The War Game
| The War Game | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Peter Watkins |
| Written by | Peter Watkins |
| Starring | Michael Aspel Peter Graham |
Release dates | November 1, 1965 |
Running time | 48 min |
| Language | English |
- For the Doctor Who serial, see The War Games.
The War Game is a 1965 television film on nuclear war. Written, directed, and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC's The Wednesday Play strand, its depiction of the impact of Soviet nuclear attack on Britain caused dismay within the BBC and in government. It was scheduled for transmission on August 6, 1966 (the anniversary of the Hiroshima attack) but was not transmitted until 1985, the corporation publicly stating that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting". It was widely viewed before its BBC debut on video and in art-house cinemas, often using prints provided by Watkins. The film won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 1966.
Summary
Shot in black and white and running for 50 minutes, The War Game uses the style of a contemporary news magazine programme, complete with a voice-over and interviews with "the man in the street". It covers a period of some four months from the days leading up to nuclear attack. The film's war is started following the Chinese invasion of South Vietnam; tensions escalate until NATO pre-emptively uses tactical nuclear weapons against Soviet forces invading West Germany. A limited nuclear war erupts and Britain is targeted.
The film has several strands which alternate throughout: a documentary-style chronology of the main events; brief contemporary interviews, asking passers-by about their knowledge of nuclear war issues; comically optimistic commentary from public figures; and fictional interviews with key figures as the war unfolds.
The action is concentrated on Rochester in Kent, though the attack is on RAF Manston and Maidstone barracks. The film depicts the chaos of the build-up to the attack when there is the enforced evacuation of the urban population, and then the immediate effects of the nuclear strike. The rest of the film documents the collapse of society and then civilization in the radiation-sick and psychologically damaged population of the aftermath. The narration occasionally breaks away from the fictional scenario to remind the audience that the civil defence policies of 1965 did not realistically prepare for such events, and that perhaps no adequate preparation is ever possible; it emphasizes that the government and the public have wrongly thought of nuclear war as a survivable ordeal like the Blitz, when it is more likely to resemble the devastating firebombing of British, German and Japanese cities in World War II, but on a much larger scale.
The film contains this quotation from the Stephen Vincent Benét poem "Song for Three Soldiers":
"Oh, where are you coming from, soldier, gaunt soldier,
With weapons beyond any reach of my mind,
With weapons so deadly the world must grow older
And die in its tracks, if it does not turn kind?"
History of the film
Peter Watkins had been recruited to the BBC in 1963 by the head of the documentary department, Huw Wheldon, who had been impressed by Watkins' early nonprofessional work—particularly his 1961 short film The Forgotten Faces, which established his technique of mixing drama and documentary. Offered his choice of projects, Watkins immediately proposed a film about the effects of nuclear war. Wheldon was reluctant, possibly because an earlier BBC project on nuclear weapons had been cancelled due to Winston Churchill's disapproval in 1954. Watkins instead proceeded with his second choice, which became Culloden. After the critical success of Culloden, Watkins threatened to resign if he could not direct his nuclear war film. Wheldon approved the project but, still cautious about the subject matter, asked for input from higher officials of the BBC, who in turn contacted the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence.
The finished film included some edits suggested by Wheldon, but still caused controversy within the BBC, especially for its depiction of the police shooting civilians (in one case, to control rioters; in another, to provide mercy to untreatable burn victims). Watkins insisted that these scenes were realistic and refused to cut them. When Wheldon's superiors decided to delay the broadcast in order to consult the government, holding a closed screening for Cabinet representatives, Watkins resigned. After undisclosed communications with the Home Office, the BBC announced in November 1965 that the film would not be shown. The BBC is officially free from government interference, and stated (as it still does) that the decision was an independent one.
Controversy over the unseen film continued to arise in the press, and in February 1966 the BBC arranged several small screenings for politicians and reporters, in an attempt to show why the film's content was too extreme for the public. Many of those invited to the screenings agreed with the BBC's decision and denounced the film in newspapers and in Parliament, but Watkins gained equally strong support from others, notably critic Kenneth Tynan, who said The War Game might be "the most important film ever made." It quickly became a cause célèbre for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). Watkins led a letter-writing campaign asking the BBC to allow a limited theatrical release, a compromise which was approved in March of 1966. The CND arranged many of the early screenings in the UK, and the film was widely seen on U.S. college campuses in 1966 and 1967. It also represented the UK in the 1966 Venice Film Festival, against the wishes of the government.[citation needed]
In the 1980s The War Game was followed by such similarly-themed films as The Day After (US TV film, 1983) and Threads (BBC, 1984), the latter of which particularly evoked Peter Watkins' style and delivery. The War Game itself finally saw television transmission in the United Kingdom on BBC2 on July 31 1985, as part of a special season of programming entitled After the Bomb (which was also Watkins's original working title for The War Game). After the Bomb commemorated the 40th anniversry of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.[1] The transmission was preceded by an introduction from British journalist Ludovic Kennedy [1].
The BBC had licensed the film to the British Film Institute for non-broadcast use, and for many years it was only available through the French distributor, Dorlane Films. The BFI released it on DVD in the UK in 2003, and it was also later released in the United States on July 25, 2006. As the BBC retains all rights, Watkins has never received any income from theatrical or video releases of The War Game.
In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, The War Game was placed 27th. The War Game was also voted 74th in Channel Four's 100 Greatest Scary Moments [2]
See also
- List of nuclear holocaust fiction
- Nuclear weapons and the United Kingdom
- Nuclear weapons in popular culture
- Threads, a 1984 British docudrama about nuclear war
References
- Murphy, Patrick. "The War Game—The Controversy". Film International, May 2003. [2]