[scarecrowbob]

This reminded me of the better documentary films I have seen, The Atomic Cafe (1982).

It is a well-crafted film, with a neat-o formal technique of only using found footage/ audio to describe the history of US atomic-age propaganda.

More interestingly to me, it offers a useful commentary about the contradictions between the use of media to present nuclear wars a survivable and possibly necessary event but simultaneously an existential threat that requires the total resources of the state to avoid. The ending of the film seems especially useful as footage of naive "duck and cover" drills is juxtaposed with (legitimately terrifying) images of actual bomb blasts.

I think, in general, it recalled this bit: "Christopher Isherwood gave expression to this unreality of the American daily life, exemplified in the motel room: "American motels are unreal! /.../ they are deliberately designed to be unreal. /.../ The Europeans hate us because we've retired to live inside our advertisements, like hermits going into caves to contemplate.""

[hotpotamus]

Dr Strangelove was obviously about the absurdity of trying to plan for nuclear war, but the ending credit scene of nuclear bombs exploding while playing "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynne sounds like it might have influenced "The Atomic Cafe".

Interestingly, the detail in the linked document that made me think of a movie was the improvised lean-to shelter. One of the protagonists in the British film "When The Wind Blows" built one in his house while following a similar guide.

[scarecrowbob]

Yes, I can certainly agree that the ending montage in both films is similar enough that we'd suspect one influenced the other.

I used to really enjoy bringing Strangelove into my history of film classes as an opportunity to talk about obscenity and the end of the US PCA-- the opening sequence of "Try a Little Tenderness" across the mating of a tanker and a bomber is the first of many, many implied situations

[throwuwu]

The notion that duck and cover is a bad strategy is ill informed. Sure, if you’re at ground zero it doesn’t make a lick of difference what you do but if you’re further out but still close enough to experience the shock wave then duck and cover is going to be the reason why you don’t get a face full of glass and wood splinters.

[scarecrowbob]

Fair enough.

But still, it's part of a larger apparatus of making nuclear war appear to be "reasonable" alternative when in reality it is a horrific crime against all humanity; if you haven't seen the film, you might enjoy how it presents these drills, along with all of the other apparatus of selling nuclear war to US population.

[zwieback]

I remember Atomic Cafe, when it came out it was pretty popular in Germany, where I grew up. At the time we were assuming we'd be the first to go, being right between the two big atomic powers. Everyone I knew back then assumed there's really nothing you could do, though.

[Sakos]

Back then, it was considered acceptable to use tactical nukes to slow or prevent Russian military advancing on Europe. Crazy times.

[dekhn]

Is that Duck and Cover? Yep. My dad grew up in Miami during the cuban missle crisis and he said they watched a lot of those videos.