Culloden Documentary

[Kent Frazier]

Last night I watched a "reenactment documentary" titled Culloden on DVD. The film is old (1966) and is by Peter Watkins. Apparently, this was a production for the BBC. I found the film quite interesting as it includes mock interviews. It shows the brutality of the British, but it also doesn't show Prince Charles in a very favorable light, IMO.

My knowledge of Scottish / British history is limited at best, so I can't really comment on it's accuracy.

Has anyone else seen this that would care to comment?

It is available on Netflix. The DVD contains two films by Watkins The War Game and Culloden.


Kent

Is anyone

[IRISH]

yes, i've seen the watkins culloden documentary and the two things that i took away from it were the abject incompetence of what could be called the jacobite tactical leadership and the staggering mismatch in firepower. after i finish a couple of other books, i'll be reading john prebble's culloden, but the documentary is a good visual primer. terrible stuff on the moor.

[Mael Coluim]

Here is the link to You Tube to see the program. Unflattering to say the least.

[Sir William]

yes, i've seen the watkins culloden documentary and the two things that i took away from it were the abject incompetence of what could be called the jacobite tactical leadership and the staggering mismatch in firepower. after i finish a couple of other books, i'll be reading john prebble's culloden, but the documentary is a good visual primer. terrible stuff on the moor.

John Prebble also took a dim view of the Jacobite leadership. He viewed Murray as perhaps the best of a bad lot - and he had fallen out of favor by the time of Culloden. I'm still reading whatever I can find on the subject (I've yet to get too deeply into Chevalier Johnston's memoir) but I'm beginning to think Prebble was probably right.

[JS Sanders]

I believe the more historical accounts one reads about the Young Pretender, the less likely he is seen as 'Bonnie'.

Setting aside the 19th century romanticism that continues to the present, it's not a brain-strain to conclude he was the wrong person at the wrong time. And Scotland paid dearly for it.

Slainte yall,
steve