Movies - The War Game

Home > Listing Index > Movies > The War Game

	Movies - The War Game

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 passersby 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. 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 defense 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 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, Hugh 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. 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 U.K., and the film was widely seen on U.S. college campuses in 1966 and 1967. It also represented the U.K. in the 1966 Venice Film Festival, against the wishes of the government.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The War Game ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article The War Game; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay