因《奥本海默传》的作者是我大学73届校友，我有幸被邀请参与了与他的线上Zoom会议。以下内容摘录于与Kai的live对谈，尽量保持了作者原话。为了方便友邻阅读，我使用了DeepL翻译器，机器翻译有误请见谅！

Kai Bird对于奥本海默的人物评价：

Biography is the best form of history, but it's also very subjective. You are obsessed, but it doesn't mean you have to love your subject.

传记是最好的历史形式，但也非常主观。你很痴迷，但这并不意味着你必须热爱你的研究对象。

I came to admire him deeply. I think he's just a fascinating figure, highly intelligent, and he's brilliant as a scientist in that he was a polymath that he was curious about many things not just theoretical physics. He's a young man who's very curious about the world around him.

我深深地钦佩他。我认为他是一个令人着迷的人物，智商极高，作为一名科学家，他是一位多面手，他对很多事情都充满好奇，而不仅仅是理论物理学。他是一个对周围世界充满好奇的年轻人。

I also had enormous frustration with some of the decisions Oppenheimer made. His ego got in the way when he became father of the atomic bomb in 1945 and celebrated on the cover of Time Magazine as America's most famous scientist.

我也对奥本海默的一些决定感到非常沮丧 当他在1945年成为原子弹之父，并作为美国最著名的科学家登上《时代周刊》封面时，他的自负阻碍了他的发展。

And then he fell in love with using that celebrity status to get access to power, to get access to the hallways of the Senate and the Oval Office and, and he couldn't give that up when he was challenged and questioned about his loyalty.

然后，他爱上了利用这种名人地位来获得权力，进入参议院和椭圆形办公室的走廊，当他的忠诚受到挑战和质疑时，他无法放弃这一点。

He subjected himself to the security hearing that was completely rigged. And he had no idea naively what he was walking into. He was a mysterious figure.

他将自己导向了完全被操纵的安全听证会。他天真地不知道他正在走进什么。他是一个神秘的人物。

Kai Bird与诺兰的合作，以及原著到电影的整个过程：

When the author signs a film option, you’re signing away your life. The typical contract is such that you have no control. You know, they give you a small amount of money to option it. Usually, it's for two years, with an option to renew for another year or two. During that time, the people who acquire the film option will attempt to get a script written and find actors, a director, and a studio to fund it all. But as the author, you have no real control. Hollywood considers the author to be someone who's probably going to get in the way.

当作者签署电影选择权时，你就等于签下了自己的生命。一般的合同是这样的：你没有控制权。你知道，他们会给你一笔小钱来选择权。通常，合同期为两年，可以续签一两年。在此期间，获得电影选择权的人会努力写好剧本，寻找演员、导演和制片厂，并为这一切提供资金。但作为作者，你并没有真正的控制权。好莱坞认为作者很可能会成为绊脚石。

So, indeed Marty and I were excited that we had a film option, but then nothing happened. The script was written in the first instance in the first four years, and it went nowhere. Another party came along and optioned it again for another four years, and they too failed. At one point, a script was written in 2015 or 2016, I think. We were shown it. They consulted us, but that was a courtesy. We looked at this script and we thought it was terrible. Marty and I sat down and wrote a long memo listing the 108 historical errors in the script. I think we got it killed. But you know, they could have gone on to do that film without our permission, and our only option would have been to take our names off the film.

所以，马蒂和我都很兴奋，因为我们有了电影的选择权，但后来什么也没发生。剧本是在最初的四年里写出来的，但毫无进展。另一方又来了，又是四年，他们也失败了。有一次，我想是在 2015 年或 2016 年写了一个剧本。我们看到了它。他们征求了我们的意见，但这只是礼节性的。我们看了剧本，觉得很糟糕。马蒂和我坐下来写了一份长长的备忘录，列出了剧本中108处历史错误。我想我们把它给杀了 但要知道，他们可以不经过我们的同意 就继续拍这部电影 而我们唯一的选择 就是把我们的名字从电影中删掉

So, the author has no control. By 2021, we'd given up. We thought these Hollywood people talk a good game. They're all very enthusiastic, but nothing ever happens. Marty and I had concluded that Oppenheimer was just too difficult a subject — a big, sort of iconic historical figure that made it impossible for anyone in Hollywood to tackle and put on film. Then we got this phone call, as I said, in September of '21, from Christopher Nolan saying that he had acquired the option and had actually spent the previous spring and summer writing a very long, three-hour screenplay.

所以，作者没有控制权。到了2021年，我们放弃了 我们认为这些好莱坞人说得很好。他们都很热情，但什么都没发生。马蒂和我的结论是，奥本海默这个题材太难了--他是一个标志性的历史人物，好莱坞的任何人都不可能把他拍成电影。然后我们接到了克里斯托弗-诺兰（Christopher Nolan）的电话，就像我说的那样，是在 21 年 9 月，他说他已经获得了《奥本海默》的拍摄权，并在之前的春天和夏天写了一个长达三小时的剧本。

We had a meeting in New York. Nolan was very charming and gracious, praising "American Prometheus" as a book. But he explained that he worked confidentially and he wasn't going to share the screenplay with us. We asked all sorts of questions about what was in the film, and what was not, and he answered those questions. It seemed like he was doing an intelligent treatment of the book. I went back and reported to Marty my impressions, and then Marty died two weeks later.

我们在纽约见了面。诺兰非常迷人和亲切，称赞《美国普罗米修斯》是一本好书。但他解释说，他的工作是保密的，他不会与我们分享剧本。我们提出了各种问题，关于电影里有什么，没有什么，他都一一作了回答。看起来他对这本书的处理很有智慧。我回去向马蒂汇报了我的印象，两周后马蒂去世了。

A few months later in February of 2022, Nolan called again and this time he shared the script with me. He gave me a confidential copy of it, sat me in a hotel room in New York, and waited downstairs while I spent almost four hours reading the script. He was about to start filming, so he wanted to know if I had found any historical inaccuracies. I was blown away by the script. I thought it was terrific. I found one small historical inaccuracy where Oppenheimer was asked at one point in the screenplay how many people died as a result of the two bombs dropped in Japan. His answer was 70,000. As I explained this to Nolan, he interrupted and said, yes, he knows that's a very low figure. Most historians use the figure of 140,000 instantly killed and many more over the coming months from radiation burn.

几个月后，2022 年 2 月，诺兰再次打来电话，这次他与我分享了剧本。他给了我一份保密拷贝，让我坐在纽约一家酒店的房间里，等在楼下，我花了近四个小时阅读剧本。他马上就要开拍了，所以他想知道我有没有发现任何与历史不符的地方。我被剧本深深震撼了。我觉得它非常棒。我发现了一个小的历史错误，奥本海默在剧本中被问到有多少人死于在日本投下的两颗原子弹。他的回答是 7 万人。当我向诺兰解释时，他打断我说，是的，他知道这个数字很低。大多数历史学家使用的数字是 14 万人当场死亡，未来几个月还有更多的人被辐射烧死。

Nolan said he was going to try to figure out how to fix that, but the answer had come actually from the transcript — that was Oppenheimer's answer at one point. So, he was being very attentive to historical accuracy. And of course, you ask what I think of the film — I think it's brilliant. Nolan has been able to achieve what no one else was able to with all these previous scripts. He captures the life of Oppenheimer, the high points, the keystones of his life.

诺兰说他会想办法解决这个问题，但这个答案实际上来自于记录本--那是奥本海默在某一时刻的回答。因此，他非常注重历史的准确性。当然，你问我对这部电影的看法--我认为它非常出色。诺兰实现了之前所有剧本都无法实现的目标。他捕捉到了奥本海默的一生，捕捉到了他人生的高潮和基石。

He doesn't deal with the childhood part, but he gives you a sense early on in the film with the so-called "Poison Apple" incident. He gives you a sense of Oppenheimer's vulnerability and insecurities as a young man in his twenties when he had a near nervous breakdown at the age of 22. He creates a story not only about the atomic bomb and the making of this gadget but of Oppenheimer’s doubts and moral hesitations about the whole project.

他没有涉及童年的部分，但在影片的早期，他通过所谓的 "毒苹果 "事件给了你一种感觉。他不仅讲述了原子弹和这一装置的制造过程，还讲述了奥本海默对整个项目的怀疑和道德犹豫。

Also, I was very delighted that he spent so much time on the trial and the McCarthy era, and the fact that Oppenheimer became the chief celebrity victim of the whole McCarthy era. That, to me and to Marty, was very important. You know, Marty at one point in the writing turned to me and said, you and I wouldn’t be spending all these years on this biography if it was just a story about the father of the atomic bomb and the building of this gadget.

此外，我很高兴他花了这么多时间讲述审判和麦卡锡时代，以及奥本海默成为整个麦卡锡时代的主要名人受害者这一事实。这对我和马蒂来说都非常重要。在写作过程中，马蒂曾对我说，如果只是讲述原子弹之父和这个小玩意儿的制造过程，你和我就不会花这么多年来写这本传记了。

What really gives the story an arc, a curiosity, a mystery, is the fact that he was the father of the atomic bomb and celebrated as America's most famous scientist in 1945, and then just nine years later he’s humiliated in this kangaroo court proceeding and becomes a victim of America. And that's a mystery that gives the story a compulsive thread.

他是原子弹之父，1945 年被誉为美国最著名的科学家，而仅仅 9 年之后，他就在这场袋鼠法庭诉讼中受到羞辱，成为美国的受害者。这个谜团让故事充满了吸引力。

So anyway, I think the film is terrific. My hope is that it will be around for a long time and will jump-start a national global conversation about the dangers of nuclear weapons, about McCarthyism, about the role of science in human society, and the role of scientists as experts, as public intellectuals.

总之，我认为这部电影非常棒。我希望这部影片能在很长一段时间内流传下去，并引发一场关于核武器危险、麦卡锡主义、科学在人类社会中的作用以及科学家作为专家和公共知识分子的作用的全国性全球对话。