James Cameron made waves when he called Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer a “moral cop-out” for not depicting the nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II.
So what does he think of the ending of Netflix‘s A House of Dynamite, which — spoilers follow — stops just shy of showing potential nuclear destruction in America?
The riveting thriller’s ending divided viewers when it was released in October, with some feeling the film pulled a punch by wrapping on a cliffhanger, leaving the audience unsure if a rogue ICBM destroyed Chicago, and how the film’s president (Idris Elba) responded.
A House of Dynamite was directed by Kathryn Bigelow — Cameron’s friend, former spouse and frequent collaborator — and the Avatar filmmaker tells The Hollywood Reporter that he had dinner with Bigelow just a few weeks ago and they discussed the ending.
“I said to her, ‘I utterly defend that ending,’” he says. “It’s really the only possible ending. You don’t get to the end of [the classic short story] ‘The Lady or the Tiger?‘ and know what’s behind which door.”
Continued Cameron: “But that’s not even really the point. The point is: From the moment the scenerio began at minute zero when the missile was launched and detected, the outcome already sucked. There was no good outcome, and the movie spent two hours showing you there is no good outcome. We cannot countenance these weapons existing at all. And it all boils down to one guy in the American system, the president, who is the only person allowed to launch a nuclear strike, either offensively or defensively, and the lives of every person on the planet revolve around that one person. That’s the world we live in and we need to remember that when we vote next time.”
Concluded the filmmaker: “So the end of that movie was the only way that movie could have ended because — as the computer says at the end of War Games — ‘the only way to win is not to play.’”
Cameron has used his work to warn about the threat of nuclear war going back to his 1984 feature debut, The Terminator. His films Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss and True Lies also revolved around nuclear threats.
The director has obtained the rights to the Charles Pellegrino’s book Ghosts of Hiroshima, which chronicles the true story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who in 1945 survived the nuclear blasts at both Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Cameron promised Yamaguchi on his deathbed in 2010 that he’d make the film.
On the subject of Oppenheimer, Cameron previously told Deadline, “it’s interesting what he stayed away from. Look, I love the filmmaking, but I did feel that it was a bit of a moral cop out. Because it’s not like Oppenheimer didn’t know the effects [of the bomb]. He’s got one brief scene in the film where we see — and I don’t like to criticize another filmmaker’s film – but there’s only one brief moment where he sees some charred bodies in the audience and then the film goes on to show how it deeply moved him. But I felt that it dodged the subject. I don’t know whether the studio or Chris felt that that was a third rail that they didn’t want to touch, but I want to go straight at the third rail. I’m just stupid that way.”
For more from James Cameron’s wide-ranging and deep-dive interview with THR, read this week’s cover story: James Cameron Is Ready to Move Beyond Avatar: “I’ve Got Other Stories to Tell.”