Peter Watkins' groundbreaking "factional" film was first shown on the BBC in 1964 and remains as fresh, innovative and hard hitting today as when it was first broadcast. Culloden was Watkins first feature length production, and in a complete break from the approach to recreating historical events on film, he took the ingenious creative decision of filming the events as if they were being reported on by an actual film crew, using real people from the area to play the historical figures who would have fought for their ancestry in the battle that was said to have brought an end to the clan system in Scotland. Watkins went on to be one of film's great masters of the Docudrama, winning the Best Documentary Oscar for his similarly styled The War Game, which examined the effects a nuclear strike would have on Great Britain. Later he would go on to make Punishment Park, a fictionalisation of America's mistreatment of those deemed "subversives" at the height of the Vietnam War. Like Culloden before it Punishment Park is a prescient film which continues to influence both radical and mainstream filmmakers to this day.
As well as the odd article, I apply my "special mind" to scriptwriting for Comics, Films and Games... Oh and I cut down trees, I skip and jump, I like to press wild flow'rs, I put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars.
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