The film’s script appeared to trigger real reactor fissures a week later
Evidence
Thus it would have been marvelous to repeat the script for The China Syndrome at Fessenheim, during the visit offered to the journalists by the EDF (French Electric Company), to repeat on this occasion the accident linked to the magic eye, to the provocative presence of the media. Alas, nothing happened. And on the other hand yes! so powerful is the logic of simulacra: a week after, the unions discovered fissures in the reactors. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 188
Categorization
- CANDY: The strangely literal instance of life imitating art — the planned reenactment fails, then unions actually find fissures days later — makes a striking anecdote.
- QUESTION: How deliberate is Baudrillard’s own rhetoric here — is this a genuine reported event or a sardonic constructed example? Worth checking the historical record.
- XREF: connects to: The film is the real event and the reactor accident its simulacrum — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 183; The real arranged itself to mirror the film’s simulated catastrophe — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 182; A staged film’s fictional violence spilled into real assault during production. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York…, 1999
Broader Connections
- A staged film’s fictional violence spilled into real assault during production.
#corroborates(0.90) — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1999