
Peter Watkins
Peter Watkins (born 29 October 1935) is an English film and television director. He was born in Norbiton, Surrey, lived in Sweden, Canada and Lithuania for many years, and now lives in France. He is one of the pioneers of docudrama. His movies, pacifist and radical, strongly review the limit of classic documentary and movies. He mainly concentrates his works and ideas around the mass media and our relation/participation to a movie or television documentary.
Nearly all of Watkins' films have used a combination of dramatic and documentary elements to dissect historical occurrences or possible near future events. The first of these, Culloden, portrayed the Jacobite uprising of 1745 in a documentary style, as if television reporters were interviewing the participants and accompanying them into battle; a similar device was used in his biographical film Edvard Munch. La Commune (Paris, 1871) reenacts the Paris Commune days using a large cast of French non-actors.
In 2004 he also wrote a book, Media Crisis, an engaged essay about the media crisis, the monoform and, foremost, the lack of debate around the construction of new forms of audiovisual media.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Peter Watkins, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For | Directing |
---|---|
Most Rating | 0.024 |
Birthday | 1935-10-29 |
Place of Birth | Norbiton, Surrey, England, UK |
Also Known As | 彼得·沃特金, |

2001

The Universal Clock: The Resistance of Peter Watkins
5.8/6
This feature documentary is a portrait of Peter Watkins, an Oscar®-winning British filmmaker who, for the past 4 decades, has proved that films can be...
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The Universal Clock: The Resistance of Peter Watkins

1987

The Journey
3.8/6
Peter Watkins' global look at the impact of military use of nuclear technology and people's perception of it, as well as a meditation on the inherent...
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The Journey

1974

Edvard Munch
7.4/68
Edvard Munch's childhood is overshadowed by death: he suffers the loss of his sister and mother, while enduring serious illness himself, almost dying....
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Edvard Munch

1971

Punishment Park
7.3/179
In this fictional documentary, U.S. prisons are at capacity, and President Nixon declares a state of emergency. All new prisoners, most of whom are co...
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Punishment Park

1966

The War Game
7.7/159
A docudrama depicting a hypothetical nuclear attack on Britain. After backing the film's development, the BBC refused to air it, publicly stating "th...
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The War Game

1994

The Freethinker
6.7/6
The film portrays the Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist and painter August Strindberg's life 1849-1912. Through his extensive correspondenc...
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The Freethinker

1959

The Diary of an Unknown Soldier
6.4/16
A short story narrated by an unknown British soldier who reveals his hopes, fears, and disillusionment while heading into battle against the German ar...
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The Diary of an Unknown Soldier

1964

Culloden
7.3/49
Culloden, Scottish Highlands, April 16th, 1746. It was one of the most mishandled and brutal battles ever fought in Great Britain. Its aftermath was t...
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