Editing The Atomic Cafe (section)

===Critical response===
When ''The Atomic Cafe'' was released, film critic [[Roger Ebert]] discussed the style and methods the filmmakers used, writing, "The makers of ''The Atomic Cafe'' sifted through thousands of feet of Army films, newsreels, government propaganda films and old television broadcasts to come up with the material in their film, which is presented without any narration, as a record of some of the ways in which the bomb entered American folklore. There are songs, speeches by politicians, and frightening documentary footage of guinea-pig American troops shielding themselves from an atomic blast and then exposing themselves to radiation neither they nor their officers understood."<ref name="Ebert">{{cite web |date=January 1, 1982 |last=Ebert |first=Roger |author-link=Roger Ebert |title=The Atomic Cafe movie review & film summary (1982) |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-atomic-cafe-1982 |website=[[Chicago Sun-Times]] }}</ref> He also reviewed it with [[Gene Siskel]] who saw it more as a piece of [[Americana (culture)|Americana]] and a curiosity.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://siskelebert.org/?p=7281|title=The Thing, The Atomic Café, The Weavers: Wasn't That a Time!, Megaforce, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, 1982 – Siskel and Ebert Movie Reviews|website=Siskelebert.org|access-date=24 February 2023}}</ref>

Critic [[Vincent Canby]] of the ''New York Times'' praised the film, calling the film "a devastating collage-film that examines official and unofficial United States attitudes toward the atomic age" and a film that "deserves national attention."<ref name="Canby"/>  Canby was so taken by ''The Atomic Cafe'' that he mentioned it in a subsequent article – comparing it, favorably, to the 1981 blockbuster ''[[Porky's]]''.<ref>{{Cite news|title = FILM VIEW; PONDERING REAL CONCERNS OF THE 1950S|url = https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/25/movies/film-view-pondering-real-concerns-of-the-1950-s.html|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 1982-04-25|access-date = 2015-11-23|issn = 0362-4331|first = Vincent|last = Canby}}</ref>

Critic [[Glenn Erickson]] discussed the editorial message of the film's producers: <blockquote>The makers of ''The Atomic Cafe'' clearly have a message to get across, and to achieve that goal they use the inherent absurdity of their source material in creative ways. But they're careful to make sure they leave them essentially untransformed. When we see [[Richard M. Nixon|Nixon]] and [[J. Edgar Hoover]] posing with a strip of microfilm, we know we're watching a newsreel. The content isn't cheated. Except in wrapup montages, narration from one source isn't used over another. When raw footage is available, candid moments are seen of speechmakers (including [[Harry S Truman|President Truman]]) when they don't know the cameras are rolling. Caught laughing incongruously before a solemn report on an atom threat, Truman comes off as callously flip ...<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s442cafe.html|title=DVD Savant Review: The Atomic Cafe, 20th Anniversary Edition|website=Dvdtalk.com|access-date=24 February 2023}}</ref></blockquote>

On [[Rotten Tomatoes]] the film has an approval rating of 93% based on reviews from 29 critics.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Atomic Cafe (1982) |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/atomic_cafe |website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |access-date=2020-11-01 }}</ref>

Deirdre Boyle, an Associate Professor and Academic Coordinator of the Graduate Certificate in Documentary Media Studies at [[The New School]] and an author of ''Subject to Change: Guerrilla Television Revisited'', claimed that "By compiling propaganda or fictions denying 'nuclear-truth', ''The'' ''Atomic Cafe'' reveals the American public's lack of resistance to the fear generated by the government propaganda films and the misinformation they generated. Whether Americans of the time lacked the ability to resist or reject this misinformation about the atomic bomb is a debatable truth."<ref name="Boyle">Boyle, Deirdre, "The Atomic Cafe", Cineaste 12.2, 1982, p. 39.</ref>

The ''Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction'' said it was, in quotes, a "mockumentary" from its editing and called it, "The most powerful satire of the official treatments of the atomic age".<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NI4dBAAAQBAJ&q=%22atomic+cafe%22+mockumentary&pg=PA342|title=The Oxford Handbook of Science Fiction|last=Latham|first=Rob|date=2014-09-01|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780199838851 }}</ref>