"The Web" / THE GLADIATORS

ABOUT THE FILMS:

“The Web,” 1956, Dir. Peter Watkins, 20 Mins, UK

A reconstruction of the Allied landing in occupied France during the Second World War.

FORMAT: DCP

THE GLADIATORS, 1968, Dir. Peter Watkins, 105 Mins, Sweden

In English, Cantonese, French, German and Swedish with English subtitles.

“The growing professional isolation which followed the banning of THE WAR GAME, as well as the vicious critical attacks on PRIVILEGE made me rather inclined to leave the UK. I was finally able to do so, and began what became permanent exile from my own country, when I was approached by Sandrews in Stockholm. Sandrews was a major cinema distributor and at that time a production company (they were producing two films by Susan Sontag); they had just premiered THE WAR GAME in Stockholm, and offered to produce any film I chose to make. Nicholas Gosling, a young writer, joined me in developing a script for what became my second feature film. THE GLADIATORS is a bleak satire set in the near future, in which the major powers of the world, East and West, aligned and non-aligned, recognize the possibility of a major world war within our lifetime, and try to forestall it by channeling man’s aggressive instincts in a more controllable manner. They do this by forming an International Commission along the lines of the United Nations, dedicated to fighting a series of contests between teams of selected soldiers from each country. These competitions, which can be fought to the death, are called ‘Peace Games’, and are broadcast on global television via satellite – complete with sponsors and commercials. The film follows Game 256, which is being ‘played’ in the International Peace Game Centre near Stockholm, under the controlling eye of a highly sophisticated computer, hired out to the International Commission by the (neutral) Swedish Army. The international group of officers watching Game 256 decide to eliminate a man and a woman from opposing teams who reach out to each other, because they decide that such forms of communication would be the gravest threat of all to the stability of the existing world-system.” – Peter Watkins

FORMAT: DCP