THE PEACE GAME (GLADIATORENA)
Sweden, 1969, colour.
Directed by Peter Watkins.
The Peace Game was another attempt by documentarist Peter Watkins to alert cinema audiences to the realities of war and nuclear war in the '60s. He had dramatised the Battle of Culloden with the media reporting techniques of the '60s and made vivid comment on the futility of war. His documentary for the B.B.C., The War Game, was banned from television screening but achieved fame in cinemas. He made a feature film with Paul Jones and Jean Shrimpton about mass manipulation and ideologies, Privilege. After The Peace Game he looked at totalitarianism in the United States in Punishment Park and made a film about Swedish artist Eduard Munch. In the 1980s he was involved in making an international feature, The Nuclear Film.
This film has an ironic title - while referring to the gladiators fighting to the death in Rome, he likens the peace games he portrays (actually deadly war games to the death) to gladiator events of the past. Real soldiers are involved in computer-controlled battles and missions. They are watched by officials from the various nuclear powers throughout the world. The whole thing is televised -even with sponsors ringing in to ask for better slots for their commercials. While the games are not easy to follow, the ironic comment about war, the channelling of aggressive instincts into such peace games is quite evident. Watkins has been a consistent critic of war in films over two decades.
1. The work of Peter Watkins, his attitude towards war, peace causes? The world situation of the late '60s? Detente, nuclear strategies? The film as didactic, as a warning?
2. The irony of the peace game title? Deadly war games? The focus on the symbolism of gladiatorial combat, to the death? A sign of decadence in the Roman Empire?
3. Watkins working in Sweden? Swedish production? Impact for European audiences? World-wide audiences? The focus on both East and West?
4. The impact of the film as a docu-drama? The technique of focusing on places, times, detail? A sense of actuality? Professional and amateur cast? Quality of the acting? The simulation of war situations, battles, interviews? The range of interviews and their touch of authenticity - the feelings of the soldiers involved, their motives for joining in, their hopes? The importance of the television influence? Television technique? The irony of the peace game being sponsored - and sponsors ringing in about their commercials?
5. The film in colour rather than black and white? Swedish locations. Scandinavian atmosphere? The set, the echoes of war films? Musical score?
6. The titles and the reference to war games? The introductory information about the status of the peace games? The cast involved and their background, nationalities? The players: the Generals with their theory and their strategy? Serious war games? The film's comment on the players, playing the game, gamesmanship, gladiatorial games, the power of life and death? Where did the audience stand - with the actors, with the game-players?
7. The sense of urgency, growing horror? Involvement in the peace games and reasons given? The choices for strategies and behaviour - human or not? The hawkish attitudes of the players? The role of the computer? The process of the game? The role of the protester? Who was using whom? Who was the exploiter, the exploited?
8. Human instinct for war and destruction - siphoned off by the players and actors in peace games? For television audience as spectators? For the sponsors? The irony of the use of television? The audience of the '60s watching the Vietnam war - an audience geared for watching wars on television?
9. The players: their solemnity, going to the castle, the nations represented with the various characteristics (even stereotypes): British, U.S., U.S.S.R., China, Italy, Sweden, East Germany, West Germany, India? Traditional hostilities, East and West, rivalries? A mission to be accomplished, a war to be won? The attack on the Chinese?
10. The players/actors: reasons for participating, aggressive instincts, money, family, belief in national pride? The two rebels - the Chinese, the British? The experience of war and its danger evoking human concern, tenderness, compassion? Their being considered as not playing the game?
11. The role of the computer, the controllers, orders, strategies? The detached observation and comments by the engineers? The protester and his reaching the computer - seeming to win, setting the game in motion again, really being exploited?
12. The progress and process of the game: the sets, the goals, the parallel with war film sequences, injury, brutality, loyalty, group psychology, code numbers and names? Points and scoring? The tying of the game - the loss of points for humanity?
13. The Chinese prisoner, the soldier and his compassion, the two disrupting the game - humanity as the only way of halting the processes? The players eliminating these actors?
14. The French student as protester, the computer control, his decision, his being used - the aggressive protester keeping the war going?
15. Themes of war? Futility? National pride? The film as a means of raising consciousness about war issues? Was it a diagnosis or a prognosis?
