En matière de télévision, il n’y a pas grand-chose de plus ridicule qu’un docu-fiction raté. Il n’y a qu’à voir certaines productions qui nous sont servies… Mais rien n’est plus terrifiant qu’un docu-fiction réussi et portant sur un événement effrayant et possible. En 1965, Peter Watkins, réalisateur britannique et militant, donnait à voir une merveille dans le genre : The War Game. Ce film s’intéressait, peu de temps après la crise des missiles de Cuba, à la possibilité d’une guerre nucléaire et aux conséquences que cela pourrait avoir sur les îles Britanniques.



Voici la trame des événements…

The film imagines a period of some four months from the days leading up to nuclear attack. In a show of solidarity with the Chinese invasion of South Vietnam, the Russian and East German authorities have sealed off all access to Berlin, and have threatened to invade the western sector of the city unless the United States withdraws its threat to use tactical nuclear weapons against the invading Chinese. When two NATO divisions attempt to reach Berlin, they are overrun by communist forces, triggering the U.S. President’s release of nuclear warheads to NATO. The U.S.S.R. calls NATO’s bluff, leading to a preemptive strike by the Allies and, in a self-protective measure, the Soviet launch against Britain.

…et je vous encourage à prendre 50 minutes de votre vie pour le regarder :

The role of the British press in this affair was very mixed, with military and defence journalists condemning ‘The War Game’ for its ‘ban-the-Bomb propaganda’, and a number of film and TV journalists stating that the film should be shown. Some journalists wrote that the film should be seen as widely as possible, others that it should be seen only in controlled circumstances such as private film societies, and others that it should be suppressed altogether. Overall, Sir Hugh Carleton Greene was right about the weight of press opinion: The Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Daily Mirror, Daily Sketch, Sun and London evening papers all supported the ban, and although the Sunday papers brought the percentage in favour of the BBC down, the clear majority of the mainstream press were for suppressing ‘The War Game’.

‘YES, THE BBC ARE RIGHT TO BAN THIS …. the only possible effect of showing it to the British public at large would be … to raise more unilateral disarmament recruits.’ (Defence Correspondent, Evening News)

‘BRILLIANT. BUT IT MUST STAY BANNED. It is a brilliant film, a brutal film. But I would never let any son of mine see it … I object to this film because it is propagandistic and negative in its approach, politically calculated in its effect. What producer Peter Watkins has made here is not a film about The Bomb, but a plea to ban it … It excluded hope. In that I judge it to be irresponsible. It excluded any reasoned argument on why we must have The Bomb. The powers-that-be have the right to censor ‘The War Game’, for it is a game to be played seriously and responsibly. It is better left to the powers-that-be than to Mr. Peter Watkins.’ (Daily Sketch)

Ce docu-fiction reste, malgré tout, une formidable réussite. Le sentiment de voir une fiction y est aussi faible que possible et on voit les images comme si elles étaient de véritables témoignages d’événements réels plutôt que comme des mises en scène. Rien ne nous est épargné des horreurs qu’un tel conflit aurait. Cependant, comme il a été perçu par certains contemporains, Peter Watkins est un militant et si on l’avait écouté, lui ou ses semblables, nous ferions, aujourd’hui, la queue à la boulangerie de la rue Staline…

Sources : MBC et MNSI.