Tributes to Peter Watkins
Hello tous toutes.Tristesse, tristesse, tristesse. Un bel homme, une belle personne, un immense artiste....MERCI à lui d avoir été ce qu il a été. Et merci de ce qu il nous a apporté. Pensées spéciales pour ses proches et en particulier Patrick, Gérard, Françoise.... Son œuvre traversera le temps. Heureuse qu il soit parti paisiblement. Je vous embrasse avec cœur.
Danielle
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I have known Peter since the 1950's and am shattered to learn of his passing. To you and the family I send my condolences and those of my close colleagues in the South African film industry. I first met your Dad in Canterbury when I played a small part as a drummer boy in his film 'Field of Red'. Since then we had maintained an irregular correspondence. You however may not have any recollections of our meeting - and quite rightly so as you were still a baby. It was in September I964 following the filming of Culloden. After our return to London from Inverness Francoise and Peter invited me to spend the weekend as a companion for your Mother's sister Michelline at their London home. She and I had formed a bond during the shoot and after her return to France continued our friendship as pen pals for a number of years.
Well that's about it other than to let you know that Peter has been a major influence in my working life - he introduced me to a career in film and television for which I'll always be extremely grateful. I am currently in the UK and should you have time to spare during this sad time I would love to meet you again!
Neil Hetherington
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J'ai appris avec tristesse le décès de ton papa ce midi à la radio. Toutes mes condoléances. J'ai une pensée pour lui dont c'était l'anniversaire des 90 ans il y a seulement 3 jours (mon courrier précédent). Et j'ai une pensée pour sa famille dans ce moment de deuil. Longue vie à ses films si beaux, si forts si précieux et si intelligents. Et qui s'adressent à ce qu'il y a de meilleur en nous contre ce qu'il y a de pire. À sa mémoire. Portes toi bien. Je te (vous) souhaite le meilleur.
Richard.
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I was very saddened to hear of Peter’s passing last week, and want to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. Your father is someone I have always admired greatly—for his passion, his keen insight, and indeed his sense of humor! (An attribute for which he does not get nearly enough credit.) Especially in these very dark times, I am very grateful for his films, but I am also glad to have had the opportunity to spend time with and learn from him.
I know it has been quite a while since I have been in touch with you. It has been a long time since Rachael and I were in France researching the book. That project was delayed continually for countless reasons not worth getting into here. Unfortunately, this meant that I was out of touch with your father these last few years, which I very much regret. I am still, slowly, working on the book, but in the meantime I also take every opportunity I can to talk with people about Peter’s films and ideas, to share what I know, and to urge people to seek out his work. If there is any way that I can help you both in the effort of keeping Peter’s work alive, please let me know. I recall that there was at one point some question about how best to handle Peter’s archive, and I know a few people who might be able to help in that regard if you feel it would be useful.
In the meantime, I am sending my love and condolences to you and your family. I will be thinking of you and, of course, of Peter. Sending my very best to you all.
Leo
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I am thinking of you and the family with all my condolences and I send you all strength now. It has been a complete privilege and honour to work with Peter on promoting and discussing his films in a number of different ways over the last two decades, culminating with The War Game on the 6th of this month. His work remains truly remarkable in every way. Please do let me know in due course if any public memorial events are planned. With all my wishes.
Gareth
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I learned that your father has passed away. Please accept my condolences. Peter changed the lives of many, including mine. He will live on in all of us. In Solidarity.
Manfred
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We were deeply saddened to learn of Peter’s passing, and we are very sorry for your loss. Peter has been a great influence on all of us. We take solace in knowing that we have the opportunity to celebrate his life and work through the upcoming volume and retrospective. We understand your need for privacy at this time and send our heartfelt condolences. We hope to talk to you whenever it feels right for you. Warm regards.
Nil Kural, Deniz Tortum, Murat Günes, Okay Karadayilar
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I was deeply saddened to hear about the passing of your father, Peter Watkins. Please accept my sincere condolences for your loss. His vision, courage, and commitment to truth in cinema have profoundly influenced generations of filmmakers and thinkers — myself included. We had been planning to organize a retrospective dedicated to his body of work, and in light of his passing, I would like to suggest holding it sooner, as a tribute to his extraordinary legacy and the impact he has left on world cinema. If you feel it would be appropriate, I would be honored to coordinate with you to ensure that this event reflects his spirit and values with the respect and depth he deserves. With heartfelt sympathy.
Velissarios Kossivakis
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Ce petit message pour vous transmettre mes plus sincères condoléances pour cette perte immense que vous êtes en train de vivre. Bien sûr, c'est d'abord une perte pour la famille et pour vos proches, mais au-delà, c'en est une pour le monde du cinéma et de la culture tout entier. Je garde un souvenir ému, très vif, du tournage montreuillais (et de ses convulsions multiples...), mais aussi, avant et par la suite, de la découverte de tout les autres films de Peter. Elles auront marqué à jamais l'histoire du cinéma, contre vents et marées, et donnent un bel exemple de persévérance et de persistance. J'avais à ressentir le besoin de ces qualités bientôt dans mon propre travail. Not always easy... Quoi qu'il en soit, je vous souhaite forces et courage nécessaires pour ces jours et semaines à venir. Et, comme on le dit si joliment au Togo où j'ai beaucoup voyagé ces dix dernières années, une pensée pour Peter : "Que la terre lui soit légère". Amicalement.
Jürgen
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Bonjour, Juste un petit mail pour vous adresser mes plus sincères condoléances. Les films de Peter Watkins ont été d’une importance cruciale dans ma vie de cinéphile, et ont façonné ma culture politique. Nous leur devons beaucoup, et nous leur devrons encore beaucoup dans les années à venir. Je vous souhaite de traverser cette période dans la solidarité. Au plaisir de vous rencontrer peut-être un jour, et de travailler à faire vivre les films de Peter. Amitiés.
Simon Lehingue
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I hope that you are doing as well as can be at this moment. I am a freelance film programmer based in Brazil, and I was briefly in contact with you at the beginning of this year regarding the interest that my wife Mariana Shellard and I hold in showing Edvard Munch. I read the news of your father's passing and I immediately thought of you and your family. Mariana and I would like to share our condolences with you, your brother, and everyone in your lives who was close with your father. He was genuinely and truly an extraordinary figure, and one of the boldest and most courageous political artists that world cinema has ever known. We continue with our goal of paying tribute to him next year, and in the meantime, we wish as much strength and comfort as possible for you all. Best wishes.
Aaron Cutler (Mutual Films)
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I don’t know what to make of my writing my note to Peter about how our lives intertwined so shortly before his passing. Is there some sort of universal hand at play? I feel a measure of relief that I was able to communicate my admiration to Peter before his passing, at least symbolically and figuratively through you. I fell in love with movies during the various waves in the early to mid-1960s. Peter is among the highest ranks of people who have made movies. My pantheon would certainly include Kurosawa, Truffaut, Ingmar Bergman, Satyajit Ray, the man whom I consider my friend, Federico Fellini. There are others, perhaps many others, perhaps among all of us who try to make films and support films, and simply love films. Peter Watkins shines brightly among the highest ranks in the firmament of those who have inspired me.
I believe I wrote that one lesson I learned from Peter is that one should only try to make films that almost can’t be made. We should never be so isolated that we cannot film. But we should also not be so acceptable that we are embraced by the powers-that-be. Lesson number two: go where your heart and soul lead you whether from the depths of warfare to the heights of art, meaning Peter’s film about Edvard Munch.
My dear friend, Peter Watkins, you have meant so very much to me as a mentor, a role model and even as an idol. You will carry the brightness of the light with you wherever you may be, whatever comes next. How very wonderful to have seen your films and made your acquaintance. I’d like to think a small spark of your light glows within me.
My unmet friend, Patrick, unfortunately I will be unable to attend the memorial service for Peter. But I will mark the day and the hour and light a candle in Peter’s honor. Thank you so much for taking the time to correspond with me. I wish you the very best in all your endeavors. And I am now remembering myself with a sense of the bittersweet, as the young man who walked the wrong way for many New York blocks on a drizzly afternoon with that first emotional blow from The War Game resonating in my mind and resounding in the concrete canyons of Manhattan. Take very good care.
Christopher Beaver
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Dear Peter was and will remain a highly regarded and cherished friend of mine. Please accept my deepest heartfelt condolences for you and your family. The news of Peter's passing hit hard. The night before I emailed his belated birthday greetings knowing he was unconscious. I did so anyways...
His departure from Earth now marks a significant minus sign on this troubled Peace deprived Planet of ours. I will prepare and send an email your way with a collage of words and memories to add to your collection for use as you see fit. Thank you for the opportunity to share. While wishing won't materialize my desire to attend Peter's farewell in person, I'll be there in Spirit.
My thoughts and heartfelt concern remain with dear Vida. Hoping her body will provide strength enough to see her through this trying most sorrowful time. PEACE be with You and with Peter Resting in the Peace that alluded him. Sending love.
Joan Churchill
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Dear friends, My sincerest condolences for the loss of Peter. I wish you all the very best in this difficult time. I have tried to put together a crude memoriam of what Peter meant to me, and would like to share this with you in the spirit of cupping briefly the irreplaceable flame that he brought glaring into the world.
'Last week, one of my biggest heroes died, aged 90, on my birthday. Peter Watkins dedicated his life to unfashionably shocking people into thinking about (amongst many other things) the ethics of mainstream media, what he called the monoform, and its consumption. In doing so he inadvertently created genres that we know today as mockumentary/docudrama - anything from Saving Private Ryan to Borat, Blair Witch to the works of Ben Wheatley, would not exist without Peter. More importantly though, what he was trying to wrestle our attention towards was the casual horror of how we have come to accept + consume commercial media, in a world where practically all scarcity is artificial and the result of resource hoarding. What does it mean to spend £100 million on another Marvel film; something which is not necessarily terribly produced, but is essentially an advert for people to buy more stuff; when that same amount of money could be directed towards life saving medical care, or education? It’s the big fact that we all silently acknowledge day to day and yet can’t speak about at the dinner table for fear of stating the obvious/being a buzzkill/hypocrite or whatever. But big things only change when we refuse to look away. For 60+ years Peter refused to stop and as a result, for the majority of his career, his films and ideas were deliberately suppressed out of the mainstream (prime culprits include the BBC), and relegated to a small but enthusiastic cult following. If you are even slightly troubled by the way we live our lives currently, I urge you to go and watch the extraordinary lifetime of work that he laid down for us.’ All the very best.
Ben
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It's very sad that Peter Watkins is no longer with us. I'm grateful, though, that he has left us with not only an exemplary set of challenging, passionate films, but also his considered and perceptive theories about the prevailing media. Condolences to his family and friends.
In 2015, I co-wrote a two-part appreciation of his work for the Socialist Standard: Peter Watkins: A Revolutionary Film-Maker pt.1 – The Socialist Party of Great Britain and Peter Watkins: A Revolutionary Film-Maker pt.2 – The Socialist Party of Great Britain
Mike Foster
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Que ton âme repose en paix peter watkins et qu elle continue à nous éclairer de ta lumière dans ce chaos du monde. J'ai été heureuse de te rencontrer dans un moment difficile ma vie ou ton combat résonne avec le mien pour être libre et agir. Je n ai pas de photos mais les souvenirs heureux restent dans mon cœur. Merci.
Christine
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Dear Peter Watkins and co. Preface: This email was written over a long period of time, throughout which nothing I would produce ever felt right or even worthy when compared to the amount of love I felt toward Peter Watkins' work and ideas, but now that it is too late I will never forgive myself for not simply finishing it to even a passable standard, especially because of how much I related to his expressed feelings of loneliness and isolation. He never got to see any of these words, even if none of it ever felt like it ever came close to a fraction of the gratitude I felt toward him. I've been in tears that the opportunity for reaching out was missed, and will remain missed, and I am so fucking sorry for that. He deserved so much more kindness in his life than he was ever publicly given; the slandering, the chronicled unjustness of all of it along with the universe it is all attached to makes me angry like there is no base to the continuum of this barrel. This letter will never be perfect in my eyes, the best I can wish for are eyes adjacent to his that will eventually find it, to read it.
I would never know where to begin with this. I've struggled with writing and rewriting this letter over and over again. I am never certain whether to express too much or to abstain from fully extrapolating the meaningfulness and resonance and effect your work has had on me. I overthink and try to find what level of my character inputting within this message is safe enough a balance for me. I want to find ways to magnify and express with a deepest sincerity my gratitude, though even the greatest openness I could ever offer would still feel like masking. Understating these things fixes all that messiness into a galvanised confined formal space, and overstating them is unachievable. So my thinking has been this: people like yourself will always seem to fundamentally never receive the fathomless credit and adulation they are deserving of, and when they do receive even an increment, even a most sliverous fragment of it, they are wonderously and generously and annoyingly predisposed to remain humble about it. So without buttering up, without dressing my words—as there will never be any near adequate enough, here begins.
I love your cinema, so dearly, without end. Your films have lifted me out of depression, and given me a clearest set of goals and meaning in life than anything contrasting. They have shaped fundamentally the ways in which I view the world—The War Game shattered the 4th-dimensional wall to eternally bone-chilling levels (I made a film with a near identical premise in high school); Punishment Park's hyperreality doubly assailed my senses with a timeless capsule of preminisced authoritarian rule; La Commune spiked me with an everlasting passion and amourous taste for the anti-cinema and perhaps remains my favourite film to this day; Resan's ending effectively terraformed me from a spiteful misanthrope to a profound humanist single-handedly.
I promise I could never exaggerate. I cherish and relate dreadfully with your theories and ideas—feel like I always have, and keep feeling like I'm always realising that more and more with every remotest passing moment; and I feel that far, far, many more people also do even if they do not realise, and I'm not even being rhetorical in the merest sense. I see it within their words and behind their eyes, I see it expressed by artists and so-called media critics alike, all the time, as to what the issues are that we face, and far more often, struggle to articulate, to form cohesive wisdom and set palpable, material targets, all the while it's always been there, on the fringes, tactile and harmonious, symbiotic. Noam Chomsky spoke around it his whole life with the Propaganda Model; Deleuze distinguished it as the Movement Image set against the Time Image; Bazin challenged the integrity of montage and championed the mise en scene—the long take—as being inherently more honest; Barthes favoured the epos over mythos, punctum over pathos; Brecht's Epic Theatre frequently directly addressed the spectator as a means of political motion; A man I knew once referred to it as Cinema Du Foie Gras; Lav Diaz nicknamed it Emancipated Cinema; Tarkovsky wrote once, “People tend to think that an effective mise en scene is simply one that expresses the idea, the point, of the scene and its subtext [...] That is supposed to ensure that the scene will be given the depths that the meaning requires. Such an attitude is simplistic. It has given rise to a good many irrelevent conventions which do violence to the living texture of the artistic image”: all of them, whether unknowingly, or anachronistically, are talking about besetting the Monoform, countering the cinema of action, favouring the thinking image, the metathinking image.
What I've found when really digging into the roots of this model, and what I believe people would tend to land upon when engaging this as a theorem, is that it is the most highly metacognitively effective basis and practise for examining these systems, structures, and hierarchy afflicting not just cinema, not just art, but really, when examining the expansive metabolism and spirit of the human condition, and then some, fundamentally everything, really. It is highly dissociative for me, even writing this. I recall feeling puzzled, for instance, that as media students, when we studied Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will, and how many of its characteristics are present within hollywood media, the focus was never on how to avert its filmic influences and techniques, how to pick them apart and see through their speakless machinations, but how to IMITATE them.
I recognise that spreading your messages would require a deeply informed and heavily thought-through process of countering standard systems of dialogue, breaking them down and rebuilding them from the ground up again: if we really want to enact profound, meaningful change, we need to change the language of our cinema, uproot its contents, re-scrutinise accepted language conventions and pull them into the limelight, expose the gentrified sins of mass-montage, rebuke, improvise, experiment, embrace transgression and heterogeneity in the arts, refertilise the earth in its revegetations.
The problem is that I really want to share your ideas, spread the word, inform the masses, encourage dialogue surrounding your theories about the Monoform in a time where they are needed more so than ever before ... however aside from becoming evermore neurotic and antisocial—it got so paranoid and frenetic at points where I would encourage random passerbys to watch your films—another part of me is deeply afraid that it may be too late, or simply not the right time. The state of our mass online digitised media seems so irreversible in its perpetual concentration, its rampant segmentation and tiktokification (cannot even begin to describe how much I loathe that term), the jpegification of common ideology, I fear that entering your premises into the public discourses will not have the effect it needs to have; I fear people are not naturally metacognitive enough to step out of the shackles they have been buried under. But most importantly, I fear for you, for the suffering this may further inflict upon you and those close to you; you, a person whose ceaseless efforts and unspeakably remarkable achievements have been met and pathetically countered time and again and again. But these qualms and ruminations are precisely what distinguishes us from the few absolute monsters at the top in control: introspection. Your theories of media and the Monoform are what I would declare to be the most introspective tools available, something that indeed forces one's reaching hand to retract with hesitance, something that is sorely lacking in the media and in the highly reactive online spaces, something that so holistically and justifiably provokes all manner of reflexive communication and production of true art.
I am not the only one. I know of many people personally and internationally who are dedicated to uniquely but authentically honouring your compasses. We need more people like you in this world. The world would be a far better place if there were more people like you in it.
It seems anacyclosis is reaching its finality. There is no greater witness than to live it. Nobody ever realised they were here. We are only what we are. History, all the time. History, omit nature. Nature, all the time. All man are slaves; slaves to the mind, slaves to the cell, slaves to the soul, or whatever. Here we are reaching, screaming like abandoned ghouls, banshees in the gale, in perpetuity. This is their plight, the apocalypse of man. I am scared to wonder where things will go from here, but I will never compromise my art and my love in pursuit of bettering the few corners of this planet where I can.
Somehow no matter how much this letter grows it will never feel completed; such is all art, to a degree. I could make a whole movie in your honour—in fact I have, thrice actually. One was a sort of unedited kitchen countertop video essay openly discussing your ideas with a group; another is a three-hour landscape film, an observational meditation on nature and the anthropocene that channels your and other artists' musings into making something truly alternative. Really every film I've made since first seeing The War Game has been in conscious honour of you in one way or another. And I will continue to honour your legacy with all the films I participate in—whether overtly or subliminally, I will always be fighting in all the ways I know how to. Until the very end.
Forever indebted, eternally incomplete, and most everlasting thanks.
Arthur
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I just wanted to reach out and offer my sincere personal condolences on the passing of Peter. None of us who were there, in whatever capacity, will ever forget being present at the shoot of La Commune. What an experience – and what a memory Peter created for us and left for us all to share. Prompted by Peter’s passing, I remembered I kept a diary during the various days of the shoot. These extracts were written up in 2000 as an article intended for the UK film magazine Sight and Sound but the magazine declined to publish – Peter reserved a special place in hell for the magazine’s host institution, the BFI, in terms of what he saw as its key role in the marginalisation of his work within the UK! Anyway, I have managed to find and dig out these extracts from my files after many years, in response to your request. I hope you find them of some comfort during this very sad time. Thank you again, Peter – and ‘vive La Commune’! Best wishes.
John
Prof. John Cook,
Emeritus Professor of Media
Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland, UK
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I would like to express my sadness at the news of Peter Watkins’ death. When I was 16 years old I saw Privilege, which was a revelation. I was of course a fan of the Beatles, and it helped understand a lot of things. Later I saw The War Game, Punishment Park and Culloden (shown on French TV in 1973 I believe). And of course his other films when they were available. A few decades later, I had a sabbatical year and I decide to write a master’s diss on Culloden, which I offered him and he was kind enough to tell me he appreciated it. That’s how I met Peter Watkins, on several occasions, and he sent me a few emails to explain his intentions and methods. Later he came to Metz where I live, and we spent a nice evening at my home, with Vida and my wife. I saw him again on a few occasions after that. Also, I asked him his permission to screen The War Game in Bure, and he explained that the BBC tried to prevent such screenings, and how to avoid being threatened by them.
I would like to tell Vida and all the family how I feel and express my condolences. Best regards.
Etienne Lesourd
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I was enrolled at a community college in a Radio and TV program in Ottawa. Mostly we were being trained to work in local television production. But in an English class one day, the teacher showed us War Game. I was riveted, horrified, and for the first time ever watching a film – I had to cover my eyes. I sought out more of Peter’s work and by now have seen most everything – Munch and The Freethinker and La Commune 1871 being among my favourites.
My wife, Petra, became an assistant editor at the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal and one day she learned that Peter was going to edit his anti-nuclear film, The Journey (1986) at the NFB. Petra applied to work with him. Peter made her an editor and they became friends, shared many laughs at lunch about mayonnaise and celery? Then Vida, whom Petra and I already knew from Toronto days, also worked on The Journey, … and the rest is history. It was also Vida who suggested I should make a film about the making of La Commune, 1871. Eternal thanks to you, Vida!
Making the documentary l’Horloge universelle: la résistance de Peter Watkins was one of the most important experiences of our lives. Besides the great opportunity of living in Paris for 6 weeks in the summer of 1999, we closely followed the pre-production and production of the film. We met many of the participants, went out to restaurants and visited them in their neighbourhoods and homes. And we watched Peter work in his special, unique way. For instance, conventionally in a crowd scene where the main characters in the scene have dialogue, all the background participants pretend to be talking and carrying on while remaining silent so the dialogue is favoured and expertly recorded. But Peter calls ‘background action’ first and everybody starts to speak and it’s noisy. Then, once he’s happy with the energy level, Peter says action to the characters who are the focus of the camera. They have to speak up to hear each other above the background din. Hard work for the sound crew, but excellent for the intensity of the scene. And the dialogue itself was not written by Peter or anyone else. Through weeks of workshops prior to filming, the participants immersed themselves in the history of the Commune and ‘la semaine sanglante’ and talked about it and reflected on their own lives today. Then, in the moment of filming, these descendants of the Communards came up with their own dialogue, what they wanted to say in the scene. It was amazing to see and inspiring as the participants while representing the past also became like contemporary Communards.
Peter immigrated to Canada in 2002 and lived with Vida in Hamilton. We were friends with Peter and Vida and her sister Rita, and her husband Rod whom Peter referred to as R&R. And Peter wrote about the state of the MAVM – mass audio visual media. There was a retrospective of Peter’s work at the Cinematheque in Toronto in 2004. After the screening of La Commune, a critic in the Globe and Mail newspaper wrote, "one of the most extraordinary film artists of the late 20th century," but … the filmmaker's "very bleak, stark world-view as a problem worth noting, and arguing about. … “is a world-view more simple and simplistic than his art at its best."
After 40 years of critical abuse from the media, Peter could no longer take it physically or emotionally. He said he would stop filmmaking. Another Globe and Mail article in 2004, reported his criticism of the CBC, “whose kind of programming policy forces documentary filmmakers in Canada to reduce complex themes to a 42-minute time slot,” as well as the Banff TV Foundation and Hot Docs film festival, both of whom “damage the integrity of the documentary movement by endorsing the practice of 'pitching,' which forces filmmakers to publicly grovel for funding to panels of TV commissioning editors.” Watkins also criticized Canadian universities, who took no interest in his work and critical ideas, and the National Film Board, “who has indicated in a very pointed way (silence) over the past two years, that it does not want me involved in the education or training of young Canadian filmmakers.” Piers Handling, director of the Toronto International Film Festival, spoke up for Peter: “It is sad to think that his distinctive and unique voice will not be making new work, harder in light of the fact that his last work – La Commune –showed he had lost none of his power as a filmmaker; indeed I thought it was one of his strongest pieces.”
Peter and Vida soon left Hamilton, returned to Europe, to live in the small town of Felletin, in Creuse, in central France. I had to pay a price too. CBC documentary and current affairs executive, Mark Starowicz, appears in l’Horloge universelle, sticking up for the Monoform. I learned he didn’t like the film. I ran into commissioning editor at CBC Newsworld, Jerry McIntosh, and said to him, ”Jerry, you should program The Universal Clock.” There was a pause … then he asked “Has Mark seen it?” Hot Docs, the documentary festival, also turned down l’Horloge universelle. The documentary, was filmed around the making of La Commune and also at MIP-COM, the large documentary market held inCannes every year. The film juxtaposes Peter’s approach and the commercial approach as explained by delegates at MIP-COM. In short it’s a reflection on documentary. And Hot Docs turns it down? I later learned why. There were two programmers making the decisions at Hot Docs. I knew one of them and the other worked for Mark Starowicz. There were other attacks of Peter within the Documentary Organization of Canada as well.
Peter resurrected the place of the Commune in history and rekindled the spirit of people in the streets, of resistance and questioning the elite control of the mass audio visual media. But as culture writer, Arthur Kroker, proposes, the intensity of the participants in La Commune is also about reviving from the seduction of the MAVM. Its seduction strategies that harvest fragmentation, isolation, compliance, fatigue, boredom, oblivion and self-humiliation. The Communards in the film, in their reflection on their ancestors, inhabit the media themselves, and think and speak of their present lives and contemporary forms of media oppression that has expanded to the broadest dimensions of space, time, subjectivity, and what is a mind.
Peter was always very funny. He loved to carry on, joke and laugh with people. Even this year, we had a period of several Skype calls for the World International Festival of Hats. Each week Petra and I would wear different hats, the crazier the better and so would Peter and Vida. On the calls, Peter would adjudicate in a very funny Monty Pythonesque, game show host voice. I think Petra won wearing a kind of shiny silver, soft astronaut helmet.
But time passed and declining bodies took up more and more attention and pain and difficulty. Neither he nor Vida could do Skype or Zoom. He heard about my dear partner, Petra’s advancing Alzheimer’s and move to a long term care home. He wrote, “Our hearts go out to you both. We are really sorry we haven't written for a long time, we have very often been thinking of you. We so much value our special friendship over the past many years, including all your support for my work, and - never forgetting - the many laughs we've had together. Please write if you feel up to it, or let me know if you'd like me to call.” And then again, “Many thanks indeed for your touching letter and the wonderful - and very moving - photos of you and Petra together - they mean a lot to us. Please let's keep in touch! We really miss seeing you both. Much love, and with very special hugs to you and Petra. Peter and Vida xx
Dear Peter, Rest in peace. Thank you for being in our lives. We love and miss you and won’t forget you. And Vida, our deepest sympathies and sincere condolences over your loss. We hope to see you soon. Much love.
Geoff