We value Peter Batty's careful historical storytelling, built from archive footage and eyewitness testimony. His work on The World at War is a substantial contribution to a series we recommend without hesitation.
Fi1m perspective
The archive footage and eyewitness accounts in The World at War (1973) make the Second World War difficult to regard as a safely distant subject. We found the series distressing because those accounts brought the suffering in its historical record uncomfortably close. It is absorbing television, and it earns the sustained attention it asks for. Batty specialises in archive-based documentaries about twentieth-century conflicts and military campaigns, combining eyewitness testimony with rare footage in long-form series and one-off films.
Batty wrote, produced and directed six episodes of the 26-part series, including Barbarossa and On Our Way: U.S.A.. Those combined duties matter: his contribution involved deciding what to say about the history as well as how to present it. The detailed research and scripting deserve attention alongside the handling of footage and testimony. Producer Jeremy Isaacs is a collaborator here, and it would be wrong to claim the whole achievement for Batty. There is nevertheless enough responsibility in those six episodes to make his contribution worth following beyond this programme.
The later independent documentaries keep that interest in military history while narrowing the subject. Battle for Warsaw (1978) uses archive material to examine the 1944 Warsaw Uprising; Battle for Dien Bien Phu (1979) concerns the battle of 1954. Batty was writer, producer and director on both, retaining those responsibilities beyond The World at War. With the five-part The Divided Union: The Story of the American Civil War (1987), which he also wrote, produced and directed, he worked at series length on an earlier conflict.
The World at War earns its length through the use of witnesses and footage; the subject alone would not make it absorbing. That gives us a demanding standard for approaching Batty's other work. Begin with that series, and leave a little time afterwards before choosing something cheerful.
Biography
Peter Batty is a British documentary filmmaker, director, producer and writer. Born on 18 June 1931 in Sunderland, he read for a BA at Queens’ College, Cambridge, and an MA at Oxford before starting as a feature writer for the Financial Times in 1954.
He joined the BBC as a producer in 1958, later becoming editor of the Tonight programme, and moved to ATV London as executive producer and associate head of factual programming. In 1968 he founded Peter Batty Productions, through which he has written, produced and directed numerous historical documentaries.
Batty contributed to the series The World at War (1973) as writer, producer and director of several episodes. His other credits include Battle for Warsaw (1978), Battle for Dien Bien Phu (1979) and the five-part series The Divided Union (1987) on the American Civil War.
