The Journey - Rësan

(Swedish Peace & Arbitration Society, Canadian National Film Board, with local support groups in Sweden, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Soviet Union, Mexico, Japan, Scotland, Polynesia, Mozambique, Denmark, France, Norway, West Germany, USA)

“The 14½ hours of ‘The Journey’ are organized into an immense filmic weave that includes candid discussions with “ordinary people” from many countries; community dramatizations; a variety of forms of deconstructive analysis of conventional media practices; presentations of art works by others; portraits of people and places; and a wealth of specific information about the knot of contemporary issues that includes the world arms race and military expenditures in general, world hunger, the environment, gender politics, the relationship of the violent past and the present, and, especially, the role of the media and of modern educational systems with regard to international issues ...

The actual filming of the family discussions was extended and private, and I would guess that no one except Watkins understood the depth of his commitment to them. In conventional documentaries, and even more so in standard news coverage, interviews are rigorously edited: the amount of recorded interview that finds its way into a finished film or news item is determined by the director’s assumption about the usefulness or impact of what is said. This is especially the case when the interviewer is not an expert, the subject of the film, or a crucial witness to the actions of an “important” person: interviews with the so-called man-on-the-street are usually little more than decoration. The focus of ‘The Journey’, however is the thoughts and experiences of average people, and Watkins’ commitment to the people who agreed to talk with him was nearly absolute. He was determined to provide them with an opportunity to respond to his questions and to treat the responses with respect, not simply in a metaphoric sense, but literally, in the overall allocation of screen time and in his use of continuous, unedited shots ...

As is true in a number of the films discussed earlier in this volume, the most fundamental and pervasive structural dimension of ‘The Journey’ is the network of interconnections among layers of image and sound. Early in the film, for example, when Watkins is introducing the [CBC] coverage of the Shamrock Summit, he juxtaposes a visual of a Canadian newsperson ... doing a “topo” [a news summary which is either an item in its own right, or which functions as an introduction or conclusion to the filmed and edited main news item - usually delivered while standing and facing the camera] with a voice-over translation of what [the newsperson] says: “Wrapped in a thick cloak of protocol and reception, the Mulroney-Reagan Summit has a full agenda...” The image of [the newsperson] is framed so that, at first, she is seen surrounded by darkness [she was filmed standing in the street on a bleak winter evening in Quebec City] - her face is visible through the space between a technician’s arm and body [this scene was filmed by the Canadian Support Group for The Journey, who followed the Canadian coverage of the Summit]: She is surrounded by a “thick coat” of media protocol and reception. In fact, the documentation of the topo reveals that the primary concern for [the newsperson] and those responsible for recording her is not the issues of the summit, but how she looks and sounds [she was very concerned not only about her speaking rhythm, but also about her makeup, and whether her hair was mussed-up by the wind]; the topo is redone several times, not to provide increased information, but to package the obvious more “professionally.” This concern with appearance, with “cloaking” information in a specialized, elite language is not only parallel to the summit itself, it reveals how fully the commercial media is an arm to the government systems, functioning within the limited spaces and times determined by the government ...

The more one fully attends to ‘The Journey’, the more the coherence of its vision becomes apparent. At first, the film seems to jump abruptly from one place and time to another, but by the end of the film, Watkins has made clear a belief that has been one of the foundations of all his work: that fundamentally, all places are simultaneously distinct and part of one place; all times are special and part of one time; all issues are important for themselves and as parts of a single, interlocking global issue. ‘The Journey’ creates a cinematic space in which the viewer’s consciousness circles the earth continually, explores particular families and places, and discovers how each detail ultimately suggests the entire context within which it has meaning. Like the other films [described in Avant-Garde Film Motion Studies], but more fully than any of them, Watkins’ film develops in the direction not of narrative climax and resolution, but of an expanded consciousness of the world ...”

“Thank God someone had the energy to make it ...”

“Am impressed by the restraint and lack of hysteria the producer has held to. It could easily have been put across too emotionally. Its impact slowly sinks in and will be most lasting in consequence ...”

“... a strong impression of feeling about the people in the film - everyone agreed that by now we know them and like them ...”

“They keep saying, “What can I do ... it’s only little me?” ...well, the world’s made up of little me’s...”

“It gives you time to think about what you are watching ...”

“Excellent movie, I really like its pace and techniques.”

“... it communicates in feelings ...”

“This film is like a meditation ...”

“It was captivating, drew one in so completely. More should be made of the fact that it is really so effortless to watch. I wasn’t prepared for that ...”

“I find lots of good things in The Journey. BUT I expected more - I began with very high expectations, and these were disappointed. It did not justify its excessive length ... [The film] would have done more good if it were less relentlessly slow moving, earnest and numbing. Where was the humour, the affirmation of energy and hope? ... Whoever hailed The Journey as a masterpiece did us all a disservice - including Watkins. I see it as a very interesting, very ambitious, very noble failure. I would be delighted if the future proves me wrong.”

“A great warmth of feeling for all the families that I’ve spent time with and by patiently staying with them have come to know them, and language wasn’t that important. For some, the simpler they appear the more profound their understanding and responses. Their sheer humanity wins through.”

“Pretty one-sided. Got any other solutions apart from stopping arms production?”

“Peter, your biases are showing beautifully. Thank you for passionate, subjective filmmaking. It is hard for people to break from conventions of editing and pacing. To make it “uncomfortable” viewing is to make the medium itself truly part of the message. Thank you.”

“... the feeling I have is like waking up. I’m not quite sure what’s reality ...”

“14½ hours is just long enough to let a picture of the real people involved sink in. Was surprised at my ability to stay awake through a movie with no plot, suspense, etc. - decided I could because it was about real life, people, and opinions I recognised.”

“Do you feel moved to take any action in response to the film? “No.””

“I am going to write to my friend in America and tell her about this film, because she lives near Hanford Nuclear Plant and I think she should hear what this film has to say ...”

“Peter Watkins’ world “journey” takes us through time and space in an epic documentary film, an odyssey of the nuclear age. Centered on the ethics of nuclear technology, Watkins’ film is as much about “peace” as it is on the preparations for global war; it is critical about the role of media and focuses on families, members of various communities (including Utica, NY, UK and Norway) in twenty countries all around the globe. This, together with the complete script, will be the main text organizing the “trunk” of the semester. The “branches” will be the assigned readings relative to each individual culture in this journey, and on a period of millennial “modernity” (e.g. reading Hiroshima, by John Hersey, studying the Maruki’s Hiroshima panel paintings).

Through comparing these two perspectives - global and local - in a journal each week, and in short, critical statements, students will hopefully look at themselves in the globalizing context of the industrialized and developing worlds and the impact of our western culture (e.g. media, environment, arms trade, consumerism, and waste) since 1945, not least in “nuclear numbing.”

In conclusion we ask whether Universities and Colleges and also media adequately address these planetary issues at a time of uncertainty and instability. Is a more positive peace building strategy through nonviolence conceivable? Can civil disobedience and direct action be justified?

Peter Watkins’ 14 ½ hour film ‘The Journey’ (1985) represents his ambitious attempt (after his notorious 1966 classic, ‘The War Game’ was both awarded and banned) to make a peace film. It is more about living in a highly interconnected global society, which as a species we have been preparing to destroy for over fifty years. It suggests that this environment also contains the germ cells of a more healthy human community. By viewing this epic in as many as thirty segments, we will find a core for this semester’s Introduction to Peace Studies: this spinal “text” and a careful reading of its script, will be the base of intense discussion and frequent, critical written comments each week.

At first, student reaction to this revolutionary work is frequently sheer boredom mixed with puzzlement at so many broken conventions. However, through related readings and viewing, as well as meetings with local people (including several Colgate faculty who helped make this film), we will begin to appreciate, interpret, and critique the various levels of ‘The Journey’, and the ethical and practical issues it raises: equality and democracy, nationalism, cultural oppression and/or language, gender and race as well as environmental destruction and the role of the media.

Through the “War and Peace Atlas”, we will contextualize and assess these diverse cultural journeys, and ask what kind of peace building makes sense as the millennial clock turns. We learn just what a nuclear weapon can do, and where they are. Watkins’ discussions relate past memory to future and present action. Watkins helps us to unravel layers of meaning and identity: encouraging a cooperative effort to learn more about ourselves and our environment in a planet made up of both industrial and developing countries. Many of these are both increasingly militarized, volatile and in conflict. ‘The Journey’ is a trip across all these boundaries of gender, race, culture and political frontiers, as well as the 19th century western academic disciplines. We travel across our own time and geography, history and space. The hope is that we might even emerge with a sharper sense that we are, as well as the source of such problems, the makers of some of the solutions.

This is a basis for studying global peace.”

“Although The Journey presents itself to an audience largely by invoking documentary codes, it transforms those codes in a variety of ways, calling attention to certain elements of the coding system and recoding certain other elements. The result is a partially transformed reading space for the viewer, which can (and I would argue should) lead to a transformed reading strategy on the part of the viewer. To begin, Watkins re-presents certain traditionally coded items so that we are forced to reconsider what those items mean in the context of this film. For example, though the hibakusha, survivors, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are generally used in films as emblems of victimisation, Watkins uses several devices to make that simple designation more complex. Particularly, he employs the image of Jikkon Li, a Korean who was doing forced labour in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing, to speak of Japanese racism against Koreans at the time of the bombing and after, as well as to point out the singularly aggressive nature of Japanese foreign policy in the first half of the century. By adopting such a strategy, Watkins fixes a more complex and troubling code on subsequent images of Hiroshima in the film. In The Journey, speakers are identified upon initial appearance as in a conventional documentary. Apart from television sequences used in the film, however, none of the participants in the film are identified as particular authorities on anything, and they are typically photographed in their homes, usually in their kitchens gathered around a table (except for the Mexican family and the women and children on a Mozambiquan collective farm, both of which appear to lack such facilities). Speech from non-experts in such surroundings is much less clearly marked as authoritative than is most speech in most documentaries, and thus it is more easily questioned or criticized. Furthermore, Watkins lets many of his questions to the participants remain in the film. This is particularly true of the first several hours of the film, where he is often clearly "leading" the discussion by showing the participants a collection of photographs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, along with a group of charts, graphs, and other visual aids. It is somewhat less true as the film progresses, but the reduced presence of Watkins' questions later in the film also seems to correspond with the increased comfort and volubility of the participants. During the filming of the three family sequences which I observed, the early stages of the discussion were more halting and limited, and Watkins probed more with questions and aids; by the second day, however, the families had grown more comfortable with the camera and had thought and talked about the issues of peace and global justice enough that they were beginning to speak more spontaneously and for longer periods of time. But Watkins' strategy here reveals the source and direction of the manipulation which provokes the increasingly comfortable discussion, so that the audience is reminded with some frequency of the presence of a questioner. The Journey also makes use of a large number of charts and graphs, but here many of them are presented in clearly mediated ways. Sometimes Watkins himself (whose arms and hands are often on-screen moving these visual aids around) is the visible mediator. At other times, the mediator is someone like Bob del Tredici, whose photographs, published and displayed elsewhere under the title At Work in the Field of the Bomb, occur at intervals throughout the film; usually these photographs are filmed over del Tredici's left shoulder and they are always accompanied by his gently ironic descriptions. Again, the effect of these more mediated presentations is to make them somewhat more accessible to investigation and question, especially since in Watkins' presentations there are two audiences for these visual aids -participants in the film, whose reactions to the documents we can evaluate and consider, and we in the film audience, who may have somewhat different responses. Watkins himself appropriates the role of narrator. Although his voice in the film shares many of the characteristics of traditional narrators (especially the carefully modulated tone achieved through reading what must have been written script much of the time), that role is transformed partially by the fact that Watkins allows errors in the narration to stand in the finished film. On one occasion early on, for example, he wrongly states that the French nuclear test site in the Pacific is uninhabited, only to correct that error later while pointing out the earlier mistake. Likewise, at another point, Watkins is asked a question by a participant and hesitates in momentary confusion. That moment, too, is allowed to remain in the film, and is followed by a narrator's explanation and clarification. Both point clearly to the fallibility of Watkins as participant, as well as to the hitherto nearly invisible space between the role of Watkins as interviewer (present during the filming) and Watkins as narrator (intervening during post-production work). These moves, too, undermine and problematize the narrator's voice. Finally, The Journey, like all documentaries, modifies and brackets speeches of participants through its use of editing juxtapositions. But whereas the traditional documentary edits small bits of speech on film together to create its own discursive voice, this film allows speakers to talk for relatively long periods of time, and thus individual shots often contain complex trains of thought which do not fit entirely smoothly together to create a seamless discourse. Brian Henderson, trying to distinguish in Godard's work this more complex and problematic style of connection from traditional montage, has preferred to call it collage rather than montage (Henderson, 1970-71:5). And all of these devices are called into more serious question by the extensive use the film makes of television news coverage, which it criticizes extensively and analyzes in detail, noting everything from editing pace (by means of added sounds to announce cuts and changes in image) to the artifice involved in shooting a reporter on location or the choices involved in photographing a news conference or a demonstration. For example, the film documents how television collaborates with governmental power by its cooperative presence at an announced news briefing or by its revealing presence near the police during the demonstrations. Since the film occasionally turns these deconstructive devices back on itself as well (by discussing editing strategy of the sequence under view, or by adding sounds to its own cuts), it pushes viewers to develop a viewing strategy that is somewhat more active, critical and complex than merely attempting to locate the authorial voice of the film.”

Since ‘The Journey’ has been shown so infrequently on TV, no-one knows the film exists, and this has hardly helped to get it into schools. Furthermore, the entire direction of media education in the last decades has been such that a film like ‘The Journey’ - which is critical of the media - is not seen as having any meaning ... As I describe elsewhere in the website, the massive onslaught in terms of teaching (and eulogizing) the Popular Culture of the MAVM has created a climate in which any audiovisual subject with a slower rhythm, which deconstructs the very manipulation of the Popular Culture modes, and which seeks to engage us in a developing process with the people on the screen, is considered passé, boring, and irrelevant. Yet it is precisely because media education has come to this point of condoning intolerance to anything that is not manipulating the audience at an image per second, of automatically accepting on-screen violence, of totally eliminating critical thinking - that it is important for young people to experience seeing a film like ‘The Journey’.