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Cautionary Tales and Alternate Histories: the Films of Peter Watkins

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Cautionary Tales and Alternate Histories: the Films of Peter Watkins C¿iuti.0]].£u*y Talc» 03 e co CO I (D My ^r£QjwKûgtf ¡s 00 c co £ cu Q3 Q_ C O CO fc¡ CO co _o u 3 c 0) .c o E o "> < appeared, encompassing five out of his hisfirst audience into action - not goals which Peter Watkins has been making defi- six feature films - The War Game and Cullo- tend to sit easy with producers or distributors, The Peter antly radicalantly challenging challenging films Watkins for more filmmaker than has films been par for making excellence, more defi- than den (paired together), The Gladiators , Pun- no matter their stripe. Watkins's career has forty years now. If the early part of his career ishment Park , and his masterpiece, Edvard been marked by a constant struggle to get attests to a period when radical and com- Munch , all in lavish editions with substantial his films made, and even more, by a constant mercial were not necessarily mutually exclu- booklets, extras, and critical commen- struggle to get them seen, in the face of insti- sive propositions - his first films were made taries - and reportedly The Freethinker will tutional suppression, censorship, and critical for the BBC, and his first theatrical feature, soon join that list as well. With First Run hostility. On the strength of a handful of Privilege , was produced and low-budget, independently distributed by Universal - produced short films (two of the uncompromising nature The defiant one- Peter Watkins's singular which, Diary of an Unknown of his aggressively provoca- body of work, a radical achievement without Soldier and The Forgotten tive work made him a cine- Faces , are included as extras matic pariah even then, lead- peer, snaps back into focus on newly on the first two New Yorker ing almost immediately to a released DVD editions of his major works. releases), Watkins was hired cinematic exile which has by the BBC's documentary lasted to the present day. division in 1963, where he Unbowed and seemingly incorruptible, Features having just released a three-disc set was able to make his astounding feature Watkins has built a body of work which, devoted to his most recent film, the magiste- debut, Culloden , a reenactment of the brutal whatever reservations one might harbor rial La Commune (Paris, 1871 ), and his four- and tragic eighteenth- century Scottish battle about particular films, is a truly astonishing teen-hour, eighteen-part documentary on and its aftermath. The nearly unqualified and admirable* achievement, a testament the tonuclear arms race, The Journey , available praise for Culloden (a response which would his iron-willed determination to make from Facets on VHS, Watkins's work may be short-lived and never repeated) led to the movies on his own terms and in defiance of still be less accessible than it should be (the production of his next and possibly most the obstacles placed in his path. four remaining films from his filmography famous film, The War Game, a dramatization of A measure of tribute has arrived at last, are virtually impossible to see), but more the physical and social effects of a nuclear in the form of a long-overdue but (even at than you might have thought likely. attack on England. The War Game proved this late date) still gutsy initiative by New Watkins is, after all, a provocateur, deter- too hot to handle for the BBC, which, partly in Yorker Films to release a number of the mined to smash complacency, to reveal response to pressure from representatives of films on DVD. Thus far four discs have injustice, hypocrisy, and ignorance, and to spur the government and the military, refused to 20 CINEASTE, Spring 2007 This content downloaded from 144.82.114.178 on Tue, 04 May 2021 08:50:18 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms televise it, even going to some lengths to DVD's Reviewed in This Article date which directly engages the present suppress it.1 The whole affair was reported without using a fictional framework, taking all on widely in the British press and led to The War Game and Culloden of fourteen hours to do so ) . Watkins's resignation from the BBC in 1965, The War Game: Written and directed by Peter It's the speculative films that show thus inaugurating a never-ending search for Watkins; cinematography by Peter Bartlett; Watkins, for better or for worse, at his most DVD, B&W, 49 mins., 1965. Culloden: Written a hospitable artistic climate which has taken and directed by Peter Watkins; cinematography aggressively provocative - these are films him to the U.S., Scandinavia, and most by Dick Bush. DVD, B&W, 72 mins., 1964. designed to shatter the audience's false sense recently France (as well as Lithuania, where of security, to shock them with visions of the The Gladiators Watkins has lived for many years). sickness at the heart of society and of the Written and directed by Peter Watkins; Many filmmakers, even admirable ones, possible consequences of this corruption. cinematography by Peter Suschitzky; DVD, have proven vulnerable to pressures less intense color, 91 mins., in English, Swedish and French Watkins stands apart from cinematic provo- and relentless than these. One of Watkins's with optional English subtitles, 1968. cateurs like Lars von Trier and Gaspar Noé in that greatest achievements is simply the perse- The disc also includes The Diary of an he almost never indulges in empty cynicism verance he has demonstrated - from his first Unknown Soldier , B&W, 17 mins., 1959. (with the conspicuous exception of Privilege) short films to La Commune , Watkins has, or a sense of superiority towards the audience, Punishment Park seemingly without hesitation, sacrificed financial traits which can, after all, represent another Directed by Peter Watkins; cinematography by Joan and career security in order to continue making Churchill; DVD, color, 88 mins., 1971. The disc kind of complacency. At their best, Watkins's films exactly as he wants to make them. also includes The Forgotten Faces , B&W, 18 mins., provocations are designed to shake his audience's Indeed, taken all together, the paradox of 1961. convictions in order to spur them to constructive Watkins's body of work is that it is remarkably, action or thought - not simply to shock but to even obsessively, unified in style and subject Edvard Munch challenge the viewer to engage the film, and matter, even as he alternates between dis- Directed and edited by Peter Watkins; written by extension the world at large. But in the by Peter Watkins in collaboration with the cast; tinct modes that seem almost incompatible. best known of his speculative films (The War cinematography by Odd Geir Saether; DVD, color, With Culloden , his first feature-length film 174 mins., In English, Norwegian and German Game, Privilege , The Gladiators , and Punish- and his first BBC-commissioned project, with optional English subtitles, 1976. All five ment Park) , Watkins's zeal often leads him to use Watkins adopted an approach which he has features distributed by New Yorker Video, methods that are overbearing and crude, to been developing and refining, with very little www.newyorkerfims.com. wield the newsreel aesthetic as a cudgel. It's variation, ever since. Watkins films are all shot in The Journey not a question of bad-faith, of trying to pass off mimicry of a newsreel documentary esthetic Written and directed by Peter Watkins; reconstruction as truth - Watkins trusts his (an apparent nonesthetic), complete with hand- cinematography by Odd Geir Saether among audience to be more sophisticated than that held camera-work, action seemingly caught many others; VHS, color, 870 mins., 1987. (in The War Game, for instance, the narrator is at Distributed by Facets Video, 1517 W. Fullerton on the sly, and participants who invariably pains to identify the footage we see as some- Avenue, Chicago, IL 60614, www.facets.org. look directly into the lens, usually accompa- thing that might happen). But, to take The nied by the off-screen voice of the director La Commune (Paris, 1871) War Game as an example again, the film is (or interviewer). Directed by Peter Watkins; cinematography extremely powerful when it lets the vérité- This tactic is ubiquitous now, but by Odd Geir Saether; DVD, B&W, 345 mins., style images of the attack and its aftermath Watkins can justifiably be called the pioneer French dialog with English subtitles, 2000. speak for themselves, less so during the Three-disc Collector's Edition also includes of the style, and one of the few who has not interviews in which certain characters (a sol- The Universal Clock: The Resistance of Peter only borrowed the bok of newsreel filmmaking Watkins , color, 76 mins. A First Run/Icarus Films dier, a nurse, a doctor) express their shock, hor- but has consistently adopted the conceit that release distributed in homevideo by First Run ror, and suffering. Here the newsreel esthet- the film is in fact a newscast, with the break- Features, www.firstrunfeatures.com. ic becomes a distraction, the emotions ing of the fourth wall that that implies. In obviously fabricated - in these moments, other words, Watkins is not simply after the Parky The Trap , and Evening Land (which Watkins's desire to move and shock us impression of spontaneity or a sense of leaves only The Seventies People , which becomes too transparent. unvarnished realism. He achieves that; but by applies the faux-newsreel approach to the The newsreel approach is relatively breaking the fourth wall, he also, paradoxi- issue of suicide in contemporary Denmark, muted in Privilege and The Gladiators , the cally, calls attention to the film's artificiality, and The Journey , the only Watkins film toonly films Watkins has made in the bulkier since, after all, he has no intention of and less mobile 35mm format, and per- passing his films off as nonfiction.
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