Power (British Cinema)

What is to be working class? 12 hours a day menial work, in the factory, down the fields, with the brain in the back pocket? Or is it a thing of beauty? Triumph over adversity, communities uniting against the common enemy of the ruling classes? The truest of family values? British working class cinema has always been plagued by this confusion, yet it often acts as its crowning glory. Pride and hatred in equal measure.

“We love the place we hate,

Then hate the place we love,

We leave the place we love,

Then spend a lifetime trying to regain it.”

Terence Davies sums up this conflict nicely in the opening moments of his film ‘Of Time and the City’ (2008). It is a meditation on his native Liverpool, celebrating the city and its people despite all its troubles, whilst pouring scorn on those that caused these problems. The monarchy get a bashing, with the Queens post second world war parade being referred to as the ‘Betty Windsor show.’ It paints a loving picture of a broken city. A city that he loves, but isn’t quite sure why.

There is a strong identity that exudes when reflecting on your roots, so no matter how far you have come in life (We leave the place we love), you will always have that special admiration for where it all began (Then spend a lifetime trying to regain it). This idea that we are anchored to our origins resonates throughout British cinema, none more so than in the films of Bill Douglas.

Little known to many, Bill Douglas only made four features before cancer cut his life tragically short in 1991. The bulk of his work was a trilogy of autobiographical films focusing on his upbringing in a small Scottish mining village. ‘My Childhood’ (1972), ‘My Ain Folk’ (1973) and ‘My Way Home’ (1978). His work truly is some of the most intriguing and thought provoking in the history of cinema, weaving what feels like a dream. Dispensing of dialogue for long periods he chooses to tell the story through facial expressions, the framing of the shot and some exquisite cinematography. Each scene is stripped to its barest bones, with few shot changes and little interest in linking sequences together coherently. But this is far from a criticism, it is what makes his style so special, and as a viewer you get the feeling you are witnessing a collection of the most haunting images of a young, poverty stricken boys life. This is what gives his work such poetic value. He grants squalor beauty, and no scene as profoundly as seeing the protagonist Jamie (Stephen Archibald) pour a mug full of boiling water until it overflows, before emptying it and placing it in the icy hands of his dozing Grandmother. Forty-five seconds told in just five shots with not a word spoken. Yet it is possibly the most tender moment the world of cinema has ever offered to me.

Jamie (Stephen Archibald) from the Bill Douglas trilogy

British cinema is often looked upon as a fairly downbeat brand. Admittedly there are a lot of hardships portrayed, but as Bill Douglas proves ad infinitum, a bleak vision need not be a bleak image.

Coming in hot on his heels with this ethos is Gideon Koppel, a welsh filmmaker who, in 2008 released his first feature, ‘sleep furiously’ (lack of capitals intended). It is a documentary in its loosest term (no narrator used) focusing on his birthplace Trefeurig, a small village in mid-west Wales. Two themes that are most prevalent in Koppel’s film are the importance of agriculture and education to the rural working class.  He traverses all corners of the community, sapping great beauty from the most inane things, such as his mother hanging out the washing.  Throughout the film, Koppel continually revisits the farmers working the land, the mobile library van creeping methodically in and out of town and the dismay surrounding the closure of the local school. Much of the dialogue is of the locals and is smacked with both nostalgia and fear of what the future holds. A woman laments the loss of the school at a community meeting.  The driver of the library van and one of the locals express their worries over the future of farming traditions. Not the most jovial it has to be said, but Koppel manages to drag wonderful humour from his subjects and surroundings, and sleep furiously is shot with such stunning confidence that any misery falls instantly to the wayside.

Koppels' Mother and dog

As with Bill Douglas, Koppel is not afraid of holding a shot for a profound effect, in fact I cannot think of any kind of camera movement throughout the entirety of sleep furiously. He picks his shot with such an eye that he need only hit record and stand by as the scene unfolds. One particular standout image is a thirty second time-lapse of a stall selling glow-sticks and sparklers on bonfire night to the tune of Alberto Balsalm, a track by Aphex Twin. It captures such a wealth of colour and imagination without once bowing to the temptation of referring to the fireworks exploding in the sky. Humanity is his explosion (A concept capable of sending Michael Bay into cardiac arrest). The shot then cuts abruptly to a piglet being born. While the rest of the village is at play the farm still grinds. Their fun is permitted through the toil in the fields.

Whilst on the subject of fields, it would be criminal to talk about obscure British cinema without mentioning the triumph that is ‘Comrades’(1987). It tells the story of the tolpuddle martyrs, a group of farm labourers sent to Australia in 1834 after attempting to start the first ever trade union. Without meaning to wax lyrical about Bill Douglas, this was the last film he directed, and it was distributed disastrously. Limited cinematic releases were followed by just two showings on channel 4. Only now in 2010 has it finally been rescued from the mire and given a DVD release along with his trilogy by the BFI.  At the epicentre of this film, once again, is that ever-occurring concept of unity. Their creation of a trade union may have been what got them sent away, but it was also what brought them back and contributed to huge change in British social structure.

The grass roots, often autobiographical nature of the British film means that they are without exception directed by someone of a working class background. Despite Terence Davies accent being the antithesis of typical Liverpudlian, his anger at all things oppressing the working class really resonates. The haunting images in the Bill Douglas trilogy that seem so deeply personal to him. Their films exude their personality and their roots. So under that pretence it would be fairly hard to imagine Michael Winner helming a gritty, kitchen-sink drama about the mid-80’s miner strikes. In fact the thought of it makes me shudder.

The beginning of the 1990’s saw a huge resurgence in the popularity of the social-realist drama. The films of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach in many ways were a kind of doubled edged sword for its reputation. And to this day many British people think of our own cinema with the old adage that ‘it ain’t ‘alf grim up north.’ In a way they have become parodies of themselves. However, it is extremely important, to look at them within the boundaries of their social context. This was a time of Margaret Thatcher, a time when the working class were in the grip of political strangulation by a conservative government. High unemployment and little light at the end of the tunnel. The films of Leigh and Loach let the working class know that they were being noticed and gave them hope. They were films made for the working class by the working class.

A great comparison is that of post second world war Italy. Amidst the carnage rose a cinematic movement that came to be known as ‘neo-realism’. They dealt with issues that the working class could relate to, such as ‘Bicycle Thieves’ (1948) about a man whose job falls into jeopardy for reasons obvious in the title. It is in no way dissimilar to Ken Loach’s ‘Raining Stones’ (1993) where Bob (Bruce Jones) has his van stolen, his only means of gathering enough money to pay for his daughter’s communion dress.

“You never invented the system son, but its up to us to change it.”

What Jimmy says to Bruce Jones’ Bob resonates throughout Loach’s films and the social-realist genre. There is power in the union of the working class.

Mike Leigh’s ‘Secrets and Lies’(1996) takes this concept further, portraying the relationship between Maurice (Timothy Spall), a moderately successful photographer living in comfortable middle class surroundings, and his older sister Cynthia – wonderfully played by Brenda Blethyn, who remains tied to their working class roots, still living in their parents old house. It hits the futility of class divide spectacularly on the head. Material possessions are all that separate us, and in the end we all want the same things regardless of class. Health, happiness and family. The simple things. Everyone suffers in Secrets and Lies because they are in some way deprived of one or more of these three things, and Maurice sits at the centre being torn every which way.

“Secrets and lies! We're all in pain! Why can't we share our pain? I've spent my entire life trying to make people happy, and the three people I love the most in the world hate each other's guts, and I'm in the middle!”

Their suffering is such because they are broken as a family. Broken mainly due to the pointless nature of the supposed class divide. To share their pain is to ease it.

In the end, the cinema of the British working class can be attributed to one word. Community. Lack of it providing problems, and ample instilling hope. As a country we are severely lacking in pride for our national cinema. With no disrespect, it is all too easy to focus on the obvious such as Leigh and Loach but you can always dig a little deeper to find the kind of gems offered by Douglas and Koppel. Recurring thematics don’t necessarily call for recurring style. Lets not typecast our own cinema, lets show some community spirit or we will be forever deprived of our best talent as they jump ship to Hollywood in order to fulfill their ambitions. Don’t worry though, we can let them keep Paul W.S Anderson.