Freethinker: The Films and Career of Peter Watkins

The 'Freethinker' project concerns the films and career of Peter Watkins (born Norbiton, Surrey, 1935-), British-born director of 'The War Game' (1965), 'Culloden' (1964) and 'Edvard Munch' (1973) amongst other productions. In the past, Watkins has been critically neglected, particularly in his native United Kingdom. Yet spurred on by the recent re-release to critical acclaim of many of his films on DVD, he is now being reassessed by a new generation of film analysts and the public. The 'Freethinker' project comprehensively will examine and assess the films and career of Peter Watkins. It will explore why Watkins was so critically neglected and marginalised in the past and why he is now being reassessed. It will analyse what were the reasons for Watkins' initial breakthrough success with the acclaimed BBC TV film, 'Culloden' (1964) that reconstructed the last land battle to be fought on British soil at Culloden moor in 1746. It will ask why his next film, 'The War Game' (1965), about nuclear war, caused a Cold War incident when it was notoriously banned from TV by the BBC for twenty years. (The film, ironically, would go on to win Watkins an Oscar in Hollywood for Best Documentary in 1967). The 'Freethinker' project will trace Watkins' subsequent, less well known, career following his dramatic decision, in 1968, to quit Britain for a self-imposed exile overseas, partly as a result of 'The War Game'; an international 'exile' that still continues to this day. Drawing on a wealth of internationally gathered research materials, including unprecedented access to Watkins' personal archive, interviews with Watkins himself plus a unique invited opportunity to visit his Paris set to observe shooting of Watkins' last film production, 'La Commune (Paris 1871) (2000), the project will for the first time in a UK context comprehensively assess the development of Watkins' later career overseas. Watkins is one of the few British-born directors who can truly lay claim to being international, having made films in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France - in all cases in the native language - as well as the USA, Canada and Australia. In many ways, his career overseas and his corresponding artistic development into a globe-trotting director are more interesting than the early work, 'Culloden' and 'The War Game', for which he is still most known in Britain. 'The Freethinker' project will assess Watkins' place in the history of British cinema and television but also in world cinema. With his meticulous documentary reconstructions of events using non-professional actors, first dating from the early 1960s, Watkins is widely seen as a pioneer of the drama documentary / documentary drama. In many ways, his work anticipates later forms of 'reality TV'. The project will consider the extent of Watkins' influence - for example on filmmakers such as Ken Loach who also later began to use a documentary style within his own films. From mock documentaries to contemporary war films and even the Jason Bourne trilogy in Hollywood, all make use of a handheld documentary style to make their dramatic fictions look more authentic and all therefore owe an influence to the techniques which Watkins pioneered in his films in the 1960s. Thus what are the implications of Watkins' style for understanding documentary itself ? Do Watkins' shooting techniques expose that what makes documentaries seem 'true' is as much a product of the style as the content ?
Today, Watkins is more or less retired from filmmaking but he continues to be an ardent critic of the media which he sees as contributing to and exarcebating the wider political and social problems of the world today. The project will assess, finally, Watkins' strong criticisms of the media and together with consideration of the history of his filmmaking career, it will ask what are the wider implications of Watkins' work for an understanding of today's media and its role within society?

As an academic, I firmly believe in communicating research with and engaging the public beyond the immediate academic community. For example, as evidence of my ongoing commitment, I have already, in the duration of the research phase of this project, not only given numerous papers on Watkins at academic conferences but have also contributed material, including essays and voice-over commentaries, to high-profile DVD releases of the director's films (for the British Film Institute in 2003 and 2010 [DVD releases of Culloden and Privilege respectively] and Project X / New Yorker Films in North America in 2006 [international DVD release of The War Game / Culloden]). I have, in addition, used my research knowledge to introduce retrospectives of Watkins' films to the public at film festivals (for example, Leeds International Film Festival, 2002) and to industry practitioners working in documentary (The Sheffield International Documentary Film Festival. 2003).
The present proposal represents the culminating link in this impact chain in the sense that it is specifically an application for leave for the completion of a long-standing book (contracted for Manchester University Press) based on ten years of accumulated research into Watkins. As with a previous practitioner study I completed ('Dennis Potter: A Life on Screen', MUP 1995 1st ed. / 1998 2nd ed. which gained reviews and exposure in the UK media) I fully intend that this present volume will reach out beyond the academic community to tap into the wider public interest that now exists in Watkins, following the recent successful re-release of many of his films onto DVD. In addition to publishing a volume for an academic publisher, I would try to place an article on Watkins in the British press to coincide with the publication of the book (I did this successfully for the second edition of my Potter book in 1998: 'The Truth About Potter', 'The Independent', 2 August 1998) and also to offer to speak again to the public about Watkins and the book, for example at the Sheffield International Documentary Festival. Peter Watkins has his own web-site and another obvious way to achieve impact for the work would be, should Watkins and the publishers be agreeable, to release research for the book (or appropriate extracts thereof) via this format as a means of drawing attention to my scholarly research on Watkins.
In this way, the proposal would demonstrate a cultural impact 'enhancing quality of life, health and creative output' (Research Councils' Statement on Societal and Economic Impact', Feb. 2010, p.65). There would be no additional resource implications for such activity.
Given the nature of the project, the main beneficiaries of this research (beyond the academic community) lie in the media sphere and because of Watkins' public profile, I would expect this work to be discussed and reviewed in the media, as well as academic journals. Watkins continues to be relevant in this sphere on account of the banning by the BBC of his film 'The War Game' in 1965. Though occurring over forty years ago, this is still an ongoing 'sore' in public culture because the allegation has been that the BBC explicitly violated its Charter of Independence by acceding to the wishes of the Government in not allowing the film to be shown on television; a decision that would amount to political censorship. The BBC has always denied this, asserting to this day that the decision to ban 'The War Game' was a decision it took alone and on the grounds of Watkins' horrific depictions of the possible effects of nuclear war. Drawing, for the first time, on previously unpublished material on the film taken from the director's personal archive, the present research is in a position to shed some fresh light on the controversy and in that sense to engage with and have media impact around debates on public policy with r