tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/culloden-22137/articlesCulloden – The Conversation2019-02-06T11:09:12Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1108602019-02-06T11:09:12Z2019-02-06T11:09:12ZTourist attractions are being transformed by immersive experiences – some lessons from Scotland<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257278/original/file-20190205-86228-rh153y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bannockburn's Battle Room. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Bright White</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Battle of Bannockburn is fought indoors on a daily basis. At least, it is in Stirling in central Scotland in 2019 at the <a href="https://battleofbannockburn.com">visitor centre</a> dedicated to the battle. A full 705 years after the Scottish forces of Robert the Bruce put paid to Edward II’s English invaders, visitors to this centre put on 3D glasses and walk into a digital recreation of 1314 and the run up to the battle. They encounter everything from archers practising their shots to Robert the Bruce <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/independence/trails_independence_bannockburn.shtml">slaying</a> the English knight Sir Henry de Bohun. </p>
<p>From here, visitors move into the battle room, an arena in which up to 30 players gather round a computerised plan of the battlefield. They play the part of Bannockburn generals, with a real-life battle master enabling them to make strategic decisions to see if they could have done a better job than the leaders on the day. </p>
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<p>It’s the sort of immersive experience that many tourist attractions want to have these days. At the <a href="http://www.burnsmuseum.org.uk">Burns Birthplace Museum</a> in Ayrshire, dedicated to Robert Burns, visitors can download an app aimed at children called the <a href="https://digit.fyi/augmented-reality-scottish-attractions/">Mighty Mission Trail</a>. It sends them on a virtual treasure hunt throughout the site and surroundings. Inside the museum is also a multimedia room, with interactive touchscreens that encourage children to spear haggises and scan poems by the Scottish bard. </p>
<p>Go north to <a href="https://www.nts.org.uk/visit/places/culloden">Culloden</a> near Inverness – the most visited battlefield site in the UK – and the solemn brutality of the conflict assails tourists in surround video. Or there is the <a href="https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/glasgow/riversidemuseum/index.html">Riverside Museum</a> in Glasgow, where one of the star attractions is an entirely reconstructed street from the early 20th century. Visitors can loiter in a spit-and-sawdust bar; make a trip to the cobblers; or just keep clear of the horse and carriage in the middle of the road – complete with touchscreens to find out more as they explore. </p>
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<span class="caption">A snapshot of old Glasgow at the Riverside Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ed_webster/6863271567/in/photolist-bsu4wp-7ex7K1-awXm2o-bsu7ox-cfCKt1-bwbZLj-CRxHo8-26KtYPa-brBTcf-awUDLP-25kQa3U-bsubWn-izz3rj-26KtZNK-286P1na-272AUKs-bEwNNB-bwbYjo-bsu7Kr-rkeNiM-bsu896-283CaNL-272AU6b-d8SJML-KZ3ey1-beMpRk-272ATRU-ggm77V-qdDVYb-cfCQSU-272ATX5-286NXeg-beMpzv-rtVhsV-272AUGS-bsu67i-C2s8Tc-CYQH62-ayckQ5-Jt4dh8-bsu5dz-beMkFD-272ATES-bsu6yX-25mZifb-CYQGbg-KXRLFE-bsua4c-fKXrFk-ayc3Eu">Ed Webster</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>With virtual reality and augmented reality becoming <a href="https://www.consultancy.uk/news/17876/virtual-and-augmented-reality-market-to-boom-to-170-billion-by-2022">major growth stories</a>, they are likely to enhance tourists’ desire for immersive experiences in future. Virtual reality headsets are already creeping into tourism – the British Museum <a href="https://vimeo.com/151510535">used them</a> for a temporary exhibition on Bronze Age roundhouses, for instance. Though in many cases, headsets are going to be too isolating to be suitable in castles or museums, there is a culture developing alongside them that goes hand-in-hand. </p>
<p>This matters hugely in Scotland, which has the most visited cultural and heritage visitor attractions in the UK outside London. After a long period of growth, Glasgow and Edinburgh now attract 17m visitors a year on their own: some five times the population of the Scottish central belt. Tourism is a major driver of the Scottish economy; <a href="https://www.gov.scot/publications/tourism-scotland-economic-contribution-sector/pages/5/">it is worth</a> some £6 billion a year, about 5% of GDP, and supports 207,000 jobs. It’s therefore vitally important that the industry is alert to shifting tastes and reacts accordingly. </p>
<h2>Our research</h2>
<p>But if immersive experiences are a growth opportunity, there is little evidence about visitor preferences. To help rectify that, I’ve been leading a project known as the <a href="https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FR009104%2F1">Scottish Heritage Partnership</a>. One of <a href="https://ahrc.ukri.org/newsevents/news/ahrc-to-fund-32-projects-that-will-lead-the-way-for-future-immersive-experiences/">32 projects</a> funded by UK Research and Innovation in this area, it is the only one focused on what audiences expect and want from such attractions in the longer term. </p>
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<p>We distributed questionnaires at five major Scottish visitor sites – Bannockburn, the Burns Museum, Culloden, the Riverside and the National Library of Scotland – while also carrying out observations and in-depth interviews. Between them, these sites attract some 3m people each year. We received 268 detailed responses to our questionnaires, and combined this with our other research to reach the <a href="https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_615337_en.pdf">following conclusions</a>: </p>
<ul>
<li>While audiences like immersive visitor attractions, they particularly like the ones that combine virtual and physical experiences with a strong storyline. The battle experience at Bannockburn works well, for instance, where you play with other people and there’s a member of staff to act as a guide. </li>
<li>When the experience is purely a simulation, audiences like to be able to handle objects at the same time. They can do this at Culloden, for example, where there are certain artefacts at the visitor centre such as 18th-century guns that are available to touch. We found that while people prefer physical objects, even being able to handle virtual objects is better than nothing – the British Museum exhibition allowed visitors to explore objects from different angles, for instance. </li>
<li>Over 55s, which are the core visitor demographic for these kinds of sites, prefer the likes of the reconstructed street and old Glasgow subway at the Riverside to digital simulations. Under 35s are the most comfortable with digital and virtual reality simulations, and also much more likely to want to experience them remotely – something for heritage organisations to think about in future.</li>
<li>Digital simulations are good for getting visitors to stay longer in a small space. This can either maximise the use of space or cause congestion, depending on the popularity of the experience.</li>
<li>We assumed that more visual experiences would need less narrative, but the opposite is actually true. Visitors saw information as important regardless of the mode of delivery.</li>
</ul>
<p>Hopefully these insights will help organisers in this industry to make decisions about what to commission on their sites in future. The clear message is that you can achieve more with immersive experiences if you give people what they want. As virtual and augmented reality increasingly change how we think about these tourist attractions, this will become ever more important in years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110860/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Murray Pittock receives funding from the EPSRC and AHRC. </span></em></p>Want to travel to 1314 and see Robert the Bruce slaying an English knight? Why step this way, madam.Murray Pittock, Bradley Professor of English Literature and Pro Vice-Principal, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/639782016-08-22T15:35:24Z2016-08-22T15:35:24ZScottish identity is moving too fast to keep up, as Edinburgh play shows<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134973/original/image-20160822-18734-nts5gt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's it all about, wonders Sandy Grierson.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mihaela Bodlovic </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What does the Scottish national identity amount to in 2016? That’s the central question in one of the most hotly anticipated shows at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, <a href="http://www.eif.co.uk/2016/light">Anything That Gives Off Light</a>. A collaboration between the Brooklyn-based <a href="http://theteamplays.org/about/about-the-company/">TEAM ensemble</a> and the National Theatre of Scotland, the play was originally intended to coincide with the 2014 independence referendum. With a second referendum now <a href="https://theconversation.com/scottish-independence-back-in-play-after-brexit-shock-with-a-note-of-caution-61457">looking likely</a> after the Brexit vote in June, it feels just as timely. </p>
<p>The plot focuses on three main characters with different perspectives on Scottish identity: Brian (Brian Ferguson), a Glaswegian living in London who has returned home to find a burial place for his granny’s ashes; Red (Jessica Almasy), a Virginian holidaying in Scotland to try and understand her estranged husband; and Iain (Sandy Grierson), Brian’s childhood friend who stayed with his mammy in Glasgow. </p>
<p>It opens with Brian shuffling around the stage, trying and failing to shake off London and reconnect with Scotland by walking in a “Scottish way”. It concludes with Iain driving around Glasgow, finding his Scottishness in everything from a group of Slovaks singing in three-part harmony to a girl outside a Sikh gurdwara clapping to the rhythm of an Orange March. </p>
<p>In between is a bawdy, mythical, emotional romp across Scottish and Appalachian landscapes on an introspective quest for self and Scottishness. It tells the story of the shift from a rural-based, tightly-knit Scottishness to a more inclusive, urban one which has more experience of dealing with migrants and outsiders. </p>
<p>This sense of a Scotland emerging from its dark imperial past reminded me of the sentiment in Hamish Henderson’s <a href="http://tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/98252/2">Freedom Come-All-Ye</a>, sometimes described as an alternative national anthem. Yet it’s Iain, the Scot within the country, for whom this shift is more apparent than for Brian, the one who has moved away.</p>
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<p>As the characters journey towards the Highlands, they travel not only in space but in time, and their different homelands merge. The story of an old lady about to be evicted as part of the 18th and 19th-century <a href="http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scotlandshistory/jacobitesenlightenmentclearances/clearances/">clearances</a> of tenant crofters by Highland aristocrats blends into the story of a young lady whose home is threatened by environmental disaster in <a href="https://www.namb.net/send-relief/arm/appalachian-culture">Appalachia</a> in the eastern US, many of whose original settlers came from Scotland. </p>
<p>Brian, who works in London property, first becomes the landowner evicting the tenants during the clearances, then turns into a Scottish emigrant “made good” in latterday Appalachia and responsible for pushing people off their land. It was a perceptive comment on the circularity of life and the way different generations deal with the same issues again and again. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134976/original/image-20160822-18711-k8k5wr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=521&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jessica Almasy as American tourist Red.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mihaela Bodlovic</span></span>
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<h2>Stories and heritage</h2>
<p>The play explores how stories are central to our sense of identity. We all have stories of family, community, nationhood and past successes and failures. We carry them in our journey through life and have to negotiate and recreate them during crises. As part of Scotland’s story, the play references <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wallace_william.shtml">William Wallace</a>, <a href="http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/bonnie-prince-charlie">Bonnie Prince Charlie</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-death-of-margaret-thatcher-and-the-legacy-of-thatcherism-13324">Margaret Thatcher</a>. Meanwhile Red sings of putting stories in a bag around her neck that eventually merge into a single story that becomes too heavy to carry. </p>
<p>The three characters in the play hotly debate themes of Scottish heritage, putting the record straight about some things along the way. For example the common understanding of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/culloden-why-truth-about-battle-for-britain-lay-hidden-for-three-centuries-62398">battle of Culloden</a> of 1746 as simply a massacre of the Scots by the English – making it a useful vehicle for Scottish nationalism – is dismissed as ignoring how Scots colluded against one another at the time. </p>
<p>The play also emphasises the impact of the <a href="http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/scottishenlightenment/">Scottish Enlightenment</a> on American political culture, while <a href="https://theconversation.com/walter-scott-was-no-bland-tartan-romantic-he-was-dumbed-down-28933">Walter Scott’s</a> <a href="http://www.walterscott.lib.ed.ac.uk/works/novels/waverley.html">Waverley</a> novels are credited with inspiring the <a href="http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/civil-war-overview/overview.html">American Civil War</a> by generating a sense of Romantic nationalism replete with notions of identity and loyalty. </p>
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<span class="caption">Digging in the dirt: Brian Ferguson – as Brian.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mihaela Bodlovic</span></span>
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<p>But above all, Anything That Gives Off Light is about how Scotland is perceived from the inside and outside. It is about how outsiders have not necessarily caught up with the ways in which stereotypes about parochial Scots with a Culloden-type chip on their shoulder have been superseded in the years since devolution and even the Scottish referendum. </p>
<p>There is much truth in this, in my view. In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/brexit-europes-new-nationalism-is-here-to-stay-61541">Brexit referendum</a>, it was the English who voted in fear of the effect of immigrants on their national identity while the Scots appeared more comfortable with theirs. And while Red speaks several times in the play about how Scots and Americans both view themselves as underdogs but see them as losers and survivors respectively, the confidence of the two Scots in the play seems to question this aspect of the Scottish psyche. </p>
<p>The play is a powerful reminder to outsiders to listen first and speak cautiously about what they think they know: culture and identity are constantly evolving, however much it might be more comforting if they stayed still.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63978/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mairead Nic Craith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Anything That Gives Off Light explores Scottishness from three very different perspectives.Mairead Nic Craith, Professor of Culture and Heritage, Heriot-Watt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/623982016-07-14T11:03:23Z2016-07-14T11:03:23ZCulloden: why truth about battle for Britain lay hidden for three centuries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130426/original/image-20160713-12358-mjlb9l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Culloden#/media/File:The_Battle_of_Culloden.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Battle of Culloden of 1746, where British troops defeated the Scottish Jacobite army for the final time near Inverness, has long been mis-represented for political purposes. The Jacobites’ struggle to restore the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/James-II-king-of-Great-Britain">deposed Stuart dynasty</a> to the British throne was a major threat to the success of a single centralised Britain. Yet for several centuries, historians presented the Jacobites as kilted primitives. </p>
<p>Culloden also saw the beginning of a national narrative about reconciling England and its “less developed” peripheries – a mission that would soon also be applied to more remote peoples to justify expanding the British Empire. Benjamin West’s famous painting of <a href="https://www.gallery.ca/en/see/collections/artwork.php?mkey=5363">The Death of General Wolfe (1770)</a>, which depicted not Culloden but the Battle of Quebec of 1759 between Britain and France, is an early example of how this was done. </p>
<p>It pictures a curious Native American observing the British general’s dignified death. Behind the man in green uniform stands Simon Fraser, chief of the Clan Fraser, who had fought for the Jacobites on the opposite side to Wolfe at Culloden (and was not in fact at Quebec). The message is plain: Fraser has been integrated into the dignity of the British imperium, as the Native American will be, too. </p>
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<span class="caption">The Death of General Wolfe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-americas/british-colonies/colonial-period/a/benjamin-wests-the-death-of-general-wolfe">Wikmedia</a></span>
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<p>It is no coincidence that this idea of Jacobite primitives has been contested since 1970 as imperial Britain has become more fragmented and Scottish nationalism has risen. Yet the popular image of the Jacobites at Culloden remains. Arguably no battle is remembered so powerfully and so falsely. Peter Watkins’ <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KaE2CAkk4Q">1964 film Culloden</a> demonstrates the enduring power of this vision, in which modern British guns supposedly brought down kilted swordsmen.</p>
<p>British statists and romantic Scottish patriots have both drawn on the same image: dirty, badly-armed savages sacrificing themselves for the Italian princeling, Bonnie Prince Charlie (or Prince Charles), yet get credit for nobly defending an ancient way of life. As I have demonstrated in my <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/culloden-9780199664078?cc=gb&lang=en&">new book</a> on the battle, Culloden as it happened is in fact much more interesting than Culloden as it is remembered. </p>
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<h2>What really happened</h2>
<p>On Culloden Moor on April 16 1746 arguably the last Scottish army sought to restore Prince Charles’ father James to a multi-kingdom monarchy more aligned to European politics than colonial struggle. </p>
<p>Forget any idea of Highland clans against British regiments. The Jacobites were heavily armed with muskets and formed into conventional regiments. They were drilled according to French conventions and some British army practice and fought next to Franco-Irish and Scoto-French allies. They possessed numerous artillery pieces <a href="http://www.scotsman.com/heritage/people-places/amazing-discoveries-250-years-after-culloden-1-466171">and fired</a> more balls per man than the British.</p>
<p>On the other hand, they had no more than 200 mounted men; the British had almost four times as many. Once the Jacobite frontline failed to break the British front at more than one point, their reinforcements were readily disrupted by British cavalry and dragoons on the wings, and the ensuing disorder led to collapse. The British benefited from using their cavalry late, having learned from the battles of <a href="http://www.battleofprestonpans1745.org/heritagetrust/html/history.html">Prestonpans</a> and <a href="http://www.britishbattles.com/battle_of_falkirk.htm">Falkirk</a>. </p>
<p>The Jacobite army also only numbered about 5,000, barely a third its maximum strength in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/union/features_union_jacobites.shtml">rising of 1745-46</a> and <a href="http://www.britishbattles.com/battle_of_culloden.htm">several thousand fewer</a> than the British. It fought Culloden in spite of these numbers partly because it was a regular army and unsuited to a guerrilla campaign. Culloden was always going to be difficult for the Jacobites to win, but this manpower shortage – combined with the lack of cavalry – was critical. That was what made it possible for the British dragoon blades to cut down the Jacobite musketeers. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=761&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130427/original/image-20160713-12353-yjired.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Charles Stuart: the Young Pretender.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.anglophile.ru/en/kings-queens/681-bonnie-prince-charlie.html">Wikimedia</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The Jacobites are also usually accused of choosing the wrong battlefield. The Irish quartermaster and Jacobite adjutant general John Sullivan <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Battle_of_Culloden">gets blamed</a> for persuading Prince Charles to choose boggy, flat terrain, which did not play to the army’s strengths. </p>
<p>Some historians argue that the error was not listening to an alternative suggestion by the prince’s lieutenant-general, Lord George Murray. But while it is true that Sullivan vetoed several other sites, one of which at least was Murray’s choice, neither made sense. </p>
<p>The best site was chosen by Sullivan 1km east of the final battle line. Its only disadvantage was that it was very visible to the Royal Navy in the Moray Firth. This delayed the Jacobites’ night attack on April 15 and in the subsequent confusion they ended up deployed further west than intended. In that sense, no-one “chose” the final battlefield. </p>
<h2>Civil war or conquest?</h2>
<p><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040183">Until the 1960s</a>, Culloden was seen as the final battle in an Anglo-Scottish conflict. It was the precursor to the Highlands becoming the last part of Scotland to be fully incorporated into Great Britain, the British Empire and, most importantly, the British army. This helped underline the sense of Jacobites as aliens: Gaelic-speaking Catholics in an English-speaking Protestant country (never mind that all Jacobite military orders were in English). </p>
<p>But the rise of modern Scottish nationalism made the idea of an Anglo-Scottish battle uncomfortable. Jacobitism has nationalist implications nowadays. Since the 1960s, there has been a <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/culloden-9780199664078?cc=gb&lang=en&">determined effort</a> by British historians to present Culloden as the final battle in a civil war. “British army” is often supplanted by “government troops” or “Hanoverians”, despite being more British by some distance than the force commanded by Wellington <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zwtf34j">at Waterloo</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=335&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130428/original/image-20160713-12358-13ndxqo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jacobite re-enactment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thepatman/11252918735/in/photolist-i9o9Gg-5UZZri-i9ozqn-fj6rrg-pNfk6N-Y4dm9-qAzzon-3c4VFp-nFpMn1-a3fV4r-AhVqzt-azJzuz-eiABox-8tGaQX-ekAMvr-fuuCMG-pDXuQT-nxYKEb-b6Zv5c-ndMc1M-qUJ13h-i9oeuc-fj878M-fjn8zW-obJAFD-78GyvP-i9opEm-i9o7B4-aqjiiH-7ra9YJ-i9o5NK-ejHsqt-i9ocNh-i9owov-i9oaQ8-fusZP4-i9obCR-i9oA9r-nVXwx2-HbGuaH-4RXpW8-i9o5cp-i9oiXE-i9okiY-fuuDhd-8MWqVz-i9oBtF-i9omDw-8MWrvM-odvsT6">Rob Eaglesfield</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
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<p>Culloden was of course a civil war, as was the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/easterrising/aftermath/af04.shtml">Anglo-Irish war of 1919-21</a> or the <a href="http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/wars_american_independence.html">American War of Independence</a>. But every national struggle divides its nation, and the Jacobite Rising of 1745-46 was certainly a fight for a Scottish nation, too. Ending the Anglo-Scottish <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/aosp/1707/7/contents">union of 1707</a> to restore the Stuarts’ multi-kingdom monarchy was a key Jacobite war aim. </p>
<p>So not only is the “primitives” narrative wrong and not only was the battle quite different to the memory, but Culloden was the final significant defeat of a Scottish alternative to the British state. The irony is that a federal British Isles under a single crown, <a href="https://scottishhistorysociety.com/learning-resources/the-union-of-1603/">which had existed</a> between 1603 and 1707 and is effectively what the Jacobites wanted, is closer to where we are today than the victors of Culloden could ever have imagined.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Murray Pittock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Jacobites are regularly cast as ‘primitive’ Scots – yet it is a false narrative suited for political ends.Murray Pittock, Bradley Professor of English Literature, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/499152015-10-28T16:32:02Z2015-10-28T16:32:02ZBritain’s greatest living filmmaker? You may never have heard of him<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99987/original/image-20151028-21119-109tgmg.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Watkins on the set of his last film, La Commune (1871)</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/december-2013/the-anarchist-cinema-of-peter-watkins">Icarus Films</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Who would you choose as Britain’s most influential living film director? Ken Loach? Mike Leigh? Even Sam Mendes, director of the current Bond film, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34639118">Spectre</a>? For my money, it would be Peter Watkins, who celebrated his 80th birthday on October 29.</p>
<p>Perhaps you have never heard of Watkins, nor seen any of his films. Yet he pioneered making dramatic reconstruction look like gritty documentary reality, influencing everyone from Loach and Leigh to <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0339030/">Paul Greengrass</a>, director of the <a href="http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the-bourne-saga/36132/the-bourne-saga-ranking-the-movies-in-order-of-quality">Bourne films</a>. The dozen films Watkins made over his 40-year career remain some of the most powerful and politically challenging of all time.</p>
<p>Born in Surrey, he began in amateur filmmaking in the late 1950s. His professional debut was <a href="http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/id/520802/">Culloden</a> for the BBC in 1964 – retelling the story of the last land battle on British soil. It was hailed as a breakthrough for the way it used handheld newsreel-style shooting and direct-to-camera “interviews” with participants such as Bonnie Prince Charlie, as if television had been around in 1746. </p>
<p>But Watkins was doing more than finding new ways to make audiences take notice. He was also exposing how “reality” in television and film could be manipulated. If a documentary style could be convincingly faked in Culloden, what about other films and TV programmes that showed the world “as it is”? This was years ahead of its time. </p>
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<h2>Fall-out</h2>
<p>For Watkins’ next film, he aimed to bring the future to life in the same way as Culloden had done with the past. The results were incendiary. The War Game (1965) offered a stark “pre-construction” of what might happen if the UK was hit by a nuclear attack. The images were so disturbing – harrowing firestorms; emaciated bodies; the breakdown of civil society – that the BBC imposed a ban on it for 20 years. It was a notorious act of censorship, recently <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-war-game-how-i-showed-that-bbc-bowed-to-government-over-nuclear-attack-film-42640">revealed to have been imposed</a> in collaboration with the British government. Watkins had the last laugh when the film <a href="https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-fictional-nuke-film-that-won-the-oscar-for-best-documentary-b63b42798aeb">won an Oscar</a> in 1967 for Best Documentary Feature. By then, he had left the corporation. His subsequent work is arguably even more interesting. </p>
<p>Watkins’ first feature film, <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/privilege-1967">Privilege</a> (1967), imagined a dystopian future in which a British “coalition government” creates a pop star it can manipulate to control the young (played by ex-Manfred Mann singer Paul Jones). It received mixed reviews on release but has since <a href="https://edinburghfestival.list.co.uk/article/26244-privilege-the-squeeze-and-private-road-among-highlights-of-eiff-after-the-wave-retrospective/">been seen</a> as prescient of our Simon Cowell-era of manufactured pop. </p>
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<p>Disappointed with the reaction to the film and the continuing fall-out over The War Game, Watkins took the crucial decision to leave Britain in 1968. The most international of all British-born directors, he would go on to make films in various countries, always in the native language. </p>
<p>First came <a href="http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/gladiators.htm">The Gladiators (1968)</a>, shot in Sweden. Together with his US-produced <a href="http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/punishment.htm">Punishment Park (1971)</a>, it largely pioneered the futuristic “violence as game” scenario of participants fighting to the death for the pleasure of a TV audience. You can see the huge impact on science fiction in the likes of Rollerball (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073631/">1975</a>/<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246894/">2002</a>), <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093894/">The Running Man (1987)</a> and the current <a href="http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Hunger-Games">The Hunger Games</a> franchise. With their devastating critiques of how the mass media can manipulate real suffering for entertainment, Watkins’ films also predicted the rise of reality TV.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99982/original/image-20151028-21112-v8zgr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99982/original/image-20151028-21112-v8zgr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/99982/original/image-20151028-21112-v8zgr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99982/original/image-20151028-21112-v8zgr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99982/original/image-20151028-21112-v8zgr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=870&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99982/original/image-20151028-21112-v8zgr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99982/original/image-20151028-21112-v8zgr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/99982/original/image-20151028-21112-v8zgr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1094&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Lennon responds …</span>
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<p>Meanwhile, he was influencing some of the most famous names of the 20th century. In 1969 John Lennon and Yoko Ono cited him as the primary influence for their celebrated campaigns for peace. The previous year, Watkins had written a long letter to hundreds of opinion-formers asking what were they doing to work for world peace. According to Lennon, it was like receiving your “call-up papers for peace”. <a href="http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1887244,00.html">“Bed-Ins”</a>, <a href="http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db1969.0331.beatles.html">“Bagism”</a>, <a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1111">“Give Peace a Chance”</a>, <a href="http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnlennon/imagine.html">“Imagine”</a> – would these have happened without Peter Watkins?</p>
<p>Another famous stunt also carried Watkins’ trace marks. When <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/marlon-brando-rejected-godfather-oscar-2014-2?r=US&IR=T">Marlon Brando refused</a> his Best Actor Oscar for The Godfather in 1973, he sent a young Apache woman to the ceremony to protest Hollywood’s depiction of Native Americans. This was after he had collaborated with Watkins on an aborted film about General Custer and The Indian Wars. </p>
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<h2>Munch</h2>
<p>In the early 1970s Watkins decamped to Scandinavia again to make what many regard as his masterpiece, Edvard Munch (1973). This biography of the famous Norwegian painter was shot in Watkins’ trademark documentary style. He identified so strongly with Munch that he invested many of his own feelings in the portrayal, which <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/manup/cstv/2007/00000002/00000001/art00003">helps explain</a> why it is so good. Ingmar Bergman, Sweden’s greatest filmmaker, <a href="http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/manup/cstv/2007/00000002/00000001/art00003?crawler=true&mimetype=application/pdf">reportedly said</a> “the film was made by a genius”. </p>
<p>Watkins continued working until the end of the 1990s, culminating in <a href="http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/commune.htm">La Commune (Paris 1871)</a> (2000). This re-told the events of the 1871 Paris Commune, where Parisians mounted barricades on the streets to protest their hated National Government, only to be slaughtered by its troops. </p>
<p>I had the immense privilege of being invited to the eastern Paris studio along with a colleague to witness the shoot. Watkins shot for three hot weeks in July, reconstructing the commune with the help of 200 French people who were not professional actors. He shot in a series of long takes with minimal editing, aiming to provide a space for this cast to express their political feelings not only about the historical events but to draw the link with society today. Suddenly and thrillingly, characters in 19th-century costume <a href="http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/58009392/dont-forget-look-camera-peter-watkins-approach-acting-facts">were discussing</a> contemporary issues such as racial discrimination, and the power of TV, radio and the internet. Critics rated La Commune among Watkins’ greatest works, <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/film/10th-annual-film-critics-poll-the-abridged-results-6392368">voting it</a> one of the best films of the 2000s. </p>
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<p>Watkins is now retired in France, posting periodic updates on <a href="http://pwatkins.mnsi.net/">his website</a> about what he sees as the “media crisis” in the world today. His work has seen a major re-evaluation by a new generation, including career retrospectives at the likes of <a href="http://hcl.harvard.edu/hfa/films/2001janfeb/watkins.html">Harvard</a> and the <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/eventseries/peter-watkins-films-1964-99">Tate Modern</a>. He is indisputably Britain’s greatest film dissident. Happy 80th birthday, Peter Watkins.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49915/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Cook has received past funding from AHRC</span></em></p>Peter Watkins may not be a household name, but The Hunger Games, John Lennon’s Imagine and the Bourne films would be very different without him.John Cook, Professor in Media, Glasgow Caledonian UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.