majak

2001 interview with Peter Watkins
In this 2001 interview (sourced from the rare French DVD release of Watkins’ film ‘La Commune, Paris 1871’), Watkins (the director of ‘The War Game’ and ‘Culloden’) discusses some of the problems with the contemporary media landscape, including the ways in which it renders its audience passive and its reliance on what Watkins calls ‘the monoform’, a set of artificially-enforced conventions that create texts which allow an audience little to no space for independent critical thought. Watkins also touches on his concept of the Universal Clock. More discussion of these topics can be found at Watkins’ own website: http://www.mnsi.net/~pwatkins/ This interview has been edited down from 40 minutes to approximately 20 minutes, for teaching purposes.