Peter Watkins (1935-2025)

[diamonds]

Peter Watkins

[hearthesilence]

Just two days after his 90th birthday. Very sad, but even though his health had declined in recent years, he seems to have spent the large majority of his 90 years in more or less good health. (It wasn't until January 2024 that his family shared the news that he would no longer attend screenings or give interviews.)

I guess he was never going to be widely known by the mainstream, but much of his work has sadly grown only more powerful and incisive - a damning reflection of the world we live in but also an enormous credit to him as a filmmaker.

[Big Ben]

The best to ever do it. Absolutely one of the greats. I had a genuinely life changing experience when recommended his film about Edvard Munch recommended to me and thought that the person was joking when they said it would make me comprehend him outside of what my generation considered meme material. He's now one my favorite artists and his film about Munch one of my favorite films.

And this of course says nothing about the unbelievably prescient Punishment Park, The Gladiators or Privilege. Depressing beyond belief that all three of those films are more relevant now under Trump than they were under Richard Nixon.

[beamish14]

The best to ever do it. Absolutely one of the greats. I had a genuinely life changing experience when recommended his film about Edvard Munch recommended to me and thought that the person was joking when they said it would make me comprehend him outside of what my generation considered meme material. He's now one my favorite artists and his film about Munch one of my favorite films.

And this of course says nothing about the unbelievably prescient Punishment Park, The Gladiators or Privilege. Depressing beyond belief that all three of those films are more relevant now under Trump than they were under Richard Nixon.

Privilege has to rank alongside Walker as the most subversive film to ever be produced by an American studio. It chills me every time I see it. His whole body of work is just about perfect

[hearthesilence]

His first two features alone should secure him a place in the history books, and again, really fucking sad how relevant they are today.

Culloden is about the final engagement of the Jacobite rising which saw their people mercilessly and ruthlessly defeated. It closes with the narration:

"...within a century of Culloden, the English and the Scottish lowlanders had made secure forever their religion, their commerce, their culture, their ruling dynasty. And in so doing, they had destroyed a race of people. They have created a desert and called it 'peace.'"

The War Game depicts the horrifying devastation of civilian lives following a nuclear attack. After showing the casual rationalizing of inflicting the same in retaliation, it offers the following commentary:

"Technically and intellectually, we are living in an atomic age. Emotionally, we are still living in the Stone Age. The Aztecs on their feast days would sacrifice 20,000 men to their gods in the belief that this would keep the universe on its proper course. We feel superior to them."

[JSC]

A few years back I had the sublime experience of watching The Journey over successive nights. A
master filmmaker. Thankfully, I've been fortunate to see the majority of his work, largely due to the
DVD releases from Project X in the early 2000s (the only ones I haven't been able to see are
The Trap and The Seventies People... will have to track those down now).

[aox]

Peter Watkins

Embarrassingly, I have never heard of this guy or come across his work, but this sounds absolutely intriguing in both concept and intention. I'm sorry he passed, and condolences to his family, but thank you, diamonds. I can't wait to dig in this weekend.

[Big Ben]

The War Game depicts the horrifying devastation of civilian lives following a nuclear attack. After showing the casual rationalizing of inflicting the same in retaliation, it offers the following commentary:

"Technically and intellectually, we are living in an atomic age. Emotionally, we are still living in the Stone Age. The Aztecs on their feast days would sacrifice 20,000 men to their gods in the belief that this would keep the universe on its proper course. We feel superior to them."

It had a pretty profound effect on me when I saw it. I was always aware that nukes were you know, bad, but this film really drives the point home that no, these aren't just weapons that just make a big boom. It's a remarkable portrait of how unfortunately ignorant people are of these weapons and that was unfortunately in 1966. They're even more powerful now.

[swo17]

Unfortunately it looks like the MoC Watkins releases are OOP, but the Region B BFI release of The War Game and Culloden is still available and a good entry point to the director

[hearthesilence]

Privilege is still in-print in the U.S. and Kino usually includes it in its sales for about $10. It may be the same exact master used by the BFI's Flipside edition (which is out OOP) - not as good as the BFI edition but in terms of PQ, it's supposedly pretty close even though the bit rate isn't quite as high.

[thirtyframesasecond]

A remarkable career. Punishment Park still is influential - even through to the Long Walk (definitely an influence on MIA's Born Free)?

[Matt]

HIs political films are in a class by themselves, but I also want to make a plug for Edvard Munch, maybe the greatest ever biopic of an artist. The entire cast is amateurs, but all the art in it is actually Munch's.

[denti alligator]

I have the MoC Munch and had their Punishment Park DVD, with intent to upgrade. Sadly never got around to it. I wonder if his death might lead to these being reissued? Great films!

[beamish14]

If you’re in L.A., UCLA/The Hammer is showing Punishment Park in 35mm next month. Very excited, as the Cinefamily cancelled a screening of it that I had bought a ticket for about a decade ago

[senseabove]

I have the MoC Munch and had their Punishment Park DVD, with intent to upgrade. Sadly never got around to it. I wonder if his death might lead to these being reissued? Great films!

FWIW, ~3 years ago on the Radiance Discord Fran said that Watkins "isn't interested in licensing right now."

[hearthesilence]

Posted by Gérard Watkins:

The family of Peter Watkins, his wife, Vida Urbonavicius, and his sons, and his loved ones, are saddened to announce his death on October 31, 2025, at the hospital in Bourganeuf, near Felletin (23, Creuse), where he had resided for over 25 years. A unique and committed filmmaker, he was the author of, among others, "The Battle of Culloden," "The Bomb," "Privilege," "The Gladiators," "Punishment Park," "Edvard Munch, The Dance of Life," "The Journey," "The Free Thinker," and "The Commune (Paris, 1871)," and the author of the book "The Media Crisis" on the overwhelming role of audiovisual mass media in current social, political, and ecological catastrophes. A pioneer of the innovative concept of "monoform," imposed by mainstream media, a critic of the lack of critical thinking in educational circles, and a whistleblower on the nuclear arms race and repressive control mechanisms, he constantly pushed the boundaries between documentary and fiction. Peter Watkins waged an uncompromising and unwavering battle to the very end. Throughout his life, he endured censorship and exile. The world of cinema has lost one of its most incisive, inventive, and unclassifiable voices. He had just turned 90. He passed away peacefully during the night. His family was by his side during his final days. We wish to thank all those who supported him throughout this long and sometimes solitary struggle.

La famille de Peter Watkins, son épouse, Vida Urbonavicius, et ses fils, et ses proches, ont la douleur de vous annoncer son décès le 31 Octobre 2025 à l’hôpital de Bourganeuf, près de Felletin (23, Creuse) où il résidait depuis plus de 25 ans. Cinéaste unique, engagé, auteur, entre autres, de « La Bataille de Culloden » « La Bombe » « Privilège » « Les Gladiateurs » « Punishment Park » « Edvard Munch, la Danse de la Vie » « Le Voyage » « Le Libre Penseur » et « La Commune (Paris, 1871) », et auteur du livre « The Media Crisis » sur le rôle accablant des mass médias audiovisuels dans les catastrophes sociales, politiques et écologiques actuelles. Penseur du concept novateur de « la monoforme » imposée par les médias dominants, dénonçant l’absence de pensée critique dans les milieux éducatifs, lanceur d’alerte sur la course à l’armement nucléaire et les mécanismes répressifs de contrôle, il n’a eu de cesse de repousser les frontières entre documentaire et fiction. Peter Watkins a mené jusqu’au bout un combat intransigeant et sans concessions. Il a vécu, tout au long de sa vie, la censure et l’exil. Le monde du cinéma perd un de ses regards les plus incisif, inventif, et inclassable. Il venait d'avoir 90 ans. Il est parti paisiblement dans la nuit. Sa famille était à ses côtés pour ses derniers jours. Nous tenons à remercier celles et ceux qui l’ont soutenu à travers ce long et parfois solitaire combat.

[MichaelB]

Embarrassingly, I have never heard of this guy or come across his work, but this sounds absolutely intriguing in both concept and intention. I'm sorry he passed, and condolences to his family, but thank you, diamonds. I can't wait to dig in this weekend.

That reminds me of a time when I hosted a screening of Punishment Park and chaired a discussion afterwards. Only eleven people turned up, for which the organiser apologised profusely, but I wasn't fussed – I got paid the same regardless, and the fact that there were only eleven people meant that everyone got to say something.

And, as those who know the film will have guessed already, they had a lot to say!

Not least because none of them had seen the film before, and ten of them were complete Peter Watkins virgins, so they were genuinely shellshocked by the end – again, this will come as no surprise to anyone who's seen it.

This was nearly two decades ago, so I daresay it's even more potent and powerful today - just as The War Game really hasn't dated aside from superficial stylistic issues.

[GaryC]

The War Game had its second ever showing on the BBC a few months ago, for the eightieth anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Its previous showing was forty years ago, for the fortieth anniversary, as part of a week-long series of programmes called After the Bomb. Given that The Day After and Threads had been broadcast in between, the BBC's banning of Watkins's film seemed quite unnecessary, for all their reported comments that it was dated. It isn't, and while The Day After and Threads have the advantages of four decades' advances in special effects, and are in colour, The War Game still stands up.

I wouldn't be surprised if BBC4 put it on again quite soon, and probably Culloden as well. I first saw that in 1996, when the BBC repeated it for the 250th anniversary of the battle.

[JSC]

I have to confess that The War Game is the only film I can recall that gave me a
wake in the middle of the night in a cold sweat kind of nightmare.

[colinr0380]

I really liked Privilege, which feels really brutal about not just the music business but the entire media system which keeps throwing up superficially 'edgy' cultural figures that appeal to the youths (and horrify their straight-laced parents!) before co-opting and twisting their public personas into being no more than astro-turfed agents of control. This is where Watkins' casting of inexperienced and somewhat 'wooden' non-professional actors turned from being a verite element (as in the drama-documentary vox pop reportage style of Culloden and The War Game, which imagines what people in a historical battle or in a hypothetical nuclear apocalypse would be saying if an embedded reporter was interviewing them) and into a scathing indictment by their presence. I remember finding Paul Jones and Jean Shrimpton rather touching in those roles, where their performative or model-like moral blanknesses have flickers of some kind of frustrated and half-understood moral awakening about them, until the final speech which both falls on deaf ears and ends Steven Shorter's fame simultaneously. That's a film that is deeply rooted in the late 60s (to the extent that it is targeting the Beatles, the Shadows and even Elvis in Shorter's jailbreak-facilitated-by-screaming-groupies musical number!) but also presumably still highly relevant to people walking an audience-pleasing tightrope of a media career today (imagine a remake with, say, Stormzy, or more to the point the recently highly controversial Bob Vylan, in the lead role!)

I still have not seen it but I would love to get a chance to see the 14 hour documentary about nuclear weapons, The Journey, some time.

[JSC]

I still have not seen it but I would love to get a chance to see the 14 hour documentary about nuclear weapons, The Journey, some time.

The Journey is incredible. It was released as a DVD in France (maybe ten years ago)... I believe there are
still copies floating around if you can dig them out.

[DeprongMori]

I still have not seen it but I would love to get a chance to see the 14 hour documentary about nuclear weapons, The Journey, some time.

The Journey is incredible. It was released as a DVD in France (maybe ten years ago)... I believe there are
still copies floating around if you can dig them out.

So far, I’ve only been able to find copies on “DVD Planet Store” out of Pakistan. If anyone has dealt with them and can affirm they are reliable in product and service, I’ll chance it. I suspect I’ll only be able to find a gray-market copy at this point anyway.

[JSC]

Don't know if this helps, but the version I got was released by Doriane Films back in 2014 with this cover.

[hearthesilence]

Huge Beatles fan, but I was completely unaware of this being the inspiration of the bed-in:

In the late 1960s, the film-maker Peter Watkins wrote to John Lennon and Yoko Ono, telling them: “People in your position have a responsibility to use the media for world peace.” This directly inspired the couple to start their own idiosyncratic protest, known as the Bed-In. Lennon described receiving that letter as “like getting your induction papers for peace.”

[hearthesilence]

Tribute from Joan Churchill:

The great filmmaker, Peter Watkins, is gone. He died in France at the age of 90. I worked with Peter on two films, Punishment Park (1971) and Evening Land (Aftenlandet) (1977).

Peter’s approach to filmmaking was groundbreaking. He used real people who were playing themselves. He would let them improvise & because his films were about the real struggle between different ideologies, the heat ‘on set’ was powerful with lunch breaks being as explosive as what was happening when the camera was rolling.

In Punishment Park, a fictional narrative about the Vietnam era presented as a documentary, the cast Watkins assembled were peaceniks and Black Panthers being hunted by vets and cops in the desert. I wasn't privy to the rehearsals & had no idea what to expect, so the film really was shot as if it were vérité, hence adding to the verisimilitude. He would call ‘Action,’ and I'd shoot what happened. I thought I knew what the next take would be, but he'd change it up, send a different character in or do something I couldn't anticipate. He would also joggle my arm because he thought my shooting was too steady, which infuriated me. In this way he created a film which even Jean Rouch, the cinema verité pioneer, thought was a documentary. It was certainly shot that way.