In this essay I
propose to examine the films of contemporary filmmaker Shane Meadows in
relation to recent trends in British Social Realism. I will initially outline
the lineage of contemporary post 'Brit-Grit' films that Meadows' works are a
part of, tracing them back to their traditional British social realist roots
and thus placing the films within their historical context. Additionally, I
will address the difficulties in classifying contemporary British realist
films. Although it is easy to 'run together differing forms of film-making
practice' in the case of traditional and contemporary social realist modes of
film-making and to 'identify this as a relatively unbroken tradition' (Hill
2000: 249), it is not only their continuities, but discontinuities which need
to be examined. As Samantha Lay comments, 'there are a number of issues and
questions, changes and developments that need to be addressed… in relation to
British social realism. First and foremost it might be fruitful to re-consider
the term 'British social realism'' (Lay 2002: 120). 'British Cinema has indeed
had an enduring relationship with social realism… [it] has been a major mode of
expression in British screen culture that continues to this day' (Lay 2002: 2)
but 'whilst certain well-established conventions have been maintained, some
have been transformed and transmuted. In addition, the hybridity in form and
style, and the shifts in terms of themes, issues and representations, pose new
questions for British social realism' (Lay 2002: 99).
I will attempt to tackle some
of these questions by addressing the ways in which Meadows' works are representative
of the 'shifts' that Lay describes, examining primarily how he moves away from
public and direct political engagement, towards a more private and personal
one. Unlike middle-class British New Wave directors such as Tony Richardson and
John Schlesinger and renowned social realist film-makers Ken Loach and Mike
Leigh who 'could only respond to a moment they helped construct but did not
live' (Lay 2002:112), ‘Meadows comes from the community whose stories he is
telling’ (Macnab 1998).
Lay cites
Gary Oldman's Nil by Mouth (1997),
a 'semi-autobiographical tale of a working class family' as an
example of a contemporary social realist work. She asserts that this is 'new
and refreshing' (Lay 2002: 112), having been made by an insider, 'someone who
has actually come from not only the background, but the actual locations used
in the film' (Lay 2002: 112). I posit that Shane Meadows, like Oldman, also
produces work which is 'new and refreshing' due to his status as a native
insider. In looking at Meadows' A Room For Romeo Brass (1999), Somers Town (2008) and
This Is England (2006), I intend to explore how his personal connection
with the characters and environments he depicts informs his directorial style
and approach, resulting in captivating, and realistic insights into the lives
of his complex, disturbing, but ultimately endearing (underclass) characters.
Transmutations
and Transformations: From New Wave Cinema to Contemporary Social Realism
From the twentieth century
onwards there has been a long-standing tradition of social realist film-making
in British Cinema. Deriving 'from a variety of cultural and political
assumptions about the workings of society and the role within society that
cinema should play' (Hill 2000: 250), early forms of British social realism
(namely the Free Cinema of the 1950s, and the subsequent British New Wave cycle
of the 1960s) were born out of a 'fascination with traditional working class
culture and the ambition to represent what is contemporary about contemporary
Britain' (Lacey 1995:167).
Counterposed to mainstream
Hollywood cinema with its claims to having what Higson describes as a 'surface
realism, an iconography which authentically reproduces the visual and aural
surfaces of the 'British way of life' and a 'moral realism... involv[ing] a
moral commitment to a particular set of social problems and solutions, a
particular social formation' (Higson 1996: 136) (two attributes which are
inevitably tied), British social realist cinema was heavily influenced by the
documentary movement of the 1930s and 1940s. Key figure of this movement, John
Grierson, set up documentary film units whose productions were aimed at
educating audiences about social and political issues. As Higson comments, 'the
moral force of [the] regime of representation' in British social realism 'is
really a reworking of the sociological, propagandist strand in the documentary
movement of the 1930s (Higson, 1986; and 1995: 176ff.) with its rhetoric of
social responsibility, of education and instruction' (Higson 1996: 137).
For social realist filmmakers
with an ideology aligned to that behind the documentary mode, 'film should not
merely reflect the surface realities of everyday life, but should penetrate
that surface to reveal human truths’ (Lay 2002: 62). The concern for a
documentary-style 'moral realism', however, brings about a 'resistance to the
more self-consciously aesthetic strand in the movement' (Higson 1996: 137).
Representing 'human truths' on screen is more problematic for the social
realist film (with its fictional narrative) than for the documentary; cinematic
'claims for realism are invariably multivalent' (Higson 1996: 135) due to the
tension between fictional narratives and the real. It is this tension which
initially 'left a residual sense of the aesthetic, the stylistic, as a problem
in British film culture' (Higson 1996: 137).
Higson notes the conflict between ''documentary realism' and 'romantic
atmosphere'; between social problem and pleasurable spectacle'' (Higson 1996:
134) but aptly comments on how, 'within the Griersonian discourses of the
1930s' there was also, in fact, an underlying poetic aestheticism, 'involv[ing]
a more perfect conjunction of surface realism and moral realism, a conjunction
which in fact transcends ordinariness, which makes the ordinary strange,
beautiful - poetic' (Higson 1996: 137).
This point serves to remind us
that there
has always been an ongoing dialectic between the realist and more poetic
discourses in play within the social realist mode, and that the term 'social
realism' itself is one which has a fluid, rather than fixed meaning, with its
modes and cycles overlapping and interlinking. Although 'on the surface,
British cinema and art cinema appear incompatible' (Forrest 2009: 191), New
Wave (and post New Wave) filmmaking practices are, in fact, very much aligned
to art cinema approaches.
The social realist mode, and British New Wave cinema in
particular, is renowned for its 'long and meditative treatments of urban space'
(Forrest 2009). Professing themselves to be realist, the representation of
space and place is of foremost significance, fulfilling the function of putting
the narrative in its historical perspective and authenticating the fictional
world. According to Higson, 'the significance of the film is not so much its
story as the reality of its events. This emphasis on place in - or against -
the narrative historicizes the narrative' (Higson 1996: 140).Whilst the
emotional interactions between characters are at the core of Meadows' films,
the representation of place and space works to accentuate the inner emotional
states of the individuals. However, although his stance as a regional
film-maker (he shoots on location in industrial towns, council estates and
working-class areas, generally employing local actors) renders the importance
of place within his films, his settings have not so much historicising roles as
psychologising ones. Higson remarks how the 'relationship of landscape and
character is in effect psychological: it is not just that the character is in
the landscape, but that the landscape becomes part of the character' (Higson
1996: 144). In this way, place becomes 'a signifier of character, a metaphor
for the state of mind of the protagonists' (Higson 1996: 134). Shane Meadows'
work is illustrative of this, epitomising the hybridity of form and style in
social realist filmmaking, and the synthesis between social realist and
arthouse practices; as Forrest points out, 'just as in the New Wave, Meadows
interrupts the apparent realist texture of his film with a stylistic flourish
that demands interpretation on a more poetic level' (Forrest 2009: 196/7).
This more poetic visual
treatment of space is evident in Somers
Town, Meadows' first production to be set outside the Midlands. Having been
approached by advertising company Mother to conceive a short film to mark the
new Eurostar service from Kings Cross St Pancras in London, Meadows was
initially wary about attaching himself to a corporately-funded project.
However, after reading the script written by Paul Fraser, and having been
granted free reign to make the film without corporate interference, he agreed
to take the project on. Whilst this move was met with cynicism, the premise for
the film criticised as being glorified promotional material for Eurostar,
Sandhu points out how ‘the film isn’t tattooed with logos. Its dialogue is
plug-free [and] it's a far cry from Hollywood product placement’ (Sandhu 2008).
Whilst its location in its geographical namesake renders its physical
difference from Meadows’ previous films and historicises it to some degree, Somers Town’s environment bears
surprising resemblance to the former. As Emma Sutton notes, ‘regionalism and locality are recurring themes in
Meadows' oeuvre, yet that space is
never clearly identified’: for example, ‘we assume This is England is
set in Nottingham as it has been filmed there, yet there are two points in the
film where the protagonist is by the sea’ (Sutton 2010). The lack of distinctly
defined spaces and frequent use of empty, isolated environments is a Meadowsian
trait, creating a sense of spatial and temporal detachment which is evident
even in Somers Town. Despite Somers Town’s inner London location, it is
cut off from the surrounding areas of the
city by train stations. An area
which, until recently (it is now
undergoing reconstruction) was run-down and saturated with council estates, it largely
resisted gentrification and its sense of removal from the city is invoked by
Meadows’ on-screen presentation of the area. Shot on 16mm in black and white
(apart from the final sequence where it switches to grainy Super 8 colour
footage), the washed out palette and vérité style camerawork, underscored by a mellow soundtrack
provided by long-term musical collaborator Gavin Clark, infuses the film with a
sense of timelessness. According to Sandhu, the black and white cinematography
'recalls the Polish New Wave
in the Sixties, and is alive to the cold beauty of this manufactured landscape
whose changes mirror those of the characters who are moving from adolescence to
adulthood, from small cities to huge metropolis, isolation to guarded
companionship' (Sandhu 2008).
As
a whole, then, British social realism (which Meadows' films are ascended from)
can be seen as ‘contesting, re-drawing, and redefining the issues,
representation and treatment of contemporary society on film... popularising...
fictions of everyday life, extending cinema’s range of issues, characters,
stories and settings’ (Lay 2002: 68) in a plurality of forms and style.
Although Meadows’ films may
have antecedents in the
politically-committed social realism of the 1950s and 1960s and 'do seek to
engender a sense of social injustice', they do not carry 'explicit political
messages' (Allen et al. 2001: 227), instead focusing on individual protagonists
and their emotional interactions with their environment. For this reason, and
taking into account the difficulty in classifying social realist works due to
the mode's continuously changing form, my analysis of Shane Meadows' films will
consist of a critical approach divorced from political interrogation. In his
seminal essay 'Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice' David Bordwell describes
art cinema as being motivated 'by two principles: realism and authorial
expressivity' (Bordwell 2002: 95). He posits that this 'does not negate the
possibility to engage with potentially problematic socio-political issues, and
crucially... encourages us to interrogate the film's many subtleties and
nuances' (Bordwell 2002:95). Bordwell's argument, along with David Forrest's
suggestion that 're-evaluating the British social realist canon on the basis of
art cinema style and authorship offers us the opportunity to strengthen and
diversify the critical discourse surrounding the mode' (Forrest 2009: 192)
gives credence to my decision to examine Shane Meadow's work from my intended
angle. Whilst I will touch upon some artistic and stylistic attributes of his
films, I will chiefly focus my filmic analysis on thematic threads which render
Meadows' works emotionally realist. In doing so I hope to reach a conclusion as
to how themes, characterisation, performance and style in Meadows’ films
intertwine to create evocative and realistic films that resonate with audiences
across boundaries of class and culture. Before this, however, I will look at
Meadows' works in relation to recent movements in Social Realism, thus
contextualising them further.
From
the public to the private, the political to the personal
New Wave films and Kitchen Sink dramas of the 1950s and
1960s were typically concerned with the demise of the traditional working class
'in the face of growing consumerism' (Hill 2000: 178). The impact of this ‘growing consumerism’
was reflected in the changing mode of film exhibition; the period saw the
decline of the British film industry as cinema-going drastically decreased
(triggered predominantly by the withdrawal of American funding) while home
consumption became commonplace and social realism’s integration into television
schedules ensued. Drama strands such as ITVs Armchair Theatre (1956-1974) and BBC1s The Wednesday Play
(1964-1970) which screened weekly contemporary social drama plays written
for television (such as Ken Loach's landmark Cathy Come Home (1966))
marked the synthesis of the theatrical and filmic arts and, furthermore, their
translation from a public to a domestic sphere. 'Television, it will be argued,
from this point, became the 'natural home' of British social realism and
sustained it throughout the hard time ahead in the following decades' (Lay
2002: 68), providing filmmakers with a medium whereby they could showcase their
works when the big screen would not allow. It enabled their 'legacy' to be
'kept alive in British television drama throughout the 1960s and 1970s' (Hallam
& Marshment 2000: 51) before it was able to re-emerge in the cinema in the
1980s.
Ken Loach and Mike Leigh are two filmmakers whose careers
were boosted by the interrelation between the film and broadcasting industries
that developed in the 1960s; ‘descendants of the realist flowering at the BBC … [they] assessed the impact of
the consumer society on family life, charting the erosion of the welfare state
and the consensus that built it’ (Armstrong 2011). While the New Wave devotion
to representing the under-represented has continued in the realist films and
television dramas produced by Loach, Leigh and their contemporaries, 'unlike
[in] the earlier group of films, there [is less] sense of the corrupting
effects of affluence or embourgeoisement. Rather it [is] the damage wrought by
de-industrialisation, mass unemployment and poverty typical of the Thatcher
years (1979)' (Hill 2000: 178) that is articulated through their observations
of working-class life. Ken Loach’s television plays (Up the Junction (1965), Cathy
Come Home (1965)) and more recent feature films such as Riff-Raff (1993) and My Name Is Joe (1998), along with
Michael Winterbottom's landmark drama series The Family (1995) 'helped provoke cinematic interest in portraying
life on the council estates where those who hadn't benefited from Thatcherite
prosperity were confined' (Murphy 2000: 13). Meanwhile, Mike Leigh ‘established
himself as a shrewd observer of social types' (Allen et al. 2001: 195) with his BBC television plays of the 1970s (which saw
him satirise middle-class attitudes in dramas such as Abigail’s Party (1977)) and his later television and feature films
(such as Meantime (1983), High Hopes (1988) and All Or Nothing (2002)) which focused more
tightly on the daily struggles of the working-class family. Higson’s argument
that a ‘changing conceptualisation of the relation between the public and the
private… the political and the personal’ occurred (Higson in Barr 1986: 83) can
be seen through Loach's and Leigh's work. This idea has been revisited by
Samantha Lay in recent years; as she iterates, a ‘tighter focus on family life
and individuals signals a major shift from the politics of the social and the
public, to the politics of the personal and the private' (Lay 2002: 107).
Shane Meadows’ films also serve as apt examples of this
shift. Often compared to Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, his unobtrusive film-making
style visually renders his alignment to them (for example, the use of long
takes, limited cutting and camera movement). Additionally, his employment of improvisational
techniques, which ‘places the characters and their interaction at the centre of
the work’ (Allen
et al. 2001: 195), echoes those
characteristically utilised by Leigh. But, while Loach’s and Leigh’s work is
very much of the vein of the socio-political films of the New Wave (arguably
‘circumscribed by an often patronisingly sympathetic subjugation of the
working-class experience’ (Brown 2007: 102)), Meadows’ diverges here; in marked
contrast, Meadows’ ‘observations of lower-class losers and misfits are made
from the perspective of a native insider rather than a sympathetic visitor’
(Macnab 1998). In interview, the director himself has, in fact, criticised how
“a lot of the working-class characters were really over the top and not
celebrated” in Leigh's work (Shane Meadows Interview 28/09/04). The ‘unflinching attention [Meadows] pays to the characters
… and his willingness to embrace their complexity, regardless of what his own
opinions are’ (Brown 2007: 84) would appear, then, to arise out of his personal
connection with the stories that he is telling.
Shane Meadows: A Native Insider
The majority of Meadows’ films are semi-autobiographical and
set in the Midlands where he grew up (born in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, he then
moved to Nottingham in his twenties). His low-budget debut feature Smalltime (1996) (made with funding from
the BFI), is a comedy following a group of petty crooks in Nottingham. Starring
Meadows as Jumbo and with his friends making up the rest of the cast, ‘Smalltime
had genuine origins in the (non-) working-class community it depicted’ and
serves as an early indicator of Meadows’ interest in employing comic devices as
a form of expressing emotion. One consequence of his positioning to the film’s
subject matter is that, as Claire Monk comments, ‘[he] never idealises,
sanitises or aggrandises its protagonists. Their swearing, sexual behaviour and
limited criminal and intellectual horizons are all presented in hilariously
unbowdlerised fashion’ (Monk 1999: 185). While his following feature films take
on a more serious tone than Smalltime,
Meadows’ roots remain central to his work, and his proximity to the
working-class characters he represents impacts on his handling of them; for
most part, he observes them with a non-judgemental, unpatronising, yet
unsentimental eye and resists from portraying them as ‘the other’. He states,
“No matter how dark a film is… I still care about even the darkest characters.
When you’re inside, it’s different, someone that’s viewed from the outside as
just a foul bastard has often got another side”(Shane
Meadows Interview 28/09/04). This remark
would indicate that the lack of political agenda across Meadows’ films is as a
result of his affinity to the characters and environment he presents. While his
films are concerned with the
effects of social deprivation, his narratives do not focus on the repercussions
of social deprivation in an explicitly political sense as a film-maker like
Loach’s undeniably do; Meadows, in contrast, ‘refrains from portrayals of the
underclass that discuss them as a [sic] either social victims or social
problems’ (Brown 2007: 85).
By primarily paying attention to A Room For Romeo Brass (1999), Somers Town (2008) and This Is England (2006), I intend
to illustrate how a blend of emotion, comedy and brutality in Meadows’ films
effectively immerses the viewer, allowing audiences across class divides and
cultures to access and relate to the characters and situations presented on
screen. According to Brown, recent social realist works have ‘found a means of
representing the working-class experience in a way that seems to encourage
audience recognition and understanding, rather than simply resorting to a
sympathetic regard for the underprivileged communities depicted’ (Brown 2007: 102).
I propose that Meadows’ work epitomises this trend, the impact of his status as
native insider on his work adding a new dimension to Higson’s (politically
referenced) argument regarding the social realist shift in focus from the
public and political, to the personal and private.
Boyhood
interactions and comedic musings
Arguably, Meadows tackles serious subject matter with
tenderness, and a light-hearted playfulness which, as Hall notes, ‘is rarely
permitted to coarsen into parody or caricature’ (Hall 2006). In his thesis
'Laughing with Good and Evil' Stuart Duncan Brown proposes that the observance
of laughter in his works ‘highlight[s] an overall concerted effort to provide
the audience with a view from within; portraying a heightened interest in the potential
for common experience and a common humanity to be established between audience
and subject’ (Brown 2007: 102).
Meadows' investment in the emotional interactions between
characters is at the forefront of his work. In his second feature A Room For
Romeo Brass (1999) Meadows' thematic preoccupation with boyhood
friendships, which recurs in his later films (particularly in This is
England and Somers Town), is central to the narrative. Essentially a
coming-of-age story, A Room for Romeo Brass centres around young
neighbours Romeo Brass and Gavin ‘Knocks’ Woolley growing up on a Nottingham
council estate. A chance encounter with twenty-something misfit Morrell occurs
when he intervenes and saves Knocks from a beating by local thugs. It sees
Morrell's swift insinuation into the duo's lives as he enlists their help to
win the heart of Romeo's sister Ladine, with whom he develops an obsession
after driving the boys home. Initially seemingly innocent and 'a figure of fun,
[Morrell] is gradually revealed as a dangerous sociopath' (Hall 2006). His
increasingly volatile behaviour drives a wedge between Romeo and Knocks,
however, this is only temporary, and their bond resurfaces at the end of the
film.
Whilst we witness the 'dark world of an
emotionally sub-normal adult' (Bradshaw 2000) through the depiction of Morrell,
the interaction between Romeo and Gavin provides a lighter meditation on the
vicissitudinous relationship between two youths. Mirroring that between Meadows
and his best friend (and co-writer) Paul
Fraser, A Room For Romeo Brass 'begins with two young
boys, and a sweetly comic, naturalistic evocation of their bantering childhood
friendship' (Bradshaw 2000). Preceding their encounter with awkward loner
Morrell, the nature of Romeo's and Gavin's friendship is cemented through a
series of wryly observed scenes drawn from Meadows' and Fraser's own
experience. At the opening of the film, the schoolchildren are first seen
venturing to a local fish and chip shop (Meadows has a cameo here as the chip
shop owner), where Romeo has been sent to fetch dinner for his family. Ordering
a family-sized portion of chips but refusing Knocks’ request to have any on the
grounds that they’re for his mother and sister, Romeo then proceeds to tuck
into them himself. After finishing one portion Romeo starts eating from another
as the boys sit outside en route back home. Romeo’s comeback to Knocks’
moaning about the amount of food he has consumed (“Shut up, I’m just doing this
to even them out so no one complains”) is humorous, and sets out the jovial
nature of their relationship. Additionally, the colloquial dialogue between the
two (which paints an authentic portrait of playful interaction between
adolescents), combined with their spatial positioning (the playground noticeable
in the background is a visual reminder of their youth), reminds us that the duo
are on the cusp of maturity, about to undergo a transition from childhood to
adulthood. Here, a simple trip to the chip shop not only outlines the nature of
Romeo’s and Knock’s friendship, but also promotes the notion that the minutiae
of everyday lives and the provincial interaction between ordinary characters is
of greater significance than it may appear on the surface, vitally influencing
their identity formation as individuals.
In Meadows' Somers Town (2008)
he similarly presents this idea, charting an oddly incongruous cross-cultural
friendship between two adolescents, tough-minded runaway Tomo and sensitive
Polish immigrant Marek. After meeting in a local London cafe, Tomo’s
mischievous teasing of Marek (about photographs of the waitress Maria that he
has taken) establishes an unusual but endearing dynamic between two outsiders
brought together by chance. Like A Room For Romeo Brass, Somers Town
is loaded with humorous vignettes featuring the young boys’ escapades which
evoke a sense that their boyhood interactions have notable connotations in
informing their voyages of self discovery. Tomo's and Marek's partnership,
similarly to Romeo's and Knocks', is so alluring because of their differences
in character; their parallel dynamics are invocations of Meadows’ and Frasers’
own growing up. Tomo, like Romeo, puts on a confident front and is prone to
unruly behaviour. Meadows’ filmic counterparts (as is Shaun in This Is England), their apparent
waywardness is arguably the result of an absence of a father figure in their
lives (Tomo has grown up in social care, Romeo is initially estranged from his
father and Shaun’s father is revealed to have died fighting in the Falkland’s
War). Knocks and Marek, in contrast, are more introverted characters with a
quieter sensibility; the cinematic embodiments of Fraser, their sense of
alienation echoes that experienced by Fraser when he was bedridden for two
years following a back injury. While Tomo, Romeo and Shaun are accustomed
to putting on a bravado to mask their
insecurities, Knocks and Marek are ill equipped to do so; bearing more awkward
gestures and mannerisms, Knocks’ limp and Marek’s Polish accent are
irrepressible reminders of personal obstacles they are faced with which
signifies their detachment from the conventional norms of society. The
mis-matched nature of the young couples is embraced by Meadows. Like Romeo and
Knocks in A Room For Romeo Brass,
Tomo and Marek ‘together, and sometimes in the company of Maria, form a
solidarity that transcends … differences. Pushing their beloved through the streets in a customised wheelchair,
swigging wine in a playground, they, like all young people, have created their
own enchanted republic, one that will make audiences smile and laugh’ (Sandhu
2008). Meadows’ provocation of laughter through comic musings such as these, it
would seem, is integral in his establishment of an intimate rapport between
spectator and subject. He invites the viewer to take delight in the everyday
exchanges between these young adolescents, crucially drawing upon his own
experience to aid the realistic transcription of boyhood comradeship to screen.
This Is England shows another Meadowsian exploration into
youthful relationships. Cited as his most personal work to date, protagonist
Shaun Field's experiences throughout the course of the film are based on
Meadows' growing up in 1980s Thatcherite England. As previously noted, the majority of Meadows' male
protagonists are affected by the absence of secure patriarchal figures
(although Knocks in A Room
For Romeo Brass and
Marek in Somers Town pose exceptions in that they both live with their
fathers, their relationships with them are nonetheless presented as strained and
uncommunicative). The marked lack of positive paternal role models and sense of
familial fragmentation that is rife throughout Meadows' films inevitably
inflects on the emotional spheres of the young male characters, driving their
search for paternal substitutes. This is never more evident than in Shaun's
longing for acceptance in This Is England.
At the beginning
of the film eleven-year-old Shaun's giggling as he flicks through a comic book
at the corner shop marks his childish innocence, yet his cheeky responses and
colloquial language when the shopkeeper takes it off him (“I was fricking
reading that”) and bans him from the store (“Oh, and you're a mong”) shows a
determined attempt to appear older than he is. Following this, Shaun is seen
launching himself at bully Harvey in the school playground after Harvey picks
on him for his flared trousers (bought for him by his deceased father). Dragged
to the headmaster's office to await his punishment for fighting, Shaun's
confident demeanour is no longer visible as he sits in the hallway. Instead, as
the camera draws back from a close up to a mid-shot of Shaun, his physical
mannerisms signify his fear of the impending discipline; hunched over, he is
revealed biting his nails, wincing and then covering his ears. Establishing
sequences which draw attention to his age, they also expose him as a troubled
child, unable to articulate his insecurities except through aggressive
behaviour.
After meeting
sympathetic Woody (Joe Gilgun) and his skinhead companions on his way home,
Shaun's resulting amalgamation into the group sees him acquire a newfound sense
of belonging. His transformation from lonely outsider to fully integrated
member of the skinhead gang is punctuated by two poetic montage sequences. In
the first instance, Shaun cuts an isolated figure. He is depicted playing alone
after cycling to nearby waste ground, firing stones with a catapult he has just
bought and sitting in a rotten boat eating sweets. The camera cuts to show him
wandering through an abandoned warehouse overlooking the docks before he climbs
over a sea wall and runs down to the empty beach; it then lingers to observe
him as he ambles along the beach, stooping to pick up stones and throw them
into the sea. This sequence (along with the one which closes the film) is strongly reminiscent of the ending in seminal French New
Wave film Les Quatre Cents
Coups
(Truffaut, 1959). Also a coming-of-age story, it ends with young protagonist
Antoine Doinel running along the shoreline to the ocean in search of freedom
and escape. Truffaut's trademark cine- vérité style (handheld, shaky camera) coupled with the
melancholy musical accompaniment has a poetic realist resonance which
accentuates his character's inner sense of isolation and detachment from
society. Meadows' assemblage of shots similarly functions in this way, with the
unobtrusive camerawork and atmospheric adjoining soundtrack (an instrumental
version of Gravenhurst's 'Nicole') evoking Shaun's loneliness.
The following
montage (which Meadows terms his “Summer montage: (DVD commentary)) has a
markedly different tone to it and falls after Shaun's initiation into Woody's
gang. Here, Shaun is shown strolling around and hanging out with his comrades (playing football, jumping into a public swimming
pool, splashing in puddles) to the
upbeat ska sounds of Toots and the Maytals' Louie Louie. Preceding this, the
audience has been led to witness Shaun's rite of passage transition from
schoolboy to skinhead through his change of dress. Formerly mocked for his
second hand flared trousers, his visual transformation is complete after Lol
shaves his head and Woody presents him with a Ben Sherman shirt (to go with his
newly acquired Doc Martens, braces and jeans). Shaun's altered style, and the
warm reaction he receives from the gang members at this change draws attention
to the apolitical side of the skinhead movement, concerned with culture and
fostering community rather than engaging with politics. In his article on the
film, Meadows reflects how the 1980s 'was a time of great music, brilliant fashion and a vibrant
youth culture ... to be a skinhead, all you needed was a pair of jeans, some
work boots, a white shirt and a shaved head' ('Under My Skin' 2007). His
preoccupation with detailing a more progressive side of the subculture, removed
from the right-wing political agenda often associated with it is evident in the
subsequent montage featuring Shaun's escapades with the gang; employing a music-video
aesthetic and utilising slow-motion shots he brings to focus their collective
appearance and playful companionship.
As
the gang take Shaun under their wing, the audience is simultaneously invited
into their world. Meadows comments on how his 'fondest childhood memories surrounded human contact:
mucking about with mates or going camping' ('Under My Skin' 2007). In This
Is England, as in Somers Town and A Room For Romeo Brass,
Meadows' fondness for such experiences is transmitted to screen through his
investment in the emotional interactions between his characters. Through these,
as Brown asserts, Meadows portrays a 'heightened interest in the potential for
common experience and [for] a common humanity to be established between
audience and subject’ (Brown 2007: 102). His interest in communities and their
inhabitants at a personal, micro level rather than a public, macro (and
political) level is also evident through his work ethic. Fradley posits that 'Meadows is a cinematic entrepreneur who has
continued to employ family and friends as a way of cautiously maintaining his
autonomy from the restrictive machinations of mainstream filmmaking. Eschewing
the individualistic trappings of auteurism, Meadows' collaborative working
method was founded upon a communal ethos' (Fradley 2010).
Meadows' devotion to developing characters that
are believable and accessible to audiences can be seen through the preliminary
stages of his filmmaking process. Employing improvisational methods similar to those used by Loach and
Leigh, Meadows encourages his actors to engage with their characters’
environments before shooting, thus catalysing character development through an
organic process of coalescence. After the cast are selected (Meadows often
employs untrained or unknown actors) they undergo a lengthy workshopping
process alongside Meadows
which involves the de-construction of the characters as scripted, and
re-construction of characters, as brought about by their own personal input.
During this period his cast are able to familiarise themselves with their characters and their fellow actors in
a relaxed atmosphere, one he believes fosters unforced creativity and
chemistry. What occurs away from the cameras is the 'actors' melding of history
and performance' (Allen et al. 2001: 197) which is then transmitted to screen through
their resulting naturalistic performances. Meadows' emphasis on this process encourages a synthesis of the real and
the fictional and, one could argue, results in 'an organic work, resonating
with the colours and textures of personal history, interpersonal dynamics and socio-historical
vibration' (Allen et al. 2001: 196). This process is made all the more effective due
to the insight that the actors are able to gain from Meadows himself. As a
native insider of the community whose stories he is telling, he can offer
direction for which other filmmakers (such as Loach and Leigh) would be less
equipped.
Andrew Shim, who plays Milky in This is England (and
Romeo in A Room For Romeo Brass)
comments how 'improvisation is [Meadows'] biggest weapon really. You'll read the script before shooting the scene and
you'll know where it starts and where he wants it to end, but you give your own
input to whatever goes in the middle ... It makes an actor feel like they're
part of the actual making of the film and not just a pawn in the production'
(qtd in Tilly 2007). The on-screen chemistry between the gang is believable
because it has its roots in reality. Their endearing companionship immerses the
viewer in their world, engineering a sense of comfort which is then fractured
by an unexpected turn of events.
Veering Towards Violence
Shaun's
integration into Woody's skinhead gang at the beginning of This Is England
sees him form close bonds and friendships with affable figures that become his
surrogate family (Woody most noticeably takes on the mantle of brotherly
mentor, if not paternal substitute to Shaun). As noted before, Meadows prompts
the viewer to become intimately acquainted with the group, carefully building
up their dynamic and bringing to the fore their collective 'devot[ion] to sharp dressing, ska music and each
other' ('Under My Skin' 2007). However, 'the warmth and harmony of their gang
is threatened by the arrival of Combo' ('Under My Skin' 2007) – a thuggish
older skinhead with English Nationalist and racist views. Fresh out of prison, he
intrudes on their party, immediately disrupting the equilibrium of the gang. As
Savage iterates, 'the whole
atmosphere of the film changes with the ex-con’s entrance, as the newcomer
subjects Milky – one of Woody’s gang, so called because he has brown skin – to
a racist tirade. Nobody speaks up for him, and Combo seizes the moral
advantage' (Savage 2007).
The
following day, during a meeting at his claustrophobic bedsit, Combo tries to
enforce further authority over the group, demanding that they join the National Front. The spatiality in this
sequence is of significance. His decision to “take them into his domain”, as
Meadows commentates, means that “they're sort of trapped there, they have to cross the
threshold” (DVD commentary) and are forced to listen to his hateful rants. As the
group sit on the floor, Combo stands, physically elevating himself in order to
adopt a position of authority over them. Alongside this, his tone of voice and
body gestures (for example, he points and rubs his hands together repeatedly in
an aggressive manner) mark his determination to unsettle the group. The
hand-held, jaunty camera focuses on Combo through varied close-up and mid
shots. Here, his facial expressions and physicality, along with his proximity to
the camera amplify the sense that he is invading the personal space of the
characters around him. Although Pukey and Gadget laugh at his offensive jokes,
the downward gaze of the rest of the group expresses their discomfort. Woody,
refusing to be intimidated, takes the first stand against his former friend (“I
aint being fucking brainwashed Combo”) and gets up to leave, provoking Combo to
voice his ultimatum: “go your merry little way, or stay where you are, come
with me”. Whilst the
majority leave with Woody, impressionable Shaun remains behind, motivated by
Combo's claims that he should fight for his father's memory (“If you don't
stand up and fight this fucking fight that's going on in the streets man, your
dad died for nothing”). The classical musical score by Ludovico Einaudi
heightens the poignancy of Shaun's decision as he explains his reasoning behind
it; “Woody, I wanna make my dad proud”.
Already Shaun has fallen prey to Combo's power trip, a
victim of his new 'mentor's' manipulation. Antagonist Combo is irrational and
unstable in contrast to the openly sensitive and level-headed Woody (who
represents a new, alternative masculinity), but 'Combo's surface charisma
and National Front rhetoric seduces Turgoose's unhappy naïf' (Fradley 2010),
offering him a way to exorcise his grief over the loss of his father. Savage describes how, 'at
the heart of this film is the battle for Shaun's soul between Woody and Combo,
who epitomise the poles of the skinhead ethos. This struggle is played out
among two wider issues: the attitudes and behaviour of youth in wartime and the
nature of masculinity and, indeed, fathering.' (Savage 2007). Although Combo exposes Shaun to a world of
right-wing Nationalist violence, threatening to destroy his youthful innocence,
Combo's intentions towards the youngster are not altogether malicious. In fact,
away from his public displays of violence (attending rallies, beating up
locals), Combo displays affection towards his young protégé. In one sequence, which takes place in the confines of
Combo's car, the bond between the two is consolidated when they share a tender
heart-to-heart. The underlying pain beneath Combo's cold exterior is expressed
when he reveals to Shaun, “I know
what it's like, to have people walk out on you, to have people just fucking
leave you, honest lad- I know how you feel”. Close up shots which present him
with tears welling in his eyes and making eye contact with Shaun makes his
words appear all the more genuine; he continues “...You ever want anyone to
talk to, someone to cry with, or just to have a fucking hug… I'll be there for
you, I won't turn me back on you, promise you that". Intimate moments like this
are key to Combo's characterisation, imbibing him with an emotional fragility
which calls for the spectator to understand, rather than judge, his actions.
Whilst it is painfully uncomfortable to witness Combo's escalating violence,
especially the climactic sequence where he beats up Milky, the prior
establishment of his insecurities suggests that his rage is a product of his
past circumstances. Yet Meadows does not sentimentalise this to excess or,
indeed, excuse his actions. Instead, he just tries to tell it how it is.
Combo
may breed fear through his overbearing influence over his group, but this is as
a result of his having been bred by fear. Suffering from loss and confusion,
Combo embodies the disillusioned male figure synonymous with the Skinhead
movement during the Thatcherite period; affected by mass unemployment (which
coincided with an influx of immigrants) the disempowered white generation he
represents were often seen to react through force, targeting ethnic minorities
in an attempt to empower themselves again. As Fuller points out, 'Combo’s rage has grown out
of his private disappointment rather than his secondhand belief in an all-white
Britain' (Fuller 2007). His aggression, then, is symptomatic of the frustration
and disillusionment with his place (or lack of) in society, not governed by
purely racist tendencies and political beliefs (as was frequently portrayed by
the media). The conversation prior to Combo's brutal act of violence towards
Milky serves to illustrate how Combo's violence is not motivated by racial
hatred, but rather jealousy- jealousy that Milky, unlike him, has a family (“fucking
hell, you've got everything haven't you... perfect package”).
The
core message of Oldman’s Nil By Mouth
is echoed in Meadows’ film; based on Oldman’s relationship with his alcoholic
father, it follows ‘a working class family doomed to repeat the cycles of abuse
and violence from generation to generation in perpetuity' (Lay 2002: 111).
Anger and hatred, abuse and violence, it insinuates, are learnt not inbuilt. Like Ray (Ray Winstone) in Nil
By Mouth, the character of Combo in This Is England represents a
crisis of masculinity: 'a charismatic but essentially weak man', he, too, is
presented as 'a needy child in an adult's body' (Lay 2002: 112), gravitating
towards the child in order to gain a sense of belonging.
Morrell (Paddy Considine) in A Room For Romeo
Brass similarly possesses these characteristics. Presented as childlike
through his absurd interactions with Knocks and Gavin (ten years his junior)
his unusual behaviour initially seems to be of a harmless nature. He is 'gifted
with some of the funniest dialogue of any character in Meadows' oeuvre' (Brown
2007: 88), yet the humour derives from the social faux pas he makes when trying
to impress. In one instance, Knocks plays a practical joke on him, convincing
him to dress in a way that will attract Ladine's attention (“50 percent is
liking you, 50 percent is clothes.. you could probably get away with your hair
but clothes like that- there's no way she's going to like you”). Wearing a
ridiculous purple sports suit and visor, Morrell is shown to have been
completely taken in by Knocks' fashion advice (“What I'm going to show you is
bigger than Godzilla”). Following his rejection by Ladine as a result of his
outlandish appearance and eccentric behaviour, Morrell reveals himself to be
calculating and violent. During a day trip to the seaside, the full extent of
Morrell's sociopathic tendencies become clear when he dramatically threatens
Knocks after they are left alone by Romeo. He tells him “I know that you
made me look a right fool ... well your little tricks have backfired man and it
fucking starts here, this is just the beginning because it's going to go on and
on… and I won't stop at you”, as he continues to threaten Knocks' family.
Morrell's threats are not idle and are put into action later in the film.
Regardless, our knowledge of his social inadequacies leads us to sympathise
with him as a sad figure of parody. As with Combo, Meadows implies that his
violent streak stems from persistent rejection throughout his life (“I know
what it's like... I had my head smashed off every wall in this room” he tells
Romeo at one point). He, too, is a victim of circumstance.
Conclusion
From the Free Cinema of the 1950s, through the New Wave
cycle of the 1960s to the Brit-Grit films of the 1990s, 'a changing conceptualisation
of the relation between the public and the private ... the political and
the personal’ (Higson in Barr 1986: 83) took place in British Social
Realism. However, the filmmakers of these decades 'only respond[ed] to a moment they helped construct
but did not live' (Lay 2002: 112).
In 'From Documentary to Brit
Grit' Samantha Lay proposes that 'we should be encouraging more working class
film-makers to show us their social realities' (Lay 2002: 112). Meadows' work
sits alongside Oldman's as an example of how 'class politics as a major
preoccupation of British Social Realist texts have been abandoned in favour of
autobiography and nostalgia' (Lay 2002: 122), their roles as indigenous
directors giving gravitas to their meditations on working-class communities.
Like Oldman, Meadows 'is both author of and part of the text, using the camera
to 'look again' from a safe distance at his own remembered past' (Lay 2002:
112). He engineers the audience's attachment to the characters through his use
of emotional realism, developed through a process of improvisation and
interaction which takes place both off screen and on it. Meadows invites the
audience to witness the underlying emotional fragility of even the most
aggressive characters, fostering a sense of understanding and acknowledgement
within the audience that the violence and antisocial behaviour displayed,
albeit wrong, stems from deeper issues; in this way the former are more likely
to make allowances for the latters’ brutal actions. As Brown states, ‘Emotional
realism, via
the synthesis between laughter and despair, has become an increasingly
important element of this form’s ability to forge connections between audience
and subject’ (Brown 2007: 103).
The work of Meadows indicates
that the disenfranchised support each other and create their own community
within society; they are often invisible through the acceptable strands of the
fabric of the local community and society as a whole. Meadows makes no explicit
political message. The strength of his films lies in the social and emotional
commentary running through them, as has been outlined in the case studies
above. Meadows’ stories are not about the
implications of social instability brought about by political circumstances,
but about the formation of identity through personal relationships and
interactions of the characters. The characters and settings are like a commune,
accepting, nurturing and supporting each other, even the most socially inept
and emotionally crippled, whilst they drift on the fringes of society. The
films are brutally honest and confront the viewer with the stark realities of
life. Their socio-political backdrop is, in many ways, insignificant:
regardless of their social standing, what informs the characters’ growth as
individuals are chance encounters and experiences with others. In particular,
the absence or lack of positive familial relationships or friendships is
posited as a reason for the escalation of disturbing behaviour. As Fradley comments, ‘the intimated link
between social deprivation, self-destructive violence and mental illness is
rarely far from the surface in Meadows oeuvre’ (Fradley 2010). Meadows bridges
the gap between emotion, comedy and brutality with his honest portrayal of a
society with which he is familiar, and manages to breathe new life into the
clichéd and sometimes patronising representations of the working class.
The
thematic threads which are so integral a part of Meadows’ works are the key to
his ability to create a powerful and lasting impact on his audiences and to
bring them closer to the real and continuing effect emotional deprivation can
have on the individual in our society. Through
Meadows’ membership of the social group on which his films focus, he is able to
strike a resonant chord with those who do not belong, providing the spectator
with an intimate insight into a section of society with which they are
unfamiliar and allowing them temporary access to witness events unfolding
as if a neighbour in the community.
Word Count: 7858
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Electronic Media
Brown, Stuart Duncan (2007) 'Laughing with Good and Evil in Shane
Meadows' Dead Man's Shoes' in The Subversion of Sympathy in British Social
Realism [Unpublished thesis MPhil], Glasgow University, available online at: http://theses.gla.ac.uk/670/01/2007brownmphil.pdf, [accessed 16 Nov 2010]
Les Quatre Cents Coups/The 400 Blows (1959, FrançoisTruffaut, France)
Nil By Mouth (1997, Gary Oldman, UK)
Smalltime (1996, Shane Meadows, UK)
A Room For Romeo Brass (1999, Shane Meadows, UK)
Dead Man's Shoes (2004, Shane Meadows, UK)
This Is England (2006, Shane Meadows, UK)
Somers Town (2008, Shane Meadows, UK)
Other:
Meadows, Shane (2006), Audio commentary in This
Is England [DVD Commentary]
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