There are moments in history capable of changing the world forever. It happened with the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 and before that with the Manhattan Project, so topical due to the success in cinemas of the Oscar-winning Oppenheimer… and because of the current headlines in the press. The Netflix documentary series Decisive Moments began by analyzing 9/11 and is now becoming an anthology with a second season focused on the atomic bomb, the Cold War, and its countless connections to the present.
Beginning with the proliferation of nuclear weapons, this non-fiction covers the conflict between the Eastern and Western blocs in nine episodes, passing through the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rise of Vladimir Putin, and his 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
If the first victim of a war is the truth, what happens in times of deepfake videos and fake news? “The world we live in means that wars are also fought in the virtual world, on the Internet and social networks,” comments the director of the series, Brian Knappenberger (Pennsylvania, United States, 53 years old). “It is alarming to see how history [el retorcerla y tergiversarla] It has become a weapon of war. Objectively analyzing the past can give us clues regarding the real intentions of today’s Russia, in contrast to what is its official discourse,” he defends in a telematic conversation in mid-March from New York, days before the attack on the concert hall. Crocus in Moscow.
For the American, narrative was important in World War I, it was even more so in World War II, and it became one of the key elements in the Cold War. “Propaganda has always been a powerful weapon in wars, but in the 21st century, it is even more so,” he continues.
In this second batch of Decisive Moments, it presents over 10 hours the results of more than 100 interviews carried out in seven countries around the world. With them, he attempts to reveal deeply personal stories that show the current impact of the Cold War. They speak from some of the survivors of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima to world leaders of today and yesterday, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as well as prominent political figures such as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, the former director of the CIA Robert Gates and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Historical mirage
George Bush, the president of the United States when the Berlin Wall fell, said at that moment: “The Cold War is over and we have won it.” “The Cold War never ended; “maybe it’s just beginning,” the director reacts to the quote that he himself has remembered. This series asks the audience to consider whether this unifying milestone between East and West Germany ended the conflict between the two large political blocs or if, on the contrary, it was just a historical mirage.
Knappenberger insists that the Cold War was a confrontation between narratives: “The United States sold the idea of individual freedom and democracy. And for the Soviets it was regarding the risk of capitalism, which fuels various types of inequalities that only communism might solve,” he explains. “Putin is the son of that confrontation, as a KGB agent that he was at that time,” says the director, and continues: “His way of narrating the Second World War and the Cold War is not accurate from a historical point of view, but “It is based on foundations of truth that it clings to to justify its actions in Ukraine.”
A change of structure
The idea with which they conceived this second season of Decisive Moments was to create a more or less chronological story with the focus on nuclear weapons. Just two months into production on this season, Russia invaded Ukraine. Putin defined the breakup of the Soviet Union as one of the greatest geopolitical tragedies in history. “We realized that it was no longer a historical documentary, but rather a reflection on a very present issue. The Cold War was definitely starting to heat up. At this time, knowing what happened then is crucial to understanding the world today,” concludes Knappenberger.
The structure of the episodes changed from that moment on: those responsible for the series decided to begin each of them with a current fragment, followed by the credits and later the chronological story that they had planned to tell from the beginning.
“The world order, democracy and security in Europe have found themselves in a limbo over the last two years and we are still wondering how it will end,” warns the director. “Right now, there are websites which simulate the effects of using nuclear weapons in Europe and show how they might completely destroy London. The level to which we have come to normalize this issue is completely new, so it is worth remembering the dialogue that was established around it during the Cold War,” defends Knappenberger.
Admirer of the successful and award-winning film dedicated to J. Robert Oppenheimer, his non-fiction series seeks to resume the conversation based on what Christopher Nolan’s story tells. “The beginning of the creation of the bomb, that enormous scientific effort that was necessary to create it, is just the beginning. Now we had to analyze how the human race is going to react following reaching a place from which there is no turning back: create a weapon with which it can completely self-destruct.”
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