British filmmaker Peter Watkins was one angry leftist in 1964. The Vietnam War was escalating, the United States looked like an imperialist bully. How to express his anger? Watkins got the BBC to finance a reenactment of the 1795 Battle of Culloden which was the last battle fought on British soil. Essentially a civil war type conflict, Culloden had the superior English troops putting down a Scottish rebellion.
Watkins very clever idea was to film the reenactment as if it was being covered by a TV news crew. The film is photographed with hand held cameras in grainy black and white. A TV newsman interviews the participants in the battle and an omnipotent narrator fills the audience in on the general conflict. This was the standard technique for presenting war stories to people watching the Vietnam War in their living rooms.
This technique has been copied and spoofed so many times (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Cops, Reno 911 etc) that it's kind of impressive that the film still looks strong in 2009. Even with the removal of the Vietnam War as an underlying subtext to the film, this is still a tough anti-war film.
69 minutes
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