Home > Peter Watkins

After studying acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Watkins began his television and film career as an assistant producer of short TV films and commercials, and in the early 1960s was an assistant editor and director of documentaries at the BBC. All of his films have either been documentary or drama presented with documentary techniques, sometimes portraying historical occurrences and sometimes possible near future events as if contemporary reporters and filmmakers were there to interview the participants. Watkins pioneered this technique in his first full-length television film, CullodenCulloden is a 1964 television film written and directed by Peter Watkins and originally broadcast by the BBC. It portrays the Jacobite uprising of 1745 and the Battle of Culloden. It was Watkins' first full-length film, and his first use of a pseudo-docum, which portrayed the JacobiteThis article is not about the Jacobite Orthodox Church, nor is it about Jacobinism. While military campaigns are covered in outline, for details see Jacobite Rising. Jacobitism was the political movement dedicated to the restoration of the Stuart kings to uprising of 1745Events May 11 War of Austrian Succession: Battle of Fontenoy At Fontenoy, French forces defeat an Anglo-Dutch-Hanoverian army including the Black Watch June 4 Frederick the Great destroys Austrian army at Hohenfriedberg August 19 Beginning of the '45 Jaco in a style similar to the Vietnam WarThe Vietnam War was a war fought between 1957 and 1975 on the ground in South Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia and Laos See Secret War) and in bombing runs ( Rolling Thunder) over North Vietnam. See also the timeline of the Vietnam War. Fighting on reporting of the time.

The scope and formal innovation of Culloden drew immediate critical acclaim for the previously unknown director, and the BBC commissioned him for another ambitious production, the nuclear-war docudrama The War GameThe War Game is a 1965 television film on nuclear war. Written, directed, and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC's The Wednesday Play strand, its clear and cool depiction of the impact of Soviet nuclear attack on Britain caused dismay within the BBC an, for The Wednesday PlayThe Wednesday Play was a British television drama anthology series, which ran on BBC ONE from 1964 to 1970. Every week a different play, usually written directly for television although adaptations from other sources were not uncommon, would be presented. strand. Although Watkins' strong anti-war beliefs had already been apparent in Culloden, the BBC apparently expected The War Game to be dry and patriotic; when the finished film turned out to be not only graphically horrifying but an open rebuke to government policy, the BBC were pressured into banning it from broadcast by the government, although they did arrange a screening for journalists and television critics. Watkins has since had similar conflicts with state television networks in other countries. The production was subsequently released to cinemas and won the 1966Events January January 1 In a coup, Colonel Jean-Bedel Bokassa ousts president David Dacko and takes over the Central African Republic. January 2 Strike of public transportation workers in New York City ends January 13 January 3 First Acid Test at the Fil Academy Award for Documentary FeatureThe Academy Award for Documentary Feature is one of the most prestigious awards for documentary films. Winners Following the Academy's practice, films are listed by the "award year", which is also the year in which the film was released under the Academy', eventually being screened on the BBC in the 1980s.

His reputation as a political provocateur was amplified by Punishment Park , a story of violent political conflict in the United States that coincided with the Kent State Massacre. Opposition to war is a common theme of his work, but the films' political messages are often ambiguous, usually allowing the main characters to present violently opposing viewpoints which in many cases are improvised by the cast: in Punishment Park, the soldiers and dissidents were played by nonprofessional actors whose political opinions matched those of their characters so well that the director said he feared actual violence would break out on set. He took a similar approach in his Paris Commune reenactment La Commune , using newspaper advertisements to recruit conservative actors who would have a genuine antipathy to the Commune rebels. Watkins is also known for political statements about the film and television media, writing extensively about flaws in television news and the dominance of the Hollywood-derived narrative style that he refers to as "the monoform".

After the banning of The War Game and the poor reception of his first non-television feature, Privilege , Watkins left England and has made all of his subsequent films abroad: The Gladiators in Sweden, Punishment Park in the United States, Edvard Munch in Norway, The Journey (a 14-hour film cycle about the threat of nuclear war) in ten different countries, and La Commune in France.