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A requiem for the post-Apocalyptic dream By
Mike McInnis When the Wind Blows began as a comic strip book by Raymond Briggs. It was later adapted into a play and then a feature length animated film with a musical score by Roger Waters. The score itself, as presented on the soundtrack album, features primarily short instrumental tunes bookended by two real songs. The soundtrack suite is interspersed with voiceovers from the film which give a general idea of the basic plot: an elderly couple in rural Cold War Britain learn of the worsening international situation and the impending nuclear war. They prepare their home for the coming attack, following the recommendations published by the governmental authorities. The two survive the bombs only to be ravaged by hunger, radiation sickness, and their own simple ignorance. The book and film are very similar. The film's look and feel replicate the look of Briggs' original drawings, sometimes right down to the perspective and the tiny details. The dialogue in the film is mostly lifted directly from the book as well. Both versions are highly entertaining, in an unconventional way. This is a grim story, and while it is very funny, the humor is dark, and the underlying tone is macabre. Everything is designed to illustrate the horrors of nuclear war, and the absurd belief that The Powers That Be have control of the situation. • • • Jim and Hilda Bloggs are simple, naive people. The audience knows that they are doomed, but they are oblivious to it, thinking that they are going to pull through it all. Hilda avoids all news broadcasts and newspapers ("I only read the Stars," she says), and though Jim tries to stay aware of the situation he really has a very poor understanding of it. He considers a pamphlet entitled "The Householder's Guide to Survival" to be an authoritative source of vital information, largely because it is published by the "County Council." They go about building a lean-to bomb shelter in the middle living room and stocking up on an exhaustive list of 'emergency supplies' simply because the Government Directive instructs them to do so. And even as the bombs fall, Hilda is more concerned about letting her cake burn in the oven than getting into the shelter. Jim, through it all, tries to carry himself as a knowledgeable person. He is constantly speaking in capital letters ("We must keep abreast of the International Situation") and cliches, with stereotypical masculine bravado. In an effort to generate discussion while the two are confined to their shelter, Jim follows the advice of the County Council Directive: 'Discuss the changed conditions after an attack, and consider how to overcome or adapt to them.' All he can come up with is a string of empty aphorisms: "I think we could overcome the changed conditions after an attack by... er... all pulling our weight, and... er... putting our shoulders to the wheel, so that we all pull together, now that our backs are to the wall...." And whenever Hilda makes an observation or asks a question, Jim covers up his own ignorance with bluster and smugness and ill-informed guesses.
Hilda is crippled by her English desire to cling to decorum and propriety, even as the world crumbles around them. Jim is tempted to cut a few corners in constructing the shelter, she coaxes him into following the directions exactly, saying, "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well." After the attack, while confined to the shelter, she refuses to use a chamber pot, saying, "Bomb or no bomb, Hitler or no Hitler, I'm going to go to the toilet in the proper manner." In fact, one of Jim and Hilda's biggest problems come from the fact that every situation is filtered through their memories of World War II. They have a terrible time getting used to the fact that the Russians, who were allied with Britain and the US during WWII, are now the enemies. Whenever they start talking about what they can expect to happen next, they inevitably refer to the enemy as "Gerry" (which was British WWII slang for Germans) before being reminded that it is Russia that has attacked them. When they discover that the bomb has knocked out their water and electricity and telephones, they can't seem to understand it. "Remember the Blitz? The post went on just the same."
Perhaps Briggs was commenting on this nostalgic view of WWII and of war in general. People fondly remember the sacrifices they made for the war effort, but do not seem to recall the pain and suffering such wars caused. I'm sure that Briggs (and Waters, to a certain extent) could imagine his own parents trying to cope with the realities of nuclear war. Such circumstances provide for some of the funniest moments in the book and film. Before the attack, Hilda proposes that they try to avoid war by writing a letter to the Russian leadership: "Dear Sir... We, the people of Britain, are fed up with being bombed. We had enough of it last time with old Hitler, so will you just leave us in peace? You live your life and we'll live ours. Hope you are well. Please don't drop any bombs. Yours Sincerely, Mr. and Mrs. J. Bloggs" Trying to turn on the television in the aftermath of the bomb, Jim exclaims excitedly, "We may see *our* bomb on the news!" Such cluelessness also is present in some of the most horrific moments as well. Jim notes that while the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was as hot as 1,000 suns, The Powers That Be are sure to make "better" (that is, hotter) ones nowadays. They hear phrases like "Mutual Assured Destruction" being used by heads of state, and they assume that such things exist to keep them safe. And they remark, "Well, if you can't see it and can't feel it, it can't be doing you any harm, can it?" even as they are complaining of headaches, nausea, bleeding gums, and skin spots from the radiation. Foremost, the couple illustrates our collective helplessness at the hands of the government. As Jim states early on, "The decisions made by The Powers That Be will get to us in the end." And he is right, though he doesn't fully understand the impact of his words. Instead, he thinks that the government is going to make decisions with his best interests in mind. At one point, Jim realizes that there are clearly conflicting instructions in the governmental pamphlets, and he doesn't know what to do. He trusts the government to tell him what to do in order to take care of his family, but he doesn't seem to realize what the government pamphlets refuse to tell him--that no amount of preparation is going to save them from the effects of a full-scale nuclear attack. Shortly after the bomb, Jim is reading aloud from a book entitled "Armageddon and You," and is listing some 13 different Western defense systems, with which he is obviously impressed. "Well," Hilda shrewdly observes, "it didn't stop them from bombing us, did it?" Although she is every bit as naive and ignorant as Jim, she is clearly the wiser of the two. The When the Wind Blows book was a critical success, and it is easy to see why Roger Waters was willing to contribute the film's score. His own anti-war and anti-nuclear arms stands are well known, as are his feelings about the foolishness of turning war memories into nostalgia. The pain and suffering war causes seems to be always in his mind when writing songs, from "Corporal Clegg" and "Us and Them" to "Late Home Tonight" (not to mention The Wall and The Final Cut). The first song on Waters' score, "Towers of Faith," was used as a prelude to the film, to be played in the theater before the film was shown. It spoofs the fact that Muslims, Christians, and oil companies all wage war over a section of barren desert in the Middle East for very different reasons. The lyrics foreshadow the sentiments expressed in Amused to Death, in which Roger describes the ways that politicians and warmongers appropriate the name of God to defend their positions, and complains about the United States' tendency to go to war in order to keep oil prices down. The song that is played over the closing credits, "Folded Flags," decries the way politicians treat military power as a way to gain personal glory and attention, and despairing over the fact that "our lives [are] in the hands of a second-rate actor" (that is, Ronald Reagan). In the song, he also makes it very clear that political and religious dogma are poor reasons to kill innocent people, and that we should consider the big picture. "You can prove your point but your kids will still be dead."
It is not surprising that Radio KAOS was recorded shortly after the When the Wind Blows soundtrack, as both works share some significant elements. The use of the phrase "The Powers That Be" came from Briggs, rather than from Waters, and the film incorporates a bit of Morse code in several places (Morse code was used heavily as a visual and audio thematic element in KAOS). Furthermore, the use of the threat of nuclear war as something of a scare tactic in KAOS may have been inspired or influenced by When the Wind Blows. It is hard to determine if When the Wind Blows affected Waters' later work, or if Waters' later work was simply reflecting the same philosophies that were on his mind when writing the film's soundtrack. Mike McInnis is a Assistant Editor of Spare Bricks. |
Still,
there is a certain sweetness to their nostalgic memories of WWII. There
are, of course, the remembrances of the Anderson and Morrison bomb shelters
they had as children, which is accompanied by Waters' music-box-and-orchestra
rendition of the lullaby "Rock-a-Bye Baby". But the film also
features lovely sequences in which Jim envisions himself as a valiant
member of the emergency war relief services, protecting the home front
and saving damsels in distress, and a touching moment when Jim envisions
the WWII hero Montgomery leading the Allied forces against the invading
Russians before sadly realizing that "Monty" is long dead.
