Films & Television 

Films and TV shows may not be what one first imagines when considering media consumption of disaster, but even disasters are reflected in popular culture. These forms of media tend to have very specific perspectives, as some may focus on the survivors and their lives after the bombings, an individual family’s experience during the bombings, or maybe the circumstances prior to it. Here, we have some documentaries, movies, television series:

• White Light/ Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (Documentary):  “Okazaki talks with fourteen survivors of the 1945 attacks, ranging from an artist who has recounted his experience in comic art to a woman who was the only child out of 620 students to survive at a Hiroshima elementary school. White Light/Black Rain also features interviews with Americans involved in the attacks and probes their feelings about the use of the bombs sixty years later. “(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/381470/White-Light-Black-Rain-The-Destruction-of-Hiroshima-and-Nagasaki/overview)
• The Mushroom Club (Documentary):

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• Enola Gay: The Men, the Mission, the Atomic Bomb (TV Movie): “This made-for-TV historical drama chronicles the personal and professional lives of Colonel Tibbets and the airmen who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The story is based on a book by Gordon Thomas and Max Gordon Witts and also looks at the ways in which the aftermath of the bombing affected their lives. ” (Source:http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/15888/Enola-Gay-The-Men-the-Mission-the-Atomic-Bomb/overview)

• Barefoot Gen (Anime Movie):

  “Based on the acclaimed graphic novel by artist Keiji Nakazawa, Barefoot Gen is an animated drama about a family’s struggle to survive in Japan during the waning days of World War II. The family’s patriarch has run afoul of the local government due to his opposition to the war. The government begins to deprive the family of life’s little luxuries, and its necessities. The hardships they suffer through are put into perspective by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima by Allied forces. The family’s six-year-old son, Gen, who has lived with the reality of the war nearly his entire life, provides the center of this animated drama.” (Source:http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/177371/Barefoot-Gen/overview)

  

• Barefoot Gen (TV drama):

• Children of Hiroshima (Movie):“Post war Hiroshima: It’s been four years since the last time she visited her hometown. Takako faces the after effects of the A-bomb when she travels around the city to call on old friends.” (Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044497)