Nuclear War Films (review)

BOOK REVIEW Nuclear War Films. Edited by Jack G. Shaheen, Foreword by Marshall Flaum. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978. Pp. xx, 193. $10.00 (cloth), $4.95 (paper). Ever since audio-visual materials began to invade academe, there has existed the need for a literature to list and describe various categories of media so that those of us inexpert in that field could know what materials are available. Jack Shaheen1 s compilation of essays on some twentyfive feature films, short educational films, and television documentaries is just such a book. Although addressed primarily to the film community, it has relevance for historians of recent America, the contemporary world, foreign relations, and military and social history. Shaheen's focusfilms about nuclear war— is especially important, because many of the issues, from the dropping of the first bomb to the arcane intricacies of the thermonuclear balance, possess an emotional impact, and a drama, that normal classroom techniques cannot adequately convey. Such films also depict the overpowering atomic anxiety that overtook the nation at the beginning of the Cold War, and to some extent still survives today. As a work of scholarship, at least for historians, the book is deficient . For "research," the essays depend almost entirely on critical viewings of the films, or reviews. The list of films is not comprehensive, and the editor never reveals his standard for naming these twenty-five as "the most significant films [of the genre] produced since 1946" (p. xviii). Each essay describes one film, but the book as a whole lacks a connecting essay to explain the development of the nuclear war film, how and why its character has changed, or the inside history of Hollywood's and the television industry's problems and purposes in dealing with nuclear war. Therefore the book never produces the promised "comprehensive view of the nuclear film image" (p. xiii). Individually, the essays range in quality from the informative to the banal: "...considerable thought and perspective is necessary when producing documentaries related to nuclear war" (p. 172). The authors focus excessively on questions of film "artistry": credibility of plots, scientific authenticity, coherence of narration, use of music, camera techniques, and technical matters of film production. Nearly all the essays criticize the films for not raising or answering issues the authors believe should have been raised. Several essays attack a film's content 41 and viewpoint, often from a discernibly political perspective, degenerating sometimes into explicit argument with a film's purpose, and on one occasion straying so far from the film itself as to become an outright polemic. Few provide adequate historical context. One author (p. 32) claimed 1959 was "the peak of cold war paranoia" when "Nuclear war with Russia seemed a very real possibility___ " The next (p. 42) called 1960 a year when "the awesome threat of nuclear war was easing in the minds of many." None assess the impact of their film at the time; most do not describe their film in enough detail to determine the actual contents, in the absence of having viewed it in person. As a teaching tool, however, historians will find the book very useful . The list alone is valuable, especially with the appendix containing distributors' names and addresses. Closely read, the essays offer enough information and criticism to choose films for screening, and to give a short introduction to a class before viewing. And while the criticism which lards these essays is often overblown and unpersuasive, it provides readers with a sense of the limitations of these films, and the even more limited repertoire of top-flight offerings available about the most important issue of our time. Richard H. Kohn, Rutgers University, New Brunswick ...