User:Aitantv/The War Game, Peter Watkins

The War Game (1966) dir. Watkins, P. Single channel film, stereo sound, 00:44:00 duration. BBC and British Film Institute, London.

synopsis

• The War Game is a 1966 British pseudo-documentary film that depicts a nuclear war and its aftermath. Written, directed and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC, it caused dismay within the BBC and also within government, and was subsequently withdrawn before the provisional screening date of 6 October 1965. The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting. It will, however, be shown to invited audiences..." (wikipedia url)

style

• sensational use of cinemtorgaphy - party shot by Peter Suschitzsky (DOP for Cronenberg) - shot in black and white. movement of camera responds to on-screen action - a very early precursor to war films like 'Saving Private Ryan' or '1918' etc. Told in the style of a news magazine programme
• dramaturgy is as factual as possible - using non-actors throughout lending the film a strange sensation of pseudo reality
• characters and interlocutors briefly glimpse at the camera. the camera operator even steps in and questions the inhabitants of houses about to be devastated by a thermo-nuclear attack.
• the casting seems to be swayed towards the everyman - or the middle class who might be the most ignorant in terms of their perceived threat of nuclear attack in the cold war
• The combination of elements also qualifies it as a mondo film. It features several different strands that alternate throughout, including a documentary-style chronology of the main events,[8] featuring reportage-like images of the war, the nuclear strikes, and their effects on civilians; brief contemporary interviews, in which passers-by are interviewed about what turns out to be their general lack of knowledge of nuclear war issues; optimistic commentary from public figures that clashes with the other images in the film; and fictional interviews with key figures as the war unfolds.

director statement,from Peter Watkins

• "... Interwoven among scenes of "reality" were stylized interviews with a series of "establishment figures" – an Anglican Bishop, a nuclear strategist, etc. The outrageous statements by some of these people (including the Bishop) – in favour of nuclear weapons, even nuclear war – were actually based on genuine quotations. Other interviews with a doctor, a psychiatrist, etc. were more sober, and gave details of the effects of nuclear weapons on the human body and mind. In this film I was interested in breaking the illusion of media-produced "reality". My question was – "Where is 'reality'? ... in the madness of statements by these artificially-lit establishment figures quoting the official doctrine of the day, or in the madness of the staged and fictional scenes from the rest of my film, which presented the consequences of their utterances?" ( "The War Game". Peter Watkins. 24 September 1965)

film criticism

• "Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect score, calling it "[o]ne of the most skillful documentary films ever made." He praised the "remarkable authenticity" of the firestorm sequence and describes its portrayal of bombing's aftermath as "certainly the most horrifying ever put on film (although, to be sure, greater suffering has taken place in real life, and is taking place today).""