THE WAR GAME
UK, 1965, 48 minutes, Black and white.
Directed by Peter Watkins
The War Game was the second documentary made by writer-director Peter Watkins. For more than two decades Watkins has been concerned with war issues and has dramatised them in documentaries and docu-dramas: Culloden, Privilege, The Peace Game, Punishment Park, Evening Land. He also directed a long biographical study of Swedish artist Eduard Munch.
The War Game was commissioned by the B.B.C. for television screening but when executives saw the finished film they banned it. It became a cause celebre in Britain in 1966-67. Subsequently it was shown in cinemas in England and around the world.
It was striking at the time - especially in the context of nuclear crises of the '60s as well as memories of World War II. Watkins is particularly didactic in his approach. He constructs a situation of nuclear war in the '60s (America, the Soviet Union, Vietnam) and the repercussions on England. He dramatises the dropping of bombs in Kent and the reaction of the populace. He intersperses the drama with simulated interviews with comment on behaviour.
Also inserted are commentaries from public figures - there is a sardonic, even cynical, touch about the quotations from Herman Kahn, the American theoretician of nuclear strategy, from official Civil Defence pamphlets and from Anglican and Catholic bishops, especially of the recent Second Vatican Council. Watkins had used this method for reconstructing the disaster of the Battle of Culloden in the 18th. century. He was to do it with his criticisms of war games and totalitarian punishment in The Peace Game and Punishment Park. The relevance of The War Game has remained constant - or perhaps is even stronger in later decades.
1. A film of the 60s? For the period? Later? A comparison with the '60s for anti-nuclear protest? For nuclear urgency? The effect of the didactic tone of the film?
2. The title and its irony? The film itself as an illustrated war game? War games for study, for assessing the impact of war, for strategies? The film as a dramatised war game for banning nuclear weapons, for promoting peace?
3. The B.B.C. commissioning the film, banning it from screening? The comment on censorship? The film's subsequent cinema release -over decades?
4. The effectiveness of the TV style, the impact for a television audience? The English audience, the world-wide audience - and universal message? Black and white photography, stark atmosphere, realism - the effect of the simulated disaster and coping, interviews? The urgency of the themes? English locations and the effect of re-creating a nuclear disaster? Amateur cast? The qualities. of docu-drama and message?
5. Peter Watkins' point of view, involvement - the tones of the narrative, of the statistics and quotations?
6. The effectiveness of the insertion of information, statistics, history, records of World War II destruction, quotations - Civil Defence pamphlets, British authorities, American theoreticians, government authorities, civic leaders, church leaders? Theory of the just war and its relevance to the '60s and later? The Second Vatican Council? The interrelationship of theory and fact? Arguments from deterrents? The visualising of the statistics? The contrast with the theory? The final message and the validity of the predictions?
7. Structure of the film: the build-up to the attack, the emphasis on dates, times, places, distances? Progressive destruction? Coping and inability to cope, suffering and death, the helping services, law and order and the looting, executions, lowering of morale?
8. The effect of the simulated interviews? The cross-section of people interviewed, questioned? An atmosphere of realism? Audience empathising with the way the people responded, were trying to cope?
9. The background of Vietnam in the '60s, the United States, the Soviet Union?
10. England, allied with United States? European tension? The dropping of the bombs on England? On Kent - the preparation with ordinariness of life, detail? The credibility of this nuclear disaster?
11. The visual impact of the explosions: the situation, the fire
storm, explosions, light, fire, wind, buildings collapsing, burning?
12. The detailing of physical injury - close-up, physical and emotional destruction, the burning of corpses, the needs of the helpers, people being drained? Rations and supplies? The contamination of material, food? The effects of radiation over a longer period?
13. Law and order, the police, their fatigue, the, mental strain? The execution - and the chaplain with the Lord's Prayer?
14. Themes of evacuations, poverty, racism, religion?
15. The visuals documented by explosions and bombings in World War II: Japan and Germany?
16. This might happen - this will happen? The validity of this argument? The irony of the information given by Civil Defence pamphlets? Public opinion and information about nuclear issues, deterrents, how to cope?
