Culloden (Peter Watkins, 1964)

A film crew documents the last stand of Charles Stuart and the Scots against English forces on 16 April 1746.

“This is grapeshot. This is what it does”

Presenting the battle as though a BBC news crew were on the scene, Peter Watkins’ Culloden is a scathing evisceration of the glorification of war.

 

The film opens with a pitiless breakdown of the participants, going through the reasons why the men are here (most of the soldiers are ordinary press-ganged into service, or forced to join by economic imperatives).

Narration and snippets of to-camera testimony undermine any sense of patriotism or myth-making.

The film’s verisimilitude is increased by the limited production values: Filmed in black and white, with handheld cameras and translators for Gaelic and Scots speakers.

This extends to the casting of amateurs as the key participants, with their lack of technique working to create a sense of realism.

Using the juxtaposing technique he would deploy to even more devastating effect in 1965’s The War Game, Watkins presents the battle as a cruel, ridiculous waste of human lives.

The film’s final third chronicles the suppression of the clans, bearing horrifying echoes for today -  particularly in the deliberate, dehumanising language like ‘Pacification’, for the destruction of an indigenous culture.

Timeless and sadly relevant.

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