Peter Watkins on the set of ‘La Commune’
This British-born director who became an important international film-maker died in October last year, aged 90. He made a number of important films categorised as docudramas, though alternative documentaries would cover his varied work better. His distinctive approach was to present historic, contemporary or possible future events in a newsreel or TV style, highlighting both political narratives but also thee treatment of these by the media. His uncompromising approach did not fit with the dominant values of the mainstream media and his work was censored, banned or just difficult for audiences to access.
In the early 1960s he was working at the BBC. He first made a docu-drama about the battle of Culloden, 1745. His innovation was to present the battle through the eyes of a C20th reporter and film crew, with the reporter interviewing participant from the Highland and British armies during the battle. This radical presentation met with critical and audience praise.
The BBC then commissioned Watkins to direct a documentary about the effects of a nuclear attack; at a time when disquiet and opposition to nuclear weapons was a central issue in Britain. The finished film, The War Game, presented a dystopian vision of a post-nuclear attack in Kent, likely to shock viewers. It certainly shocked the BBC and the Government; the film was banned from Television though ‘selected audiences’ were able to view it in the cinema. In one of those ironies in the transatlantic alliance the Hollywood Academy awarded the film Best Documentary.
Friends of Hyde Park Picture House 