Peter Watkins

Film programme

The British filmmaker Peter Watkins (Norbiton, United Kingdom, 1935) is the subject of a retrospective that reviews his contribution to contemporary cinematography and, in particular, his condition as a pioneer of docudrama and false documentaries. Active in cinema and television from the fifties to the end of the nineties, Watkins’s main concern throughout his career was to rethink the role of the public and to free it of the authoritarian structures of what he calls the ‘monoform’, i.e., the supra-system constructed by the media around social reality. This concern manifests itself in his recreations of historical events starring non-professional actors; in his transpositions of the visual style of TV journalism that expose the mythical nature of its alleged objectivity; or in his futuristic fictions – stylistic researches that implicate the public in issues that are crucial to the future of mankind, such as war, freedom of expression or the continuance of social inequality. For that reason, a concern for education is central to his trajectory, either in projects specifically designed for the classroom – such as the episodes of The Journey (1983–85) –, or in the conception of the process of filming itself as an exercise in collective learning – for instance, in the case of The Freethinker (1992–94) –, or in his determination to turn the projections of his own films into opportunities for public debate. Ultimately, Watkins aims at subverting the role of cinema and television as the safeguards of the established order, by turning them into instruments of revolt. The cycle is curated by the Lithuanian artist Deimantas Narkevicius, who interviewed Watkins for his piece The Role of a Lifetime (2003), which is part of the MACBA Collection and is included in the latest presentation of the Collection, Time as Matter (2009).

I was very lucky to meet and talk to Peter Watkins, one of the more brilliant filmmakers of all time (and I’m not exaggerating). He is a director who, in my opinion at least, has altered the perception of the art of cinema itself, of cinema as an – inevitably – social activity. A cinema created in a collective manner for individuals who are committed and sensitive, and who are conscious of the political motivations in his work.

The cinema of Peter Watkins is full of humanist objectives. As a director, he deals with people’s actions – not necessarily professional people – at every stage in the creation of a film, with liberating their creativity and inducing a change in their consciences while remaining totally subjective. This constant recurrence of the creative process cannot leave the viewer indifferent when faced with what the director has achieved, and the manner in which he has achieved it, in every one of his films, always in a different form.
Deimantas Narkevicius

The blog “Peter Watkins en el MACBA” (Peter Watkins at the MACBA, http://blogs.macba.cat/peterwatkins) aims to provide a space to discuss the films included in this series, and it brings together some texts written or updated by the filmmaker for the occasion. The objective is to pick up his invitation to encourage the public’s participation in a type of activity (film screenings) that normally develops in silence but which should not lead to it.