Peter Watkins
Peter Watkins | |
---|---|
Born | documentarian | 29 October 1935
Years active | 1956–present |
Peter Watkins (born 29 October 1935) is an English film and television director. He was born in Norbiton, Surrey, lived in Sweden, Canada and Lithuania for many years, and now lives in France. He is one of the pioneers of docudrama. His films present pacifist and radical ideas in a nontraditional style. He mainly concentrates his works and ideas around the mass media and our relation/participation to a movie or television documentary.
Nearly all of Watkins' films have used a combination of dramatic and documentary elements to dissect historical occurrences or possible near future events. The first of these, Culloden, portrayed the Jacobite uprising of 1745 in a documentary style, as if television reporters were interviewing the participants and accompanying them into battle; a similar device was used in his biographical film Edvard Munch. La Commune reenacts the Paris Commune days using a large cast of French non-actors.
In 2004, he wrote the book Media Crisis, which discusses his ideas of media hegemony which he calls, the monoform, and the lack of debate around the construction of new forms of audiovisual media.
Life
After doing his
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
His reputation as a political provocateur was amplified by
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, Evening Land in Denmark, Resan (a 14-hour film cycle about the threat of nuclear war) in ten different countries, and La Commune in France. Freethinker: The Life and Work of Peter Watkins, is a forthcoming biography by Patrick Murphy, a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at York St John University, and John Cook. It is being compiled with Watkins' active help and participation.
Influence
Citing their 1969
Films
by Peter Watkins
- 1956 : The Web – 20 min. – Great Britain – English – black and white
- 1958 : The Field of Red – Great Britain – English – black and white (lost)
- 1959 : The Diary of an Unknown Soldier – 20 min. – Great Britain – English – black and white
- 1961 : Forgotten Faces – 17 min. – Great Britain – English – black and white
- 1964 : William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and the Jacobite Army led by Charles Edward Stuart.
- 1965 : The War Game – 47 min. – Great Britain – English – black and white
Filmed in a documentary fashion and looks at the possible effects of nuclear war on England. Notable for its intense power and imagery. It later won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, as well as the 1967 Best Documentary Feature award in Great Britain. - 1967 : Privilege – 103 min. – Great Britain – English – colour
A performing singer placed in a futuristic totalitarian state, Steven Shorter (Paul Jones), is an intense character who sympathises with the youth of the nation. He becomes very popular, yet realises that his life is also controlled by the government. In 1978, Patti Smith recorded one of the film's songs, "Set Me Free" (as "Privilege (Set Me Free)"), on her album Easter. The recording charted on the Top-100 lists in the UK (#72) and Ireland (#13). - 1969 : Gladiators (The Peace Game) – 69 min. – Sweden – English – colour
Views war as a futuristic sporting event where it seems as if games are being played for a television audience. - 1971 : Punishment Park – 88 min. – United States – English – colour
Based on the "siege mentality" of the police force during the 1970s. Protesters are given a choice for sentencing, and "Punishment Park" is one of the choices, in which the protesters must endure a three-day-long contest in a barren desert without food, while being pursued by armed National Guardsmen. - 1974 : Edvard Munch – 174 min (Theatrical) / 210 min (TV) – Sweden and Norway – English and Norvegian – colour
Munch's life, emphasising his early years. - 1975 : The Seventies People – 127 min. – Denmark – Danish – colour
Filmed for television, The Seventies Folk explores how the average citizen deals with the stress, life, work, school and family; resulting in the high suicide rate in Denmark. - 1975 : The Trap – 65 min. – Sweden – Swedish – colour
In the year 1999, totalitarianism prevails with the U.S.S.R. and U.S.A. colluding to govern the world by strict rules. Chaos erupts on the surface but state employees live safely underground. A radical and his son, visit his brother John's family in the bunkers and the discourse grows hot. - 1977 : Evening Land (Aftenlandet) – 109 min. – Denmark – Danish – colour, entered into the 10th Moscow International Film Festival.[6]
Portrays a fictitious Europe where the building of four nuclear missile capable submarines while the workers building them are shafted, leads to a group of radicals kidnapping the Danish EEC Minister in protest. Danish police deal brutally with the strikers, as well as the 'terrorists'. - 1988 : The Journey (Resan) – 873 min. – Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, USSR, Sweden, Norway – English, French – black and white, colour
The Journey: A Film for Peace; weaves together family interviews, the global arms race, survivors of the bombings in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Hamburg, community psychodramas of possible disaster scenarios, and works by other artists - from more than 100 hours of footage. Filmed in the United States, Canada, Norway, Scotland, France, West Germany, Mozambique, Japan, Australia, Tahiti, and Mexico. - 1991: The Media Project - 120 min. - Australia - colour
Discusses and critiques the Australian media coverage of the first gulf war and the way most news is made. - 1994 : The Freethinker – 276 min. – Sweden – Swedish – colour
Documentary portrait of the life of playwright August Strindberg, and the role of an artist, cultural critic, freethinker in society. The film unfolds in slow, non-chronological scenes, broken up by intertitles; with actors sometimes stepping out of character to comment on the characters they are playing, and incorporates scenes of ordinary people discussing issues the film raises. - 2000 : La Commune – 375 min. (full-length version) – France – French – black and white
A historical re-enactment in a documentary style, of the situation after Napoleon III's defeat in which a group of working-class radicals formed the National Guard, refused to accept the authority of the French government and ruled Paris for four months.
about Peter Watkins
- 2001 : The Universal Clock: The Resistance of Peter Watkins is a 77-minute documentary film about Watkins and the making of La Commune. The film is directed by Geoff Bowie and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. The universal clock refers to the synchronisation and the global movement of the televisions in the world, calibrated to be diffused anywhere around the globe, at any time.[7][8]
- 2001 : Peter Watkins – Lituania, Rebond for la Commune and Peter Watkins
References
- ISBN 978-0-7190-6899-7. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
- ^ The Irish Times, "Television awards presented", 9 December 1965
- ISBN 978-0-521-29384-6. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
- ISBN 978-0-520-02254-6. Retrieved 14 October 2010.
- ^ Geoffrey Giuliano, The Beatles – A Celebration, p.144
- ^ "10th Moscow International Film Festival (1977)". MIFF. Archived from the original on 16 January 2013. Retrieved 13 January 2013.
- ^ Bowie, Geoff. "The Universal Clock – The Resistance of Peter Watkins" (Online film). National Film Board of Canada. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
- ^ Begoray, Deborah L. (11 April 2003). "The Universal Clock: The Resistance of Peter Watkins". Canadian Materials. IX (16). Manitoba Library Association. Retrieved 22 November 2011.
Bibliography
- Montero, José Francisco & Paredes, Israel. Imágenes de la Revolución. 2011. Shangrila Ediciones
- Duarte, German A. La scomparsa dell'orologio universale. Peter Watkins e i mass media audiovisivi. 2009. Mimesis Edizioni Milano
- Duarte, German A. Conversaciones con Peter Watkins/Conversations With Peter Watkins. 2016. UTADEO Press
Further reading
Gomez, Joseph A. (November 1979). Peter Watkins. Twayne Publishers.
Welsh, James Michael (September 1986). Peter Watkins: a guide to references and resources. G.K. Hall.
- Duarte, German A. (2009). La scomparsa dell'orologio universale. Peter Watkins e i mass media audiovisivi. Mimesis Edizioni Milano. ISBN 978-88-575-0122-2.
External links
- Peter Watkins' official site
- BFI: Peter Watkins
- Peter Watkins at IMDb
- Notes on The Media Crisis An essay by Peter Watkins. MACBA, 2010.