metro Doldwyn-Mayer Meets the Atom Bomb," in _Expository
Science: Forms and Functionso of Popularisation_, ed. Terry Shinn and
Richard Whitley, _Sociology of the Sciences_ vol 9, 1985, 229-245 (looks
odd, but that's the cite I have); Peter B. Hales, "The Atomic Sublime,"
_American Studies_ 32, spring 1991, and "The Mass Aesthetic of
Holocaust: American Media Construct the Atomic Bomb," _Tokyo Daigaku
Amerika Kenkyu Shiryo Senta Ninpo_ 17, march 1995; Vincent Leo, "The
Mushroom Cloud Photograph: From Fact to Symbol," _Afterimage_, summer
1985.

Yavenditti's phd diss is also useful: "American Reactions to the Use of
Atomic Bombs on Japan, 1945-1947," 1970.

There are other resources as well, but I think these are most of the
main ones.

Unfortunately I cannot as easily give a list of film titles right
now because that info is dispersed in various files.  The two main
American feature films that deal with the bomb are The Beginning or the
End (1947) and Fat Man and Little Boy (1989).  There are various
tv documentaries/biographies dealing with Truman and oppenheimer aired
over the last few years on HBO, PBS, and A&E; some important TV
documentaries/docudramas on the bombing made in the last 35 years and
shown on American TV are 10 Seconds that Shook the World (1963), The
Decision to Drop the Bomb (NBC, 1965), The World at War: The Bomb
(episode 24, I believe) (1974), Enola Gay (1980), Summer of the Bomb (a
British production, 1989), and Day One (CBS, 1989).  Other titles:
Hiroshima: The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1995); Rain of Ruin (shown on
the History Channel in '96); CBS Reports: Victory in the Pacific (1995);
Hiroshima: Why the Bomb Was Dropped (ABC, 1995); Trinity and Beyond: The
Atomic bomb Movie (1995).  There are also videos released by the Air and
Space Museum, the museum at Oakridge, and the Los Alamos Historical
Society (the latter two deal mainly with the wartime role of the two
labs).  I've also run across some Canadian docs...

My own work deals with "Hiroshima" and the American media.  I'm focusing
on the news media and how they've treated the decision to use the a-bomb
over a 50-year period, but I'm bringing in some information from
American feature films and tv movies as well.

If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to send them a copy of an article
I coauthored with Leo Maley that periodizes American media coverage of
the a-bomb decision from 1945 to 1995.  Please contact me by email off
list.

Best,
Uday Mohan
Grad program in history
American Univ