‘A Compassionate Spy’ Director on Making Nuclear War Film Before ‘Oppenheimer’

Nuclear war is definitely front of mind in the public conscience nowadays. Between Vladimir Putin‘s invasion of Ukraine, tensions between the U.S. and China over Taiwan, and the film event that is Christopher Nolan‘s Oppenheimer, it’s hard not to be constantly confronted with the frightening concept of atomic warfare. Hoop Dreams director Steve James‘s documentary A Compassionate Spy compounds on that with the story of Theodore Hall, a 19-year-old undergrad working on the Manhattan Project who shared nuclear secrets with the Soviet Union in an attempt to prevent the U.S. from holding a nuclear monopoly. James isn’t simply following a trend or trying to capitalize on all the nuclear buzz, however.

Speaking to Collider’s Chase Hutchinson, he dove into his thought process behind creating a character-driven documentary before any of the aforementioned events were brought to his attention. Although it turned out his documentary would release at the absolute perfect time and, in his eyes, play a perfect companion piece to Nolan’s Oppenheimer, James wasn’t particularly interested in the nuclear war angle at all. Like his previous documentary Life Itself, which explores who famed film critic Roger Ebert was behind his reviews, he was far more interested in Hall the person, the enduring love he had for his wife, and what makes a person betray his country out of compassion. When the comparison between A Compassionate Spy and Life Itself was brought up, he agreed that they both had a similar focus on their subjects:

“Yes, I think that’s true. I’m driven by character in virtually every film I’ve made. I’m not driven by issues. It’s not like I heard about Ted Hall, and I said, ‘Oh, I think it’s time to do a film about the dangers of nuclear warfare.’ I mean, frankly, Putin hadn’t invaded Ukraine, Christopher Nolan hadn’t decided to make Oppenheimer; it was sort of like no one was talking about nuclear weapons. We were all worried that climate change was going to kill us, not nuclear weapons. And so, what really drew me to it was the stories of people, and that’s always been a guiding principle for me as a filmmaker. So like with Roger, yes, I admired Roger as a critic, but I needed to read his memoir because I was interested in, ‘Well, what kind of person was he, and what was his life like?’ Because I wouldn’t just make a film about a great film critic. I’m not that interested in that. [Laughs]”

A Compassionate Spy and Oppenheimer Fit Well as Character-Focused Pieces

The character-focused nature of A Compassionate Spy makes it an even more fitting pair with Oppenheimer. Nolan’s film is less about the bomb and more about the physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer who changed the world and was forever haunted by the devastation left behind by his creation. Developing the bomb is a major part of the film, but it also follows him in his early days as a young physicist and later into the emotional and controversial hearing over his ties to Communism and loyalty to the country which effectively destroyed his career.

In addition to writing and directing, James produced A Compassionate Spy with Mark Mitten and Dave Lindorff. The documentary is based on a lengthy interview with Hall before his death and his wife Joan Hall with a mix of other archival footage and live-action reenactments. James took the film to last year’s Venice International Film Festival where it earned solid reviews from critics, landing it at an 84% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes.

A Compassionate Spy is currently in theaters. Check out the trailer below.