PETER WATKINS

Peter Watkins is an English director from the 1960s. He directed a few short films in the early 1960s and then in 1964 made "Culloden" for BBC TV, and it showed the last battle on English soil, where the Scottish soldiers, led by Bonnie Prince Charles were massacred by the British. That movie was highly acclaimed, and the following year, he made "The War Game" (winner of the Best Documentary Academy Award for this film), the classic 1965 English science fiction (sci-fi) post-nuclear war pseudo-documentary (made to look like a real documentary, it shows a typical English city after a nuclear attack, and it strongly argues that English residents were not at all prepared for any kind of major catastrophe at this time). Both of these movies were very controversial and were unavailable for many years. In 1967, Watkins made the feature film "Privilege", which chronicled a pop singer who becomes so influential that he can control the public, and he himself is controlled by "handlers", and many of the predictions of the movie have come true over the years to varying degrees. In 1971, he made the feature film "Punishment Park", which was an anti-Vietnam War movie (using an allegory), and again, the film was very controversial. Since that time, he has made a far lesser number of movies, but his works remain controversial, including 1987's "Resan", a 14-hour epic about the arms race, global hunter, and other subjects people don't like to think about! As of 2021, Watkins is still alive at the age of 85!