Peter Watkins, the Oscar-winning director whose uncompromising and revolutionary approach to film-making left an indelible mark on British television and cinema, has died aged 90. Watkins pioneered the mock-documentary form in the 1960s, using it to bring historical dramas and dystopian visions to life with startling immediacy.
His 1965 film The War Game, an anti-nuclear drama lasting just 47 minutes, was commissioned but then banned by the BBC. It eventually reached cinemas and was not broadcast on television for another two decades. The film depicted the aftermath of a nuclear attack on Britain from the perspective of ordinary people, shunning the top-down narratives of contemporaneous works such as Dr Strangelove and Fail Safe.
Watkins adopted the clipped, informative tone of a public information film to chilling effect. In one memorable sequence, police constables are shown executing irradiated casualties on the streets to prevent the health service from being overwhelmed. The director used the same pseudo-documentary style in his earlier work Culloden (1964), in which an anachronistic camera crew covers the 1746 battle, interviewing soldiers and commanders on both sides.
His films, including Punishment Park, persistently questioned the actions of those in power and explored the consequences of their failures. Critics have placed Watkins within a tradition of uncompromising radicalism on screen and stage, alongside figures such as Edward Bond, Ken Loach and Dennis Potter.
Watkins's legacy endures in the many dystopian and mockumentary works that have since become commonplace, but few have matched the moral force and urgent power of his original interventions.
