Peter Watkins: Filmmaking against the global media crisis

Despite decades of censorship and neglect, Peter Watkins (http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/) has created a body of work that marks him out as one of the UK’s greatest filmmakers. Born in Surrey in 1935, Watkins began his career pioneering the ‘docu-drama’ in two works for the BBC: historical drama Culloden (1964) about the final battle in the Jacobite rebellion, and The War Game (1965), speculating about a nuclear attack on the UK. The BBC refused to broadcast the latter, and after his feature film Privilege (1968) had a poor commercial and critical reception, Watkins spent the rest of his career in exile. In his theoretical writing, teaching and filmmaking, Watkins has challenged the ‘monoform’ – a standardisation of Mass Audio-Visual Media that barrages its audience with a rapid flow of changing images and sounds, with the intention of preventing any real contemplation. Joining Juliet to discuss Watkins' work is Gareth Evans, former editor of Vertigo magazine and adjunct Moving Image Curator at Whitechapel Gallery. Watkins on the monoform and the global media crisis: https://www.closeupfilmcentre.com/library/documents/the-dark-side-of-the-moon-the-global-media-crisis/ SELECTED REFERENCES FILMS BY PETER WATKINS The Forgotten Faces (1960) - https://player.bfi.org.uk/subscription/film/watch-the-forgotten-faces-1961-online Culloden (1964) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkxW-nB0nNU The War Game (1965) - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p02zy7nt/the-war-game Privilege (1966) - https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-privilege-1967-online The Gladiators (1969) - https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review/the-gladiators Punishment Park (1971) - https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2005/jul/08/4 Edvard Munch (1974) - https://www.filmcomment.com/blog/art-of-the-real-edvard-munch-by-peter-watkins/ The Journey (1987) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsYLt9bSRbw The Freethinker (1992-94) - http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2012/01/freethinker.html La Commune (2000) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ1S18jsyyw WILLIAM BLAKE, ‘Jerusalem’ Blowup (dir. Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966) BERTOLT BRECHT, The Days of the Commune (1955) - http://daysofthecommune.com/pages/play.html A Clockwork Orange (dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1971) GUY DEBORD, ATTILA KOTÁNYI & RAOUL VANEIGEM, ‘Thesis on the Paris Commune’ (1962) – http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/Pariscommune.htm End of Days (dir. Peter Hyams, 1999) Future Revolutions: New Perspectives on Peter Watkins (2018) - https://wolfberlin.org/en/wolf-shop/book-new-perspective-on-peter-watkins-future-revolutions If … (dir. Lindsay Anderson, 1968) It Happened Here (dir. Kevin Brownlow & Andrew Mollo, 1965) - https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/interviews/it-happened-here-kevin-brownlow Jubilee (dir. Derek Jarman, 1978) V. I. LENIN, ‘Lessons of the Commune’ (1911) – https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mar/23.htm The Living Dead (dir. Adam Curtis, 1995) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xoM6-1SWl4 Manfred Mann KARL MARX, ‘The Civil War in France’ (1871) – https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/index.htm Ralph Miliband - https://www.marxists.org/archive/miliband/index.htm The New Babylon (dir. Grigori Kozintsev & Leonid Trauberg, 1929) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyOhcTuFYe0 O Lucky Man! (dir. Lindsay Anderson, 1973) Stanisław Przybyszewski - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanisław_Przybyszewski Role of a Lifetime (dir. Deimantas Narkevičius, 2003) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69EREtDfYoM August Strindberg Threads (dir. Mick Jackson, 1984) West of the Tracks (dir. Wang Bing, 2002) - https://theartsofslowcinema.com/2017/05/16/west-of-the-tracks-wang-bing-2003/ Who is America? (TV series, 2018) ÉMILE ZOLA, La Débâcle (1892) - https://readingzola.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/la-debacle-the-downfall/