Threads

[hagbard_celine]

In 1984, when I was aged 12 going on 13, the English teacher at my school forced my whole class to watch this:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2023790698427111488&q=threads&total=2434&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

Threads was a movie produced specially for TV broadcast by the BBC. It was made before Gorbachev was put in power by the Rockefellar Foundation and the engineered fall of the Soviet block. The “Shadow of the Bomb” may have eased since, but this doesn’t diminish the film’s horror. It gave me many nightmares and I came home from school and lay in bed crying over it. I remember being full of dread of nuclear war for much of my childhood; for the 50 years of the Cold War, older generations had to endure it their whole lives. My parents used to be involved in anti-nuclear protests and I remember attending rallies with them in Oxford and London for CND.

The film uses artistic devices to create its disturbing feel that I very often see used to this day, especially by the BBC: The mixture of the everyday and apocalyptic. The shots focus on shop signs, close-ups of billboards, cans and shopping bags with brand names on them; together with burning buildings, mushroom clouds and bodies. It’s a very emotionally-violent film. No doubt my English teacher though it was for our own good. We needed to see the full effects of nuclear war so that we would then act to stop it. But this is not the theme of Threads! The characters are all portrayed as ineffectual and helpless, innocent victims pushed and pulled by events beyond their control. It is the unseen politicians that decide whether the attack happens or not. As one of the characters says in the second pub scene: “So what! There’s nowt we can do about it. When the bomb does drop I just want to right underneath it and pissed out of me brains!” The film is, from start to finish, nothing but melancholy and despair. Why is there no mention of the role of other countries? Surely not all of them were devastated as much as Britain? Don’t they send us any foreign aid? Don’t we get any food, grain and warm clothing from abroad? But no; we’re portrayed not only as a nation devastated, but isolated.

Since the end of the Cold War we can see the various fear ploys more easily because since the danger of global nuclear war has gone other nightmares have risen to replace it: Meteor impact from space was hardly discussed when we were occupied with the Shadow of the Bomb, even though it is potentially even more devastating than a nuclear holocaust; unlike nuclear weapons it's also beyond human control. Meteor impacts in the past have wiped out most of life on Earth; not only that, but they are beyond our control. But the fear of the bomb meant that such a scenario wasn’t needed!

Today schoolchildren are being shown the film An Inconvenient Truth about global warming. If you choose to watch Threads, then be warned; it is not light entertainment by anyone’s definition! It must be one of the most upsetting and disturbing movies ever made, but bear in mind that it is purely a product of an atmosphere of dread created deliberately by those who want to control us.

Just take a look at this! It’s an archive of “Protect and Survive” literature from the 1950’s to the end of the Cold War. In Threads we hear one of its public information films playing on the TV in the background. I was shown one at school: http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/atomic/index.htm I think at some point in my childhood, our house actually was sent one of these leaflets. In the early days of the Cold War in America it was even worse. There were the “duck-and-cover” drills:

http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=811421085304596290&q=duck+and+cover&total=794&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

This US government information film from the 1940’s was made soon after the Russians detonated their first A-bomb. The people who write things like Threads grew up with this stuff! That figures!

[timelord]

Threads is a wonderful drama but Hagbard is correct it's not for those with weak stomachs. Again like Hagbard we viewed this at school too.

[2013]

These programmes especially bbc 0ne's thats bbc not just bbc 1 , 2 and now 3 and 4 for those unlike me too young to remember just 3 channels ! are desigend with that purpose in mind they want us to have a good look at them or in other words A Proper gander :eek:!!:rolleyes:

[hagbard_celine]

Threads is a wonderful drama but Hagbard is correct it's not for those with weak stomachs. Again like Hagbard we viewed this at school too.


You can't fault it technically. It's well-written and the acting, visual effects and production design are all top-notch. I'm bothered by its message though.

[citroen999]

also on the same theme was "when the wind blows" a cartoon movie with Jim Bloggs (john Mills) and Hilda Bloggs (Peggy Ashcroft)

Starts off quite farcical with 2 OAP's preparing for a nuclear war. Trusting all the pamphlets and the government propaganda, following the steps for survival.

The film then starts dipping its toe into darker areas and your smirks and odd chuckles soon stop as it gets darker and darker, sadder and sadder.

If you get time have a watch, here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdguWMF1abU

[adimon]

Has nuclear deterrent not helped keep the peace between the countries that fought in WW2? :confused:

[comawhite015]

I too saw that film at school. Social Studies in fourth form at 14. Made an impression, I can tell you. I got a copy of it about 18 months ago (after avoiding it for about six years) and show people occasionally if I think they can get some value out of it. It's not the sort of film you sit around and idly watch on your own though, unless you are one hell of a masichist. I can't watch it without crying.

[hagbard_celine]

Has nuclear deterrent not helped keep the peace between the countries that fought in WW2? :confused:

"Fought in WWII"? Nobody fought in WWII. Nobody fought in the Cold War. How can two puppets controlled by the same puppeteer fight eachother... except in a Punch-and-Judy show? That's what it was! The nuclear arms race was a massivly luctrative industry and a great way of frightening people into doing what their rulers told them.

[hagbard_celine]

I too saw that film at school. Social Studies in fourth form at 14. Made an impression, I can tell you. I got a copy of it about 18 months ago (after avoiding it for about six years) and show people occasionally if I think they can get some value out of it. It's not the sort of film you sit around and idly watch on your own though, unless you are one hell of a masichist. I can't watch it without crying.

Another good example is the book On the Beach by Nevil Shute. The terror of nuclear war had an enormous effect on many artists and writers. it seemed to drag them into a world of doom and gloom for the sake of doom and gloom. I was born into the Cold War world so I grew up with it, but imagine how terrible it must have been at the beginning when you were faced for the first time with the prospect of the self-destruction of the human race and even the Earth.

Of course the human race or much of life on Earth could be wiped out by other things: comets, volcanic eruptions etc, but a nuclear war would be worse because it would be our own doing; our fault.:o

[hirschfelder]

Ahh, Threads and WTWB, they scared the bejesus out of a young Hirschfelder

Hagbard, your story echoes what everyone in my generation has to say about those days before Perestroika and Glasnost

As little kids, all we understood was that there was this horrible threat hanging over us and it could come at any time. I imagine a lot of adults had an equally unsophisticated take on the Cold War too

Still, I suppose the threat of world annihialation puts a bit of poverty and unemployment into perspective

[hagbard_celine]

Ahh, Threads and WTWB, they scared the bejesus out of a young Hirschfelder

Hagbard, your story echoes what everyone in my generation has to say about those days before Perestroika and Glasnost

As little kids, all we understood was that there was this horrible threat hanging over us and it could come at any time. I imagine a lot of adults had an equally unsophisticated take on the Cold War too

Still, I suppose the threat of world annihialation puts a bit of poverty and unemployment into perspective


It can breed dispondancy about those things. "After all if they're going to be dead when they drop the bomb why help them out of poverty". it also makes us think: "There's no point standing up to the govt because we'll all be dead when they drop the bomb"... ;);) And that's one of the reasons the govt have crteated this scenario!

Since the end of the Cold War they've engineered the image of new threats to replace the old: terrorism, cometary imapact, climate change etc. We have to have a danger, an enemy! the govt know that they need us to be afraid in order to control us!

[astral_girl]

anyone read this - read it at school in english


Z for Zachariah
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Z for Zachariah
Puffin Teenage Fiction Cover
Author Robert C. O'Brien
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Children, Science fiction
Publisher Atheneum Books
Publication date 1975
Media type Hardback & Paperback

Z for Zachariah is a novel by Robert C. O'Brien which was published posthumously in 1975. It is written from the first person perspective of a sixteen-year-old girl named Ann Burden, who survives a nuclear war in a small American town. The town's location in a geographically distinct and remote valley shelters it from the nuclear fallout. The book takes the form of a diary kept by Ann Burden as she recounts the events that followed the war.

Z for Zachariah won an Edgar Award in the juvenile category in 1976. The book's title is explained by the main character. Recalling that Adam, whose name begins with the first letter of the alphabet, was the first man according to a Bible-themed children's alphabet book, she presumes Zachariah is the Bible's last person, as he is the last person named in the book.

[edit] Plot synopsis

Ann Burden has lived alone in a small town in a valley in the eastern U.S. for over a year following a nuclear war which appears to have rendered all land outside the valley (which has somehow mysteriously been spared) contaminated and uninhabitable. She thinks that she is the only one left in the world. One day, however, she observes a stranger climbing over a ridge into the valley. He is dressed in a radiation protection suit and is carrying a cart covered with the same material, and Ann watches him nervously while hiding out in a cave. Using a Geiger counter, the man determines that the valley is uncontaminated, and in his joy goes and bathes in a stream which unbeknowst to him is carrying contaminated water from the outside. He quickly becomes sick, and Ann decides to go and meet him. The man, who is delirious, calls Ann "Edward" when she first sees him.

When he is a little better, the man introduces himself as John Loomis, a plastics scientist who helped design the radiation-resistant material the suit and cart cover are made of. He was in his underground lab when the war began, and after the contamination, ventured out in the suit with supplies in his cart to try and find survivors, and he came across the valley. When Ann asks him who Edward was, however, he refuses to talk about it. The radiation sickness soon overtakes him and he falls into a coma, during which Ann takes care of him. He sometimes talks in his sleep, however, and during one of his dreams in which he does such, Ann learns that Edward was a lab colleague of his who wanted to take the suit to go and search for his family. John didn't want this, as he wasn't sure if he would bring the suit back, and they had a fight in which John murdered Edward. Nevertheless, Ann continues to take care of him.

When he recovers, things are well for a while and they make plans on how they will cultivate the valley and survive onwards. But soon, John starts to go funny. He watches Ann possessively while she plays the piano, and she becomes nervous. Then, one night, he comes into her room thinking she is asleep and attempts to rape her. Ann escapes and is forced to flee. For several months the two play cat-and-mouse around the valley, with John ruthlessly trying to find Ann by using her family's dog which also survived, Faro, to track her, locking all the food and farming equipment in the barn and hence forcing her to come back or starve, and burning her possessions from the cave she was hiding out in.

Ann wishes for them to coexist in the valley, but one day, when she approaches the house to speak with him, he shoots her in the ankle (presumably to cripple her so he can imprison her) and she realizes she must leave the valley. She steals the protection suit and the cart, but decides to talk with John one last time before she leaves. He attempts to kill her, but Ann tells him that if he did then it would be like what he did to Edward and he would truly be alone, and he instead points her in the direction out of the valley where he had seen birds circling; thus offering tentative hope both that the world has not been totally destroyed and that his character is redeemable. The book ends with Ann wandering in the wasteland, in hopes of finding another uncontaminated area and survivors that she dreamed about.

The book covers a number of themes including loneliness, isolation and loss, as well as attempted rape and murder.

[edit]

[astral_girl]

also swan song -didnt read this at school though


From the Sphere paperback edition (British):
In a future world born of nuclear rage, an ancient evil as old as time roams a devastated, nightmare wilderness. He is the Man with the Scarlet Eye, the Man of Many Faces, gathering under his power the forces of human greed and madness. He is searching for a child who has the gift of life, a child named Swan, the child who must be destroyed...

From Robert R. McCammon, one of the greatest masters of horror, comes a stunning tale of fear and darkest power where the end of the world is just the beginning of mankind's ultimate struggle...

[hagbard_celine]

The book covers a number of themes including loneliness, isolation and loss, as well as attempted rape and murder.

[edit]


Just what kids need to feel secure!:rolleyes:

Have you read On The Beach by Nevil Shute? When I read it I found it hard to believe that someone had sat down and written something like this, and survived psychologically without comitting suicide!

[adzboarder]

I've seen that. Great film, will have to look into some of this.

[adzboarder]

We all had to watch that at school, dunno how old you guys are but I was at secondary school between 1988- 1993 and it was somewhere around there.

You got me thinking today, that was a truly disgusting film to watch, very hard going however I did obtain a copy about a year ago and watched it with some friends who had also seen it at school and we remembered particular imagery and weird things from it. There stuff that is almost imprinted into our subconscious, such as the mum in the film when the bomb drops, she screams and it goes orange and silent, I will never forget that - its burned into my brain!

There are many moments, strong moments that I remembered from school, I wonder if there was any deliberate subliminal undertones to it all, or was it just to purely scare the crap out of us?

Recommended viewing if you are interested in post-apocalyptic shit like I am are as follows:

Red Dawn (film) starring Patrick Swayze, about a Russian takeover of America.

Jericho (TV Series) - about bombs being dropped in America, and how a small town survives

Children of men (film) - A post apocalyptic view of Britain in a police state - VERY relevant!

Reign of Fire (film) - post apocalyptic, but due to dragons

28 days later & 28 weeks later (films) - as above but due to Zombies

The Postman (film) - A Kevin Costner film, post apocalyptic and about the reformation of the postal service (I know it sounds crap but it was good!)

I am legend (film) - Recent one, theres only one man left on earth

War of the worlds (film) - Tom Cruise and the destruction of humanity

Right At your door (film) - Present day LA suffering from a dirty bomb attack

There are probably a few more...

[hagbard_celine]

There are many moments, strong moments that I remembered from school, I wonder if there was any deliberate subliminal undertones to it all, or was it just to purely scare the crap out of us?

Recommended viewing if you are interested in post-apocalyptic shit like I am are as follows:

Red Dawn (film) starring Patrick Swayze, about a Russian takeover of America.

Jericho (TV Series) - about bombs being dropped in America, and how a small town survives

Children of men (film) - A post apocalyptic view of Britain in a police state - VERY relevant!

Reign of Fire (film) - post apocalyptic, but due to dragons

28 days later & 28 weeks later (films) - as above but due to Zombies

The Postman (film) - A Kevin Costner film, post apocalyptic and about the reformation of the postal service (I know it sounds crap but it was good!)

I am legend (film) - Recent one, theres only one man left on earth

War of the worlds (film) - Tom Cruise and the destruction of humanity

Right At your door (film) - Present day LA suffering from a dirty bomb attack

There are probably a few more...

Red Dawn is also famous for being the most violent film in history; it portrays a murder on average every 40 seconds!

They're meant to scare the crap out of us all right, but the message is far from subliminal. In fact it couldn't be more in your face if they gave you electric shock therapy by putting eletrodes in the cimena seats! :D:eek:

Interestingly, most of those films are very recent. There's Cloverfield as well that's on release right now. Also don't forget Independance Day. In my view this is one of the worst films ever made, but its message is loud, clear and blatent. It was hyped and publicized very powerfully before its release and the producers must have blown a lot of money on the PR campaign. In fact they must have bet on having most of thier box office takings in hand! I remember seeing school lunch boxes with ID4 on them before the movie was even in cinemas! Why?

Another film that has been remade is Dawn of the Dead, which is another zombie apacalypse fear-fest.

You're right; we're being pummelled by futureShock. They want to make us dispondant and think "What's the use of fighting the government; we'll all be dea in a few years anyway from the Bomb or zombies or viruses or climate change, etc.