THREADS

UK, 1984, 113 minutes, Colour.
Narrator: Paul Vaughan. Karen Meagher, Reece Dinsdale.
Directed by Mick Jackson.

Threads is a British telemovie, reminiscent of Peter Watkins’ The War Game in its dramatisation of nuclear holocaust and its effect on a British city. It also uses the ploy of voice-over with information and data. The War Game was banned by the BBC in the mid-1960s. Threads was screened by them. It received television screening in Australia on the Nine Network, introduced by Michael Willesee and without commercials. Its impact was very strong.

The film is a British equivalent of The Day After and highlights the differing sensibilities of Americans and British. While the American film was broad, used soap opera style to inform and have an effect on its audience, the British style is much more matter-of-fact, focuses on a small group and works by understatement along with dramatising the enormity of the situation. Threads is particularly well-made. However, like the consequences of a nuclear holocaust, the screenplay seems to lose a direct and logical force as the film goes on - it mirrors the drift and uncertainty of the survival after the dropping of the bombs.

Dramatic impact, important information - a significant film.

1. The importance of this kind of telemovie? In the tradition of films about nuclear issues? Its impact on its audience?

2. BBC production values? Audience intended? British, worldwide? British style and quality?

3. A warning to the audience via story and identification with characters: ordinary lifestyles in Sheffield, ordinary experiences and situations, characters? The reality of the crisis? The impact of the suffering? Backed by information, forecasts?

4. The tradition of nuclear films - warnings? The 80s and the fact of the dropping of the bomb? The highlighting of the consequences and having to cope?

5. The title and the theme of webs and threads, strands strong and vulnerable? Interweaving? The interweaving life of individuals, communities, cities, countries, the world? The threads of politics, power and the military? The human threads for people who have to cope?

6. The structure of the.film: the focus on days and dates, weeks, months, years? Pace and the screenplay giving various strands and threads? The focus on Ruth and Jimmy and their family? The Sheffield committee? The ordinariness compared with the political background, international information, crises? The aftermath and the threads torn apart, gradually pulling together? New beginnings - possible or not?

7. The portrait of Sheffield: the typical British city, the information given throughout: population, industries, military targets?

8. British readiness for nuclear crises? The commentator and the information given? The book of plans?
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9. Sheffield and ordinary.people? Their sayings - 'Over my dead body', 'You don't want the whole street going up in flames'? The landscapes of the city, the city lights, the cliff overlooking the city, people's homes, the pubs, workplaces? The focus on the young, falling in love, sexuality, pregnancy, marriage, tensions, plans, a home? Ruth and Jimmy as the typical couple? The talk on the cliff, the visits to the in-laws, the aviary, the pub and the girls? The families and their talk about the marriage, abortion? The neighbours? The girl studying? The paper-boy and the video magazine? Churchgoing?

10. The international background: given in the background by papers, radio, television? The consciousness-raising -and people ignoring it? America, the USSR, the situation in Iran: the visuals, the experience of the '70s and '80s and the plausibility? The reporters and the commentators?

11. British awareness: the committee, the books, food and fuel, the school and the delivery of the blankets, the hospitals, the roads? The British support for the United States? The crowds, the protests, the moving of the art from the gallery, the opening up of the office? The campaign for nuclear disarmament and the hecklers, the communist accusations? The Salvation Army band? People praying the Our Father?

12. The question of who will win a nuclear war? The ultimatums, the exchanges of bombs, the facts, the distance? The actual dropping of the bomb? The two-hour period? The visuals highlighting the reality?

13. The facts of the bomb-drop: the explosions, fireball, mushroom, wind and debris, collapsing buildings, the dust, the fallout, the effects of radiation, clouds and darkness, the nuclear winter? The explanations of these? Injuries, burns, symptoms of fear and radiation, exhaustion? Calculations about the injured and the dead and how to cope? Food and distribution? Rationing? Looting and shooting?

14. The committee and the personnel, setting up their officom, coping, the dropping of the bomb, tensions, arguments, management, the doctor, their being buried - and found dead?

15. Jimmy and his wandering, the old people? Ruth and her pregnancy, the search, the rats, moving to the country, the wheat crop and grinding it with a stone, the sheep and eating the raw meat, boarding in Brixton and being thrown out? The birth of her child in the stable, the caption with the 25th. of December and the tableau of the crib (irony)? Ruth and her wandering, surviving, moving into a new Dark Age like the mediaeval period, her daughter, the anguish of her death? Her pregnant daughter and the death of the child?

16. The information given about days after the drop, weeks, months? The escalation of problems of food and sanitation, sores, psychological listlessness, the need for law enforcement, fuel being used up, the poor crops, the darkness and hunger? The irony of the video game and its working? The use of collages and photos to highlight this?

17. Government, police , planes and instruction, people moving to neighbouring towns, billeting and the resentment of the owners of the houses?

18. The possibility of redevelopment - slow, the crops, the ozone and the ultra-violet rays, cancer and leukemia, crop diseases? The three to eight year period and the population of Britain going to four to eleven million?

19. The new Dark Ages, the visuals of the mediaeval period? Deaths? The surviving children and their learning by videos? The memories of the past? The rascals and their slang? The hospital dormitory?

20. The final impact of the blood and the dead child? What was the audience left with?