The War Game
BBC 1965
Stephanie Potter and
Andrew Wood
Background
• Watkins a controversial
filmmaker using innovative
techniques
• Based on events at Hiroshima,
Nagasaki, Hamburg, Dresden,
and, Darmstadt
• Watkins based initial feelings on
photographs
Background (Cont.)
• Prepared through interviews
(scientists, civil service, etc.)
and scientific fact
• Combined fact and fiction
• British government refused to
provide help, only help was
through Kent fire services for
firestorm scenes
Background (Cont.)
• Completed in 1965
• Meant to be aired on television during
anniversary week of Hiroshima bombings
• Banned from British television—
contradicted official British position on
nuclear survivability
• Aired on TV for first time in 1985
• Shown in cinemas from 1966 onward
through ban loophole
• Awarded “Best Documentary Feature” at 1967
Academy Awards
Watkins’ Goals
• Expose inadequacy of Civil Defense
program
• Lack of education for general British
population (Effects of bomb; handing out
safety pamphlets at the last minute)
• Portrayal of effects of nuclear attack
• Evoke pathos and sentiment against
nuclear weapons
• Set in an idyllic part of Britain
Purported Attack
Chronology
• Less than three minutes warning
time
• Problems with evacuation to countryside
• Inability of population to afford and
adequately build bomb shelters
• Immediate intense heat (“melt the
upturned eyeball”)
• Firestorms
• Mass chaos
Effects
• Massive casualties
• Destroyed economy
• Simple threat: Four years to fully
recover
• Actual attack: All of attack
area/20% of “safe” areas rendered
uninhabitable
Social Effects
• General apathy toward life
• Disregard for law
• Hunger riots
• Killing of security forces
• Anarchy
• Euthanasia
• So traumatic no amount of therapy would help
• Health effects
• Radiation poisoning
• Leukemia
• Scurvy from lack of nutrition
• Children
• Extreme apathy
End
• Discusses problems of using
nuclear weapons
• Threat of growing stockpiles
and proliferation
Questions
• Which parts do you think were real statistics and
accurate interpretation vs. exaggeration meant to
evoke strong emotions?
• If an attack did occur, there would be a strong
public outcry for retaliation: how would the
government respond? Would they be locked into a
series of mutual retaliations?
• Watkins used both statistics, civilian interviews
and potentially “real life” footage to make his
points. Which depictions were the most effective
and why?
Sources
• The War Game
• “The War Game Revisited”
http://picpal.com/peterwatkins.html
• IMDB Information on The War
Game—
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059894/
• Others