The War Game.

https://ia802503.us.archive.org/5/items/TheWarGame_201405/The%20War%20Game.mp4

After you have watched Peter Watkins disturbing vision of a limited nuclear attack on Kent towns in the south of England could you please tell me why some idiots still want to preserve our nuclear weaponry?  Maybe people think there safe because Trident is based in Scotland and not on the Thames, something you should remember that could easily change.

Made in 1965, commissioned by the BBC following the success of Culloden, but banned from TV screens for 20 years, which in it self smells of a conspiracy between the government and the BBC. I would be the first to admit that it’s a very hard watch but that’s no excuse not the to show this very important documentary style movie which is even more relevant today within 2018’s political atmosphere. Perhaps we ‘the public’ could not be trusted with such a horrifying scenario that when a nuclear war takes place we would all die, and not always very quickly and certainly in pain.

In 1966 it was decided to educate the Establishment with a number of private screenings at the National Film Theatre in London but still the mass population was kept well away. That was until public pressure and a parliamentary motion led to U-turn and the film was granted a limited release via the British Film Institute.

Peter Watkins received no monetary reward from the eventual wider distribution of the film or from its subsequent DVD release even though it did win the Academy Award for the Best Documentary Feature in 1967.

Watkins film is not an historical artifact and should not be viewed as such, its a warning given out in the 1960’s for what could happen anytime in the future if the authoritarian establishment don’t get their act together - and it certainly doesn’t look that their going too any time soon.

Privilege.

The Governments Messianic Leader. 

Disgusted with what he saw as interference from the government Peter Watkins resigned from the BBC over the banning of his faux documentary The War Game (1966) about the horrors of a nuclear war from being shown on TV, a ban that was to last for twenty years. Although it did have a limited cinema release, winning an Oscar in 1967 for Best Documentary Feature.  Watkins quit Britain for good in 1968 but before he went he made his first feature film, a political satire set in the very near future called Privilege (1967) now released as part of the BFI Flipside series. It’s the story of Steven Shorter a pop star who is manipulated into a being a state run puppet for a repressive government, who harnesses what could be describe as Beatle mania for their own ends. The state originally using Shorter’s stage routine, which includes a cage, handcuffs and bully boy police tactics, to direct any chance of a public revolt into an outburst of channelled aggression within controlled limits. Changing track the authorities decide to bring back the population from the brink of structured anarchy to state run Christianity organized by an all-powerful church. Thereafter Shorter’s stage routine changes drastically to involve a monk attired backing group doing up-tempo Onward Christian Soldier numbers and burning crosses.

Jean Shrimpton.

As you can probably gather this is rather a strange movie, it’s like an Orwellian mix between Ken Russell’s Tommy (1975) and Pink Floyd - The Wall (1982) but not as engaging as either. The biggest problem with this film is its two main leads. Paul Jones, who had been the lead singer with the Manfred Mann band and probable best known for his blues programme on Radio Two, plays Steve Shorter while Jean Shrimpton plays his girl friend and proves why she was a very successful sixties model and not an actress. Both give very wooden performances with Jones being particularly irritating. The premise of the film, based on a story by Johnny Speight, is a worthy subject, highlighting the misuse of power and showing the manipulation of mass culture to control the population. In that respect I suppose it’s a cross between pink gin and Saturday night TV!

Steve Shorter and Vanessa Ritchie.