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WORLD
WAR III AVERTED IN K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER
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1960 the United States established an offensive nuclear advantage
by placing Polaris submarines with nuclear missiles under
the Arctic ice cap, in range of Leningrad and Moscow. Not
to be outdone, the Soviet Union rushed construction of a similar
submarine, named K-19, for operation by 1961. K-19:
The Widowmaker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow,
is a dramatization of that ill-fated sub's first voyage, with
fictionalized crew interactions. Titles at the beginning tell
us that in 1961 the United States possessed enough nuclear
weapons to destroy the planet ten times, whereas the Soviet
Union had enough to blow up the earth twice. They also tell
us that the events on which the film was based were kept secret
until 1989. When the film begins, the sub's commander is Captain
Mikhail Polenin (played by Liam Neeson), who is frustrated
that K-19 is such a rinky-dink ship with so many defects that
the crew has given the sub the nickname "widowmaker"
because they do not expect to live through the first mission.
Nevertheless, he keeps his crew happy by paternalistically
treating them as "family." Eager to deploy K-19,
Party Chairman Nikita Khrushchëv names Captain Alexei
Vostrikov (played by Harrison Ford) as the new commander,
so Polenin is demoted to his Executive Officer. Yet before
the sub starts its mission, ten men are already dead, and
there is a bad omen when the champagne bottle fails to shatter
at the christening of K-19. Vostrikov obviously has experience
as a submarine commander, and he orders drills as soon as
the ship is launched to make his crew combat-ready. The contrast
between Polenin's "family" and Vostrikov's "crew"
comes to the fore on several occasions, as Vostrikov turns
down cautious suggestions from Polenin. (Indeed, Vostrikov's
personality seems modeled on Richard Widmark in The
Bedford Incident (1965), who commands an American
nuclear submarine that confronts a Russian nuclear submarine
in the Arctic.) After testing the capabilities of the ship
and crew, K-19 arrives at the missile-launching site and fires
a test missile, the purpose of which is to inform Washington
that Moscow has achieved a nuclear parity that will deter
any aggressive intentions of President John Kennedy and the
American military. Having achieved K-19's mission, however,
Moscow orders the sub to proceed to a position off the Atlantic
coast, within range of New York and Washington. En route,
all hell breaks loose, as the nuclear reactor core suddenly
heats up due to a malfunctioning coolant system, raising the
possibility of the first nuclear detonation since Hiroshima;
if misperceived as a Soviet first strike, aiming to wipe out
a nearby American ship and NATO naval base, retaliation from
the United States might bring about nuclear war.
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The nailbiting intensity of the dilemma tests the mettle of
officers and crew, notably those assigned to solve the problem
who are exposed to excessive radiation. Throughout, Vostrikov
never wavers in making excellent if tough command decisions.
However, as radiation leaks from the reactor core into the
rest of the sub, the options narrow, while an American destroyer
appears nearby, asking whether there is any need for assistance.
One option is to accept help from the Americans, but that
would entail relinquishing the sub to investigation by the
Americans as well as surrendering the crew to an unwelcome
interrogation; Vostrikov brands that option as treason. A
second option is to scuttle K-19, loading the crew on lifeboats
to be picked up by the Americans, but of course a nuclear
detonation would occur. Vostrikov instead orders option three-fix
the problem in the reactor core. Although the repairs are
indeed handled satisfactorily at first, the reactor core starts
to heat up a second time. Vostrikov then orders the sub to
dive below the surface while insisting that the problem must
again be fixed, though clearly a failure to do so appears
to entails taking the sub and crew to the bottom of the sea
before an inevitable nuclear detonation. The Communist Party
officer on board then decides to arrest Vostrikov and to appoint
Polenin as the new commander, but Polenin refuses to assume
command, has the mutineers arrested, and reinstates Vostrikov
as commander. Indeed, there are two personality transformations
at this point: Polenin has gained considerable respect for
the sagacity of Vostrikov's command decisions, while the latter
has developed a more compassionate attitude toward the crew.
The problem in the reactor core is fixed, the ship resurfaces,
and Vostrikov now surprises everyone by being prepared to
surrender the crew to the Americans while scuttling the sub.
However, a second Soviet submarine soon appears, accepts the
crew after decontamination baths, and another naval vessel
is on its way to tow K-19 back to port. From Moscow's perspective,
the unusual movements of K-19 serve to indict Vostrikov, whose
submarine commander father died in the Gulag, for treason.
Titles at the end tell us that he was acquitted but never
commanded a submarine again. Titles also inform us that twenty
members of the crew eventually died of radiation poisoning,
especially those who worked to cool down the reactor core.
The film ends at a cemetery, where officers and crew meet
in 1989 to pay homage to those who died as a result of the
ill-fated K-19 mission. Vostrikov notes that he recommended
that those who risked their lives to cool the reactor core
should be given the medal "Hero of the Soviet Union,"
but his request was denied because the actions were not taken
in time of war and the mission was unsuccessful. (K-19 is
still in the Russian fleet, though decommissioned.) As a film
that brings to light facts that have long been kept secret,
the Political Film Society has nominated K-19:
The Widowmaker for an award as best film exposé
of 2002, as well as an award for best film of peace, having
eloquently demonstrated the dangers of nuclear accidents during
the Cold War. MH.
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