You can look at Peter Watkins in two ways: A Poet or a Prophet
One is that Peter Watkins seems to always want to expose the evil in the world as if no one else gets it, and it can almost be insulting if you think long and hard about it. I am not sure who he is trying to teach because it seems like he is trying to reach an unreachable audience who will some how be convinced by his movies to change and we will all live in peace and harmony. Coming up with these scenerios that aren't real makes him look like a self proclaimed prophet, and looking back we can now see that he was a false prophet.
His films are interesting and you can indulge in their conviction but I don't think it's going to help anyone. All and all, this and many others of his films do nothing more than any other hollywood blockbuster like 'The Davinci Code'. They provide only conspiracy for us to fantasize about.
The other way to look at his films is that Peter Watkins is not trying to change or predict the future but expose the present. In terms of War Games and Punishment Park, those things have happened in other areas of our world. So, he is trying to make us think about truthful situations by giving us a piece of ficiton. In this way he is a poet of his time.
3 comments:
I'm not sure why Watkins would be considered a false prophet. Like you said many of the things that he presents have already happened around the world, such as internment camps, or nuclear bomb explosions. And as far as these things happening again, in the Western world, I'd say it's only a matter of time. While I'm not agreeing that Watkins seems like a self-proclaimed prophet, I think it might be wrong to say he is a false one, especially if you take the films as represntations of ideologies.
Watkins was certainly bold in deciding to film such explosive subject matter. He chose not to take the safe route and pick one side and his films reflect that in their interviews and footage. He brings reality to the audiences faces and makes them realize it and accept that it very well could happen here.
Watkins could perhaps be* compared* to a poet in the sense that he works with allegory and metaphor which are primary tools of poetry; his films are based on historical events combined with contempory issues/news that are then synthesized with fictional scenarios to create larger statements about violence, humanity, and agency. I don't, however, think he *is*a poet, nor do I believe he is a prophet, and certainly not a false prophet. He's not putting himself up on some pedastal and making completely random guesses and fabrications of what might or could happen to the skin of your arms or your liver if exposed to nuclear radiation. He's researching what does happen in the world; police brutality, nuclear fallout, genocide (and happens right here in the US, not just other parts of the world) and putting that research into a global via local political context. Though he deals with "this could happen if we don't do_____" in a way that seems reminiscent of a prophet, I don't think his process, motivation, or presentation is at all like a phophet. I think he might more closely identify as a film maker who is a political activist and peace advocate, or as political activist and peace advocate who makes films - than as a poet or a prophet. He is not about or for himself, and his work is not about or for him - it is about, and for, all of us. As far as his film's ability to change the world, well, that's a pretty tall order. I think he hopes to motivate the individual to change themselves and advocate for change. We usually all argue that media has the power to produce unbelievably negative results in the individual ("I'm desensitized to violence thanks to the media") but we hardly ever discuss it's positive impacts, do we not notice them or give credit where it's due? Watkins, at one point, threw out the question "What are you doing to promote world peace" and one person who answered that call was John Lennon, who says that question impacted him like a personal call to action; and he started on his political track to promote world peace and radical politics along with yoko ono. I don't even particularly like Lennon but I can see his impact on music, on a generation, and on the world and it was great enough that our government considered him a threat to security. I think that's a pretty amazing trajectory for a movie and a film maker, I'd be pleased if something I made had that much resonance in the world, wouldn't you?
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