 Peter Watkins was born in Norbiton, Surrey, on 29 October 1935. After education at Cambridge and RADA, he became an amateur documentary filmmaker, gaining some notoriety for shorts like The Diary of an Unknown Soldier (1959) and The Forgotten Faces (1961). In these films, Watkins initiated a challenge towards conventional cinematic norms that he has yet to relinquish.
He was eventually hired by the BBC and with Culloden (1964), his most enduring contribution to British film and television, he established an innovative style combining drama acted out by "real people" (here the amateur actors of Canterbury's Playcraft theatre) with newsreel techniques. A modern television crew, completely anachronistic, follows the build-up, the fighting of, and the brutal aftermath to the 1746 Battle of Culloden. Through bold montage, revealing close-ups, and hand-held camera movements, Watkins deconstructs both the historical myth surrounding the Scottish Jacobite pretender for the crown, Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), and the cinematic conventions of traditional costume drama.
Culloden was generally hailed by the press, and Watkins employed the same techniques in his second documentary-drama for the BBC, The War Game (1966). Here, the effects of a nuclear strike on Britain are investigated in what Watkins has often referred to as the "You Are There" style. Realistic depictions of nuclear havoc are mixed with interviews with actors impersonating "survivors" and establishment figures whose rationalisation look increasingly uncomfortable as the horror unfolds. The BBC decided to ban the film from television screening (it was finally shown in 1985) because of its disturbing content (and its outspoken anti-war sentiment). However, the film was allowed a limited theatrical release and won a special prize at the Venice Film Festival (1966), an Oscar for best documentary feature (1967), and a BAFTA film award (1967).
In 1966, Watkins directed his only feature film in Britain, Privilege, with backing from the American company, Universal. Once again he used the device of a television news enquiry, in a futuristic story of a teenage idol (played by Paul Jones, ex-singer with the Manfred Mann band) who is used by the government to manipulate youth into conformist submission. The film failed both critically and financially, and Watkins left Britain.
He has continued his film-making career in Scandinavia, the US and France. His sporadic cinematic output has been combined with fierce public attacks on the general media situation. Peter Watkins currently lives in Lithuania.
Bibliography
Cook, John R. and Patrick Murphy, 'After the Bomb Dropped: the Cinema Half-Life of The War Game', Journal of Popular British Cinema 3, 2000, pp. 129-132
Gomez, Joseph, Peter Watkins (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1979)
Murphy, Robert, Sixties British Cinema (London: BFI, 1992)
Walker, Alexander, Hollywood, England (London: Harrap, 1986)
Erik Hedling, Reference Guide to British and Irish Film Directors
|
FILM & TV CREDITS
