White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Last updated
White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
White Light Poster.jpg
Film poster
Directed by Steven Okazaki
Written bySteven Okazaki
Produced bySteven Okazaki
Distributed by Home Box Office
Release date
  • August 6, 2007 (2007-08-06)
Running time
86 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is an HBO documentary film directed and produced by Steven Okazaki. It was released on August 6, 2007, on HBO, marking the 62nd anniversary of the first atomic bombing. The film features interviews with fourteen Japanese survivors and four Americans involved in the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Contents

Interviews

Japanese survivors

In preparation for the film, Okazaki met with more than 500 Japanese survivors of the bombings and collected over 100 interviews before settling on the fourteen subjects featured in the film. They were, in order of appearance, including age at the time of the bombings:

American personnel

Okazaki also interviewed four Americans for the film. Morris R. Jeppson, weapons test officer, and Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk, navigator, were on board the Enola Gay during the bombing missions. Harold Agnew joined them as a scientific observer during the Hiroshima mission. Lawrence Johnston was a scientist at Los Alamos who claims to be the only person to have witnessed the Trinity test as well as the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Recognition

White Light/Black Rain was named by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as one of 15 films considered for nomination as the Best Documentary Feature for the 80th Academy Awards. It was not included among the five nominees. [1] The film was also a nominee for the Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award at the 2008 Producers Guild Awards and the Grand Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. It did win the 2008 "Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking" Primetime Emmy Award.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keiji Nakazawa</span> Japanese manga artist and writer

Keiji Nakazawa was a Japanese manga artist and writer.

<i>Hibakusha</i> Survivors of atomic bombings in Japan

Hibakusha is a word of Japanese origin generally designating the people affected by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States at the end of World War II.

Events in the year 1964 in Japan. It corresponds to Shōwa 39 (昭和39年) in the Japanese calendar.

<i>Black Rain</i> (1989 Japanese film) 1989 Japanese film

Black Rain is a 1989 Japanese drama film by director Shōhei Imamura, based on the novel of the same name by Masuji Ibuse. The story centers on the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and its effect on a surviving family.

This page lists Japan-related articles with romanized titles beginning with the letter O. For names of people, please list by surname. Please also ignore particles when listing articles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Okazaki</span> American documentary filmmaker (born 1952)

Steven Toll Okazaki is an American documentary filmmaker known for his raw, cinéma vérité-style documentaries that frequently show ordinary people dealing with extraordinary circumstances. He has received a Peabody Award, a Primetime Emmy and has been nominated for four Academy Awards, winning an Oscar for the documentary short subject, Days of Waiting: The Life & Art of Estelle Ishigo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki</span> August 1945 attacks in Japan during WWII

On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively. The bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict. Japan surrendered to the Allies on 15 August, six days after the bombing of Nagasaki and the Soviet Union's declaration of war against Japan and invasion of Japanese-occupied Manchuria. The Japanese government signed the instrument of surrender on 2 September, effectively ending the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission</span> Commission investigating the effects of atomic bomb radiation from 1946 to 1975

The Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) was a commission established in 1946 in accordance with a presidential directive from Harry S. Truman to the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council to conduct investigations of the late effects of radiation among the atomic-bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As it was erected purely for scientific research and study, not as a provider of medical care and also because it was heavily supported by the United States, the ABCC was generally mistrusted by most survivors and Japanese alike. It operated for nearly thirty years before its dissolution in 1975.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sumiteru Taniguchi</span> Japanese atomic bombing survivor

Sumiteru Taniguchi was a Japanese anti-nuclear activist and survivor of the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki, who was chairman of the Nagasaki Council of A-Bomb Sufferers.

<i>I Saw It</i> Manga by Keiji Nakazawa

I Saw It: The Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima: A Survivor's True Story, titled Ore wa Mita (おれは見た) in Japanese, is a one-shot manga by Keiji Nakazawa that first appeared in 1972 as a 48-page feature in the magazine Monthly Shōnen Jump. The story was later published in a collection of Nakazawa's short stories by Holp Shuppan. I Saw It is an autobiographical piece following the life of Nakazawa from his youngest days in post-war Hiroshima, up until his adulthood. I Saw It became the predecessor for Nakazawa's popular manga series Barefoot Gen.

This is a list of cultural products made about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It includes literature, film, music and other art forms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tsutomu Yamaguchi</span> Japanese atomic bombing survivor

Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a Japanese marine engineer who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings during World War II. Although at least 160 people are known to have been affected by both bombings, he is the only person to have been officially recognized by the government of Japan as surviving both explosions.

No More Hiroshima is a 1984 National Film Board of Canada documentary about two survivors of the 1945 atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, who are among a small group of Japanese who risk ostracism in their country by identifying themselves as hibakusha: survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The 26-minute documentary by Martin Duckworth follows the survivors on their mission to New York City as part of the Japanese peace movement at the second United Nations Special Session on Disarmament held in June, 1982. This 26 minute film received the Genie Award for Best Short Documentary at the 7th Genie Awards.

Atomic bomb literature is a literary genre in Japanese literature which comprises writings about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

<i>Hiroshima: BBC History of World War II</i> 2005 British TV series or programme

Hiroshima is a BBC docudrama that premiered as a television special on 5 August 2005, marking the eve of the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The program was aired on the Discovery Channel and BBC America in the United States. The documentary features historical reenactments using firsthand eyewitness accounts and computer-generated imagery of the explosion. The film won an Emmy and three BAFTA awards in 2006.

The Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations, often shortened to Nihon Hidankyō, is a group that represents survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was formed in 1956.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunao Tsuboi</span> Japanese activist and teacher (1925–2021)

Sunao Tsuboi was a Japanese anti-nuclear, anti-war activist, and teacher. He was a hibakusha, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and was the co-chair of Nihon Hidankyo, a Japan-wide organisation of atomic and hydrogen bomb sufferers. He was awarded the Kiyoshi Tanimoto peace prize in 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terumi Tanaka</span> Survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki

Tanaka Terumi is a Japanese anti-nuclear and anti-war activist and former professor. He is a hibakusha, a survivor of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and is the secretary general of Nihon Hidankyo, a Japan-wide organisation of atomic and hydrogen bomb sufferers. He lives in Niiza, Saitama.

Events in the year 1961 in Japan. It corresponds to Shōwa 36 (昭和36年) in the Japanese calendar.

References

  1. "Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2008-02-27. Archived from the original on 2008-03-27. Retrieved 2008-03-28.