The impact of movies in the public perception of nuclear power

The United-States, first country to harness nuclear power, through the atomic bomb in 1945 and then with the commissioning of the first nuclear reactor in 1951 (Breeder Reactor 1), were also the first to put the atom on the 'big screen' with the efficient help of the Hollywood movie industry. The nuclear topic has been successful and it can be involved in 3 types of screenplays: the monster movie (for instance Godzilla in 1954) in which radiation exposure creates monsters, the cold war apocalypse movie in which a nuclear bomb threatens to blow out or has already exploded (for instance Goldfinger in 1964), and the civil nuclear movie where a nuclear accident and its consequences are imagined (for instance The China Syndrome in 1979). These movies play all the more upon sensationalism and gloom as nuclear energy appears so powerful and so mysterious to the general public. In those movies imagination goes beyond reality and unfortunately tends to shape the public vision of nuclear energy by generating a feeling of vulnerability and an irrational fear. Besides movies, documentary films have been made on nuclear energy. A lot have been made to illustrate the stunning flourishing nature in the forbidden zone around Chernobyl. (A.C.)