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Threads (Nuclear War Film)

Is it Threads or Testament that had a scene where a woman was giving birth and a hungry dog was waiting outside the room? I can't remember which one of these that I saw.

:confused:
 
It is in Threads and that is the happy bit!

I did not see Threads at the time, though I remember it was much
discussed. I caught up with it on BBC4 last week.

It clearly belonged to another age: an age when a mass media
channel could dare to tackle such a sensitive subject with unremitting
seriousness. It would never get past the slush-pile today.

It was painful to watch and seemed to use the passive television-watching
experience itself as a metaphor for the powerlessness of civilians
under nuclear attack. It seems to have got past the spooks and
censors because it included and seemed to dismiss the possibility of
popular mass action leading to disarmament.

It's a tape I don't think I will be replaying in a hurry. :eek:
 
I read "Z for Zachariah" as a set book at school - thanks, guys, I was already convinced by then that I wasn't going to reach my twenties. "also "Brother in the land" - famine, radiation sickness, yada yada...I was firmly banned by my parents from watching "threads" or "the day after", and even now, aged 30, Although I've read all about "threads" on the net (morbid fascination) I know that if I watch it it will just about finish me off, I cope pretty badly with stuff like that. "When the Wind Blows" gave me nightmares for years.
 
hi Molga:

Brother in the Land - my god, I read that one too. Christ knows why, Z for Zachariah was bad enough. :nonplus:
 
threads

i remember seeing a british film about nuclear war aaaaages ago. wheni was about 13? it was called threads, if i remember rightly.

i want it, as it freaked me out.

i havnt been able to find it anywhere.

any clues?
 
ACE.

i never even thought of looking there.

i had given up my search a couple of years ago. whenever i would go past an old videa store i would try and duck in for a look if i had the time

i wuv you wiwwith!
 
I can't imagine anyone having seen this once wanting to put themselves
through it a second time, so I didn't keep the video I made last year when
it was shown on BBC4.

It is a really grim experience - and based in Sheffield, that well-known
paranormal hot-spot!

Yes, I think everyone should see it once. It is sobering to think there was
a time when mainstream television could show such a thing.

I think I've posted that remark before. :rolleyes:
 
I got the DVD, as I'm fascinated by the culture of nuclear war fear, but frankly it bored me... I would probably have been better satisfied had they left out all the "ordinary people" soap-type plots and just stuck to the war and death. :hmph:
 
taras said:
I got the DVD, as I'm fascinated by the culture of nuclear war fear, but frankly it bored me...

Then I'll take this opportunity to place yet another plug for Raymond Briggs' When the Wind Blows, which is superb.
 
Yep, I have the book of that already and can confirm its superb...ity. :D

Also, get his new book "Ethel and Ernest", it's really depressing but good...
 
I've threaded together the two "Threads" threads to make one thread.
 
off track slightly

in the 80's did all schools go through a phase of dealing with nuclear war etc in english lessons? (as a part of the curiculumn)
 
It wasn't an East Coast thing... there again, it was well known that the town I lived in had its own war head, so the chances of survival were between slim and none.
 
'When the Wind blows' holds the distinction of being the only comic book to make me cry (well, apart from 'Maus', which I recommend to anybody-Holocaust story played out with mice as the Jews). I think its the soft dough-like baby-faced characters, you fall in love with them almost immediately.

I've seen segments of 'Threads' and it's something I know I could not watch. And yes, nuclear war was included in English classes when i was at school, myself and friends all wore CND badges....just don't see them anymore.
 
just think. we could have all been living in a mad max III type world now.

how COOL would that have been?

my old V8 ute would have KICKED ARSE!

living out in australia, i really cant remember there being much of a sense of impending nuclear doom.

although i do remember one night on the news a pic of a mushroom cloud behind the readers head and her saying that there is a nuclear attack risk or something...and that did scare me.

i would attach a pic of my ute, but it;s too big. it was great. i miss it. i would have loved to have tina turner standing in the back of it with those huge earrings and a chain mail bikini!
 
Lillith said:
'When the Wind blows' holds the distinction of being the only comic book to make me cry (well, apart from 'Maus', which I recommend to anybody-Holocaust story played out with mice as the Jews). I think its the soft dough-like baby-faced characters, you fall in love with them almost immediately.

You may also want to read Keiji Nakazawa's 'Barefoot Gen' series. Very good indeed, and written by someone who survived the bombing of Hiroshima. (Amazon stock the series).
 
Ooooh ta :)

I'm currently ordering stacks of comic books from my library so i'll put that on my list.
 
Anyone here seen the Russian made post nuclear exchange movie Letters from a Dead Man? It's been ages since I saw it. It was well done, as I recall. Testament is a dreadfully depressing movie.
 
BUMP!

'Threads' is available to watch on Google Video

I won't link directly to it - you'll have to search for "Threads - Nuclear War, 1984".
 
Anyone see Wim Wenders' Until The End Of The World (1991)? I hadn't really thought of it as a nuclear film as such, because it wasn't about a war. Probably my favourite film, but most others I know who saw it thought it was a self-indulgent overblown bore. I thought it was a genre-defying masterpiece. It has never been officially released on DVD (except in Italy where the 4.5 hr long director's cut was released in three-disc format a few years ago).
 
skinny46 said:
Anyone see Wim Wenders' Until The End Of The World (1991)? I hadn't really thought of it as a nuclear film as such, because it wasn't about a war. Probably my favourite film, but most others I know who saw it thought it was a self-indulgent overblown bore. I thought it was a genre-defying masterpiece. It has never been officially released on DVD (except in Italy where the 4.5 hr long director's cut was released in three-disc format a few years ago).

Until now that is....

Amazon

I thought it was really rather good as well (i had the soundtrack on cassette until it broke), shame the Region 2 version is the same as the VHS one, i.e. not the 4.5 hour one.
 
skinny46 said:
Anyone see Wim Wenders' Until The End Of The World (1991)? I hadn't really thought of it as a nuclear film as such, because it wasn't about a war. Probably my favourite film, but most others I know who saw it thought it was a self-indulgent overblown bore. I thought it was a genre-defying masterpiece. It has never been officially released on DVD (except in Italy where the 4.5 hr long director's cut was released in three-disc format a few years ago).

I though it was pretty good film too, I like the soundtrack as well.
 
Frobush said:
BUMP!

'Threads' is available to watch on Google Video

I won't link directly to it - you'll have to search for "Threads - Nuclear War, 1984".

Argh - shouldn't have watched that. I hadn't seen 'Threads' since it was first shown on TV. It was horrific then and it still is now! Okay, some bits are a bit ropey, but overall it's still powerful stuff. Knocks 'The Day After' into a cocked hat.
 
Heckler20 said:
skinny46 said:
Anyone see Wim Wenders' Until The End Of The World (1991)? I hadn't really thought of it as a nuclear film as such, because it wasn't about a war. Probably my favourite film, but most others I know who saw it thought it was a self-indulgent overblown bore. I thought it was a genre-defying masterpiece. It has never been officially released on DVD (except in Italy where the 4.5 hr long director's cut was released in three-disc format a few years ago).

Until now that is....

Amazon

I thought it was really rather good as well (i had the soundtrack on cassette until it broke), shame the Region 2 version is the same as the VHS one, i.e. not the 4.5 hour one.
Thankyou muchly for that tip, Heckler. I'm stunned, shocked and amazed that this has come in so suddenly. I have been checking the net every few months for years and years and years. Just ordered it. I'm spending just under $50AUD to have it sent from amazon.uk ASAP, but it's worth it. Australian sellers are scheduled to release it on May 21st, but I can't wait. Yee!

:rofl:


Some background information for those interested: The Strange Case of Until The End Of The World
 
CURSES! Just found it a few pound cheaper at sendit uk. Might serve others interested though.

edit: I can't believe it's only got Dolby 2.0!! Best soundtrack in the world! 2.0 !!??
 
skinny46 said:
CURSES! Just found it a few pound cheaper at sendit uk. Might serve others interested though.

edit: I can't believe it's only got Dolby 2.0!! Best soundtrack in the world! 2.0 !!??

Cheaper still at Benson's World!

I use Find-DVD to find the cheapest UK DVDs.
 
Despite deciding ten years ago that I would never again watch Threads, I found a once-collectable VHS version in my library as part of a job-lot. After some months' hesitation, it went into the player last night.

Reading the imdb comments, it seems that dozens of people give it a ten star rating and simultaneously vow to never return to it.

It is amazing how much I had forgotten in the ten years between viewings. All I really retained was a memory of the bumbling bureaucrats in their useless shelter and the nativity parody near the end, when the darkness becomes almost surreal. The rest must have been blocked out for it remains memorably and staggeringly grim!

I don't think I had previously registered how far the film was thematically organized around the theme of technology. Boy, does 1984 look ancient here! All the old kit has a retro appeal but the trends towards kids being plugged into their headphones and primitive space-invader games, while rolling-news numbs the populace. Bar-codes and early digital scales are already on the scene in the shops, while the civil servants struggle with basic communications and power.

The film has two layers of documentary framing, delivering an elaborate picture of the progress to war in diagetic bulletins which wash over a mostly passive populace, while the awful events we see are placed in wider context by the non-diagetic on-screen statistics read by Paul Vaughan - for so long the voice of the BBC's Horizon strand of science documentaries. Towards the end, the radiation-sick survivors are struggling with simple arts and crafts while a children's programme about bones plays from a videotape. An old woman mimes along to it as if it is a religious ritual.

I had forgotten that Barry Hines was the author. Eighties Sheffield as depicted here is not so far from the working-class world of Kes: pigeon-fancying, smoky pubs, steamed up windows in parked cars, all the awkward social rituals of a quickly-arranged wedding. The use of found footage is mainly ingenious - fuel strikes, motorway log-jams, atrocious weather have built-in authenticity. I think the Japanese man was too obviously from Hiroshima, however.

The tensions of the Reagan-Thatcher era have seemed to retreat with the collapse of the Soviet block and today's kids are unlikely to receive this kind of traumatic treat in school. The scenarios of Mutual Assured Destruction and Nuclear Winter have not really disappeared, however. The living would still, I am certain, envy the dead and the continuing conflicts in the Middle East remain troubling with some highly unstable players of the same old games.
 
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