The War Game was a project Watkins wanted to make as early as 1961 when he was already an accomplished amateur filmmaker at the young age of 26. His early films - The Web (1956), The Field of Red (1958), The Diary of an Unknown Soldier (1959) - so impressed Huw Wheldon, the head of the documentary unit at BBC television, that Watkins was recruited along with other promising young filmmakers to help launch the network's new BBC2 - a channel devoted to much more non-traditional and ambitious subject matter. At least that was the plan in the beginning but Watkins's proposal to make a movie about the effects of a nuclear bomb on a city and its inhabitants was discouraged from the start (the subject was considered taboo by the British government). Instead, he was encouraged to make another personal project first and so Culloden became his inaugural film for BBC2. A historical recreation of the last battle fought on British soil between the Scots and the English in 1746, Culloden set the style and tone of Watkins's future work - a you-are-there sense of placement, often jerky and disorienting cinematography that thrusts the viewer into the center of the action and a sense of authenticity conveyed through the faces and naturalistic performances by mostly non-professional actors. The film, based on historian John Prebble's detailed account, casts a critical eye on British imperialism as the unorganized Scottish highlanders are crushed methodically by the Duke of Cumberland's brutal war machine. Watkins also addresses class differences between the soldiers and their officers and the sensitive topic of "ethnic cleansing." In addition, comparisons to the then-current U.S. involvement in Vietnam are unavoidable and intentional and just a warm-up for Watkins's take on a much more global issue.
Initially titled After the Bomb, The War Game was a political minefield from the beginning and was subjected to a step by step approval process before it reached completion. Shot in a newsreel-like format with all of the familiar attributes of one - a solemn voiceover narrator, an opening news scroll presenting hard facts, title cards, man-on-the-street interviews - The War Game depicts a vivid and shockingly realistic docu-drama that opens just minutes before an atomic bomb lands in the vicinity of Kent, England. We become eyewitnesses to the tragedy that quickly unfolds. Ordinary people going about their daily routines are suddenly thrown into a life-or-death situation that neither the government nor the local authorities are equipped to deal with. The breakdown of normal society is quick and frightening. Badly burned and injured people are lined up on street curbs, left to die, due to the shortage of medical facilities; riots break out and looters are captured and executed before makeshift firing squads; government workers carrying provisions to emergency centers are attacked and murdered by desperate survivors; a fierce fire storm, fed by post-blast winds, rages out of control, taking the lives of numerous firemen and bystanders. At one point a placard appears with the text, "Would the survivors envy the dead?" Based on the horrific images unfolding before your eyes, the answer is YES!
Relentlessly grim yet undeniably powerful after more than forty-one years, The War Game is not as far-fetched as you think. All of the incidents in the film are based on extensive scientific research "obtained from the bombings of Dresden, Darmstadt, Hamburg, Hiroshima and Nagasaki...and on 1954 Nevada desert nuclear tests," according to the closing scroll. It's easy to see why the BBC was nervous about broadcasting The War Game at a time when the Cold War and fear of the A-bomb were pervasive in the media. It addressed a multitude of issues that the British government simply wasn't prepared to address - the biggest one being the simple fact that England had no emergency plan in effect in the case of a nuclear attack. Except for private screenings to selected groups of journalists, BBC and government officials, The War Game was banned for broadcast.
Nevertheless, Watkins persisted and, with the help of arts critic Kenneth Tynan who proclaimed "it may be the most important film ever made", eventually got the film a theatrical release, even though it was slapped with an X certificate (a rating which usually hurt a film's commercial potential). It went on to win an award at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 and later won the Oscar® for Best Documentary Film in 1967 but it never received its BBC premiere until 1985 - twenty years later!
Ironically, Dr. Strangelove (1963) and Fail-Safe (1964), two films about nuclear annihilation, were already in release when The War Game was ready for air but neither film depicted the hard-hitting reality of Watkins' film. Dr. Strangelove was easier to take because it was a satire and so sly and subversive that the final doomsday message was delivered in an almost whimsical manner. Fail-Safe, on the other hand, attempted to create a real "what if" scenario but ended at the very moment where The War Game begins and works better as a dramatic entertainment than a wake-up call. There have been many films since the early sixties to tackle this same topic such as Testament (1983) and The Day After (made for television, also 1983) - but The War Game remains unsurpassed in its ability to imagine the unimaginable. Thanks to Project X Films, you can finally experience it for yourself without any interference from the BBC or your local government.
Unfortunately, Watkins' negative experience with the BBC and his frustrations with the British film industry following the release of his follow-up film, Privilege (1967), propelled him out of England in search of a more compatible moviemaking environment. Since 1969 he has made most of his films outside his native England in either Sweden, Norway, Denmark or the U.S.
Both Culloden and The War Game were shot on 16mmm and blown up to 35mm for their theatrical releases. Both films receive an impressive transfer to DVD though Culloden is the more flawless presentation. Culloden, with its high contrast look, has more noticeable flaws - some dirt and water damage - but considering the film's rough newsreel texture it seems appropriate in the context of the movie. Culloden comes with a commentary track by Dr. John Cook (Mass Media instructor at Glasgow Caledonian University) which definitely enhances one's understanding of this significant historical battle which may have little if any resonance with American audiences. For The War Game commentary track we have Patrick Murphy (film & television lecturer at York St. John University College) who analyzes Watkins's directorial techniques in great detail from scene to scene while shedding light on the behind-the-scenes troubles between the filmmaker and the BBC. There is also a fascinating essay, reprinted from Film International by Murphy which goes into the entire suppression of the film by the BBC.
For more information about The War Game/Culloden, visit New Yorker Films. To order The War Game/Culloden, go to TCM Shopping.
by Jeff Stafford
