You also must have been thinking about the fact that the youngest survivors are now in their late 60s, and most are in their 70s or 80s. They won't be around forever, and if somebody tries to do this film in 10 or 15 years, there won't be many people left.
I really feel like this is the last opportunity to make this film. Within the next couple of years, most of these people, half of them anyway, will be gone. We have a guy who was a 25-year-old doctor and he's now 87, and he's a remarkable person with a remarkable memory. We also interviewed people at the other end of the spectrum, who were 3 or 4 at the time. They had clear memories, or fragments of memories, that I truly believe they held. But the things around those fragments were really shaky. Over the years they've assumed their parents' or their uncles' version of the story, and it's become their own.
Your main focus is on the Japanese survivors, but you also talk to American soldiers and scientists who were involved. Why was that important?
Just as a storyteller, you have all these people on the ground who were united by a moment, when they sensed or saw the bomb falling, saw the white flash. Then many of them blacked out. One of the people in the film told us he woke up 48 days later.
We wanted to fill in the blank spots. So there's a hole in the story, and we wanted to tell the story of the bomb. We don't ever present this as good guys and bad guys, victims and murderers. I think that's very disrespectful to both sides. I think meeting people on the American side opens the film up and gives you a different point of view. I thought it was important to meet the Americans who did it, without demonizing them. The scientists were plucked out of grad school. The servicemen were, like, 22 years old and given this mission to end the war. They were decent, good people who had to do this thing.
Just for their sanity, I think they've had to deal with what happened in their own ways, partly by not looking into it any further. They all had this 1950s view of radiation: "Hey, it's more dangerous to drive a car! You use a microwave every day!" They clearly have black holes in their knowledge.
I was thinking that if I had something like that to carry around, I might find a way not to think about it.
Sure, yeah.
Did they have any trepidation about talking to you?
I considered sending in one of the co-producers, who's not Asian, to do the interviews. But that felt like tricking them. On the other hand, I didn't want to have to explain myself, or make them feel safe with me. I didn't want to say, "Listen, my dad was in the 442 [the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, composed of Japanese-Americans] and fought in Europe against the Nazis." I just went in and thought, we'll get what we get. I did feel with one of the guys that if someone else were there, he'd have been talking differently about the Japanese. He'd say, "The Japs -- anese..." [Laughter.]
Do you think people are finally ready, in both countries, to deal with this stuff?
That's the one incredibly encouraging thing. People seem to be open to hearing these stories and not just running away from the words "Hiroshima and Nagasaki." We've been doing that for 60 years.
About the writer
Andrew O'Hehir is a senior writer for Salon.
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