On Netflix, what Einstein and the Bomb is like: the director worked on the first Big Brother

“An hour in a park with a beautiful girl seems like a minute, but a minute sitting in front of a hot stove seems like an hour.” As Albert Einstein He explained his theory of relativity to journalists. And the scientist and the atomic bomb are at the center of Einstein and the Bomb, the documentary by Netflix which premiered this Friday and is already among the most watched on the streaming platform.

The film is a fictionalized documentary: it contains archive images and also reconstructions of Einstein and to whom it is linked in the many moments that the short documentary (an hour and a quarter) reflects, jumping incessantly between various eras.

Director Anthony Philipson has always dedicated himself to TV and has been nominated for two BAFTA awards by the British Film and TV Academy. He began his television career working on entertainment programs, including the groundbreaking first season of Big Brother.

The man who will soon direct the series The day of the jackalit also appeals to the words, in audio and writings, of those who refuted Isaac Newton’s theories.

Einstein is presented as “One of the best scientists in the world, a colossal scientist who was able to generate as much political controversy as brilliant equations, the father of the atomic age”. The theory of relativity was an advance, when he defined the relationship between matter and energy.

All quite explained

There is no need to worry because everything is quite explained and even some phrases are repeated throughout the film.

“If I had known that the Germans would not have been able to build the atomic bomb, I would not have helped to open that Pandora’s box” is one of the most famous phrases said by the German and Jewish scientist, forced to flee his native country in which Nazism seized political power.

Much of the story focuses on his time in Norfolk, England, where Commander Locker-Lampson gave him refuge when he left Germany. There he was guarded by two female bodyguards, ready to shoot anyone who came near Einstein with bullets, when Germany offered him 20,000 marks for his head.

Einstein, who called himself a militant pacifist, was willing to fight for peace.

But what the documentary outlines rather than raises is the guilt he may have had regarding the atomic bomb the United States dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

Because after he gave his speech on October 3, 1933, he became Science and civilization at the Royal Albert Hall in front of 10,000 people, he leaves for the United States. She never set foot on European soil again.

This brings us to 1942, when the Manhattan Project, which the film tells about, is created among the allies. Oppenheimerin which Einstein appears, after having written a letter to President Roosevelt, because he believed that the Germans were already working on uranium.

After the fateful August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima – Hitler had already committed suicide – was peace worth the price of the bomb, which killed 70,000 Japanese?

You can see pictures of how the bomb destroys everything in its path, there are photos of injured people. “We won the war, the peace… no,” Einstein says in this documentary that he doesn’t provide much new information about the physicist who proved the existence of atoms and discovered what light is made of.

“The destiny of humanity depends entirely on the moral development of man.” A phrase by Einstein that depicts the moment in which he lived.

“Einstein and the Bomb”

Fictionalized documentary. United Kingdom, 2024. Original title: “Einstein and the Bomb”. 77′, SAM 13. From: Anthony Philipson. With: Aidan McArdle, Andrew Havill, Leo Ashizawa. Available in:Netflix.