On Saturday night, BBC Four broadcast the 1964 documentary film Culloden as part of their “This is Scotland” season. The film was preceded by a “making of…” short originally produced in 1996 and featuring a brief interview with filmmaker Peter Watkins. Watkins is, without doubt, the single most important filmmaker of the second half of the twentieth century. More astoundingly, he is also the most marginalised. Outside of Culloden and his other BBC film The War Game, very few people working in the industry are aware of the man and his work. This documentary felt no need to correct that imbalance.

More important than film school favorites like Kubrick, Scorsese or Tarantino – Watkins’ work has addressed and changed the fabric of cinema with a startling intelligence and veracity. But his output is often overlooked and his films and practices are not taught in universities or colleges. The documentary took a very BBC-centric view of his career and totally ignored his later achievements such as Edvard Munch (1974) or La commune (2000). A public appraisal of Watkins and his films is desperately needed – especially considering the tragic state of the film and television industry troday – but this third-rate documentary buried in an emtpy-headed theme night could do nothing but damage his reputation and insult his integrity.

Peter Watkins’ official website

Peter Watkins at the IMDb