The China Syndrome
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The China Syndrome |
| Original title | The China Syndrome |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1979 |
| length | 117 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | James Bridges |
| script |
Mike Gray , TS Cook James Bridges |
| production | Michael Douglas |
| music | Stephen Bishop |
| camera | James Crabe |
| cut | David Rawlins |
| occupation | |
| |
| synchronization | |
| |
The China Syndrome (original title The China Syndrome ) is an American disaster film from 1979 with Jane Fonda , Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas , which deals critically with the economic use of nuclear energy . The focus of the film by James Bridges is a fictional incident in a US nuclear power plant , which is due both technical as well as human error.
The film received considerable media coverage in the United States, not least because of its proximity to the reactor accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant , which it “anticipated”, and the proximity of the content to the death of activist and whistleblower Karen Silkwood five years earlier.
action
TV journalist Kimberly Wells, who works for a local news channel, and her cameraman Richard Adams are guests at a California nuclear power plant while filming a series on the topic of energy supply . While they are in the visitors' gallery above the soundproof control room, the entire system shakes like an earthquake , followed by a second, weaker vibration a few seconds later. The incident, which is sold to visitors as a mere routine incident, turns into a serious incident due to a defective measuring device, the water level indicator for the reactor, and the resulting operating errors by the control room personnel , in which a catastrophe in the form of a meltdown is only barely avoided.
Adams can record the hectic hustle and bustle in the control room despite the film ban. When the station's program director refuses to go on air with the explosive material, Wells and Adams continue their research on their own. They submit the film to a group of experts who then confirm that the accident almost resulted in a core meltdown (sometimes symbolically referred to as " China Syndrome ", as the melting core allegedly eats its way into the earth in the direction of China would) and thus to a catastrophe with many thousands of victims and a contaminated area of enormous proportions.
Meanwhile, the plant's chief engineer, Jack Godell, encounters more inconsistencies in his attempt to investigate the reactor's unusual behavior during the tremor. Forged documents suggest that the safety requirements were not met during construction and fuel his suspicions that the power plant is not safe. Manipulated X-ray images of weld seams give him the certainty that the material has not been adequately tested and that the connections on a feedwater pump could break if the reactor is switched off again.
Godell's confidence in the plant, which he always considered his life's work, has been shaken. In addition to the ex officio, superficial investigation of the incident, he pleads for an extensive technical review, but is rejected by his superiors. The operating company wants to get the plant back on the grid as soon as possible for cost reasons and because a brand new power plant is waiting for approval. He therefore decides to send the manipulated X-rays to Kimberly Wells and her cameraman and hands the images to one of the two employees. However, he was seriously injured in a deliberately caused car accident and the x-rays were stolen.
When Godell himself then wants to go to a public hearing where the falsifications of the construction documents are to be made public, he is pursued by henchmen of the responsible construction company, he can barely escape to the power station. Once there, he has to watch as the operators run the reactor up to full capacity against all safety concerns. In a rage, he storms into the control room, steals the gun from the security guard, has the room evacuated under threat of violence and locks himself in it. He leaves the reactor in operation at the 75 percent power it had already achieved when it arrived. He demands an immediate interview with reporter Kimberly Wells, otherwise he will flood the containment and thus radioactively contaminate the facility. But while the interview is on the air, the other factory engineers manage to prevent Godell's control of the reactor by sabotaging various control lines and to provoke an automated emergency shutdown. The TV broadcast is cut, a special police unit storms the control room and shoots Godell in front of Wells and Adams.
However, due to the sabotage and the rapid shutdown of the reactor, the defective pump is again overloaded. Troubled seconds pass and parts of the feed water pump suspension break before the reactor finally stabilizes. The feared GAU does not materialize. In front of the gates of the power station, where police forces and the media have gathered in droves, there is complete confusion about what happened. When the press spokesman for the power plant operator steps in front of the cameras and tries to portray Godell as an intoxicated, mentally confused employee, Kimberly Wells finally appears to straighten things out. In the end, she succeeds in eliciting the admission of one of the power plant engineers involved, live in front of the camera, that the security problems described by Godell are anything but invented and that there must now be a real investigation in which the truth will come to light and the Godell's apparent insanity will turn out to be a heroic deed.
Awards
The film was nominated for four Academy Awards: two for best leading actors (Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon) and one each for best unadapted screenplay and set. Other awards included five Golden Globe nominations, an award for Jack Lemmon for Best Actor in Cannes 1979 and two BAFTA Awards for Jack Lemmon and Jane Fonda, as well as two BAFTA nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Picture. The Writers Guild of America awarded the screenplay in 1980 in the category Best Original Screenplay (Drama) .
First publications
- USA 16th March 1979
- Germany February 21, 1980
Remarks
Twelve days after the film opened in theaters, there was a serious reactor accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant , the course of which showed amazing parallels to the fictional incident described in the film. In the film there was initially a "trip" (protective shutdown) of the turbine, which led to a reactor shutdown. Because the measuring device for the water level in the reactor showed incorrect readings and the operators thought there was too much water in the circuit, relief valves were opened and the pumps for the emergency supply of cooling water stopped. This resulted in the hot core no longer being covered with cooling water and a partial core meltdown occurred.
The film deals with both scenarios of a loss of cooling water (LOCA - Loss of Coolant Accident):
- large break in the form of the tearing off of the feed water pump from the main cooling water line, which Jack Godell warns of due to the inadequate weld seams and
- small break through an open valve through which comparatively small amounts of cooling water escape, which are nevertheless sufficient to endanger the cooling of the fuel assemblies and the dissipation of decay heat. This is the situation that the reporter team observed from the visitors' gallery at the beginning of the film and which also occurred at TMI-2.
Furthermore, the plot shows similarities with the life of Karen Silkwood , who worked in a nuclear facility (fuel element factory) and drew attention to grievances. She was killed in a traffic accident. In the film, chief engineer Jack Godell develops into a whistleblower who passes compromising documents about the construction of the nuclear power plant to the press. These are stolen from the seriously injured messenger after a provoked car accident by henchmen of the construction company.
Reviews
“An exciting and critical film with a clear stance against nuclear power plants with insufficient control options and technical safety; rapidly staged and played excellently. "
“Bridges and his producer Michael Douglas shot a sleek, at times gripping genre piece with contemporary morality. But the reality was much more imaginative than the rough-cut templates of the China Syndrome - here greed, there self-sacrificing heroism - suggest, unfortunately. "
“Excitingly staged and with a prominent cast; The film is also remarkable because thirty years later, after the incidents in Chernobyl and Fukushima, similar to Mike Nichols' - based on the true case of Karen Silkwood - 'Silkwood' (1983), it has a sense of reality. "
“Above all, however, CHINA SYNDROME is an energetic anti-nuclear film, the story of which is clearly reminiscent of well-known crime novels, but is based on a series of actual facts condensed into a single case. Just a few weeks after the American premiere, the Harrisburg reactor accident showed how close it comes to reality. "
literature
- Burton Wohl: The China Syndrome ("The China Syndrome"). Heyne, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-453-01122-8 .
- Ronald M. Hahn / Volker Jansen: Lexicon of Science Fiction Films. 720 films from 1902 to 1983 , Munich (Wilhelm Heyne Verlag) 1983, p. 76. ISBN 3-453-01901-6
Web links
- The China Syndrome in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The China Syndrome in the online film database
- The China Syndrome at Rotten Tomatoes (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Peter Krämer: The Politics of Independence: The China Syndrome (1979), Hollywood Liberals and Antinuclear Campaigning. In: Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media. Laura Rascaroli, 2013, accessed June 15, 2019 .
- ↑ The China Syndrome. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ^ The time of February 22, 1980
- ^ "The China Syndrome" NZZ . Retrieved December 17, 2017.