Peter Watkins’ The War Game (1965) & Culloden
(1964/New Yorker Films DVD/Project X) + La
Commune (Paris, 1871) (2000/First Run Features DVD set)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C/C/C+ Extras: C+ Films: B/B/C
In two
different DVD releases that show the world rise and then personal return of
groundbreaking filmmaker Peter Watkins, we see his controversial groundbreaking
TV works that became world cinema classics and his abandonment of his Auteur
period for a new era of storytelling with a very long TV mini-series in a
medium he is now more content with. The
first two films were made with the BBC, who were initially supportive before he
was banned for doing the second film, which drove him to feature films.
Culloden (1964) imagines a famous 1746
battle on British soil as if it were filmed, including his famous signature
voice over that adds irony to the proceedings and the title of which refers to
the moor where the well-oiled military machine of the crown takes on Jacobite
Scottish Highlanders in a tale that is meant to mirror the French and U.S.
involvement in Vietnam. It is an
impressive film that embarrasses so many larger costume epics since.
The War Game (1965) arrived around the time of
Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove
(1965) and was made around the time of Kevin Brownlow’s It Happened Here (1966, which Kubrick donated his left over black
and white Strangelove film stock to
help and shared a cameraman in Peter Suschitzky) offering a realistic portrayal
of England under nuclear attack. It was
so real, the BBC banned it and fired him, but the censorship reached far beyond
that, as we later found out. It is
amazing and a must-see film!
La Commune (Paris, 1871) – (2000) is part of what has
become his later period marked by the abandonment of not just the character
that made him a world-class director, but of the distinct, ironic voiceovers
and anything else that marked his early films as distinctly his. Like Godard abandoning his Auteur period for
his Maoist, the mini-series is a group effort that wants to negate the idea of
any one author and is done in an attempt to create a group art. Like those Godard films, it is not as
memorable or able to make the important points his earlier films made. It is as complex as Godard’s video period,
but goes on and on like a multi-hour, abstract Andy Warhol film, but trying to
say something. However ambitious,
however seemingly political and however designed to break the conformity and
what Watkins sees as the Monoform of mass media beating down the brain of the individual
(including the Internet, we believe) the 345 minutes goes into another
direction and actually creates its own quiet “counter-Monoform” that is no
better in the long run and never stays with the viewer. It may still be a fine act of the Political
Left and the use of 200 non-actors recalls a sense of Italian-Neorealism, but
is so busy imagining dueling fictional TV networks covering the revolt with all
kinds of deep historic research we are sure is accurate, but that does not
necessarily make for exciting television.
We did not expect the veneer of stuffy British TV or other such “quality
television” but outside of a good history lesson that deserves to be told, this
way of literally taking the long way and long road to do so has more pitfalls
and unevenness than effectiveness.
Instead of radical television (think The Avengers or The Prisoner,
for instance) Watkins is just repeating himself to much less effect than an
Oliver Stone or Arthur Penn at their best and the result is a work that does
either want to be edited or know when to edit.
He knows how, but when all is said and done, his revealing of an
important history feels like an ironic betrayal and/or abandonment of his own.
Ironically,
the 1.33 X 1 black and white images of the short films may have some grain and
age, but look just as good as the 2000 analog color videotaping which has not
aged as well in some ways and especially with HD video, seems aged and more
failed in its attempt to bring us “there” in the time period it imagines and recreates. The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono of the 1960s films
can also show their age, but are in pretty good shape, while the 2000 video
production has sonic limits that the older films do not and the sound just does
not have the character of the older films.
Extras on
the double feature include a booklet inside the DVD case with a fine essay on
both films by Patrick Murphy, who does a fine audio commentary track on Game,
while Dr. John Cook does a solid commentary on Culloden. Commune adds a text bio of Watkins,
PDF-printable discussion guide and making of featurette on the film and Watkins
entitled The Universal Clock: The Renaissance Of Peter Watkins.
- Nicholas Sheffo
