leeper@ahutb.UUCP (leeper) (03/05/85)
This is a response to a piece of mail. I am posting it to the net partially because my software is complaining about the return address, but also because the content may be of general interest. >Just got your review of 9 Feb. Re: > > "TESTAMENT wasa very well-made film, beautifully > directed with great insights into the > characters. But while those characters > were believable, the situation was not. The > producers failed to do their homework." > >How was the situation not believable? My knowledge of what a post-nuclear war environment is based predominantly on the following: -- BBC documentary "The War Game" dir. by Peter Watkins -- Discussions with friends -- Reading parts of THE FATE OF THE EARTH (I don't remember the author, but it's because of the current interest in nuclear holocausts it is in most book stores.) The fact is that TESTAMENT examined only the radiation effect of the war and for a community within commute distance of San Francisco they way under-rated even that. At the time TESTAMENT was made the concept of nuclear winter had already been established, yet the film did not show the dropping of temperatures. On the contrary, some survivors were headed up to Canada where the cold alone would have been deadly. The breakdown of the social order was shown with one kid stealing a bicycle. With the the big (and many not-so-big) cities gone, there would be no distribution of food. Nothing grown would be safe. The breakdown of social order would start with food hoarding. (Non- and slightly-contaminated food, after all, and guns, would be the most valuable commodities for survival.) Half-starving gangs would be scouring the countryside to find anything to eat. They would roll over the town in TESTAMENT, like it were nothing at all. (I suppose you could accuse me of rattling off Survivalist dogma here. I dislike the Survivalist movement myself, but their view of the post-holocaust world is probably closer to the truth than most people realize.) Then there would be disease. Within a large radius around targets there would be millions dying with nobody to bury them. Disease would run rampant with no real facilities to stop it. The town in TESTAMENT is hardly isolated enough that the disease would not come there. The people on the fringes of the destruction and even the air currents would carry it. Then there are the injured and maimed. The dubious assumption of the film was that this town was far enough from any of the blasts to avoid direct physical injuries. It wouldn't have avoided the walking wounded, it just wasn't that isolated. In any case there is a long list of reasons why things just would not have been as shown in TESTAMENT. A post-nuclear-war is very probably worse than we can imagine, and the town in TESTAMENT was not. Responses to net.movies please. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!ahutb!leeper
kenw@lcuxc.UUCP (K Wolman) (03/06/85)
At some "realistic" level, "Testament" may indeed have underestimated the prolonged horrors of a nuclear war aftermath in ways "Threads" did not. But the death of the mother's (Jane Alexander's) little boy (remember the scene at the sink?) and her almost maniacal search for his teddy-bear told me more than I ever wanted to know about a particular part of that horror. The deaths that follow seem to have a lessening impact until, by the end of the film, the viewer is damned near numb. This could be a flaw, or a far-too-successful realization of what used to be considred a "fallacy," i.e., Imitative Form. -- Ken Wolman Bell Communications Research @ Livingston, NJ lcuxc!kenw You can't "read" me because I'm not a book.
leeper@ahutb.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (03/08/85)
REFERENCES: <524@ahutb.UUCP>, <320@lcuxc.UUCP> >At some "realistic" level, "Testament" may indeed have >underestimated the prolonged horrors of a nuclear war >aftermath in ways "Threads" did not. But the death of the >mother's (Jane Alexander's) little boy (remember the scene >at the sink?) Do I! >and her almost maniacal search for his >teddy-bear told me more than I ever wanted to know about a >particular part of that horror. Somehow there is more sadness in the death of one person than in the death of millions. When you hear that 30,000 people are killed in a firestorm you do not feel 30,000 times as sad as when you hear one person is killed, particularly if that person is someone you have gotten to know. It may be less painful for the world to go with a bang than a whimper. The scenes you mention are the most memorable of the film, though others stand high. I guess that is why I have such mixed feelings about TESTAMENT. It was a great film but technically very (perhaps dangerously) inaccurate. It left me sadder than THREADS did. There are forms of warfare for which what is happening in the film is more in character with the facts. TESTAMENT is somewhat closer to a possible scenario for bacterialogical warfare then nuclear warfare. Yes, there are still problems there, but less of the film might have to be changed to make it accurate to that situation. > >The deaths that follow seem to have a lessening impact >until, by the end of the film, the viewer is damned near >numb. THREADS and THE WAR GAME stun and numb the viewer much faster to individual deaths, but overall they are more frightening. Less depressing but more frightening. Mark Leeper ...ihnp4!ahutb!leeper
@RUTGERS.ARPA:earl@BRL-VAT.ARPA (03/08/85)
From: Earl Weaver (VLD/ATB) <earl@BRL-VAT.ARPA> I think that TESTAMENT showed how little the average US citizen knows about the nuclear radiation. I'm sure we all agree that nuclear war is the last thing we'd want. But if the balloon does go up, I'm not going to rush to fall on my sword. Maybe it'll get cold & we'll all perish, but I guarantee I'm not going to die from radiation by immediately running around outside while it's hot as those did in TESTAMENT. If the unthinkable ever happens, and the earth survives, I think it'll be a Mormon world. Somebody told me that Mormons are supposed to have several months' supplies of staples and water to tide them over in times of want (and that practice started long before anybody knew anything about nuclear horrors).
srt@ucla-cs.UUCP (03/11/85)
Frankly, I couldn't care less whether or not TESTAMENT was an accurate scientific description of the after-effects of a nuclear war. That wasn't the point of the movie at all. TESTAMENT tried to show why nuclear war is bad idea, by showing the effect of the war on one person and her family. A depiction of nuclear winter might move you to stand against nuclear war, but for me, the scenes where the little boy died and where the recording is discovered on the answering machine are much more likely to change my emotions and political stance. A film is hard-pressed to make a statement on broad, general issues without showing how those issues become personal. -- Scott Turner