The Battle of Culloden

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robert m A simple black-and-white documentary that is better than many of the big budget films that try to explain history. It's rough and hard and honest. War and politics are hell. People get hurt and they're often thrown aside by their leaders. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Peter Watkin's "documentary" film "Culloden" talks about the English government's squashing of the Jacobite Uprising in a battle from 1745. It acts as if a television crew were actually there covering the events of the battle and its aftermath. The most interesting part of this film is how vividly it recreates history in front of our eyes in ways some films can't imagine. While interviewing soldiers on both sides you're given an introspective on the events folding in Britain during the early portion of the 18th Century. Watkins is an interesting filmmaker and I look forward to watching more of his films. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/15/23 Full Review Audience Member Made for BBC television in the late 1960s and released on DVD in 2003, Peter Watkins' Culloden is a mock-documentary examination of the historic battle that ended the Jacobite Rebellion led by Charles Edward Stuart (aka Bonnie Prince Charlie). Filmed as though there was a documentary film crew watching the battle, Watkins pulls no punches showing the deep divisions within the Jacobite forces, the incompetent leadership of the Bonnie Prince and some of his top men, the brutality of the victorious British forces led by George II's son the Duke of Cumberland in the "pacification" of the Highlands, and the economic and class divisions on both sides of the conflict. Watkins points out that the Duke of Cumberland was venerated as a hero in London when he returned but is ill-regarded in Scotland today due to the actions of his subordinates (many of them Lowland Scots) in the months that followed the defeat of the Jacobite armies. In the end, a bedraggled Charles Stuart flees to France and ultimately Italy leaving his followers to face the Disarming Acts and ultimately the Highland Clearances which put my ancestors in Ontario. Watkins was clearly inspired by images being shot of the current war in Vietnam and tries to draw parallels between the two brutal conflicts. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Audience Member If I were a British history teacher (or a teacher of British history), I would certainly show this film to my class. Director Peter Watkins uses documentary techniques to depict a re-enactment of the last battle on British soil (1746) to defend the monarchy against Scottish resistance (led by Prince Charles of the House of Stuart seeking to reclaim the throne currently occupied by George II of the House of Hannover). Charles has a ragtag army of Scottish highlanders and other assorted recruits, many coerced into service, and their organization is chaotic and their battle strategy non-existent. They are routed by the superior British forces who then proceed to execute the wounded, rape the womenfolk in nearby towns and pillage and loot everywhere, all in the name of ending the resistance. Some British soldiers admit to feeling queasy about this while others revel in it. The battle itself is brutal and gruesome, but brief. Watkins reports the socioeconomic status of many of the men as well as other details (their experience and kinship ties, often ties to members of the opposing army) that are germane to the report. Essentially, this is an unblinking horror movie about war and its lessons are likely as true today as they were in 1746. Watkins followed this up with a depiction of a nuclear attack on London (The War Game, 1965) also in documentary style and even more merciless. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review Audience Member In the 1960s Peter Watkins made a series of counter-culture films which utilized a quasi-newsreel style & nonprofessional actors. One of them was 'Culloden' a gritty & effective reancment of a histical battle that unfolds as if modern TV cameras were present. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/23/23 Full Review Audience Member Culloden is an astounding debut from one of the most cruelly underrated filmmakers in history. Peter Watkins is a fearless filmmaker, seemingly possessed by an immense passion to tell the suppressed (in in one way or another) and incendiary stories of history. His debut portended this fact in the biggest way. Culloden is a terse film whose narrative plunges in the middle of a devastatingly one-sided battle and rises right out of its death and ashes to examine the aftermath. Watkins is therefore a history teacher's savior, in a sense. What he does is to take the skeleton, the framework of history and he magnifies his camera lens upon it. He is not interested in reenacting grandiose speeches or glorious battle charges. He is interested in the many stories voiced by a wide variety of characters on both sides of the conflict. In this way, he is not a history filmmaker, but a humanist one. It seems clear that Watkins is clearing away the dust of history books in order to analyze that which is timeless: the resolute human spirit and its ability, even in the face of violence and death, to defy the extinction of the truth, even in its most despicable forms. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/25/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Battle of Culloden

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