An ostensibly tongue in cheek documentary about the nuclear age of the late 40's and 50's, juxtaposing the horrific realities of the arms race with cheery misinformation(and simplistic redbaiting) doled out to the public by the US government and private sector. The overall effect is chilling-for every scene of hilariously misguided propaganda and dismissal of nuclear danger(an army film cheerfully assures a fictional fallout victim that his hair will grow back in no time) there's scenes of Pacific islanders affected by fallout from remote nuclear tests and US soldiers getting debriefed on the minimal dangers of witnessing a nuclear detonation a few miles away(with goggles on, to be fair). Not an objective documentary by any means - not that it should be - the filmmakers excoriate the duplicity of the government and the mock the complacency of the public with equal zeal, but there's a certain absurdist charm to the whole affair.
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Dr. Nick*#320 June 2002
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jongru30 January 1999I could watch this movie again and again. If you remember the days when we were all terrified of impending nuclear war with the Soviet Union, this puts your half-remembered anxieties and prejudices in perspective. There's rare archive footage of the first nuclear bombs being primed and detonated. There's stomach churning archive footage about the execution of the Rosenbergs for espionage. And the now hilarious footage about how civilians should protect themselves against the bomb. Makes fun of politicians and broadcasters, and leaves you feeling that you've learned something and that you won't be fooled again.
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elwinter28 April 2003I saw The Atomic Cafe in a theater when it was first released. Someone exclaimed derogatorily as they walked out on it. But I thought it was brilliant. Sort of a sub-genre of documentary, this one had no commentary, narrative or explanations for the material presented. No retroactive interviews with those who were there. It relied 100% on archival materials.
A few years back, I visited the Trinity Site (here in New Mexico) on the 50th anniversary of the first test of the bomb. Quite a few of those who were somehow involved back then and still living turned up for the event. So I did get to hear some hindsight comments. Definitely different than what was being said back then, and such commentary could have really changed the picture.
This is a rare approach, and therefore thought provoking. One can argue that the choice of material, editing and music track impose some interpretation, and there may be something to that. Although it's unlikely that one could turn the story into something really different unless latter-day, hindsight interviews were added to provide a different spin.
Being a "Baby Boomer", I was born during the times depicted in the movie, and have some early memories of them. For those who were alive in that time, it's fascinating to see how it tweaks your memory. I, for one, didn't think deep thoughts about the "duck and cover" drills at school - it was just another thing that got us out of our seats, like fire drills and recess. But it does tweak memory, to bring back things not thought of for many years. Interesting to consider how one's own memory is incomplete, wanders, can be influenced, etc. (Now, re-read Orwell's 1984.)
Brilliant, and disturbing. Interesting to consider in light of current events (spring 2003). -
alphabettysoup1 July 2002The fact that this is true makes this short film scary and worrying...but doesn't stop it from being very entertaining and funny. The pieces of real life propaganda are amazing and it's often hard to believe that it's all true.
However remember that all of the snipets of film are cut and pasted together with music added over the top, so everything you see isn't exactly as it seems... it's propaganda on propaganda...and highly entertaining. A must see for any one interested in American History, Propaganda, or just wanting a good sorry laugh. -
enmussak13 December 2002For anyone who enjoys a real sense about times in history that they have not lived through, this is an excellent film. I had no idea how the dawning of the atomic age changed American culture. For an interesting continuance of the paranoid atomic era, check out Bowling for Columbine. Both Atomic Cafe and Bowling for Columbine discuss the "Culture of Fear" that is America.
Some of the content in the Atomic Cafe is completely shocking, which serves its purpose as a poignant exposé into one of the darker periods of America's (if not the world's history). A must see. You'll be glued to the screen. 10/10 -
Douglas_Holmes5 January 2003A great look into the ultra-paranoid mindset of the Cold War which I lived through. It is truly amazing how such madness (paranoia and intolerance of someone who dares to exercise REAL freedom of speech, of which examples are clearly shown) was accepted in those times.
The "Bert the Turtle" sequence cracked me up. I REMEMBER doing this "Duck and Cover" idiocy! When I was in grade school, we had Civil Defense drills: we were taught to leave the classroom, go out in the hall, face the wall, lean against it and cover our faces with our folded arms. Never you mind that the wall that was behind us consisted mostly of window glass! A shockwave hitting it would have blasted the shards into our backs. It would have looked like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre!
A great film. -
buyjesus23 June 2002rather than using a biased narrative or a series of carefully constructed evidence, the atomic café lets its subject matter speak for itself. what results is a montage along the lines of a cultural mix tape, some fotage remixed and edited for effect, others shown in their entirety. The subject matter is the atomic bomb and while some of the archived footage is tedious, others that splice footage of radiation poisoning into a series of "don't panic" public service announcements. There are some genuinely funny segments too, like the announcer who takes a moment out to state that in the midst of all the communist "propoganda" flying around, he's proud he is that he owns 2 lovely shopping plazas, which he proceeds to shamelessly advertise. And of course, the classic Duck and Cover videos shown to schoolchildren worldwide in the mid-50's. The soundtrack of forgotten country, lounge, and rockabilly tunes about hydrogen bomb fears is stellar as well. But the culmination and as well as the most powerful moment comes when a simulated Nuclear attack on the US combines footage from all of the previous segments into a harrowing collage of post-war hysteria.
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Calaboss17 April 2004With no narration other than that provided by historical clips, this movie justly states how ludicrous the idea of nuclear war was, and is. The producers of this film spent years going through declassified governmental film archives to find some of the most chilling, and hilarious, footage ever taken. It also tells how the US government screwed over the Bikini Islanders, and has some fine coverage of the spoon-feeding of propaganda to the US public through the 40's and 50's.
A great movie for just a laugh, or for some interesting historical perspective on a unique time in the recent US past. I loved the clip of the guy who invented a lead-lined suit, put it on his son, and then had him try to ride a bike. Could we have possibly been this gullible just a few decades ago? Can you say "duct tape and plastic sheeting"?
Duck and cover everyone! -
No pun intended but this film is a blast. I only recently became aware of it and promptly decided to order it up via my local library. For someone like myself who lived through most of the era represented in these archival clips, it's a wistful, melancholy trip down memory lane. Like so many others growing up in the Fifties I remember quite vividly how we'd practice those duck and cover drills and stockpile canned goods in a secure room at school in case we found ourselves under attack by those pesky Russkies. The film instructively takes us on a chronological journey from the end of World War II through the Cold War paranoia of the Fifties and Sixties showing how the threat of nuclear war was to be taken seriously, or at least as seriously as the government would have us believe. You know, even as a kid I had a pretty good idea that kneeling next to a wall and covering my head with my hands would make me a goner if the real thing ever happened.
One of the more surreal moments offered here was that near rabid clergyman exhorting families with a fallout shelter to deny access to outsiders lest they imperil their own safety. It brought to mind that 1961 Twilight Zone episode 'The Shelter' which pretty much laid out the same scenario with some modification. In the story, a family man who built and supplied his own fallout shelter was besieged by his neighbors to allow them entry when the dreaded siren heralded a nuclear attack. The story demonstrated just how ugly people can become when faced with their own mortality; it was one of Rod Serling's better scripts.
In terms of sheer absurdity (and there were numerous examples), the suggestion that doubled me over had to do with providing a bottle of tranquilizers for an extended period in a bomb shelter. How else to contend with the paranoia and boredom of being cooped up while waiting for an emergency to be over. Which would be good advice if you had the foresight to locate your shelter at least twelve miles away from ground zero because otherwise you'd be toast. By the way, a bottle of a hundred would be about right.
For those of you interested in this type of stuff, the copy of "The Atomic Cafe" I watched came in a two DVD set from Docurama Films. The bonus disc features yet another eight government propaganda shorts from the era including 1951's 'Duck and Cover' with Bert the Turtle, and what looks like a must see - 'Self Preservation in an Atomic Attack'. For a more in depth treatment of the Bikini Atoll nuclear test, I'd recommend the 1988 documentary "Radio Bikini". -
ironhorse_iv13 February 2016The idea of combining film from various sources to make something new is a controversial issue. Some people thinks it's stealing; while other people believe collage films like this, are masterpieces of film novelty. In my opinion, I'm one, for the latter argument since many of these propaganda films, TV programs, army and military training films, advertisements, film strips, newsreels, cartoons, government archival film, documentaries, civil defense films, anti-nuclear footage, public service announcements, educational films, and commercial stock footage are in the public domain. So I really doubt, any of this, is considered as stealing in the modern term. Then, there are those critics that says, that films like this, undermining the original message, in which, the original film footage was trying to tell. While, it's true, I haven't saw, many of these film archives on their own, before in my life; so, I wouldn't know, what their original intention were really about, however, I do love, the way, this movie consistent edit all of those found footage from disparate sources into one film to prove that life in the 'Atomic Age' was somewhat comical, despite the era being ride with paranoia, anxiety and misapprehension. I saw, 'the Atomic Café' as a funny, but also an eerily look into the nostalgia of 1940-1960s Cold War. The film's satire shines best, and most vividly in the clever image splicing of the cheerful 1952's animation film, 'Duck and Cover', with that the misinform 'Army Training Videos', which state out, soldiers and Bikini islanders would be alright to return to destructive bomb sites, without getting much radiation. Its shows, how inexperienced and naïve people still were, after ten to 20 years after the horrors of the nuclear bombing of the Japanese towns of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, during World War 2. I know, it's a bit hypocritical to laugh at people from yesteryear, when we still, repeating some of the same mistakes, in today's world, but some of the examples, I brought up, here, are just too hilarious, not to give a few chuckles. The movie is just way too entertaining. In my opinion, I thought that directors, Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty and Pierce Rafferty and their team of film editors and researchers did a great job. After all, this movie was made in the early 1980s; where old film footages isn't as easy to find, as it is, today's work. There was no internet, back then, to share film files with; every film archive had to be search and noted for similarities. I heard, that makers of The Atomic Cafe sifted through thousands of feet of Army films, newsreels, government propaganda films and old television broadcasts to come up with 86 minutes of material for their movie. That's pretty impressive at the time. It's also remarkable that all of this, is presented without any new talking narration, or talking-head interviews to push the narrative along. Even, the vintage songs match, the era in which this movie, is trying to portray. It was very whimsical and yet so razor-sharp accuracy. No wonder, why this movie took five years to make. I just surprised that this documentary wasn't nominated for Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1982; because it should had. If the movie had any faults; it's the lack of seeing what the views of the Soviet Union was going through, during that same era. I know, Soviet Union film footage and newsreels is hard to come back, at that time; but just think, if this movie had some of those. It would make a more well-rounded film. I would love to see more scenes like the 1959's Kitchen Debate, between Vice President, Richard Nixon & Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev or something similar to that. Another fault of the film is the movie doesn't talk much about the early 1960s Cold War attitudes. I think, those events would still, fit with the nostalgia cold war tone of the film. It would be nice to see them, to cover the U-2 incident, the Berlin Wall Build up, the Cuba Missile Crisis and the Space Age. My only guess, in why this movie, didn't show that, was because, those events were too tense to make fun of. However, in my opinion, it would still work. After all, this film, did showcase, some dark events like the Korea War, the trials of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, and others. So, I don't see, no reason, why they couldn't add those 1960s events in. Despite that, the Atomic Café did serves up a revealing, somewhat informative hot cup of Cold War history. Overall: Atomic Café was da-bomb! The film was immensely enjoyable. I recommended watching to anybody who is a Cold-War junkie. It will warm your heart.
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the red duchess11 August 2000Is it only possible to counter propaganda with propaganda? Three American film archivists, discovering a trove of American material from the Cold War era - US Army Information films, newsreels, advertisements, radio broadcasts, government shorts, songs, cartoons etc. - decided to make a compilation film from it. The result is stunning, horrifying, comic, unreal, revealing an entire nation, the most powerful and influential nation in the world, the centre of modern democracy, home to many of the brightest minds in the world, giving way to collective insanity. And all over one of America's most far-reaching inventions, the atomic bomb.
'Atomic Cafe' details three stages in America's relationship with the bomb. Firstly, when only the Americans had it, there is a distinct smugness, as President Truman, barely able to suppress the joyful giggles, thanks God that it fell into American hands, and not those of 'our' enemies. Because America is so sensible and impartial, and would never do anything silly with it. Like blow up an entire idyllic Pacific island, misjudge meteorological reports and contaminate many nearby islanders, as well as a Japanese fishing vessel whose dodgy produce is then sold throughout Japan and - ha! - imported to America.
Like bomb two entire Japanese cities. This is perhaps the most chilling section of the film - the rest just shows Americans in demented fearbliss. One of the pilots of the Enola Gay describes the mission with terrible, cold, euphemistic, mathematical, military, precise jargon, reducing a barbarous act that killed hundreds of thousands, maimed many more, contaminated whole generations, and destroyed the psyche of a nation, to a theorem, successfully demonstrated. The filmmakers have this charming absraction soundtracking footage of the actual human cost. Another knuckleheaded pilot slavers at the aesthetic pleasure the mushroom gave him, words that would be echoed in the later glorious war against Iraq.
Curiously, in the face of suppressed public misapprehension, it is the visual wonder of the bomb's effects that are repeatedly asserted, as if the atomic bomb is just one big firework, bigger and better because it is American, a military-sponsored cultural experience from a nation that was in the process of jailing some of its best minds. We're only three years from 'Top Gun'.
The execution of the 'treasonous' Rosenburgs is another shameful American farce: crowds of 'ordinary' Americans baying for blood as enthusiastically as their recent German enemies (the Rosenburgs were, of course, Jewish). The execution itself doesn't quite go to plan, as Ethel survives the recommended dose of electricity - one visibly shaken reporter seems to regret the medieval brutality of the exercise, but still manages to condemn her righteously (the propaganda invokes religious imagery a lot to justify itself).
All this merry-making changes when the Russians 'pinch' the bomb. Complacent superiority gives way to panic. The moronic anti-Red propaganda shown here would be funny if we didn't know how many lives it ruined under McCarthy, Nixon and all their cronies. Particularly piquant scenes include a good-old-boy American town enacting the consequences of a Soviet takeover, or the newsman who stops to advertise two fine American shopping malls, excellent examples of non-Soviet Western capitalism. The third stage is the final descent into lunacy, as the inevitability of bomb apocalypse results in new housing estates with built-in bomb shelters, and boy scouts being encouraged to jump off their bikes and hit the pavement in the even of a nuclear blast (thanks for the tip!).
'Atomic Cafe' is a valuable record in the rare visual recording of a nation actually becoming a superpower. America's vaunted role of world policeman coexists with a vicious isolationism - one priest (!) recommends families having a weapon in their bomb shelter to ward off any undesirable 'needy strangers' who might need help (I take it the Good Samaritan parable is cut from American bibles); the patronising of both Europeans and Pacific islanders reveal America entering its own imperial Victorian age. The film is also a brilliant piece of sociology, about the construction of gender (the male power in the home as metonym for the male power in government) and family (the radio broadcast of the Rosenburgs' execution is cut with Lynch-like shots of beautiful suburbia), politics, commerce, media-power.
This is an essential guide to anyone who needs a background to film masterpieces like 'Written On The Wind' or 'Bigger Than Life', although, as a documentary, it cannot compete with them as insights into what it was like to live in the 1950s - just because the government treated its subjects as idiots doesn't necessarily mean they were. The last line in the film, after a nuclear blast has ravaged America, is 'Let's wait for orders from the authorities, and then we can relax'. 'Atomic Cafe' shows that asylum America got the authority it deserved, and the brief flash of Reagan in the archives suggests that it wasn't a mentality that had just gone away.
It is a shame, then, that the film is tainted by its own processes, distorting the evidence to produce a single viewpoint, just as those silly films did. The filmmakers cannot trust the audience to see the inherent ghastly idiocy of the propaganda for themselves; they have to lead us with a heavy hand. Like authority. It intercuts footage with ironically disparate soundtracks (eg the proto-'Blue Velvet' effect I mentioned above); at the climax, 'Cafe' lunges into a Walpurgisnacht of American craziness, full of speeded up editing and 'zany' sound effects. Having watched so many of the films, maybe Rafferty-Loader-Rafferty got used to the idea of power. -
Theo Robertson4 April 2014THE ATOMIC CAFE is one of those few rare documentaries that doesn't have a narrator or a framing figure . All it consists of are clips in a chronological order of the history of the atomic bomb and of the early stages of the geo-political situation of what became known as " The Cold War " which was the direct result of the bomb . There's two ways of looking at this . One is the subject matter is a little bit dry and absurd and the second point of view of view is that the audience are allowed to make up there own mind and it's somewhat refreshing to see a documentary that doesn't involve someone bludgeoning the audience over the head while sticking their opinions down their throat in a painfully smug and snide manner . You can tell this wasn't made by Michael Moore
One wonders what life was like in a pre-nuclear age ? I remember the cold war in the 1980s and the paranoia of that era was chilling , so much so that for people of my generation still refer to the 1984 BBC docu-drama THREADS as the most terrifying thing they have ever seen . That said it could also be argued that if it wasn't for the bomb then a conventional war that would have surpassed the death toll of the second world war might have broken out between 1945 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 . Reagen in The White House and Brezhnev in the Kremlin ? Not really a recipe for peace and the fact that nuclear weapons are so terrible to contemplate probably focused the minds of world leaders
Being an American documentary all the clips are from an American point of view with an exception of a clip that's almost certainly from an early edition of PANORAMA from the BBC . This is a pity because I would liked to have seen what sort of propaganda if any the USSR was producing at the same time . That said the old cliché of " Americans don't understand irony " is evident as someone praises the virtues of American freedom " because we have shopping malls that are full of food and clothes and most families can afford cars " . I think someone is confusing system of government with economics .As I write this in 2014 China has shopping malls full of food and clothes and the Chinese people can afford to drive cars . The difference is there's no democratic system of government in China so democracy and capitalism are not the one and the same thing , but I guess that clip is to illustrate the inherent absurdity of propaganda ? Likewise we get clips of real life footage of American servicemen being used to test the effects of being caught in an atomic blast " There's nothing to worry about " and of relaxing should your city be caught up in a nuclear war . Did someone say " Absurd ? "
One very interesting point that is often talked about by the CND mob is in relation to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as in " Why didn't the Americans drop the bombs in a remote unpopulated area of Japan to force their surrender ? " I've often thought that myself and am unable to give a counter argument to that question . Here we see an interview with Paul Tibbets the pilot who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima who goes in to some detail - it's because these cities were untouched by arial bombing and the American government wanted to study the effects on a bombed city after the war had ended . Some people might think this is amoral or cruelly cynical but you can make up your own mind as to morality during wartime and THE ATOMIC CAFE does allow the audience to think for themselves no matter what the opinions of this documentary's producers are . In that respect it's very refreshing -
cmomman19884 July 2017Pros: Darkly comedic collection of outdated propaganda films, archival footage and so on, soundtrack filled with obscure tunes, final scene featuring Hungarian Rhapsody #2, glad it's selected by the National Film Registry
Cons: Not for the fate of heart
IT'S A BOMB , DUCK AND COVER -
kellyadmirer22 March 2011If you are considering watching this one, be alert to the fact that it is a documentary composed virtually entirely of old black and white news clips and civil defense films. Anything you find in it - humor, dread, amazement - you will be supplying yourself.
As with any documentary, choices have been made as to what to include. They are meant to guide us in a particular direction. That is inevitable, and not a failing of this particular piece. If it did not have a point of view, it would be dreadfully dull. Your particular reaction, though, will depend on your pre-existing mindset.
So, the film is loaded with clips that make people of the past look preposterous. Soldiers are seen staring down nuclear blasts, authorities are shown giving misinformation, and bomb shelters provoke a storm of confused political messages (they may keep you safe, says the good Reverend, but don't let in that lonely stranger if it might compromise you!). Schmaltzy tunes of the past that treat the subject casually are given the "Let them eat cake" treatment, as in, how DARE anyone treat this SERIOUS threat lightly. The film is actually quite moralistic in a backhanded sort of way, in a Jonathan Edwards "enough of this frivolity, get down on your KNEES and fear the bomb" manner.
The documentary over-reaches, however. This was brought out in 1982, and clearly was catering to fears brought about by Ronald Reagan's 1980 election. He was seen by many of his opponents as a dangerous cowboy just itching to blow up the world. Crazy to think that now, of course, given the fact that he did not blow up the world the first, second, or hundredth chance that he had, but that was the mantra. The images depicted are all from the mid-1940s to the early 1960s, but they even manage to work in a quick shot of actor Reagan himself from those years.
If you want to be smug, as the filmmakers are banking on, and react, as they wish, with "weren't they all such idiots," well, fine. But consider this: at one point in the film, someone is asked how far you would have to be to be safe from a nuclear blast. "Twelve miles," he responds grimly. Then, apparently as the "sane" response, someone else is shown saying even more grimly that you basically would have to be on Pluto to be safe.
Sounds awfully familiar. In 2011, the Japanese government said that to be safe from the Fukushima meltdown, you needed to be, what a coincidence, twelve miles away. Meanwhile, the Americans said you had to be much further away. It's so much easier to sit back and laugh at people thirty years later, isn't it.
There is a lot of just plain odd stuff. Richard Nixon, at the depths of infamy at the time of this film, is practically the film's star (heavy?), even though his connection to anything nuclear throughout is forced and tangential (his Kitchen Debate with Khruschev is included just to give him some more negative air time). Just illustrates conclusively the political orientation of the film.
There are some surprises. Lloyd Bentsen, later Democratic Party darling, is shown stridently supporting the use of nuclear bombs in Korea (one shudders that this actual mad bomber almost became Vice President and, later, Secretary of Defense). President Eisenhower, though, is shown as a very thoughtful man who apparently appreciates the dangers at hand.
Some scenes are shown to make fun of the "stay inside, duck and cover" advice. Close the windows to protect yourself. So hilarious, who could survive a radiation scenario, right? Well, that is exactly what the residents of Japan are being told to do right this minute. Hahaha, so funny. But doing simple things like that are, in fact, what people are still advised to do if they wish to increase their odds of surviving a nuclear attack. Under the right conditions, say a large enough distance from a blast, it quite actually could save your life. But so much easier to laugh at the notion that closing a window will deter the effects of a hydrogen bomb.
Of course, bombs in those days were much, much less powerful than they are today or, for that matter, were in 1982. Some of the advice given in the 1950s that was appropriate for that time obviously is outdated. But easy to make fun of people then based on what we face now, isn't it?
Those were the early days of educating people about nuclear events, and there was a lot of misinformation, hyperbole, guess-work and so forth, all given the wise-guy send-up of the malicious tool out to make fun of people. The anti-Soviet attitudes are widely ridiculed, and, given that all-important hindsight, rightly so. And certainly, the complacent idea that nuclear wars are somehow OK is the film-makers' real target, and who is going to deny that (well, maybe Lloyd Bentsen if he were still around). The filmmakers are stacking the deck just a might too heavily against people of the past who sincerely were groping for answers before it just became a fool's "common knowledge" that there is no surviving radiation and you are "better off" just running outside and standing out in the open to hasten your doom if the worst happens.
Just all right as a documentary. Obviously, widely missed the mark with me as either an exercise in comedy or satire. More interesting as insight into the evident cold war paranoia of those who made the film (and their sad, misguided fear of Reagan) than as any kind of insight into the times depicted. -
ayse_hamid4 November 2004Watching Atomic Café is like witnessing history repeating, since the scenes are a compilation of bits and pieces from pre-existing films taken from government and education films from the '40s and '50s. As a compilation film, Atomic Café has resulted in a totally new film that is much richer and more meaningful than the sum of its parts.
Atomic Café, will be more understandable if we are familiar with the roots of its historical material. As a history film, Atomic Café takes us to experience three levels of time. The first is the internal time, the Cold War, communism versus the free world, when propaganda about the atomic bomb was made to persuade the people that only nuclear weapons would protect them from the "Evil Empire". The period of the'Nuclear Free' movement comes next. And thirdly, the present time, when the world is changed but has to face the same irony that still is just as relevant today, the fear of weapons of mass destruction.
In the beginning, the film appears to be a straightforward history of America's development and use of atomic weapons. Historical footage is used to add credibility to the information presented. The power of the bomb is demonstrated by showing dramatic footage of the Trinity test; interviews with Bikini Islanders, and preserved eyewitness congressional testimony of atomic bomb veterans. The impact of the weapon is documented through footage of the bomb victims. The intention is not to make us become objective about certain issues, rather it 'is designed to make us question the nature of the information presented' (Freeman Reading Packet, 108).
The film uses unique techniques. It is like a collage that 'sacrifices the conventions of continuity editing and the sense of a very specific location in time and place that follows from it to explore associations and patterns that involve temporal rhythms and spatial juxtaposition' (Nichols, 102). It is all about editing raw material and splicing segments? of military training films, civil defense films, archive footage, interviews, newsreel material, and fifties music. Many sequences are edited to show the most ridiculous side of the duck-and-cover drills and how naïve the Americans were at that time. To make it more derisive the film shows how the military training films were so amateurishly acted and misleading, such as the scene about the beauty of the H-bomb. I believe that the filmmakers have made their point in choosing all the footage for the film. Perhaps the intention is to challenge and deprive the intended message of the original footage.
If we take a look in more detail, Atomic Café chooses and juxtaposes its various elements to support its point-of-view. One of the examples is the continual references to radio receivers. Perhaps it is a symbol that is used to invoke the idea of the power of mass media. The intention is 'to sensitize us to the danger of uncritical media consumption' (Freeman Reading Packet, 110). It is so ironic to see how people in the '50s could be so passive that they believed in every single thing that they heard about the atom bomb on the radio. We can see from the footage how people became so afraid and escaped to their shelter after hearing that a bomb was launched. Perhaps fear had taken such control of these people that the more frightened they were, the more they were easily persuaded.
I guess it would be a great mistake to ignore the political message that is contained in the film. Maybe for some viewers this is just a gimmick about the Cold War and things that happens during the '50's. But really, Atomic Café gives us an historical perspective for reconsidering the effect of the issues of war, nuclear warfare and weapons of mass destruction. -
sol121815 August 2012Newsreel and archive footage covering the post nuclear age from 1945 to 1960 and how Americans coped with it. The documentary start with the first atomic explosion on July 16, 1945 in the desert outside Alamogordo New Mexico that ushered in the atomic age. It was within less then a month that the atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki thus ending the Second World War and hopefully war itself in just how destructive those weapons of mass destruction are. That was soon to end with the US monopoly in being the only nation with nuclear weapons broken in the summer of 1949 when the Soviet Union detonated an atomic device in the wilds of Soviet Siberia. It was then that it became obvious that a major spy network in the US and UK were involved in stealing the secret of the atomic bomb and handing it over to the Russians.
The documentary "The Atomic Cafe" goes into detail in how the Cold War with the Soviet Union developed with the paranoia of a Soviet nuclear attack on America causing many Armeicans to build fallout shelters as well as stock up with cans and dry food as well as water in order to be able to survive a major nuclear attack. In fact the only Americans who suffered from the tragic results of an atomic bomb explosion were the tens if not hundreds of thousands of American servicemen who were used as guinea pigs in the dozens of unclear tests conducted by the US Government from 1951 to 1957 in the Western United States desert who came down with radiation sickness that ended up killing, from cancer, ten of thousands of them! That's about as much losses suffered by the US Military in both the Korean and Vietnam wars!
We get to see how the American people were programed through newsreel US military and US Government educational or propaganda films in how to survive a nuclear attack in the, among many, silly cartoon of "Burt the Turtle" telling us telling us that the best way to survive a nuclear attack is to just to "Duck & Cover" just before the bomb explodes. Later were told in a government documentary that if a 20 megaton nuclear weapon explodes on a major US City it would wipe out every living thing, human animal and plant life, within a 12 to 15 mile radius of ground zero. So much for "Burt the Turtle's" excellent and well thought out advice of ducking and covering in the event that a hydrogen bomb explodes practically on top of our heads!
The film has a number of historic event that took place between that time in American History notably the arrest conviction and execution the the infamous Rosenbergs, Julius & Ethel, who gave the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. As well as Senator Joe McCarthy who's wild and unsubstantiated accusations of Communists in the US State Department helped the real Communists, who were anything but visible in what they were doing, from being either hurt or exposed them.
The documentary ended on a light note with the famous Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev's "Kitchen Debate" that almost came across like the Abbott and Costello "Who's on First" comedy routine! It looked like Khruhchev seemed to get the best of Nixon by showing how misinformed he was on the theories and virtues of Communism and which is why it would end up being the economic system that would triumph in the end. As history later proved Nixon turned out to be right with Communism in the Soviet Union ceasing to exist in a scant 30 or so years into the future. But by then Nikita Khrushchev wasn't around to see it! -
Lechuguilla10 March 2017The decades following the 1950s bring to America considerable historical perspective of a prior era characterized by extreme fear and suspicion of Soviet Russia. Accompanied by patriotic hillbilly songs from the 40s and 50s, retro video clips comprise almost all of the visuals in this documentary about America's response to the Cold War. And what a response it was, as demonstrated by two overarching themes.
The first theme was one of hypocrisy. Government and military propaganda devices tried to reassure people that America was a peace loving country, yet one that needed to be prepared for war. Says one clip: "Our object is not aggression; we need not become militaristic, but ..." Another spouts: "This is the destructive power we pray God we will never be called upon to hurl at any nation, but ...". And yet another: "All the world knows we Americans are constructive, not destructive, however ..." Yes, there's always a "but" after sanctimonious feel-good babble.
A second theme was paranoia. Quite humorous are the responses to the prospect of a nuclear attack. The bomb shelter craze; the silly "duck and cover" instructions that schoolchildren received; those ominous air-raid sirens; those hideous gas masks. It was all a cultural fad of fear, promulgated by a military industrial complex that craved war.
Throughout this era of hypocrisy and paranoia, the distraction of consumerism dominated peoples' lives, egged on of course by the same military industrial complex. A traditional nuclear family and spending money became encouraged values, to counter those evil Russians.
In one segment, a man with great earnestness intones: "It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to represent two outstanding shopping centers ... concrete expressions of the practical idealism that built America ...; you'll find beautiful stores ... and of course plenty of free parking for all the cars that we Capitalists seem to acquire. Who can help but contrast the beautiful ... settings of the Arcadia Shopping hub ... with what you'd find under Communism".
Americans had valid reasons to fear and repel Hitler and similar dictators. But post WWII, the military industrial complex used the experience of WWII to manipulate a fragile and misinformed American public. Without any narration whatsoever, "The Atomic Café", with skillful editing, uses the voices from that era to convey a cultural subtext that, in retrospect, reeks of deception and sanctimony. -
michaelRokeefe6 October 2011Travel with us now if you will to the mid 1950s, when it wasn't only fear we were to fear, but the atomic bomb and the grinding pelvis of Elvis Presley. This is a nice documentary made up of a collection of American propaganda films and material from newsreel archives. Various nuclear-themed clips from the 1940s and 1950s. Building of the atomic bomb and the devastation it left in Japan. Thoughts of the H-Bomb and how it would/could be used. Washington's Communist witch hunt and the notorious trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Actually a well pieced together history of our lives and fears. Footage of the Bikini island test; atomic mushroom clouds and footage of school children learning to "Duck and Cover". Sometimes humorous; sometimes dour...Atomic City to Nagasaki. Educational look at the dark side of Cold War America. Appearing through archive footage: Dwight D. Eisenhower, Paul Tibbets, Richard Nixon, Harry S. Truman, Lloyd Bentsen, Val Peterson, Lyndon B. Johnson and Hugh Beaumont.
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there are many famous and great documentaries, 'Harlan County', 'Taxi To The Darkside',etc, that inform us and provide us with valuable knowledge into events and help to deeply impact our thinking. 'Atomic Cafe' isn't that kind of documentary. It doesn't really tell us anything we don't know or provide us with information that isn't already out there. what it is, however, is one of the most entertaining and clever documentaries you could possibly imagine. one IMDb reviewer, who is also a filmmaker, even went as far as to say he liked this better than his own documentary.
it's really something when you can take a subject like this and make it into a thing that is screamingly funny, enjoyable fun, without seeming ironically morbid in the process. the film never leaves you with a sour, bitter taste, but with a sense of awe and amusement at the messy predicament mankind has gotten into. everything about it is fascinating, and dare i say, even a little magical. not the bomb necessarily, but just the way the film puts things into it's clever, fun perspective. the film takes a negative subject and turns it into something that is good and cathartic for the viewer. instead of feeling depressed or negative after the film, a viewer is probably more likely to feel strangely elated,empowered, and a bit braver when facing world crisis. i'm not saying we should just laugh at everything bad, but a little humor always helps.
the film is done without the help of any kind of narration which leaves the viewer free to make their own conclusions and decide their own feelings on the subject. not that it isn't skillfully done. the montages are excellent, especially the final montage which is timed to Mussorgsky's 'Pictures At An Exhibition'.
this is a documentary everyone should see. it helps you cope with the idea of a "bomb"(or bombs), and helps you laugh at the things that seem like mankind's darkest hour. note: this makes a great double feature viewing with either 'Dr. Stangelove' or '5,000 Fingers of Dr.T'. -
"The Atomic Cafe" is an interesting documentary that strings together US government propaganda films and archival footage from atomic era. Starting with the first atomic test through the Cold War, this film weaves these clips together into a history lesson. I appreciate how the clips were not just tossed together willy-nilly but actually were done chronologically and logically. At first, clips tend to talks very naively about the atomic bomb--showing solders watching the test blasts with minimal protection. Then the film focuses on fears in the West about communism and the Soviet Union.
So why is my score relatively low? Well, this film is a great example of too much. At about an hour and a half, the viewer is left numb--overwhelmed by too much. I think the film would have been better had it been shorter as sometimes more is not better. I found my attention drifting after a while and it was tough sticking with this one--even though it was clever. -
SusieSalmonLikeTheFish20 October 2014I'm not rating the videos within the film with a ten out of ten; they are disturbing, inaccurate propaganda used to keep US citizens unaware of the horrifying effects of nuclear fallout and "the bomb". During the Cold War many countries lived in fear of the bomb, and with the internet today, online communication and truths being exposed, we know enough not to be fooled by propaganda... right? Well, I'll tell you one thing, all that "go green" environmental anti-pollution stuff all over movies, TV and the news right now is all propaganda.
What Atomic Cafe does with these old videos of nuclear testing, mushroom clouds and the portrayal of Japan and Russia as evil monster countries is gather them into a shocking and powerful collection of real propaganda that was seriously aired on the radio and on TV during the 40's and 50's.
One of the more disturbing ones is where a cheerful man casually dresses his little boy in a safe-suit and tells him to "hurry and not be late getting to the air raid shelter!", waving goodbye with extreme nonchalance as his kid rides off on a bike. Atomic Cafe shows the corrupt politicians and soldiers in power, some seriously messed up cartoons done for children on the bomb, the racists who discuss the natives of Bikini Island as if they're sub-human and too dumb to understand the destruction of their once-beautiful island, and then there's the disturbing song and full-color cartoon about radioactivity "blowing commies into the ground". A woman claims communism is better in a hypothetical situation and is then degraded by three men (feminism wasn't even a movement back then).
To understand just how sadistic, disturbing and frightening these video clips are, you'll have to watch this movie yourself. Just remember that this was all from an era where science was the new solution to all issues, and that things today are very different... and be very, very grateful you live in an era of technology but also very wary of what other propaganda is right in front of your eyes in the modern society. -
gavin694214 June 2016Disturbing collection of 1940s and 1950s United States government issued propaganda films designed to reassure Americans that the atomic bomb was not a threat to their safety.
"The Atomic Cafe" was released at the height of nostalgia and cynicism in America. By 1982, Americans lost much of their faith in their government following the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the seemingly never-ending arms race with the Soviet Union. "The Atomic Cafe" reflects and reinforces this idea as it exposes how the atomic bomb's dangers were downplayed (President Truman calls the atomic bomb a gift from God) and how the government used films to shape public opinion.
Even today (2016) the film holds up as a startling example of how the government kept the American people ignorant, and may possibly have been themselves ignorant. The way the Army handled radiation seems dangerous and foolish today. What I would like to see is this: if the film is ever put on blu-ray (and maybe it already is for all I know), go back to the sources and clean them up. Obviously not all could be, but if you were able to improve the picture quality, this film could stay relevant and interesting for decades to come. -
The older boomers would recall the atmosphere of this era very well.
The belief that nuclear weapons were probably going to fall at any time was accepted as a matter of course. Coming out of the carnage and rubble of WW2 perhaps that was to be expected, but the PSAs and political leaders honed that message to suggest it was not much more of a concern than a flock of tornadoes. "Duck and Cover" ads, back yard bomb shelters, Conelrad symbols on the radios (AM of course), public fallout shelters in the bank basements and other related markers were given little thought.
Younger folks would get a kick out of the over-simplified logic and ham-handed propaganda and be astonished to think that we took it for granted that nuclear warfare was just a dirty conventional tactic similar to the London Blitz.
It is an informative film and very entertaining in its odd way. Worth a watch for interested parties. -
BandSAboutMovies26 March 2024Directed by Kevin Rafferty, Jayne Loader and Pierce Rafferty, this film remixes newsreels, military training films and other footage made during the Cold War to ease peoples' minds about the inevitability of nuclear destruction and survivability. I'm so glad to report we no longer - oh, Putin said he's going to fire nuclear missiles at us, never mind - look, if you grew up in the 80s, you faced nuclear terror and movies like The Day After and Threads every day.
"Viewed from a safe distance, the atomic bomb is one of the most beautiful sights ever seen by man." Those words are horrifying but this movie is hilarious. Released as Reagan was leading the largest military increases since the Korean War, this is a movie that shows nuclear clouds "harmlessly" blowing over innocent people and soldiers testing themselves to see how much radiation that had been exposed to. Mutually assured destruction was the aim in 1982; the U. S. had so many nukes that they could inflict end of the world damage on the Soviet Union even after absorbing everything they had, even if no one would survive. And who would want to? Again, have you seen Threads?
Directed by Jayne Loader and Kevin and Pierce Rafferty, this film has no narration, just music from the era and seemingly bombards you with continually more insane and ridiculous notions. Surely, you can just duck and cover when a bomb goes off. All set to an amazing soundtrack, which hammers home just how pointless this nuclear war idea all was and is.
This movie also inspired Michael Moore, who said, "This is the movie that told me that a documentary about a deadly serious subject could be very funny. Then I asked the people who made it to teach me how to do it. They did. That movie became my first - Roger & Me."
This Bill Hailey and the Comets song on the soundtrack is absolutely deranged, by the way:
"Last night I was dreamin'
Dreamed about the H-Bomb
Well the bomb-a went off and I was caught
I was the only man on the ground
There was-a 13 women and only one man in town" -
waitingtobeamup2 May 2005This ought to be frightening, but it isn't. It's just a sequence of U.S. propaganda films about the cold war and The Bomb. There is no commentary and no effort to supply context. The produces just assumed that the propaganda would speak for itself.
This could be outstanding if only it mentioned why these propaganda films were made, what the state of world affairs was at the time, how truthful the propaganda was, how effective it was, and/or any relevancy it might have to modern affairs. What they have now is simply a montage with no insight and nothing new to say.
As it stands, this documentary works only when seen in your history class and followed by a lecture explaining it. I can't give it anything higher than 3 out of 10.