Winstanley

'Research is for wimps.' The Coen brothers' playful remark would have found little favour with Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo had they heard it when making their meticulously accurate and luminously filmed account of England's first commune established in 1649 by Gerrard Winstanley on St George's Hill in Surrey - now prime stockbroker territory. The so-called 'Diggers' tried to assert their right to plough up common land and plant crops. Drawing on David Caute's novel 'Comrade Jacob' and using verbatim statements made by Winstanley himself in his pamphlets, as well as attending to such details as the right kind of pigs and poultry, the film-makers situated the conflict over land rights squarely in the 17th century, but contemporary concerns seep through.