The Bombing of Hiroshima in 3D: Horror movie or horrible exploitation?

wasn't the original bombing in 3D?

Come off it! Everyone knows that pre1946, that reality was a mere 2D and black and white. That's why The Wizard of Oz was so innovative. It took reality 7 years to catch up with Hollywood's take on life and physics.

The events at Hiroshima has been done before in various formats. I remember a documentary and I know of a japanamation that covered the topic.

True but Hollywood hasn't a chance yet to add a sexy romantic subplot to the whole historic spiel.

I've lived my life with atom bomb photos and that has informed my views. Cameron (don't get me started) is, to me, an opportunistic energetic. I'll pick exploitation, no matter his assertions.

Oh my!!!

I do find the 3 D makes me kind of viscerally feel it exploitative...simply because 3 D is still so gimmicky.

But...it seems right to me that we ought to be able to feel the magnitude of what was done as completely as possible...as with any act of democratically elected government's acts of slaughter or infliction of terrible suffering.

We have a responsibility to comprehend what we allow, I think. (Same for the acts of all governments...not just the US one here.)


I don't think I could watch, though.

NIGHTMARE
Art of the Hibakusha (Atom Bomb Survivors). Essay by artist, Mark Vallen.


August 6th, 2005, marks the 60th anniversary of the Atomic Bombing of Japan. This collection of art was created by the Japanese who were at the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki... and lived to paint and draw their memories on canvas and paper.

[ Left: "Evening Glow over Hiroshima" ]

On August 6th. 1945, at precisely 8:15 in the morning, the U.S. detonated an Atomic Bomb over the city of Hiroshima. Three days later on August 9th, at precisely 11:02 in the morning - a second Bomb was exploded over the city of Nagasaki. The Japanese called it pikadon (flash-boom). There was a blinding flash of light brighter than the sun, followed by a tremendous shock wave and a searing blast of heat. Huge poisonous mushroom clouds ascended into the sky and a deadly radioactive black rain fell. Those at the center of the blasts were incinerated, leaving only their shadows behind. Others were crushed flat by the concussion of the blasts. Those within a mile and a half of the explosions died from unimaginable burns and intense radiation.
Click the thumbnails for the full picture and explanatory text

Nagasaki Blast Hiroshima Bridge Burning Girl River filled with bodies
Those who survived the blasts became known as hibakusha (Atom Bomb Survivors). Weeks after the explosions, even those who where uninjured began to succumb to a terrible plague. Those affected would loose their hair and purple spots would erupt on their skin. Vomiting, diarrhea, and uncontrollable bleeding from the gums was followed by death. At the time the Japanese did not realize they were dying from radiation sickness, instead they imagined they were in some Buddhist Hell. The atomic age began in 1945 with the pulverizing of two major urban centers and the vaporization of some 200,000 human beings. Sadly, hibakusha in Japan are still dying today from their radiation induced sicknesses and wounds.
August 6th, 2005, marks the 60th Anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Solemn commemorations will take place in a world now bristling with thousands of nuclear weapons. The USA, Russia, Britain, France, Israel, China, India, North Korea, and Pakistan all possess weapons of mass destruction many times more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan. Another arms race has started, with the Bush administration leading the way with its development of new nuclear battlefield weapons like atomic "bunker buster" bombs. Any use of such weapons would result in untold civilian casualties.


Melting Hand Hiroshima Horse Charred Child The last drink
The paintings comprising this exhibition are sober reminders of the reality of atomic warfare, created by people who actually lived through an atomic holocaust. The artworks came about in 1974, when a survivor presented a hand drawn picture to the office of Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK - Japan Broadcasting Corporation). That single drawing was broadcast on Japanese television and soon a flood of thousands of drawings by other hibakusha began to arrive at the offices of NHK. An exhibition of the collected paintings and drawings was mounted at the Peace Culture Center of Hiroshima in 1975, and since that time the artworks have been compiled into several books and traveling exhibitions.

Blinded Girl Women on Fire Gone Mad Floating Lanterns
Some of those materials were placed into my hands in 1984, when I had the great honor of meeting Barbara Reynolds. Miss Reynolds (who passed away in 1990) was a Quaker peace activist who had lived in Hiroshima for some 15 years. She was devoted to the cause of world peace and dedicated much of her life's work to spreading the message of the hibakusha. Miss Reynolds entrusted me with a rare copy of a book little known in the West, Hiroshima Nagasaki - A Pictorial Record of the Atomic Destruction. (published in Japan in 1978 by the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Publishing Committee). That book is an exhaustive, encyclopedic work that details in chilling photographs what actually occured at ground zero in Hiroshima and Nagasaki (some of the hibakusha artworks contained in the book form the basis for this exhibition).


Atomic Dome Mother on Fire Radioactive Rubble Nagasaki Pulverized
Miss Reynolds also assisted me in bringing the hibakusha artworks to the United States. With her gracious help I was able to mount a Los Angeles Gallery Exhibition in 1984 of some 50 hibakusha artworks (a few of those images also appear on these pages). The majority of artworks presented here were created by non-professional artists, with the exception being three selections by Iri and Toshi Maruki.

Already established artists at the time of the bombings, Iri and Toshi traveled to Hiroshima three days after the blast, and what they found forever change their lives. The artists were haunted by the unbelievable carnage, and three years later they began to draw and paint the hell they had glimpsed. The result of their efforts were the monumental Hiroshima Panels, one of the most profound works of art from the 20th Century. Every bit as impressive as Picasso's famous mural, Guernica, the panels by the Maruki's (now deceased), are on display in a special museum located in Hiroshima.

USEFUL LINKS

The history of the Hiroshima Panels. An excellent overview of the antiwar murals created by artists Iri and Toshi Maruki.
www.answers.com/topic/the-hiroshima-panels

The Hiroshima Panels museum in Japan houses the magnificent murals created by Iri and Toshi Maruki. The museum is in need of financial assistance in order to stay open. Please consider making a contribution to this important cultural institution.
www.aya.or.jp/~marukimsn/english/indexE.htm

Official webpage of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.
www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp/top_e.html

Official webpage of the Japanese A-Bomb Museum.
www.csi.ad.jp/ABOMB/

Barefoot Gen is an autobiographical manga and anime by artist Keiji Nakazawa. Through his artworks, he tells the tale of one family's struggle to survive the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. This website shows numerous drawings from the manga, along with links to where you can purchase the DVD of the amazing anime.
www.theblackmoon.com/BarefootGen/bomb.html

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I attended an exhibition at Mass College of Art Boston in the 80's. Some of the depictions shown above were in the exhibit. It was a very sobering experience and I feel very apoligetic to the Japanese people that this happened.

Sorry the pics did not download.

great and a sequel would be the fire-bombing of Dresden.

Please please please say starring Ben Affleck, Shia LaBeef, and Miley Cyrus!

i'm just hoping the revolution will be televised

uh oh, guess not

Not sure if Seaglass linked to the Hiroshima Panels themselves:

http://www.aya.or.jp/~marukimsn/english/genbakuE.htm

I think the word is exploitive because there is no such verb as to exploitate.





David

It sounds like fun; I 'll see that. What about Nagasaki ?

It was probably a horror, from the Japanese perspective; not from the American perspective.

I don 't know, but I SUSPECT,
that it was probably pretty well received in Austrailia in August of 1945 also.



David

Maybe the Katyn Forest massacre of 1940 woud jingle your chimes, Dys.

Let me suggest Eddie Murphy play the part of Joseph Stalin for comic relief?

There is, however, such a noun as exploitation whence the adjective exploitative is derived.

Oh, hell, why do I bother?

yes, that might be interesting although perhaps not ideal for film making especially the complicit cover-up by the Brits and the USA whom both insisted the massacre was committed by the nazi's. interesting history/politics here david. but then perhaps you would prefer to omit the parts played by the brits and the usa.