The Manhattan Project: The Story of Oppenheimer

In 1981, The Kitchen Sisters interviewed filmmaker Jon Else about his Academy Award nominated documentary, The Day After Trinity, a deeply moving film about J. Robert Oppenheimer and the dramatic story of the creation of the atomic bomb.

The film, now showing on the Criterion channel, traces Oppenheimer’s evolution from the architect of the bomb to an outspoken opponent of nuclear proliferation. The documentary features honest and insightful Interviews with Robert’s brother Frank Oppenheimer, several scientists who worked in secret in the isolated high mountains of New Mexico building the bomb, and farmers and ranchers who were displaced by the military and the 6,000 people who descended on the region during the 1940s.

Today, the horrifying threat of the escalation of atomic weapons continues. Recently Belarusian President Lukashenko offered nuclear weapons to any country willing to side with Russia in its war against Ukraine. And interest in the history of the bomb and how we got to this place is on the rise. This summer Christopher Nolan’s new biopic about Robert Oppenheimer is hitting IMAX theaters around the country and the Criterion channel is featuring The Day after Trinity.

Today, from the Archives, The Kitchen Sisters Present one of our first interviews—a conversation with filmmaker John Else about the making of his extraordinary documentary, The Day After Trinity: J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Atomic Bomb.