The War Game

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directed and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC, it caused dismay within the BBC and within government, and was withdrawn before the provisional screening date of 6 October 1965.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..."

The film premiered at the National Film Theatre in London, on 13 April 1966, where it ran until 3 May. It was then shown abroad at several film festivals, including Venice where it won the Special Prize. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1967.

The film was eventually televised in Great Britain on 31 July 1985, during the week before the fortieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the day before a repeat screening of Threads.

Synopsis
In an opening text scroll, it is stated that Britain's nuclear deterrent policy threatens a would-be aggressor with devastation from Victor and Vulcan Mk II nuclear bombers of the Royal Air Force. Due to the number of bases for these "V bombers" (particularly in a crisis situation that, the text scroll claims, would see the bombers dispersed throughout Britain), as well as major civilian targets in cities, a narrator claims that the United Kingdom has more potential nuclear weapon targets than any other country in the world.

On Friday, 16 September the UK declares a state of emergency. The Chinese have invaded South Vietnam, and the United States has authorised tactical nuclear warfare there. The Soviets and East Germans threaten to invade West Berlin if the US does not change course.

In Kent, southeast England, homeowners must billet and feed evacuees. Ration cards are issued and the emergency siren system is tested, which it is estimated would provide some 2$1/2$–3 minutes warning until impact, or under thirty seconds in the case of a submarine attack. A run on construction supplies, and price gouging, puts them out of the reach of many citizens.

Conventional warfare breaks out on the inner German border. Two NATO armoured divisions are overwhelmed by Soviet and East German forces, and U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorises tactical nuclear weapon use. Honest John missiles are fired. The narrator remarks that many Soviet IRBMs are believed to be stored above ground, making them vulnerable, and the Soviet Union would be obliged to fire all of them at a very early stage to avoid their destruction.

On 18 September at 9:13am, a doctor visits a family in Canterbury. As he is leaving, the air-raid sirens wails, followed by a klaxon from a police car. The doctor rushes back in with two civil defence workers and brings tables together to create a makeshift shelter.

Three minutes later a one-megaton warhead airbursts six miles away. A defence worker and a boy in the yard are struck by the heat wave causing third-degree burns and melting of the eyeballs. Inside, furniture ignites before the shock front hits the house. Rochester is struck by a warhead. The air in the firestorm is replaced by methane, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide, and the temperature rises to 500 degrees. By 10:47 am, British V bombers reach the Soviet Union to inflict the same devastation on that country's cities.

Two bishops state that the faithful must "learn to live with, though need not love, the nuclear bomb".

In the aftermath, each surviving doctor is faced with at least 300 casualties. The worst affected are left to die alone or are shot by armed police, who also shoot looters in hunger riots. There are far too many dead to bury; the bodies are burned. Wedding rings are collected for later identification, a practice seen after the Bombing of Dresden. Infrastructure is destroyed, there is overwhelming radiation sickness, PTSD, and a rising incidence of suicide. As happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, many become apathetic and profoundly lethargic, living in their own filth. Civil disturbance is met with execution by firing squad. Sick and wounded orphans are without hope for their future. Society collapses and scurvy sets in.

On Christmas Day a service is held in a refugee compound in Dover. The narrator says there is silence in the press regarding the dangers of nuclear war, even as the stockpile of nuclear weapons grows. "Silent Night" plays over the closing credits.

Style
The story is told in the style of a news magazine programme. It wavers between a pseudo-documentary and a drama film, with characters acknowledging the presence of the camera crew in some segments and others (in particular the nuclear attack) filmed as if the camera was not present. 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, 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.

The film features a voice-over narration that describes the events depicted as plausible occurrences during and after a nuclear war. The narration attempts to instil in the viewing audience that the civil defence policies of 1965 have not realistically prepared the public for such events, particularly suggesting that the policies neglected the possibility of panic buying that would occur for building materials to construct improvised fallout shelters.

The public are generally depicted as lacking all understanding of nuclear matters with the exception of a character with a double-barrelled shotgun who successfully implemented the contemporary civil defence advice, and heavily sandbagged his home. The film does not focus on individual experiences, but rather the collective British population, who rely on government preparations and are not fully convinced of the dangers of nuclear war until the final hours before the attack.

Production
Of his intent, Peter Watkins said:

"... 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?"

To this end, the docudrama employs juxtaposition by, for example, quickly cutting from the scenes of horror after an immediate escalation from military to city nuclear attacks to a snippet of a recording of a calm lecture by a person resembling Herman Kahn, a renowned RAND strategist, hypothesizing that a counterforce (military) nuclear war would not necessarily escalate immediately into countervalue-targeted (i.e. civilian-targeted) nuclear war. The effect of this juxtaposition is to make the speaker appear out of touch with the "reality" of rapid escalation, as depicted immediately before his contribution.

The film was shot in the Kent towns of Tonbridge, Gravesend, Chatham and Dover. The cast was almost entirely made up of non-actors, as was Watkins' preference, casting having taken place via a series of public meetings several months earlier. Much of the filming of the post-strike devastation was shot at the Grand Shaft Barracks, Dover. The narration was provided by Peter Graham with Michael Aspel reading the quotations from source material.

Release
The War Game itself finally saw television broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC2 on 31 July 1985, as part of a special season of programming entitled After the Bomb (which had been Watkins's original working title for The War Game). After the Bomb commemorated the 40th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The broadcast was preceded by an introduction from Ludovic Kennedy.

On 27 August 1968, nearly 250 people at a peace rally in the Edwin Lewis Quadrangle in Philadelphia, attended the screening of the film sponsored by the Pennsylvania Coalition. Like the United Kingdom, the film was also banned from National Educational Television in the United States due to its theme.

Reception and legacy
The film holds a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 93% based on 14 reviews, with an average score of 8.46/10.

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)." "They should string up bedsheets between the trees and show "The War Game" in every public park" he concludes, "It should be shown on television, perhaps right after one of those half-witted war series in which none of the stars ever gets killed." David Cornelius of DVD Talk called it "one of the most disturbing, overwhelming, and downright important films ever produced." He writes that the film finds Watkins "at his very best, angry and provocative and desperate to tell the truth, yet not once dipping below anything but sheer greatness from a filmmaking perspective [...] an unquestionable masterpiece of raw journalism, political commentary, and unrestrained terror."

Accolades
The film won the 1967 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, The War Game was placed 27th. The War Game was also voted 74th in Channel Four's 100 Greatest Scary Moments.