“And wherever he went, he took with him his music, his poetry, his language and his children… thus within a century of Culloden, the English and the Scottish lowlanders had made secure forever their religion, their commerce, their culture, their ruling dynasty.”Culloden [The Battle of Culloden] (Peter Watkins, 1964)
Jul
27
Bagpipe Appreciation Day
John Hunt Leigh in Culloden, pìobaireachd “ceòl mór” (litt. piping “great music”). DP: Dick Bush.
Great Highland #bagpipes, or a' phìob mhòr as they're called in Scottish Gaelic, are traditionally played on the battlefield. Peter Watkins' Culloden moves the senseless bloodshed from 1960s Vietnam to the Scottish Highlands of 1746.
– narrator
The most clearly it's seen in the men's eyes. That stare we recognise all too well from the many images that reached the west in the 60s, ever before and after.