In 1956 Peter Watkins released his first film that called “The Web”. With limitation of equipment that he had, he could create quite good film for people to watch.
When I was watching “The War Game” and “Punishment Park” in the second tutorial of week four. I realize that making a good film does not really require very good equipment, but it does require great ideas and good plan. As I can notice in Peter Watkins’ film “The War Game” that was released in 1965, there must be a deep research that he has done before he started making the film. The film shows the side effect of the nuclear bomb on the society, which makes it looks quite realistic.
According to Peter Watkins’ website, the film “The War Game” was shot in amateur way with limited equipment that they had. The film was shot in four different towns, such as; Kent towns of Tonsbridge, Gravesend, Chatham and Dover. According to the website, the firestorm scene was taken in an abandon military barrack in Dover.
Furthermore, in Peter Watkins website also stated that, the cast of the film “The War Game” was made of the amateurs. The team picked the actors through out the process of making the film in Kent. The cast was done just a month before the film was actually made. In addition, the team did not have as good equipment as we got today, in order to make this film.
The question is; why is this film become so special? Well, according to Peter Watkins website, his film “ The War Game” was so controversial and it was banned from the public Television in 1965. Even the BBC violated their own charter of independence, because of this film. In addition, the banning of this film goes on for more than twenty years, due to the pressure of the government.
Another question comes to my mind, why did the government put pressure on the national television, in order to ban the film “The War Game”? Well, I believe that this film play really important role in affecting the society’s point of view toward the nuclear war, especially the film was released during the period of cold war. Even though, the film is a fiction film, but the set of the film was set in documentary style.
With the documentary style that this film has, make this film looks more realistic and can be trusted by the society. When I watched this film in the second tutorial of week four, I did not realize that I was watching a fiction film. I thought that, I was watching documentary film.