WINSTANLEY

UK, 1975, 91 minutes, Black and White.
Miles Halliwell, Alison Halliwell, Jerome Willis, Terry Higgins.
Directed by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo.

Winstanley is a serious and sombre costume drama. It was written and directed by Kevin Brownlow (the historian of the silent film era) and Andrew Mollo. They had previously made a documentary-style drama about an invasion of England called It Happened Here.

This film is set in the England of Oliver Cromwell, focusing on a group of people who have been disillusioned by the Civil War, are living in poverty, their land taken from them. They are able to create a community, they call themselves Diggers. Gerard Winstanley (Miles Halliwell) is the leader, who has a dram of a Utopia, an Eden where people can all live together with dignity.

Commentators said that the film reflected the disillusionment and the revolutions of the 1960s. However, the work of Brownlow and Mollo is very serious. They are historians and relish this re-creation of history. The small-budget film was shot in black and white and they filmed for over a year. In the background are General Fairfax as well as the presence of Oliver Cromwell.

Other images of the Cromwellian period include Ken Hughes's Cromwell with Richard Harris as the leader and Alec Guinness as Charles I. In 2003, there was a historical re-creation, To Kill a King, focusing on Cromwell (Tim Roth) and the leadership of Fairfax (Dougray Scott). Rupert Everett was Charles I.

This is a significant period in British history and films like this contribute to audience awareness and knowledge of the era. Unfortunately, this specialist film was not seen by as many people as it deserved to be.

1. An interesting film? Entertaining? Message? For British audiences? Audiences with interest in history, history of Christianity?

2. Production values: contribution of the British Film Institute? Small-budget production? Non-professional acting? The style of black and white photography, light and shadow? The starkness of the decor and atmosphere: the countryside, the town, the seasons, the wildness of England during the Civil War period? Editing and a sense of pace, the lifestyle of the non-conformists? The special effects for the battles? The reliance on close-ups and profiles for psychological insight into the main characters? The musical score? Sense of period, religious chant?

3. Audience knowledge of 17th. century history? The Jacobean era? The transition from the Tudor and Elizabethan period to the Jacobean? The Civil War? The Puritans? The importance of the prologue and the battle? Cromwell's attitudes, status? Religious stances? Social stances? The social concern of the Puritans? The positions of the antiroyalists? 17th. century Britain and subsequent centuries - and the influence of this movement into the 20th century? Contemporary interest in socialist experiments?

4. The focus on the group, the group as a symbol of the Puritan period? Audience interest in the group and understanding? Letters of sympathy? The diggers and the social movements and religious movements of the 17th. century? Social oppression, the peasant classes? The creative interplay between social reform and religion?

5. The portrait of Gerard Winstanley? As a man, of his times? His personal qualities and strengths? His being seen as a prophet? His writings? The importance of the voice-over with its tone and content? His earnestness, piety, knowledge of sacred scripture and application to 17th century England. Protestant theological stances, theology of faith, justice, justification? His personality? His qualities of leadership? Leading the diggers in their squatting? The setting up of the commune? Hard manual work? The supplying of basic needs? Prayer? The attacks? Drake? Platt? His wife and the journey? Winstanley's help, the plea - and her disillusionment? The mad anti-religious attitudes? The disciples and his hold over them? The quality of life, the hardships? The visits to General Fair fax and his pleas? The court and its harshness? Platt and his obstinacy? The destruction of the group? Yet their
hope? Winstanley as a symbol of religious protest and reform? Social reform? The symbol of the hill. the road and the lake?

6. The picture of Winstanley's disciples: their background, rough experience, suffering, the squatting, beliefs, petitions? The attacks? The turmoil? The courts? Prisons? Sympathy from other diggers?

7. Fairfax and his reputation in the Civil War? His advisers? His sense of justice? His statements of fairness? The visits and the possibilities of his support?

8. Drake and Platt - at home, Platt's severity, his wife and her reaction, her behaviour at home, piety, birth, her decision to go to the diggers. the military attack, her disillusionment, return? What Drake and Platt stood for?

9. The mad group and their behaviour, religious fanaticism. impression on people? The unbalanced side of the social reform?

10. The film's contribution to an understanding of oppressed peasant classes, hardship in the English countryside?