Peter Watkins

Peter Watkins is a Réalisateur Britannique born the October 29th 1935. Its films, pacifist and radical, redistribute the usual borders between Documentaire and Fiction. It particularly stuck to the criticism of the Mass-media and what it named the Monoforme.

Biography and work

First years

Peter Watkins is born in Norbiton, in the Surrey. His/her mother is secretary and his/her father works at the Bank of England. During the 2 {{E}} World war, this last is sent in the marine . The family, initially evacuated then turned over near London at the end of the war, knows the experiment of the close bombardments during the Blitz.

In 1947, Watkins is sent in a Welsh school , the College off Christ, where the discipline is severe - only satisfaction during the four years that it passes there: the theater company amateur to which it takes share. At 16 years it follows a formation to enter to the Royal Academy off Dramatic Art, within which it continues then its studies of Théâtre.

In 1954, called with the Military service, it manages to avoid being enlisted against the Mau Mau with the Kenya (at the time always under the British yoke), and is sent to Canterbury, in the Kent. Tasting as little with the military atmosphere as with that of the College off Christ, it joined the association of theater amateur of the city, and meets the troop Playcraft within which it becomes Acteur and produces several parts.

In 1956, leaving the Armed , it is determined not to continue a career of actor - little time afterwards, it carries out with the assistance of Playcraft its first Long-métrage amateur, The Web . The film, turned in 8 mm, follows a German soldier which tries to escape the French men of the maquis at the end from the 2 {{E}} World war. It is rewarded for Gold Star in Ten Best, the Oscars of the films amateurs whose movement is then in full expansion in Great Britain.

Watkins is then engaged in an advertizing company, George Street and Company, as assisting producer, and is charged to carry out short spots for the commercial chains: “We were so to speak realizers. (...) I hated publicity but the experiment was fantastic. ”

In 1958, it carries out its first film in 16 mm, The Field off Red , lost today, on the American Civil War to the the United States.

the Newspaper of an unknown soldier

In 1959, he becomes assistant of Montage in a documentary production company, World Wide Pictures, and carries out the Newspaper of an unknown soldier ( The Diary off year Unknown Soldier ).

The film is located during the 1 {{Re}} World war, from the point of view of a young British soldier, who evokes his last hours of life and his vision of the war.

Realized with few means (a casting of about fifteen people to appear five times of them more, surroundings of Canterbury for decoration of the trenches, the absence of synchronized sound), the film, which lasts 20 minutes and is made in black and white, tries out forms of narration and framing that Watkins will develop later. It gains a Oscar in Ten Best.

Forgotten Faces

In 1960, it films the faces forgotten ( Forgotten Faces ), on the Insurrection of Budapest of 1956, which it turns in Canterbury with members of the Playcraft group. Disputing the Hollywood guns of the realization and narration, it continues to develop to with it the techniques which will characterize its later films: style of the current events, actors speaking with the camera, fixed closes-up on faces. On this last point, Watkins speaks about the special attention which it had paid to the photographs of large reporters to Budapest.

The film, rewarded again, is proposed by the critic Milton Shulman in Granada TV whose vice-president, Cecil Bernstein, refuse with the reason that if they passed it, “nobody any more would believe the tv news” .

In 1961, Peter Watkins Marie with a Frenchwoman, Francoise Letourneur, with whom it will have two wire. In 1963, Forgotten Faces is worth to him to be engaged by BBC as assistant of production. It carries out Gangrène , lost today, on the Torture S of five Without-papers Algeria NS by the French police force.

Professional realizer

Culloden

See also: the Battle of Culloden

In 1964 it carries out its first professional film, the Battle of Culloden ( Culloden ) on the battles Scottish of 1746 where the regiments of English elite crushed the Highlanders. The first lost 50 men, the seconds 1000 on the battle field, 1000 others in the English repression of the following weeks.

Turned close to Inverness with actors amateurs of London and Scottish Lowlands for the royalist forces, of Inverness for the clannish army, the film establishes a parallelism between the “pacification” states-unienne in the Vietnam of the years 1960, and this English “pacification” of the Scottish grounds to the XVIIIe century.

Watkins continues its research as for the manner there of representing the history: in the style of documentary, camera to the shoulder (its “camera freedom” ), as if the cameraman were indeed on the battle field, interviewing the soldiers on line and commenting in Voice-over what occurs. For much downward direct of Highlanders killed in Culloden, the actors Scot rebuild their own history there - process which will be regularly employed by the realizer (in particular in the Commune).

The film is greeted by the critic and is preceded ( British Screenwriters Award off Merit ).

the Bomb

See also: the Bomb

BBC ordering a Documentary to him on the effects of the Nuclear , Watkins carries out the Bomb ( The War Game ), where he films, in the style of the current events and while resting on documents filmed with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the release of a war between NATO and the the USSR, an atomic attack of the latter on the Kent and its disastrous consequences: the massacre of thousands of people, the sacrifice of the civilians by the State, the fight to survive, governmental bias of the media.

The actors are recruited via public meetings in Kent, and turning essentially takes place in abandoned military barraquements with Dover. Watkins wants to again imply “people ordinary” in a research on their own history, with this difference that the Bomb at the time refers to events had a presentiment of like imminent, but which did not take place. One of the objectives is of speaking and to make speak about the effects of the nuclear power and the Arms race, which, in spite of a protest movement against the British policy of the time (the Great Britain, directed by Harold Wilson, develops its program of nuclear armament), only is approached very little by the contemporary media.

The BBC appreciates moderately, the film is discussed with the Parlement and within the government, and the chain finally justifies on quality standards its prohibition of film.

This last will however receive in 1967 the Film price Better Documentaire (the fact is rare for a fiction…) in Great Britain. Watkins resigns of the BBC when he discovers that prohibition made following pressures of the British government.

Privilege

See also: Privilege (film)

In 1966, it carries out Privilege , with the British singer Paul Jones, on the media construction of a pop-star, where it proposes the religious hysteria which are tied between the young man and his public, and the instrumentalisation of its figure by the political authorities, audio-visual and ecclesiastical, in order to attenuate any possibility of revolt of the young people.

The film receives a reception criticizes cold and is withdrawn from the screens by Universal Pictures after some projections.

In 1967, the Major will also refuse Proper in Circumstances , a project of film on the wars against the Indians Sioux that Watkins worked with Marlon Brando.

The exile

Following criticisms on Privilege , Peter Watkins decides to leave England and not to work never again for television or the cinema British.

the Gladiators

See also: the Gladiators (film, 1969)

He settles in 1969 in Sweden, where he carry out The Gladiators ( the Gladiators ), a pacifist film played by professional actors and amateurs of various countries. Turned during the revolts of 1968 to Europe, in particular with Paris, the film is directly influenced by these events.

More the international great powers, aligned and non-aligned, fearing the possibility of a new world war, decide to prevent it by channeling the aggressive impulses of the man. They form an International commission which gets busy to organize engagements between soldiers of various countries. These competitions, which can go until death, are called Jeux of Peace - they are sponsored and retransmises by satellite in the whole world. The film concentrates on the Play 256, which proceeds in the International Center of the Plays of Peace close to Stockholm, under the control of a powerful computer. The referees decide to eliminate a man and a woman belonging to opposite teams but which try to approach, considering that they thus endanger the stability of the system.

Initially envisaged to be turned camera with the shoulder, The Gladiators is finally filmed with a Caméra 35 mm (at the time not very handy), which obliges Watkins to resort, “case of major force, with a more static and more formal style” .

The film being attacked, Watkins takes again the road of the exile.

Punishment Park

See also: Punishment Park

In 1970, installed with the the United States, it carries out, always in a documentary style, Punishment Park , on the policy of oppression as Richard Nixon leads as well to the Vietnam as inside the country: May 4th of the same year, 4 students expressing against the invasion of the Kampuchea are killed by the National guard of the Ohio, episode known under the name of Kent State shootings .

The film is located in a vast camp of the US government at the western south of the California, where the activists challenged like dangerous for the internal security (pacifist, militant blacks, students) are judged summarily and have the choice between a longsuffering of prison or a testing period morbid: they are released if they reach, in less than three days, without water nor food, and being caught by the police officers which continue them, the American flag located in full desert.

The images of Group 638, in the course of “judgment” in front of the civil court, intermingle with those with Group 637, in full desert of Bear Mountain National Punishment Park. While the accused of Group 638 argue each one on their opposition to the War of Vietnam or their militant engagements, Group 367 is subdivided between those which want to try an escape from the Park, those which give up, and those which are given to reach the flag.

Filmed in August 1970 in the desert of San Bernadino, 100 km of Los Angeles, Punishment Park is again played by actors amateurs or young professional actors of the surroundings of Los Angeles. The roles of the members of the civil court all are held by citizens of the city (dentist, housewife, trade unionist…), which gives in film their real opinion.

Criticism breaks out against film at its exit, so much so that it is removed poster after 4 days of projection to New York. It since was not diffused any more in the United States.

Edvard Munch

See also: Edvard Munch, dance of the life

In 1973, in Norway, Peter Watkins carries out Edvard Munch, the dance of the life , film of 3:30 in English and Norwegian, by-product by televisions Norwegian (NRK) and Swedish. Biography of the painter Norwegian expressionnist, it is also an autobiography in hollow of the realizer, who recognizes in the life of the artist the tests against which it ran up itself.

This film, born from a visit of Peter Watkins with the Munch Museum of Oslo, is made again with actors not-professionals (inhabitants of Oslo and sound Fjord), in places that Munch attended, and in let us tons close to those of its fabrics.

It evokes the youths of the painter, the obsessing return of family dramas, the discovery of the anarchistic Bohème of the time, the tensions in love and artistic.

It is, of the consent of the realizer, his most personal film, and a creative experiment “magic” , the team of technicians and actors being one of best with which he worked.

Criticisms are mainly positive, and the film will be shown in many countries.

The Seventies People

In 1973 - 1974, with the Denmark, it carries out The Seventies People , on the question of the high suicide rate of young Danish.

Advertisements are published in the press, calling people willing to speak about the stress of the modern life to arise.

The film concentrates on two families of Copenhagen, one easy, the other less, and more particularly on the problems encountered by the children. The family scenes, rounds always with these nonprofessional actors, were however played.

Scandinavian criticism, alleging that Watkins was foreign with the culture of the country, attacks the film, which will not be projected any more.

The Trap

See also: The Trap

In 1974, radio operator Sveriges inviting the public to present scenarios on “the future” , Watkins and the journalist Bo Melander develop a scenario on the topic of the nuclear power.

The action proceeds in 1999, in the entirely video-supervised underground apartments of engineer, John, working for a treatment plant of nuclear waste on the west coast of the Sweden. Television delivers optimistic messages over the New Millenium. Bertil, the brother of John and one of his nephew, accused of “antisocial” activities , come to join it to celebrate the new year, but the visit quickly becomes oppressive because of the political dissensions of the two brothers. Bertil, denouncing the consumer society which produced this nuclear waste, shows John to be a prisoner of a system which it guarantees blindly.

The film was made entirely in studio, with four television cameras. Watkins, seeking to find, in spite of this not very flexible equipment, the style of the current events to which it is attached, leaves with each cameraman the responsibility for the images which it takes and does not give, contrary to the uses into force at the time, not of precise instruction on the movements and framings. He will say to Joseph Gomez ( Peter Watkins , Twayne Publishers): “I had the feeling to abdicate a share of this control that many realizers assert jealously like their absolute prerogative. It seemed to me that I opened the possibility for other members of the team of taking personal initiatives. ” and speaks about a “spontaneous experiment where all could take share” .

Evening Land

See also: Eveningland

In 1977, it carries out for the Institute of the Cinema Danish Aftenlandet ( Evening Land , or Deterrent force ). The film describes a Grève in the docks of Copenhagen against the construction of four underwater for the French navy: the workmen protest against the freezing of the wages concluded by the direction to gain the contract, but also against the equipment of the boats out of nuclear missiles. A European top being held at the same moment in the city, a group of Activiste S removes the Danish minister to dispute the construction of nuclear armaments in Denmark and to support the claims of the strikers. The demonstration is brutally repressed by the police force, which saves the minister and captures or kills the “terrorist” .

Will the film is badly received by criticism ( “When Watkins cease frightening the public? ” rises a chronicler), but also by the Marxiste S, which reproach him for being closer to “the terrorist” than of the workmen. It will not be presented any more then.

Theorization of Monoforme

See also: Monoforme

Of 1968 with 1977, Peter Watkins accomplishes many voyages to accompany its films and to organize, which will take for him an increasingly large importance, public debates on the Critique of the Mass-media and what it perceives like their role in the political control of the population. It as well sticks to denounce their silence on questions like the nuclear power, as the generalized use of the fact that it will name later the Monoforme, namely the hâchées, fast, standardized and interchangeable techniques of realization, which modify information and skew its communication. Peter Watkins starts to organize seminars and workshops of criticism of the media.

From 1977 with 1979, it travels to the United States to present Edvard Munch and to animate debates around film. It takes part in Sidney with the creation of an association, The People' S Commission , which disputes the capacity of the media.

In 1979, the Swedish Institute of the Cinema and Swedish television order a film to him on the life and the work of August Strindberg, painter, poet, photographer who wrote in 1869 a part entitled the Free thinker . After 2 years and half of research, the film is cancelled fault of financings, but will be taken again in 1992.

Peter Watkins takes again his teaching with the Université of Columbia, where he deciphers with his pupils the television news and the Soap-opera S.

the Voyage

See also: the Voyage

Of 1983 with 1986, it works on the Voyage ( The Journey ) which it turns in 12 different countries. This documentary film of 14:30, arranged in modules of 1:30, is a pacifist plea against the nuclear power: it is composed of discussions with families of the five continents, which speak about the nuclear armaments, of the difficulty of informing itself on the question in the media as well as through the education system, of the policy of their respective States on the matter, of the effects of these weapons, and the role of the media of mass in the Arms race.

Sometimes as previously in the Bomb , it puts in scene episodes of atomic, insistent war on the absence of protection of the civil populations on behalf of their governments. It alternates in this film of the moments of truth (talks) and forgery (reconstitution of nuclear attacks) documentary, commenting on the process of film simultaneously: a voice-over and paperboards invite the spectator regularly to think of the image which it has just seen, its duration, the way in which it was assembled in a sequence, at the same time being analyzed film as he is shown.

Televisions to which Watkins will present it will refuse it all.

Projects of alternative media

In 1989 and 1990, Peter Watkins writes a critical analysis on the teaching of the media for the Dramatic Institute of Stockholm in Sweden.

It receives a purse of the New Zealand Peace Foundation to develop projects of alternative media in schools of New Zealand.

It realizes in 1991 The Media Project , critical video in the way in which the media covered the Guerre of the Gulf. The film is produced by the Australian actor Chris Haywood.

the Free-thinker

See also: the Free-thinker

In 1992, Peter Watkins takes again his project of film on August Strindberg and turns the Free-thinker ( The Freethinker ) within the framework of 2 years a teaching project implying 24 high-school pupils Swedish. The latter, starting from the scenario developed in 1972, take part at the various stages of film: production, research (in particular on the social conditions in Sweden of the years 1870), Assembly, costumes, direction.

The film, which lasts 4:30, is based on a complex structure, in spiral, and intermingles 4 periods with the life of Strindberg: childhood, beginnings of its relation with Siri von Essen, the exile and the disintegration of the marriage, solitary old age with Stockholm. Images of the social life and policy of Sweden of years 1870 intersect these biographical scenes.

Anders Mattsson, in the role of Strindberg, and Lena Setterwall, in that of Siri von Essen, largely call upon their experiments and their own emotions for “to compose” their characters - comparable in that with the couple Geir Wetsby (Munch) /Gro Fraas (Mrs Heiberg) of Edvard Munch . Same manner, the “journalists” who attack Strindberg are played by very critical people really of the life and work of the writer.

The film is built starting from very diverse materials: talks scenographies, psychodramatic confrontations, theatrical dialogs borrowed from the parts of Strindberg, photographic archives of the writer, paperboards carrying of the quotations or describing periods of its life, debates with the public which attended turning. This, according to Peter Watkins, in order to “call in question our perception of the fluid and invisible process of inevitable Monoforme” on the one hand, and on the other hand, to return account in the matter even of film of the constant search of new forms which animated Strindberg.

The film will be refused by all the principal Scandinavian television channels.

Critical radical

In 1992, second marriage with a Lithuanian, Emptied Urbonavicius. In 1994, wearied attacks repeated against its films as well as by the audio-visual and media context total, Peter Watkins decides to withdraw cinema and television and leaves to settle with Vilnius, in Lithuania.

In 1997, at the time of the 75e birthday of the BBC, it writes the Hidden side of the moon , a criticism of the audio-visual mass media, which it sends to the whole of the professional media of the world: it there denounces the democratic crisis which there reign, the omnipresence of Monoforme on television as to the cinema, and proposes ideas of reform of the teaching of the media.

the Commune

See also: the Commune (Paris, 1871)

In 1999, Peter Watkins takes again the camera and turns to Montreuil, in Parisian suburbs, in the old studios of Georges Méliès, the Commune (Paris, 1871) , a reconstitution of the Commune of Paris, where in a form close to the theater, it even more radically calls in question his manner of filming. Always working with actors not-professionals and in the form of the current events (assumed presence of the camera, catch with party of the “journalist” ), he wonders at the same time on the historical episode and the contemporary context: the actors state for example criticisms on the government of Versailles while delivering their opinion on the strikes of 1993.

The film is badly accommodated and Arte, Co-producing, does not defend it. The actors meet within Rebond association for the Commune, in order to support film and to continue the work of accompaniment and critical debate impelled by Peter Watkins around his preceding achievements. Association produces in 2001 documentary on and with Peter Watkins, entitled Peter Watkins - Lithuania , turned, by irony, within a Parc with Soviet topic close to Vilnius, where the realizer reconsiders on the Commune and the crisis of the media.

It publishes on its Internet site of the critical texts where it carries out a second analysis its of Monoforme, and in 2004, Media Crisis appears with the Homnisphères editions.

Watkins, militant scenario writer

The work of Peter Watkins is eminently political, as well by the subjects as it chooses (nuclear armament, wars, revolts popular, personalities iconoclasts) that by the way of which it treats them. It paid this nonconformism by recurring obstacles with its work, so much on the level of the production (financing) that distribution (projections in rooms) or critical reception.

Its distrust growing with regard to the traditional mediums led it to prefer with the conventional talks, which it reproaches for evacuating the most political considerations, practice of the “car-interviews” , where it raises the questions which the public regularly addressed to him, or those which seem to him fundamental.

Freedom of the form

Before developing its criticism of the Monoforme, concept which it formed to name the standardization of the form televisual and cinematographic (assembly, music, tallies narrative), Peter Watkins tried himself as of his first films to accompany his handing-over in question by the representation and of the narration traditional by formal research out-tallies.

The realizer scrambles initially the usual kinds, by moving the borders between Documentaire and Fiction: historical or fictional episodes are filmed as if they were held under our eyes, the presence of the “journalist” visible and is assumed, creating effects of anachronie (camera and microphone visible on a battle field of the XVIIIe century or in the Paris of 1871) or of Uchronie ( the Bomb , Punishment Park ).

It also inserts different cinematographic forms within the same film, calling upon devices of the Silent film (paperboards), with professional tools (calculation of the time of a sequence, insertion of aural signals to announce a cut to the assembly), with other forms of art (Photographie, Théâtre, Cabaret).

Refusing to employ the processes standardized by Hollywood industry, it turns very little in studio, or when it does it, exploits the constraints of them: it is the case of The Trap , where space, entirely confined and supervised, is oppressive. The natural decorations, like the costumes, are the subject as for them of a very long research task before turning, in order to find places which “would not play” more not - or not less - that actors giving their real opinion.

The light natural or is worked specifically for film, as in Munch , where it is filtered to approach the bluish tone employed by the painter, to restore the atmosphere of the end of the XIXe century (not very enlightened houses), and to bathe film in an unreal environment (return tickets between flashbacks, interior visions, episodes present).

The sound is desynchronized and aired long silences, in order to create a shift in which the spectator has time to develop his own reflection on film, to add to it its emotions and memories, Watkins seeking to make emerge the film of a “alchemy” between the cinematographic matter and the personal experience of each individual who looks at it.

The rate/rhythm of Montage is asymmetrical, alternating long sequence shots or Close-up S of faces with very short episodes intended to create an effect of shock.

Lastly, Watkins, refusing the constraints dictated by commercial requirements, is freed from the agreed durations ( the Voyage lasts 14:30, the Commune 5:30 in its integral version), in order to let each film develop over a time which is clean for him, and each spectator to find the space of his reflection.

Role of the public

This research of the form is accompanied indeed at Peter Watkins by a reflection on the relation with the public. Wanting to break the fourth wall cinematographic space, that of the screen, it seeks, contrary to the Hollywood system attached to a function of entertainment and a strong hierarchisation of the roles, to make take part the spectator in films.

That is translated initially and above all by the recourse to nonprofessional actors, who express their true points of view through their roles, going sometimes until modifying the original screenplay of film, as it was the case for Punishment Park , whose final one differs from that initially written. The Of Versailles of the Commune, to take another example, were recruited via advertisements in the newspapers, according to their preserving political opinions.

The actors are thus engaged fully in the process - another fundamental concept at Watkins - of realization of film, and, beyond that, in the construction or rebuilding of their own history (exploration of episodes lived by ancestors in Culloden , of events had a presentiment of as imminent in the Bomb ).

The interest for the public and constant worry to break the form to be able that the passive reception during a projection induces, appears in addition in its films by direct addresses of the Voice-over to the spectator, inviting it to analyze what it has just seen or questioning it on its opinion - dialog or polylogist that the realizer sought to continue in meetings organized after the meetings.

It is not pain-killer, in this respect, that Peter Watkins lately more was interested in the organization of public debates and workshops of decoding of the media that with the realization strictly speaking: the process continues thus in the field citizen, and tries to reinvest spaces of criticism and democracy asphyxiated, according to the realizer, by the mass media.

Catalog of films

of Peter Watkins

• 1956 : The Web - 20 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white

• 1958: The Field off Red - Great Britain - English - black and white
• 1959: Newspaper of an unknown soldier ( The Diary off year Unknown Soldier ) - 20 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white
• 1961: forgotten Faces ( Forgotten Faces ) - 17 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white
• 1964: the Battle of Culloden ( Culloden ) - 69 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white
• 1966: the Bomb ( The War Range ) - 48 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white
• 1967: Privilege ( Privilege ) - 103 min. - Great Britain - English - color
• 1969: the Gladiators ( Gladiators ) - 69 min. - Sweden - English - color
• 1971: Punishment Park - 88 min. - the United States - English - color
• 1975: The Seventies People - 127 min. - Denmark - Danish - color
• 1975: The Trap ( Fällan ) - 65 min. - Sweden - Swedish - color
• 1976: Edvard Munch, dance of the life ( Edvard Munch ) - 210 min. - Sweden and Norway - anlais and Norwegian - color
• 1977: Eveningland ( Deterrent force , Aftenlandet ) - 109 min. - Denmark - Danish - color
• 1988: the Voyage ( The Journey , Resan ) - 873 min - Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, the USSR, Sweden, Norway - English, French - black and white, color
• 1994: the Free-thinker ( The Freethinker ) - 276 min. - Sweden - Swedish - color
• 2000: the Commune (Paris, 1871) - 375 min. (integral version) - France - French - black and white

on Peter Watkins

• 2001 : the universal Clock ( The Universal Clock: The Resistance off Peter Watkins ), of Geoff Bowie, produced by Yves Bisaillon, 77 min.: documentary on the realizer, the turning of the Commune and Monoforme - the “universal clock” referring to the synchronization and the interchangeability of the television programs of the whole world, gauged to be able to be diffused on any chain and in any “crenel” .

• 2001 : Peter Watkins - Lithuania , Rebound for the Commune and Peter Watkins

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