Marat/Sade is a 1967 adaptation of the Peter Weiss play, The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. The film, adapted by Adrian Mitchell and directed by Peter Brook, used the full title in the opening credits,...
The film depicts the sexual competition between three roommates — the aggressive, womanizing drummer Tolen (Ray Brooks), the shy, paranoid schoolteacher Colin (Michael Crawford), and the neutral artist Tom (Donal Donnelly) — when a young girl from out of town, Nancy (Rita Tushingham), enters their London world. Directed by Richard Lester Produced by...
From David’s autobiography, Was Clara Shuman a Fag Hag? The preparation for the Lodz Festival in 2004 was the first time I’d thought to give a non-flippant answer to the question “What are your favourite films?” They are of course the four anti-war pictures, and favourite for no reason other than what they are about. How I won The...
Help! is a 1965 film directed by Richard Lester, starring The Beatles — John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — and featuring Leo McKern, Eleanor Bron, Victor Spinetti, John Bluthal, Roy Kinnear and Patrick Cargill. The soundtrack was released as an album, also called Help!. Directed by Richard Lester Produced by...
A Delicate Balance is a 1973 drama film directed by Tony Richardson. The screenplay by Edward Albee is based on his 1966 Pultizer Prize-winning play of the same title. The film was the second in a series produced by Ely A. Landau for his American Film Theatre, a subscription-based programme of screen adaptations of notable stage plays shown in five hundred...
There is a fourth conductor that David would have added to this list that of Sir Henry J. Wood. In his teens and until he was called up to serve in the British Army David joined the audience at London’s Queens Hall for the Henry Wood Promenade concerts each summer. It was a musical...
“…my uncle Laurie found that there was a small unit of four people making documentary and training films in the nether regions of Waterloo Station, well beneath the notice of a trade union. My father set up his Blickensderfer (the oldest typewriter in the world) on our dining-room table and dashed off a letter...
Surviving in David’s papers was this account book which gives a detailed list of the feature films and TV commercials he worked on after leaving Transport until the height of his early career in 1976 and Joseph Andrews. It contains only one reference to London Transport, in 1962 , undoubtedly acting as a freelance.
Although the film isn’t mentioned in David’s two memoirs, The Long Night Haul (19 minutes) is an ambitious and complex film celebrating the foundation of the British Road Service’s general haulage truck service. Sometimes perhaps David shot a film which was without any notable anecdotes and thus passes without notice in his canon of...
This a short, nine minute film to commemorate the construction of the Travolator between the Bank and Waterloo stations in London to supplement the long walk required of City commuters and nicknamed The Drain. The otherwise exemplary box of DVDs, The British Transport Film Collection does not identify any credits. For the only time...
“Edgar promised Ritchie, who was getting restless, a break to direct and so I took over The England of Elizabeth with John Taylor again. It is nice to have one’s name on the same picture as Vaughan Williams although on the only occasion when I should have met the great man I was sent...
The film ‘Care of St Christophers’ is available from Movie-Mail on the British Transport Film compilation, Volume 8 ‘Points & Aspects‘. “Happily I was now able in small measure to repay some of my debt to Jimmy Ritchie. The next film for me after THE ENGLAND OF ELIZABETH was his first picture as a...
“My first picture with Tony was made in France with an entirely French crew, apart from myself and an editor I didn’t like. Oscar Lewenstein had uncovered a screen-play by Jean Genet written many years before, to while away one of his sojourns inside a French prison, that Genet himself had forgotten about…....
Snowdrift at Bleak Gill, 1955, directed by Kenneth Fairburn, edited by John Legard and photographed by Bob Paynter. David Watkin was an unacknowledged assistant on this film. The film is 10minutes, largely devoted to the single task of freeing a goods engine and carriages from snowdrifts using a mechanised snow plough and gangs of...
Apart from poetry and jazz, what else discomforted Mister Watkin? - certainly word play and anagrams. Puns were associated with David Plumtree (see Holleyman and Treacher) who held a Black Belt at Punning. Mister Watkin would groan at word play, screw his face up in agony, and then allow himself a constricted laugh. James...
Speaking of his attitude on set, “What it meant was that I would light a set, watch a rehearsal and then I would actually go to sleep, because it is the one thing you can do on a film set that makes you less tired. Fortunately I don’t snore and I also wake up...
“I have been apprehensive only twice in my whole life. The first was when I arrived at that bakery in the Mile End Road, there was a car park and I saw all these trucks and lorries and generators. I saw the mass of a feature film unit for the first time that morning...
David Watkin’s house is now sold, his Library and personal papers dispersed, and stocks of both volumes of autobiography destroyed.
Out of Africa (1985) Based loosely on the autobiographical book by Isak Dinesen (pseudonym of Karen Blixen) published in 1937. The movie received 28 film awards, including seven Academy Awards. David Watkin won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on Out of Africa. Director: Sydney Pollack Cinematography: David Watkin Camera and...
David received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2004. The T-Shirt that year quoted David on its front: One tries not to fuck it up. Below are snaps of David’s friends, Peter Macdonald and Madelyn Most at Lodz. Daniel Barenboim “Shortterm thinking, or even worse, thoughtlessness, makes many people think that culture, education and the...
Conception of a new lighting technique Watkin conceived of the idea for a new light which would tackle the problem of light falloff during night shoots. Because of the inverse square law, light from even moderately strong sources starts to fall off fairly quickly as the subject walks away from the light source. Therefore...
David Watkin interview with Peter Handford This interview was recorded in the garden of Peter Handford on the 1st October 2002, by Barry Coward. In 1985 Peter won an Oscar and a Bafta for his work on Sidney Pollack’s Out of Africa. He also worked alongside David on Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)...
David would, very occasionally, take a little nap on set.. And, on those rare occasions, invariably somebody would have a camera at hand… David found a little cave-like area near the church in San Gimignano, where he could beat the heat and nap. When Baird found this out, he followed suit. I call these...
The career of David Watkin revealed through photographic glimpses… British Transport Films Alan working at 25 Saville Row, 1955 Alan and Tom in the Post Office Yard, Waterloo, 1956 BTF crew: Baxter, Richie and Williams England’s North Country BTF crew: Robertson and Richie
When the boys first met David they were really quite little. They’d been thrilled by the chocolate cake, the painting with the ‘changing-faces’, the piano, the fountain on/off switch, the precariously tall library steps, the phenomenal use of the word ‘fuck’ and the even more delicious ‘cunt’. And they told him as much. Then...
Keen to share his love of opera… David treated many of his chums to a trip to Glyndebourne…
One of my favourite memories is him phoning me, hardly able to speak for laughter, to tell me why I wasn’t going to work with him on a film. He was about to photograph a film for Richard Lester who always used two cameras so needed two camera operators. At the time I was...
This website has been initiated as a response to the hundreds of friends of David Watkin from all over the world who wished to contribute to an archive of memories of this remarkable man. The editors are the designer Rachael Adams and the historian Chris Mullen who were in contact with him in Brighton...
David loved being at home in Brighton… His beloved dog, Longuiter – waiting on the landing. The Camerimage Lifetime Achievement Award (Golden Frog) can be seen on the coffee table!
David Watkin died at the age of 82 in his mews house in Brighton at 10.15pm on the 19th of February, 2008 This must come as a shock to those of you who did not know of the severity of his illness, or were unaware of the speed of his decline in health. Those...
