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Nuclear horror still haunts us Threads tapped into our fear of apocalypse

Unherd 23rd Sept 2024 Paul Heron, September 23, 2024

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On 13 September, Vladimir Putin issued a sobering threat. If Ukraine used Nato-supplied missiles against targets deep inside Russia, the president warned, the alliance would be  “directly participating in the conflict” — and the US and its allies would be “fighting with Russia”. Putin’s comments echoed another threat, two years ago, when he drew several ”red lines” for Nato, adding that he was prepared to use nuclear weapons if they were crossed.

Here, then, we have the one of the least welcome developments of the 2020s: the return, after decades of absence, of the terrible spectre of nuclear war. And for those old enough to remember what it was like the first time round — or for their children who’ve watched the clips on YouTube — surely the most disturbing example of what atomic catastrophe might actually look like was first broadcast 40 years ago today. Shown by BBC Two on 23 September 1984, Threads is more horrifying and urgent than ever.

The scenario imagined in Threads is troublingly familiar. After an American-backed coup in a strategically important nation — in this case Iran — the Soviets invade. The US then moves to deploy troops. In unemployment-hit Sheffield, meanwhile, ordinary life goes on. A young couple prepares to become parents. The husband’s middle-aged father has been laid off; his redundancy money will go toward the renovation of the family’s home. Elsewhere, the local council is quietly making preparations in the event of war. Sheffield’s size, and the proximity of RAF Finningley, make the South Yorkshire town a prime target.

It is, by common consent, one of the darkest films ever made. There’s a disturbing sense of logical inevitability about the way the world moves step-by-step toward the precipice. The attack, when it comes, is unflinching, unsentimental and horrifyingly believable.

Writer Barry Hines — best-known for his novel A Kestrel for a Knave  — sketches his native milieu with deft assurance. Hines, who died in 2016, was from the mining village of Hoyland, just outside Sheffield. In his career, he often focused on Northern England’s working class, and Threads is no different. As the Iran crisis escalates, for instance, we see protesters taking to the streets in a Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament march (most of the film’s actors were in fact CND members). Days later, there’s a moment of black humour when a speaker at a much more fraught protest calls for a general strike, as if that could have any effect whatsoever. It’s tempting to read the scene as a subtle comment on the eclipse of traditional Left politics in the age of Thatcherism.

Indeed, the whole film takes on added depth when viewed within that context: I think the film’s darkness has its roots not simply in the terrifying subject matter, but also in the broader political context of the Eighties. ………………………………………………………………………………..

Yet more than its narrator, it’s surely the denouement of Threads that makes it so enduring. When, after ratcheting up the tension, we’re finally shown the actual bombing, it is genuinely frightening. There are no heroics, only suffering and death, either instantaneous or slow. Later, the nuclear exchange having run its course, a stark computer readout informs us that 3,000 megatons have been exploded globally, with 210 falling on Britain. Needless to say, the film’s second half isn’t easy to watch. Threads explores severals aspects of desperate postwar life: the hazards of radiation; the search for loved ones in the ruins; shortages of food and water; the collapse of law and order; the shooting of looters; the impossibility of treating the multitudes of sick and injured; the coming of nuclear winter. Just as powerful is the film’s final minutes, which shows the world years after the bombs have fallen. Almost everyone seems to be under eighteen, the clear implication being that no one lives very long anymore. Technology is at near-medieval levels.

This wretched narrative is hammered home by an utter lack of sentimentality. Threads has no heroes and major characters die abruptly. What viewers get instead are wordless montages, and blunt facts delivered in cyan text on a black screen. As in Brecht’s theatre, interpreting what is put before us in our usual clichéd, complacent way is made impossible…………………………………………

Docudramas as accomplished as Threads, so full of dark passion and righteous anger, are rare today. The gravity and urgency of the political situation in the mid-Eighties inspired a superb example of British cinematic modernism. The defenders of social democracy knew their world was disappearing, but faced an infinitely worse possibility: the destruction of the world, tout court. It’s clear this threat has in some way returned — thanks to Putin’s threats, but also events in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific — though I have my doubts whether our governing or creative classes fully grasp what that means.

Today there is a lack of vision. Perhaps the Cold War is distant enough that its lessons are being forgotten. Watch Threads and you’ll recall them soon enough.  https://unherd.com/2024/09/nuclear-horror-still-haunt-us/

September 23, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | media