In the age of streaming, the phrase “TV-movie” has been rendered all but meaningless. It now encompasses everything from a Disney Channel musical like “Zombies 2” to “My Dinner with Hervé” to “Mank.” But 30 or 40 years ago, the phrase “TV-movie” meant something specific — a two-hour drama made for one of the big three networks (who were the only game in town), and it also meant a “movie” that had a certain cheesy overexplicit cardboard quality. Not to be a snob about it, but a TV-movie wasn’t cinema; it was…TV. (This was back when pointing that out wasn’t insulting an art form.)
To be sure, there were a small number of great TV-movies, like “Brian’s Song” or Spielberg’s “Duel” or the Sally Field tour de force “Sybil.” But most of the time the form was decidedly declassé. And on Nov. 20, 1983, when ABC aired “The Day After,” its...
To be sure, there were a small number of great TV-movies, like “Brian’s Song” or Spielberg’s “Duel” or the Sally Field tour de force “Sybil.” But most of the time the form was decidedly declassé. And on Nov. 20, 1983, when ABC aired “The Day After,” its...
- 11/15/2020
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
The idea of 67% of American households tuning into a network television movie seems almost absurd in 2020. The Super Bowl can rate those numbers, but a movie? A network TV movie? Almost impossible. That number was reached, however, by The Day After in 1983. At the height of the Cold War, this made-for-ABC Nicholas Meyer movie about the aftermath of nuclear war drew a staggering 100 million viewers. It also created a new dialogue around nuclear de-escalation, outraged conservatives, drove its director to complain to a gossip columnist about ABC executives, and haunted the dreams of young viewers for years to come. Quite a feat for any motion picture.
Jeff Daniels’ (not that one) documentary Television Event tells the story of The Day After’s conception, production, and impact in an entertaining fashion. A tale with surprising links to the present, it recounts a pop culture phenomenon that’s entirely deserving of this cinematic treatment.
Jeff Daniels’ (not that one) documentary Television Event tells the story of The Day After’s conception, production, and impact in an entertaining fashion. A tale with surprising links to the present, it recounts a pop culture phenomenon that’s entirely deserving of this cinematic treatment.
- 11/11/2020
- by Christopher Schobert
- The Film Stage
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