Films are mostly entertainment, with little or no relation to real life, but there are extraordinary examples of films that had serious real-life consequences, even beyond the wildest expectations of their creators. Producer Michael Douglas could be counted among those lucky few, because two of his 1970s films had long-term impacts that continue to this day. His celebrated 1975 drama One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is often credited with fuelling the explosion of homelessness in the USA by creating a prevailing image of mental hospitals as inherently oppressive institutions, thus giving cynical, penny-pinching politicians an excuse to throw their patients onto the streets. But few films can compete with the long-term political and economic impact of his next film, The China Syndrome, the 1979 thriller directed by James Bridges.
The plot begins in a Southern Californian nuclear power station during the visit of a Los Angeles television news crew led by reporter Kimberly Wells (played by Jane Fonda). They were sent there to make an unimportant fluff piece, but they happen to arrive at the time when the station experiences a serious accident. The possible catastrophe is prevented only thanks to the work of the station’s dedicated supervisor Jack Godell (played by Jack Lemmon), but PR officials of the nuclear power company try to keep Wells from finding out what really went on. Wells, on the other hand, dreams of becoming a serious investigative journalist despite being hired at the TV station mostly for her looks, and wants to investigate the incident. TV station management is sceptical, but not her cameraman Richard Adams (played by Michael Douglas), a former 1960s left-wing radical who maintained most of his anti-establishment views and actually recorded the incident. He contacts environmental anti-nuclear activists who tell him that the nuclear station’s reactor was close to a catastrophic meltdown. Godell, in the meantime, begins his own investigation and, to his utmost horror, discovers that the accident was caused by faulty equipment and that the company, instead of replacing it, has deliberately falsified the data in order to save tens of millions of dollars. Godell, Wells and Adams try to warn the public, but they soon find that the nuclear power company would stop at nothing to silence them, leading Godell to counter them with a spectacular and desperate act.
The China Syndrome was in many ways the product of its time. It was an expression of widely held distrust in the government and the establishment following the Vietnam War disaster and, to a lesser degree, a belief that only a few enterprising journalists were capable of fighting the establishment, following the efforts of Woodward and Bernstein during the Watergate scandal. But, more than anything, the film was influenced by the environmentalist beliefs of almost everyone involved in its production, most notably Jane Fonda, whose hostility towards nuclear power as potentially the greatest threat to the environment matched her hostility towards US participation in the Vietnam War. Yet, despite all that, the film would have been remembered as nothing more than a product of its time if not for the morbid coincidence of the Three Mile Island nuclear accident happening only a week after its premiere. The event, which in disturbingly ways resembled the one portrayed in the film, helped not only the film but its anti-nuclear message. With the phrase “China syndrome” entering global vocabularies and the public accepting anti-nuclear arguments, the debate was all but settled following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Advocating nuclear power as a solution for energy problems became next to political suicide and the world was left relying on fossil fuels for the next few generations, creating immense environmental and geopolitical consequences, including endless wars in the Middle East and even some conflicts that, with a renewed Cold War, could escalate into a different and more devastating form of nuclear disaster.
Even outside of its historic and political context, The China Syndrome is actually a very good film. Director and co-writer James Bridges made a potentially risky, but actually quite fortunate, decision not to use any music (apart from incidental songs played on the radio) in the film. This not only creates a realistic atmosphere but enhances suspense and drama in some key scenes, especially in the beginning, when some of the protagonists don’t know what is actually going on. The casting is superb, which includes Jane Fonda in a very interesting role of a woman torn between high ambition and prosaic reality. But few casting choices are so well made as in the case of Jack Lemmon, an actor until that time associated with comedies; here he excels in probably the most dramatic screen role of his career, conveying a believable transformation of a loyal company man and dedicated professional into a concerned citizen and whistleblower. In the late 1970s Lemmon, simply by belonging to an older generation, represented the part of the establishment to many Baby Boomers. This transformation seems inspired by famous TV anchorman Walter Cronkite who, when faced with the realities of late 1960s Southeast Asia, abandoned his pro-war opinion and played a decisive role in turning American public opinion against the Vietnam War.
Not everything in The China Syndrome works, though. This is especially the case in the later parts of the film, when it succumbs to clichés of 1970s conspiracy thrillers and the audience again sees the predictable spectacle of faceless and seemingly all-powerful corporate/government goons trying to prevent the truth from coming out through murder. The film also remains faithful to 1970s clichés by having a dark and depressive ending, but this is a product of a plot development that some might call too melodramatic. Despite those flaws, and regardless of what your opinion in the nuclear power debate might be, The China Syndrome is an interesting, entertaining and thought-provoking film like those they don’t make any more.
RATING: 7/10 (++)
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