Movies about nuclear war - a warning to mankind

Although nuclear weapons have been used for military purposes only two times (in 1945), for the rest of the time the military strategy of states and international diplomacy have been under the strongest influence of steadily developing plans for conducting nuclear war. Thanks to the violent fantasy of screenwriters and directors, "nuclear winter" came on the movie screens several times. Films about the nuclear war and its consequences are quite popular among spectators.

Effective form of cultural influence

Everyone knows that the production of the world film industry serves not only for entertainment. It carries a decent cultural and ideological load. Films about nuclear war as an instrument of propaganda are capable of having a sufficiently high emotional impact on an impressionable viewer. They actively create in the imagination of the beholder an illusory picture of the world in the channel in which this is required. Often, the propaganda effect on the layman is imperceptible and hidden, outside his personal psychological control, on an emotional level. Very actively uses the management of feelings of justice and justice Hollywood.

Propaganda of US values

The US films about a nuclear war are always unobtrusive, but they clearly correspond to the country's pressing foreign policy course. In the past decades, pictures of the nuclear bombing of the United States were produced (the film "The Next Day", released in 1983). On the screens, movie heroes like James Bond fought with the GRU and KGB officers (the tape "From Russia with Love", 1963), the good guys repulsed the attacks of North Koreans and even aliens (movies "The Battle for Los Angeles" and "Transformers"). All the pictures of Hollywood production, which have already become classics or modern, show the whole world the ideal army of the United States, capable of saving humanity from death. This is the most effective and very beautiful method of propaganda of values, power and strength of the country. Films about the nuclear war, listed below, are created in the United States. Not all of them have a pronounced propagandistic message, although hints are present in every film:

• "Panic in the year zero" (Ray Milland, 1962);
• "The next day" (N. Meyer, 1983);
• "The Magic Mile" (Steve De Jarnatt, 1988);
• "Nuclear Dawn" (Jack Scholder, 1990).

The incessant "dialogue"

European cinema is in an incessant "dialogue" with the American, which at the same time remains a guide, a flagship and a source of self-identification. Soviet and European cinematographers did their utmost to achieve national art, while at the same time continuing to evaluate their work from the point of view of the well-known American model. Movies about nuclear war are very often a product of joint creative activity of European countries, Australia and the USA. Examples are the "Day One" (Giuliano Montaldo, 1986, USA, France, Canada, Italy) and the sequel "On the Last Bank" (2000) and his original "On the Shore" (1959, USA, Australia).

Rejection of stamps

Separate masters of the European cinematheque unites rejection of cliches, monotony, commercialization of cinema. Their pictures are more social. They are somewhat "grounded", they contain more appeal to the life and fate of ordinary people. Even the European films about the nuclear war were covered not by the process itself, but by the fate of the heroes during this terrible tragedy:

1) "The hosts of darkness" (Leon Klimovsky, 1972, Spain);

2) "War Game" (directed by Peter Watkins, 1965, Great Britain);

3) "Take-off strip" (Chris Marker, 1984, France);

4) "Threads" (M. Jackson, 1984, Great Britain).

Film-teaching

Separately it is worth mentioning the really brilliant creation of the domestic film industry - the film by K. Lopushansky's "Letters of a Dead Man" (1986), which can be put on one level with the works of masters of classical Russian literature, invariably distinguished by special attention to the inner world of heroes and humanism. The plot of the film tells the story of an aged scientist Larsen, a Nobel laureate who barely survived the death of loved ones in the fire of a nuclear apocalypse, to which his research is directly relevant. He tries in vain to understand the cause of what is happening and to find the coveted point of support, in order to find the meaning of future existence, the hope for survival. The explosion itself in the picture is similar to the process of lighting an "electric candle", which also has another name - an arc lamp. The film about nuclear war sharply differs from the western analogues.

Think terribly

If explosions of nuclear warheads occur on our planet, then the resulting thermal radiation and deadly radioactive fallout, even of a local nature, will cause irreparable damage. The subsequent indirect consequences: the destruction of communication systems, the customary social foundations of civilization will lead to serious problems. Films about "after the nuclear war" usually narrate about their variations in the development of events following the nuclear apocalypse. Traditionally in the films all genre memory of the genre is collected, but only in different concentrations. The viewer is usually contemplated with bikers dressed in cans on vintage vehicles, comic graphics of duels of central characters, picturesque and impressive rags, pathetic remains of gas stations, supermarkets and boundless gray-brown landscapes right up to the horizon. However, individual films like "The Book of Eli" and "Mad Max" manage not only to collect all the usual stamps, but also to shoot them to a dazzling brilliance. The following films are the best among themselves:

• "Akira" (1988);
• "The Battle for the Planet of the Apes" (1973);
• "Terminator" (2009);
• "Malvil" (1981);
• "Radioactive Dreams" (1984);
• "Cryptoids" (1987);
• "Equalizer 2000" (1987);
• "The Last Warrior" (1975);
• "Mad Max: Road Warrior" (1981);
• "Six-stringed samurai" (1998);
• "The Book of Eli" (2009);
• "The Road" (2009).