In 1983, Oscar-winning director Lynne Littman and soon-to-be-four-time Oscar nominee Jane Alexander collaborated on a startling, disturbing and transcendent film, Testament, about the aftermath of nuclear strikes on U.S. soil, focusing on one small suburban family and the community around them. This unnerving work was the first serious look at a post-nuclear war civilization since Stanley Kramer’s audacious On the Beach in 1959. Testament also preceded ABC’s airing of the more graphic TV-movie, The Day After, by two weeks. A year later Mick Jackson’s UK drama Threads bowed. Up until then, and even following Testament, most post-nuclear apocalypse movies were action-adventure thrillers like the Mad Max series.
This gem is being released on Blu-ray by Criterion via a brand new 4K digital restoration, supervised and approved by Littman and director of photography Steven Poster, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack.
Testament centers on middle-class-couple Tom (William Devane) and Carol (Alexander) Wetherly and their three children (Ross Harris, Roxana Sal and Lukas Haas, in his film debut). One afternoon, while Tom is at work in San Francisco, a news anchor appears on the TV to warn of nuclear devices going off up and down the East Coast. He is immediately cut off and blinding flashes can be seen through the window of the Wetherly home. So begins a wrenching story where Carol and members of her community must face a future where radiation poisoning slowly begins killing members of the community.
Littman never courts melodrama or overemphasizes the tragic aspects of the story. Her approach is in a docu-realistic manner. We meet and get to know the family early on so we are then able to empathize with their plight post-nuclear-event — the horrific notion that there is no future for these people, in particular the children. The gut-wrenching reality is that mankind has betrayed them.
Alexander grounds the film with a brilliantly nuanced yet subtle turn as a mother slowly watching her world crumble, but doing all she can to find a way to hold onto some kind of hope, even in the grimmest moments.
The sparse and dense screenplay was written by future China Beach creator, John Sacred Young.
The gifted ensemble includes Phillip Anglim (The Elephant Man), Oscar-nominees Mako (The Sand Pebbles) and Lilia Skala (Lillies of the Field) as well as screen newbies—at the time— Kevin Costner and Rebecca De Mornay.
Testament was originally supposed to bow on PBS but after a showing at the Telluride Film Festival, Paramount picked it up for distribution. The movie was critically lauded and Alexander received Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
Blu-ray disc highlights include a marvelous new conversation between Littman and author Sam Wasson, two of Littman’s docs made in collaboration with anthropologist Barbara Myerhoff, including her Oscar-winning short, Number Our Days and the follow up, In Her Own Time. The directors fascinating look back short, Testament at 20, another archival program, Nuclear Thoughts and a stirring audio recording of Alexander reading the short story “The Last Testament,” on which the film is based.
Littman began her career working for National Education Television and won an Oscar for her doc short, Number Our Days (1976). Testament marked her feature film debut. She went on to make two more features, Freak City and Having Our Say: The Delaney Sisters’ First 100 Years, both in 1999.
Alexander is one of America’s most distinguished actors, with a career on stage, screen and television spanning seven decades. She has received four Academy Award nominations, two Primetime Emmy Awards (and nine Emmy nominations), a Tony Award (and eight nominations) and three Golden Globe Awards.
Her stage credits include The Great White Hope (1968-70), 6 Rms Riv Vu (1972-73), The Heiress (1976), First Monday in October (1978), The Night of the Iguana (1988), Shadowlands (1990-91), The Visit (1992), The Sisters Rosensweig (1993-94), Honour (1998) and Grand Horizons (2019-20).
Alexander’s big screen debut was in the film adaptation of The Great White Hope (1970), reprising her Broadway performance and garnering her first Oscar nomination, scoring another Oscar nod for her intense-five minute part in All the President’s Men (1976) and then another Supporting Actress mention for her role in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). Testament was her fourth nom, in the Lead Actress category. Other films include, Brubaker (1980), City Heat (1984), Square Dance (1987), Glory (1989), The Cider House Rules (1999), Feast of Love (2007), Terminator Salvation (2009) and Three Christs (2017). She is currently working on two new screen projects, one directed by Thom Fitzgerald.
Notable TV credits: Miracle on 34th Street (1973), Eleanor and Franklin (1976), Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years (1977), A Question of Love (1978), Playing for Time (1980), Calamity Jane (1984), Malice in Wonderland (1985), Open Admissions (1988), Warm Springs (2005) as well as episodes of Law and Order, The Good Wife, The Good Fight, and, most recently her Emmy-nominated work on Severance.
The Criterion Blu-ray can be ordered HERE.
The Contending had the pleasure of a chat with both Littman and Alexander about this bold and sadly still-timely film.
