The docudrama, streaming on Netflix, is a valiant study of Albert Einstein’s moral compass; it unravels the ethical dilemmas of one of the world’s greatest minds
Christopher Nolan’s seminal film Oppenheimer guided us through the agitating process of the production of the world’s first atomic bomb, using its titular character’s hurting conscience as one of its main narrative instruments. Another small but highly valid component of Nolan’s expedition was Albert Einstein, the theoretical physicist whose pacifism is as relevant as his contributions to science. Though Einstein makes a fleeting, yet prominent, appearance in Oppenheimer, his stance on the atomic bomb and the shadowy involvement in the creation of the ultimate weapon of mass destruction remains under-explored in pop culture.
Netflix’s Einstein and The Bomb attempts to fill this void by proposing a 76-minute long docudrama that borrows its subject’s verbatim reflections on everything ranging from Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust and the theory of relativity to the bomb itself. Through a combination of reenactments, found footage, still photographs, voice clippings and more, the film chronicles a rather important phase in the life of Albert Einstein who, for the majority of the narrative, remains somewhat a ‘celebrity’ in the global scheme of things. Director Anthony Philipson and writer Philip Ralph also foray into the more ruminative phase of Einstein’s life, particularly the period wherein he sought shelter in the UK due to threats of persecution in Nazi-led Germany.
A valiant study of Einstein’s moral compass
Much like Oppenheimer, Einstein and The Bomb works as a valiant study of Albert Einstein’s moral compass. The film places its subject at various crucial junctures of his life and extracts thoughts that the world isn’t fully privy to, though his stance on certain matters — especially the atomic bomb — has remained clear all along. Here, Philipson wages a journey to dig deeper by keeping the perspective entirely first-hand so that Einstein himself, in a way, can talk us through the myriad highs and lows of his personal and professional life; and one of the main charms of Einstein and The Bomb exists in the fact that it somehow seamlessly brings those two facets together.
Essentially, what it communicates is that despite being a man of great acumen and empathy, Einstein was relegated to being a muted bystander in a majority of the events around him. Einstein and The Bomb suggests how he becomes (arguably) the world’s first celebrity scientist and how that very first flashlight of the camera potentially marks the beginning of his disillusionment. It tells us how his game-changing E equals EmCee Squared formula, the one that theoretically proved that a small amount of mass can be converted to large amounts of energy, would later serve as the genesis for the atomic bomb.
However, Einstein isn’t allowed a say in it because his worldview doesn’t match with those in power. At one point in the film, one of the reenactment scenes even shows him vehemently denying that he had any role to play in the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The film also underlines the fact that all his knowledge and contribution would be rendered futile by a power maniac named Adolf Hitler. And how his regime would take away everything dear to him — his home, his identity and even his violin — and force him to flee his homeland for good, placing a price on his head. Still, Einstein remains doggedly silent.
The Structure
To bring this and so much more together, Philipson and Ralph embrace a jumbled approach and attempt to simply follow Einstein for most parts. Theirs is a narrative structure that is spread haphazardly, and loosely, spread across two segments. The first of the two, in a way, serves as a prelude to the creation bomb and is largely focused on the events leading to his stint at Princeton University. The year 1933 functions as the nucleus of this phase as we go back and forth in time arduously to gather Albert Einstein at his reflective and tender best, and as a man who has been disparaged by a dictator merely because of his race, we notice just how graceful he is in the eye of the storm. It culminates with his momentous speech at London’s Royal Albert Hall — his first political expression, if you will — following which he would never set foot in Europe.
The second segment, as it were, then addresses the heart of the matter and traces Einstein’s more pensive stage of life — the Second World War, the genocide of European Jews and the aftermath of the dropping of the nuclear bomb on Japan. The year 1955 becomes the focal point of this contemplative phase and to drive home the message, the makers stage an impressive confrontation between Einstein and Japanese journalist Katsu Hara, over the former's involvement in the creation of the atomic bomb. In reality, Einstein and Hara only exchanged letters but the realized reenactment puts things beautifully in context.
What works, what doesn’t
More than anything else, Einstein and The Bomb can be regarded as a dutiful endeavour whose self-assigned task is to unravel the moral and ethical dilemmas of one of the world’s greatest minds. In this pursuit, it digs a vast amount of material that includes Einstein’s own voice clippings, quotes, letters, footage and whatnot and presents a dense, yet a tad clumsy, account of the story. It’s a read-between-the-lines attempt that is pithy and compact in structure, but also incredibly overwhelming.
What doesn’t work, though, is the labyrinth of material that has been woven together in a slapdash manner. While the reenactments help immensely because of their inherent simplicity, the archival details do not fully contextualize things for us. The wish to stick to Einstein’s personal account, at times, poses more a creative limitation than a tool for the makers because so much of the essence of his being is lost because of the self-imposed restriction. What really works is Simon Barker’s slick editing which helps us wade through the denseness. Tom Hodge’s original score is another great contributor to the experience of the film, mainly because it fills up the gaps that the narrative cannot.
Aidan McArdle plays Einstein over various life stages — from a much younger theoretical physicist to the man of both great wisdom and repentance in his sunset years — but one might find the suffocatingly heavy prosthetic work to be a tad distracting. Regardless, Einstein and The Bomb is a noble attempt that remains true to its intent all along. It’s a film with a lot of nuance primarily because it talks to us at a more leisurely pace about both the gift and the tragedy of being a genius.
