25-573: Peter Watkins (born 29 October 1935) is an English film and television director. He was born in Norbiton , Surrey, lived in Sweden , Canada and Lithuania for many years, and now lives in France. He is one of the pioneers of docudrama . His films present pacifist and radical ideas in a nontraditional style. He mainly concentrates his works and ideas around the mass media and our relation/participation to
50-469: A large cast (mostly Norwegian non-professional actors), but there is also a voiceover narration by Watkins, and there are moments when the characters speak directly to camera, as if being interviewed about their own lives or their opinions of Munch. Some of the dialogue was improvised by the cast, especially in the interview segments. To convey the hostile response Munch's work often received during his lifetime, Watkins recruited Norwegians who genuinely disliked
75-656: A lodge in the form of a doric temple. Living above his means, Pallmer was declared bankrupt in 1831. Much of the main house was pulled down after 1830, with St Peter's Church built on part of the grounds. Kingston Lodge , opposite Norbiton Hall, was leased by Novelist George Meredith in 1865. Disliking the increasing development of the area, he moved away at the end of 1867. Norbiton's housing stock largely consists of large Victorian and Edwardian family houses, plus small localised brownfield redevelopments of 1960s, 1980s and modern flats. It contains more council and social housing than most other areas of Kingston – one of
100-460: A movie or television documentary. Nearly all of Watkins' films have used a combination of dramatic and documentary elements to dissect historical occurrences or possible near future events. The first of these, Culloden , portrayed the Jacobite uprising of 1745 in a documentary style, as if television reporters were interviewing the participants and accompanying them into battle; a similar device
125-434: A separate Norbiton parish was created, with St Peter's Church built between 1840 and 1842 to a design of Gilbert Scott and William Moffatt . Until the mid-nineteenth century much of Norbiton was made up of country estates , all since sold as housing land. These included: Norbiton Hall , a manor from the 16th century. Residents included Richard Taverner , who lived there 1547–75 and Sir Anthony Benn , 1605–18. In 1829,
150-459: A three-hour version in 1976. The film covers about thirty years of Munch's life, focusing on the influences that shaped his art, particularly the prevalence of disease and death in his family and his youthful affair with a married woman. The film was screened at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival , but wasn't entered into the main competition. Like Watkins' other films, Edvard Munch uses a docudrama approach; scenes from Munch's life are re-enacted by
175-616: Is an area within the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames , London. It lies approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Kingston upon Thames town centre, and 11 miles (17.7 km) from Charing Cross . Its main landmarks include Kingston Hospital , Kingsmeadow football stadium, Kingston Cemetery and St Peter's Anglican parish church which serves the area. Norbiton was part of the Municipal Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames from its creation in 1835 , and became part of
200-437: Is love, man.' That letter just sort of sparked it all off. It was like getting your induction papers for peace!" Gomez, Joseph A. (November 1979). Peter Watkins . Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8057-9267-8 . Welsh, James Michael (September 1986). Peter Watkins: a guide to references and resources . G.K. Hall. ISBN 978-0-8161-8179-7 . Retrieved 14 October 2010 . Norbiton Norbiton
225-590: The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , Watkins began his television and film career as an assistant producer of short TV films and commercials; and in the early 1960s was an assistant editor and director of documentaries at the BBC . All of his films have either been documentary or drama presented with documentary techniques, sometimes portraying historical occurrences and sometimes possible near future events as if contemporary reporters and filmmakers were there to interview
250-482: The Surrey MP Charles Pallmer sold the estate to Mary, Countess of Liverpool , widow of the late prime minister Lord Liverpool . It was finally demolished in the 1930s to make way for a complex of flats, also called Norbiton Hall. These flats were built between 1933 and 1935 and received local listing in 2018. Norbiton Place was bought by Sir John Philipps , who died there in 1764. One of
275-460: The director said he feared actual violence would break out on set. He took a similar approach in his Paris Commune re-enactment La Commune , using newspaper advertisements to recruit conservative actors who would have a genuine antipathy to the Commune rebels. Watkins is also known for political statements about the film and television media, writing extensively about flaws in television news and
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#1732790918948300-732: The dominance of the Hollywood-derived narrative style that he refers to as "the monoform". After the banning of The War Game and the poor reception of his first non-television feature, Privilege , Watkins left England and has made all of his subsequent films abroad: The Gladiators in Sweden, Punishment Park in the United States, Edvard Munch in Norway , Evening Land in Denmark, Resan (a 14-hour film cycle about
325-495: The family's servants was Cesar Picton , originally an African slave, he was brought to England aged six in 1761. He lived at Norbiton Place for nearly thirty years, before becoming a successful coal-merchant in Kingston. In the early 1800s Norbiton Place became the main residence of Charles Pallmer , owner of neighbouring Norbiton Hall. Pallmer greatly developed the estate, including adding a dairy styled like an Indian temple and
350-668: The first such scheme in England. As Norbiton is only 25 minutes by train from Waterloo station , the suburban population includes a large concentration of London commuters. Norbiton railway station was used as a location for the British sitcom The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin . The headquarters of the Fire Brigades Union is located close to the station, on Coombe Road. Kingsmeadow football stadium in Norbiton
375-546: The larger Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames in 1965. Its name was originally Norberton(e) and it was named in a similar way to Surbiton on the opposite side of the Hogsmill River. The origin of the place-name is from the Old English words north , bere and tun (meaning northern grange or outlying farm). The area was originally a part of the parish of All Saints Church, Kingston upon Thames . In 1840
400-566: The largest such sites, the Cambridge Road estate, was used as a fictional council estate in TV drama The Bill , as well as the BBC sitcom Some Girls . In 2020 plans were agreed to regenerate the Cambridge Road estate, including demolishing 865 existing homes and building 2,170 new ones. Homes on the renewed estate will obtain heating by a process that turns treated sewage into clean energy,
425-654: The main Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames article. Edvard Munch (film) Edvard Munch ( Norwegian pronunciation: [ˈɛ̀dvɑɖ ˈmʊŋk] ) is a 1974 biographical film about the Norwegian Expressionist painter Edvard Munch , written and directed by English filmmaker Peter Watkins . It was originally created as a three-part miniseries co-produced by the Norwegian and Swedish state television networks NRK and SVT, but subsequently gained an American theatrical release in
450-486: The paintings. After its initial broadcast, the film was briefly an international success but was not widely available for many years afterward. Watkins has said that network officials tried to suppress its distribution, and tried to bar it from competition in the Cannes Film Festival , because they disapproved of its use of non-professional actors and anachronistic dialogue. After NRK relinquished rights to
475-565: The participants. Watkins pioneered this technique in his first full-length television film, Culloden , which portrayed the Jacobite uprising of 1746 in a style similar to the Vietnam War reporting of the time. In 1965, he won a Jacob's Award for Culloden at the annual presentation ceremony in Dublin . The scope and formal innovation of Culloden drew immediate critical acclaim for
500-402: The previously unknown director, and the BBC commissioned him for another ambitious production, the nuclear-war docudrama The War Game , for The Wednesday Play series. The production was subsequently released to cinemas and won the 1966 Academy Award for Documentary Feature , eventually being screened by the BBC on 31 July 1985 after a 20-year ban. His reputation as a political provocateur
525-627: The threat of nuclear war) in ten different countries, and La Commune in France. Freethinker: The Life and Work of Peter Watkins , is a forthcoming biography by Patrick Murphy, a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at York St John University, and John Cook. It is being compiled with Watkins' active help and participation. Citing their 1969 Bed-in efforts and Peace Concert, an interviewer asked John Lennon and Yoko Ono , "Is there any one particular incident that got you started in this peace campaign?". John answered, "...the thing that really struck it off
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#1732790918948550-445: Was a letter we got from a guy called Peter Watkins who made a film called The War Game . It was a very long letter stating just what's happening – how the media is really controlled, how it's all run, and everything else that people really know deep down. He said 'People in your position have a responsibility to use the media for world peace'. And we sat on the letter for about three weeks thinking 'Well, we're doing our best. All you need
575-667: Was amplified by Punishment Park , a story of violent political conflict in the United States that coincided with the Kent State Massacre . Opposition to war is a common theme of his work, but the films' political messages are often ambiguous, usually allowing the main characters to present violently opposing viewpoints which in many cases are improvised by the cast: in Punishment Park , the soldiers and dissidents were played by nonprofessional actors whose political opinions matched those of their characters so well that
600-495: Was bought by Chelsea FC in 2016 and has been used for the home matches of Chelsea F.C. Women since 2017. It was previously used as a home ground by Kingstonian F.C. (1989–2017) and by AFC Wimbledon (2002–20). In the 2018 Kingston borough elections, both council seats in Norbiton ward were gained by the Liberal Democrats from Labour , leaving Labour with no seats on the council. Education in Norbiton . See
625-582: Was used in his biographical film Edvard Munch . La Commune reenacts the Paris Commune days using a large cast of French non-actors. In 2004, he wrote the book Media Crisis , which discusses his ideas of media hegemony which he calls, the monoform , and the lack of debate around the construction of new forms of audiovisual media. After doing his National Service with the East Surrey Regiment , followed by studying acting at
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