It’s been said before, but it bears repeating – Peter Watkins may be the most under-appreciated important filmmaker of his generation, an artist and thinker whose challenging approach to both global politics and the formal structure of cinema has resulted in a body of work that’s had a powerful effect on the few who’ve been lucky enough to see it. However provocative Watkins critiques of the balance of political power and influence may be, they haven’t endeared him to the mainstream film industry, and the fact most of his movies have been produced outside the studio system – for television or independent concerns, and in some cases with the support of academic institutions as part of advanced film classes — hasn’t helped them gain the visibility they deserve. But it’s significant that the one feature Watkins produced for a major studio has been nearly as hard to see as any of his other pictures. In 1967, after Watkins had briefly become an international cause celebre thanks to the controversy over his award-winning look at the aftermath of a nuclear attack on England, The War Game, he became one of a handful of maverick talents who were signed to make low-budget films for the UK branch of Universal Pictures. At a budget of $700,000, Watkins’ Privilege was among the least expensive of the lot, though it remains the most lavish project of Watkins’ career. Despite receiving some excellent reviews in the United States, Privilege didn’t fare well at the box office and enjoyed only a brief run in cinemas; it reached its largest audience when it was included in a package of movies Universal syndicated to local television stations in the 70’s, and by the end of that decade, the film had all but vanished. Fortunately, Project X Distribution in Canada and New Yorker Films in the United States have been making a growing number of Watkins films available on DVD, many for the first time, and this month they’ve teamed up to give Privilege its first authorized home video release ever.

Privilege is set in “the near future” so popular with sci-fi authors, in this case the early 70’s. Steven Shorter (played by Paul Jones, former lead singer with Manfred Mann) is a pop star whose career has been carefully managed with the help of the British government; playing on his former status as a juvenile offender, Shorter’s handlers have made him the center of a bizarre stage show in which he sings from a jail cell while in handcuffs, and he’s beaten by policemen with clubs until his frenzied fans rush the stage to rescue him. Shorter’s persona and live show have been designed to slake teenagers’ appetite for violence and to give them a rebellious figure they can identify with, and they’ve made him the UK’s biggest star. In turn, Shorter is used to push British goods to his audience, and he promotes everything from records and fashions to fresh fruit and dog food. Offstage, Shorter is clearly unhappy with his life as a media idol, but few around him seem to notice besides Vanessa Ritchie (Jean Shrimpton, then Britain’s number one fashion model), an artist who has been commissioned to paint a portrait of the singer. Shorter’s uneasiness grows when his management team reveals to him the next phase of his career – as part of a nationwide Christian crusade, Steven Shorter is to publicly repent and urge his fans to give up youthful rebellion in exchange for a conformity that will benefit Church, State and Industry.

Like nearly all of Watkins’ films, Privilege is a mock documentary, using the structure and visual style of non-fiction filmmaking to give the material a realistic gravity. While Watkins’ first two features, Culloden and The War Game (now available on a single DVD from New Yorker), were shot on black and white 16mm stock to resemble contemporary television news coverage, Privilege was filmed in 35mm Technicolor by Peter Suschitzky, and the richer visual style allows the film to walk a line between feigned actuality and the more polished portrayal of “Swinging London” in films like Blow Up and Smashing Time. The film’s principle focus is on Steven Shorter and how he’s used as a tool of the British government, but it also offers a look into the underbelly of the music business, often with witty results, especially when Mark London, Max Bacon and Victor Henry (all playing members of Shorter’s team of handlers) are given an opportunity to improvise. While the hysteria of the audiences in Privilege was criticized as hyperbole by some reviewers, the new DVD edition includes as a bonus Lonely Boy, a 1962 documentary on Paul Anka which Watkins cites as a key influence, and the behavior of Anka’s teenage fans at he croons onstage in New York and New Jersey is, if anything, far more extreme than anything Watkins could stage (and this at a time when Anka’s career as a teen star was beginning to wane). Lonely Boy also offers a behind the scenes glimpse of the pop music biz that’s both fascinating and slightly creepy, and Watkins lifts one of the documentary’s most memorable lines, having Shorter’s overseer echo the word’s of Anka’s manager that “God gave him something I don’t think has been given to anyone in the last 500 years.”

If Privilege has a failing, it’s the lead performance by Paul Jones as Steven Shorter. Jones certainly has the voice, looks and charisma of a pop star, and he’s never less than convincing in the concert sequences, but he tends to overdo Shorter’s angst, making him seem emo beyond the demands of the script even when he’s supposed to be putting on the charm for his fans, and he unwittingly telegraphs Shorter’s fall from grace with his behavior. Jean Shrimpton, who like Jones made her acting debut in Privilege, fares considerably as Vanessa, and if she tends to underplay as much as Jones overplays, it suits her character better and she brings a compassion to the role that gives the movie a needed balance. (It seems ironic in retrospect that Jones would go on to a long career in film and television, while Shrimpton abandoned acting after making Privilege.) And Mike Leander’s songs and score are excellent; “Free Me” and “I’ve Been A Bad, Bad Boy” sound like he hits they were supposed to be in the film, and though the big-beat version of “Onward Christian Soldiers” is just as ridiculous as it’s intended to be, the folk rock arrangement of the British hymn “Jerusalem” is unexpectedly haunting, giving the song a spectral power that’s both beautiful and troubling in the context of the movie.

While Watkins’ films are often viewed as hysterical or alarmist when they’re released, time tends to confirm their judgments – the angry tribunals and grim tortures meted out in 1971’s Punishment Park, for example, were condemned as wildly unrealistic, but these days the events at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay suggest Watkins was unfortunately prescient. So can the same be said for Privilege? Well, a Steven Shorter hasn’t been created by the U.S. government just yet, but a look at the career arc of the Dixie Chicks is certainly instructive. The Dallas-based Dixie Chicks released their first major label album in 1998, and within a year they were one of the most popular acts in the United States, selling millions of CD’s and filling arenas everywhere. Then in March 2003, with the U.S. poised to invade Iraq, lead singer Natalie Maines told a concert audience in London, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” Once word about Maines’ comments filtered back to America, the Dixie Chicks suddenly found that all their songs had been pulled from airplay by radio stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, easily America’s biggest broadcasting conglomerate. Clear Channel stations across the nation also held rallies denouncing the Dixie Chicks, with fans encouraged to bring CD’s by the group to smash. As the controversy grew, with Clear Channel fanning the flames, their stations began boosting the career of Toby Keith, a firmly conservative country singer and songwriter whose hit “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue” was regarded as either fiercely patriotic or wildly reactionary, depending on your politics. Despite the fact that the Dixie Chicks’ first three major label albums, Wide Open Spaces, Fly and Home respectively sold twelve million, ten million and six million copies, while Keith’s two most popular discs, Shock ‘n Y’all and Unleashed, have moved a more modest four million each, he remains a staple on Clear Channel’s country outlets, and the Chicks are still persona non grata even as their most recent album Taking The Long Way moved two million units with no appreciable country airplay.

It should be noted that Clear Channel donated a significant amount of money to George W. Bush’s presidential campaign, and that Bush and Clear Channel vice president Tom Hicks have had a long and mutually profitable business relationship. While Bush was governor of Texas, he appointed Hicks to the Board of Regents of the University of Texas, and Hicks took $9 billion of the school’s money and created the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO), a privately held firm that unlike the Board of Regents was not required to have open meetings or make its activities public. Hicks returned the favor by later buying the Texas Rangers baseball team from Bush – Bush ponied up $606,000 in 1989 to be part of an outfit that bought the Rangers for $14.9 million, and in 1998 Hicks paid $250 million for the Rangers, giving the future president a multi-million dollar profit. Michael Powell was the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission during much of the buying spree that led to Clear Channel owning more broadcast outlets than any corporation in history. Powell was also a staunch supporter of new media ownership laws that helped make Clear Channel’s blob-like growth possible, and he just so happens to be the son of Bush’s first secretary of state, Colin Powell. All of this suggests that the Bush administration has been more practical than the British state depicted in Privilege; rather than taking control of the media to sway public opinion, in true conservative fashion they’ve privatized that job and handed it over to someone else.