Culloden | |
---|---|
Written by | Peter Watkins |
Directed by | Peter Watkins |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Original languages | English Scottish Gaelic |
Production | |
Cinematography | Dick Bush |
Editor | Michael Bradsell |
Running time | 69 minutes |
Production company | BBC |
Original release | |
Network | BBC |
Release | 15 December 1964 |
Culloden (known as The Battle of Culloden in the U.S.) is a 1964 docudrama written and directed by Peter Watkins for BBC TV. It depicts the 1746 Battle of Culloden, the final engagement of the Jacobite rising of 1745 which saw the Jacobite Army be decisively defeated by government troops and in the words of the narrator "tore apart forever the clan system of the Scottish Highlands." Described in its opening credits as "an account of one of the most mishandled and brutal battles ever fought in Britain," Culloden was hailed as a breakthrough for its presentation of a historical event in the style of modern TV war reporting, as well as its use of non-professional actors. The film was based on John Prebble's study of the battle. [1]
Culloden was Watkins's first full-length film. It was also his first use of his docudrama style in which actors portray historical characters being interviewed by filmmakers on the scene as though it were happening in front of news cameras. The film was produced on a low budget, with only a handful of extras and a single cannon. Watkins made use of carefully planned camera angles to give the appearance of an army. [2]
Watkins also "wanted to break through the conventional use of professional actors in historical melodramas, with the comfortable avoidance of reality that these provide, and to use amateurs—ordinary people—in a reconstruction of their own history." He accordingly used an all-amateur cast from London and the Scottish Lowlands for the Hanoverian forces, and people from Inverness for the Jacobite army. This later became a central technique of Watkins's filmmaking.
According to an estimate by the cinematographer for the film, Dick Bush, about 85% of all camerawork in Culloden was hand-held. [3] This cinéma vérité -style shooting gave an already gritty reality a sense of present action. [4] Culloden looked like a documentary of an event that occurred long before the film camera was invented.
Culloden won in 1965 both a Society of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) TV Award for Specialised Programmes [5] and the British Screenwriters' Award of Merit. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, Culloden was placed 64th. [6] Writing for Eye for Film, Amber Wilkinson praised Culloden, commenting that "the mastery of [Watkins's] direction is obvious from first to last". [2]
The War Game is a 1966 British pseudo-documentary film that depicts a nuclear war and its aftermath. Written, directed and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC, it caused dismay within the BBC and within government, and was withdrawn before the provisional screening date of 6 October 1965. The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting. It will, however, be shown to invited audiences..."
The Battle of Culloden took place on 16 April 1746, near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. A Jacobite army under Charles Edward Stuart was decisively defeated by a British government force commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, thereby ending the Jacobite rising of 1745.
Docudrama is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event".
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Peter Watkins is an English film and television director. He was born in Norbiton, Surrey, lived in Sweden, Canada and Lithuania for many years, and now lives in France. He is one of the pioneers of docudrama. His films present pacifist and radical ideas in a nontraditional style. He mainly concentrates his works and ideas around the mass media and our relation/participation to a movie or television documentary.
The Irish Brigade was a brigade in the French Royal Army composed of Irish exiles, led by Lord Mountcashel. It was formed in May 1690 when five Jacobite regiments were sent from Ireland to France in exchange for a larger force of French infantry who were sent to fight in the Williamite War in Ireland. The regiments comprising the Irish Brigade retained their special status as foreign units in the French Army until nationalised in 1791.
Henry Hawley was a British army officer who served in the wars of the first half of the 18th century. He fought in a number of significant battles, including the Capture of Vigo in 1719, Dettingen, Fontenoy and Culloden.
John Edward Curtis Prebble, FRSL, OBE, was an English journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He is known for his books on Scottish history.
The Highlanders is the completely missing fourth serial of the fourth season in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 17 December 1966 to 7 January 1967.
Gabriel Range is a British filmmaker, who is probably best known for his fictional political-documentary about the assassination of George W. Bush in Death of a President.
Allan Breck Stewart was a Scottish soldier and Jacobite. He was also a central figure in a murder case that inspired novels by Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson.
Scotland has produced many films, directors and actors.
Chasing the Deer is a 1994 British war film directed by Graham Holloway and starring Brian Blessed, Lewis Rae, Iain Cuthbertson, Fish and Mathew Zajac. It depicts the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, in which Bonnie Prince Charlie landed in Scotland, trying to claim the British throne.
Lieutenant General John Huske was a British military officer whose active service began in 1707 during the War of the Spanish Succession and ended in 1748.
The Jacobite rising of 1745 was an attempt by Charles Edward Stuart to regain the British throne for his father, James Francis Edward Stuart. It took place during the War of the Austrian Succession, when the bulk of the British Army was fighting in mainland Europe, and proved to be the last in a series of revolts that began in March 1689, with major outbreaks in 1715 and 1719.
Sir John William O'Sullivan was an Irish professional soldier, who spent most of his career in the service of France, but is best known for his involvement in the Jacobite rising of 1745, an attempt to regain the British throne for the exiled House of Stuart. During the Rising, he acted as adjutant general and quartermaster general of the Jacobite army and had a major influence on the campaign.
The Independent Highland Companies were irregular militia raised from the Scottish clans of the Scottish Highlands by order of the Scottish government between 1603 and 1760 in order to help keep the peace and enforce the law in the Highlands and were recognized as such by the government. The officers of the Independent Highland Companies were commissioned as officers of the British Army but the Independent Companies were not recognized as official regiments of the line of the army. The Independent Highland Companies were the progenitors of the Highland Regiments of the British Army that began when ten Independent Highland Companies were embodied to form the Earl of Crawford's Highland Regiment that was numbered the 43rd Regiment of Foot in 1739.
The Campbell of Argyll Militia also known as the Campbell militia, the Argyll militia, or the Argyllshire men, was an irregular militia unit formed in 1745 by John Campbell, 4th Duke of Argyll to oppose the Jacobite rising of 1745.
Alexander Macdonald, 17th of Keppoch was a Scottish Jacobite and clan chief who took part in both the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite risings. He was killed at the Battle of Culloden leading a regiment composed largely of members of his clan, the MacDonalds of Keppoch.
An Incident in the Rebellion of 1745 is an oil painting painted by Swiss-born artist David Morier sometime between 1746 and 1765. It is currently part of the art collection of the British royal family. The painting depicts a scene during the 1746 Battle of Culloden, in which a group of Jacobite Army troops charge against a line of government soldiers.