CHRISTOPHER BEAVER FILMS

Christopher Beaver on Boat

NAGASAKI JOURNEY
Produced and Directed by Christopher Beaver and Judy Irving

Video Librarian "Immediately affecting . . . highly recommended".

TV Guide "a deeply moving, deceptively simple chronicle of three people whose lives were irrevocably changed by the dropping of the atomic bomb."

The style is that of Rashomon, the classic Akira Kurosawa film in which the same event is recounted through the eyes of three different people.


On August 9, 1945, the city of Nagasaki was destroyed by a small atomic bomb, the size of the plutonium "trigger" used in today's hydrogen bombs.

Smoke rises from the ruins

Beneath the center of the explosion, temperatures were hot enough to melt concrete and steel. Within seconds, 75,000 people had been killed or fatally injured with 65% of the casualties nine years of age and younger . . .

Nagasaki Journey tells the story of three people who witnessed the aftermath of this bombing: Victor Tolley portrait
two Japanese and one American, Victor Tolley, a veteran of the US Marine Corps, part of the
American occupation of Japan after World War II.

Unlike many documentaries, the three people in Nagasaki Journey are not intercut with one another in a round-robin. Instead, they are depicted as individual stories, each building upon the previous account. Together they weave a tale of moral complexity leading to understanding and reconciliation.

The film features extremely rare footage of the atomic bombing, both black-and-white and color.

Also included is a selection of stills taken the day after the bombing by Japanese photographer, Yosuke Yamahata. The black and white images on this page are from Mr. Yamahata's archive — by far the most complete record of the immediate aftermath of the Nagasaki bombing that exists. They are used with the kind permission of his son and copyright holder, Shogo Yamahata.

Injured boy in ruinsA separate award-winning web-site, Remembering Nagasaki, designed by Alison Sant, established and maintained by San Francisco's Exploratorium Museum, is devoted to the international photographic exhibition, book and film entitled, "Nagasaki Journey."

Among the key participants in the production of the Nagasaki book, film, and worldwide exhibition were: Christopher Beaver, Executive Producer and Curator; Rupert Jenkins, editor of the Nagasaki Journey book and exhibition consultant; Maya Ishiwata, exclusive exhibition representative for Japan; and Judy Irving co-Producer and Associate Editor of the book.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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