Thread by @maassp

I wrote about HBO's magnificent "Chernobyl" miniseries, which is history turned to prophecy. I studied in the Soviet Union in 1980 and lived in Europe when the nuclear explosion happened in 1986, so its realism hit me in the gut. But so did a lot else. theintercept.com/2019/06/05/wha…

The theme of lies — the destruction of truth by a regime devoted to self-preservation — pervades “Chernobyl” in a way that's wildly relevant to America in the age of birtherism, Sarah Sanders, and “very fine people” who are neo-Nazis. The show opens with a scientist's confession:

"What is the cost of lies?" says Jared Harris, in the role of Valery Legasov. "It’s not that we’ll mistake them for the truth. The real danger is that if we hear enough lies, then we no longer recognize the truth at all. What can we do then?"

Later, an engineer who's partly responsible for the disaster tells an investigator that her search for honesty is futile. “You think the right question will get you the truth? There is no truth. Ask the bosses whatever you want. You will get the lie, and I will get the bullet.”

I think "Chernobyl" is the best film of the Trump era because it illuminates a core problem of our times: the jackhammer of falsehoods drowning out what’s true.The show’s political message is like a dagger you don’t sense until it pierces your heart and you gasp.

The creator and writer of "Chernobyl" is @clmazin, for whom an inevitable shower of Emmy Awards will not adequately reflect his jaw-dropping achievement. Here's what he told the L.A. Times about the meaning of "Chernobyl" --

Mazin and the series director, Johan Renck, have done an impeccable job recreating the look and feel of the Soviet Union, as well the details of what happened during the disaster. They used, for instance, some of the dialogue from Svetlana Alexievich's "Voices from Chernobyl."

And Mazin has made crystal clear what really happened and what he invented for storytelling purposes. Most filmmakers obscure the line between truth and imagination. Mazin's podcast on the series goes into detail about recreated scenes and invented ones. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

This kind of honesty is necessary and unfortunately rare. Films about real events often sell themselves as true but distort history. An example is "Zero Dark Thirty," which purported to be about the hunt for Osama bin Laden and spun a terrible lie about CIA torture working.

If you make a movie about a historical event you will need to make up some things. But you have to be honest. I wrote about "Zero Dark Thirty" and tried to get its writer, Mark Boal, to explain whether its controversial parts were true. It didn't go well.

What's particularly powerful about "Chernobyl" is that the story it tells is true even though some of its particulars (character, dialogue, scene) are invented. Nuclear experts, people who lived in the Soviet Union and worked in Chernobyl -- they have lined up to praise it.

I could go on forever because I've never seen anything like "Chernobyl" (closest thing is "Bloody Sunday," the Paul Greengrass movie on the British Army killing civilians in Northern Ireland). I'll try to finish by returning to "Chernobyl" being prophecy.

“Chernobyl” is also about the fact we cannot deceive our way out of the laws of science. A design flaw in the reactor at Chernobyl had been identified by some experts but their findings were treated as a secret that could not be shared with the people who operated the plant.

Scientists have proved that our planet is heating up and that a catastrophe lies ahead if we don’t reduce emissions. This is the Chernobyl warning. But most of the people in charge of operating the planet — political leaders — are ignoring the warnings, particularly in America.

Here's what @clmazin, the writer of "Chernobyl," told Entertainment Weekly a few days ago: "The planet is heating, the climate is changing. We know this. We have not just one scientist or two, but thousands screaming this at us at the top of their lungs."

"And we have a government full of disinterested, stubborn people who are going to cling to their denial and their nonsense. And that’s where we are. Like I said, we are in the control room right now, and there is time, but it’s running out. " ew.com/tv/2019/06/03/…

Let's remember this warning from the creator and writer of "Chernobyl" -- we are in the control room right now. Whether a Chernobyl far worse than the original one occurs is up to us. Let us not be doomed by another denial of truth and science.