Thursday, 15 December 2011

The Projectionists Ain't Gone Yet

Written for a college assignment, we had to go out and interview a person of interest and write up an article in the style of the "A Life In A Day" features run by the Sunday Times.

E.g: http://www.stephenwiltshire.co.uk/archive_article.aspx?Id=2786

I interviewed Malcolm Brown, a Projectionist at the GFT:



I went to The Glasgow Film Theatre to speak to projectionist Malcolm Brown on what it is like to be one of few left in an important and nostalgic profession in the film industry.

I’m Glaswegian through and through. From the Southside. Originally I’m from Barrhead. I’ve been here years now. I was at university and worked part time behind the bar; I was doing electrical engineering. I started in here full time, working behind the bar and then I picked up the job to train up as a projectionist about eighteen years ago now. So I trained on the job and also I (attended) a lot of training courses over the years at various places in Scotland but mostly in the National film Theatre in London.

We’ve been trained from the word GO in digital. The GFT were good enough to send us off on training courses with the changeover in mind. It’s been quite surprising how quick it’s happened. Obviously when I originally came it was all 35mm, and we also did 16mm and 70mm. A smaller format which was for mellow film makers mostly because it was cheaper.  99.9% of the time if you went to the cinema you were watching 35mm and also 70mm – which we would maybe show two or three times a year. We were probably the only cinema, certainly in Glasgow, which showed it. We no longer show 16mm at all and very rarely we show 70mm, but I was trained in film.

It was quite sad to see the 35mm go. I did like film although in a way it’s easier for projectionists, for us to deal with digital stuff although it’s got its own problems. There’s security issues, there’s keys to be issued, they are very exacting about times. Although we still show quite a lot of film; we’re maybe about 80% digital.

One cineworld down the road, which has eighteen screens, has no projectionists now. It’s basically front of house managers now because it’s all programmed.

I don’t even know what my favourite film is. I’ve been asked this before but I wouldn’t know where to start. There’s so many. I like Scorcese. On the big screen in particular it looks lovely. I quite liked a trilogy from Allan J.Pakula. . He did: Klute, All The President’s Men and the Parallax View; early 70s. The Parrallax View – that’s one of my faves. All three of them are very good films. There’s hundreds. I was a film buff in my youth but now I’m not so much. I never really go to the movies because it’s a busman’s holiday really. 

How you learn is from making mistakes. I remember once putting on a film shot in Glasgow, Ken Loach’s “Carla’s song.” When that was first released, I made it up on what you call a cake stand which means you can show a whole film start to finish upstairs in cinema one, and I started that day and I went downstairs. We have CCTV monitors so if we’re sitting downstairs in cinema two we can keep an eye on cinema one; and I was sitting looking at the monitor and I thought ‘Is that screen meant to be upside down?” But of course it wasn’t. It was a Friday afternoon. Because it had been shot in Glasgow I think we had about 350 people in to see it. We had to cancel the showing. That’s the kind of things you don’t do very often, and that’s becoming less relevant now because of digital. There always was the human error possibilities. Now if something goes wrong it’s likely to be a software glitch; which is really out of your hands.

The fact that we still have four projectionists here at the GFT is a good thing. Not only are we just showing films we’re doing education events. We also deal with the art school maybe three days a week doing lectures. We would deal with setting that up and getting their PowerPoint presentations on the screen and lighting the people up.

We can be busy from nine in the morning until eleven at night. Which is good for us. We’ve kept four projectionists because we need them. Q and A’s. Director’s coming in. You name it - there’s always something going on.

’37 this building was built so, obviously,  we’ve updated it quite a lot since but there’s still quite a lot of maintenance we’ve got to keep our eye on or else. So we would look after all of that, it’s becoming more relevant. Also be dealing with fire safety and general maintenance. 

Quentin Tarantino - He’s been in here a couple of times. I met him twice actually. Once – just as Reservoir Dogs was released which was way back when I started.  I made him a coffee and he sat chatting. He was back three years ago at the festival so he was obviously much bigger. The first time he came he just arrived himself; he was touring Europe promoting Reservoir Dogs. Peter Mullan’s a regular. He was at university in Glasgow; he knows the GFT really well. He’s here often. We’ve met a lot of celebs over the years. 

There’s always something to be doing. It’s not often we sit about watching the movies, you know?

(Photo Found on Google. Not actually the GFT)

Friday, 14 October 2011

Warrior (2011)

The North-East of the USA has been the home to some of the best fighting films around; this handful of states has been the home to some of cinema’s most iconic sporting characters. Warrior follows in this tradition, set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania it may just have certified this corner of America as the spiritual home to great cinematic fighters. However, if you’re not a fan of sports in either reality or in film format, do not be put off, there is an equal amount of believable drama in this film to satisfy, to the point that the sport - in this case Mixed Martial Arts – often gets surpassed by it. Some might even argue that Warrior is not essentially a sports film, nor even a sports-drama; but a film about confrontation in all its forms.


 It begins with some gentle shots of a slightly peaceful Pittsburgh in winter time before dragging us into the daily routine of Nick Nolte’s Paddy Conlon, a reformed Christian and former alcoholic. Almost instantly it becomes apparent that the environment of the characters will play a crucial part in the mood of the film; the cold and steely Pittsburgh we see comes to mirror the characters themselves. Hardened, stone-faced and bitter; they are a direct product of their environment. Their surroundings are an important element in developing the themes of the story before the film’s epic action-packed finale. Nolte returns home to find his youngest son Tommy (played spectacularly by Tom Hardy) sat on his doorstep. It is their first encounter since Paddy’s drunkenness drove Tommy and their mother from their home and out West years before. He offers his father a bottle of Jameson whisky, Paddy – going on 1000 days sober – refuses and invites his son inside. What follows is a scene which summarises the tough and secretive character of Tommy himself. In the living room he rips his Father’s life to shreds, pin-pointing all the ironies of his father’s changed lifestyle in an almost-accidental bid to start a fight. “I think I liked you better when you were a drunk” – he tells his father, who take all the insults throughout the film, feeling he deserves them for inflicting on his two sons a childhood – which as it is slowly revealed to us in reflection - was both bleak and vicious.
 What is possibly most endearing about Warrior is how it prioritises the dramatic scenes against the sporting ones. It’s a good fifteen minutes before we see anything in the way of an actual, physical fight. Director, David O’Conner has first laid down the importance of his characters, he exposes them to us flatly in the first act of the film; a clear sign to the audience that Warrior is not the Jason Statham-type of action film some might have sensed from those posters stretched boldly across the sides of buses, with a ripped and looming Tom Hardy behind the WWE-esque font of the film’s title. This is a drama with sport infused and blended into it. That being said, Tommy’s first stint in the ring – against a UFC middle-weight contender - will be guaranteed to leave goose bumps running across your skin. He knocks his opponent out in a matter of minutes, and it is here that we see the other side of the film. A film about animosity – shown gloriously through the beast-like nature of the character of Tommy.
 Warrior goes between Tommy’s story as he, with Paddy training him, builds his way through the ranks of Mixed Martial Arts. Simultaneously we follow his older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) in Philadelphia as his secure life as a physics teacher crumbles. Threatened with bankruptcy and with a wife, two children and a home to maintain – he turns to his old sport of MMA out of desperation. Brendan’s tale brings further depth to the story, we delve into his home life with his family, we see him suffer and struggle to convince his old friend Frank Grillo (played by Frank Campana) to coach him, and soon we grow fond of him.
 It is a strange thing in a film to have an audience torn between two characters the way Warrior does and not have us choose which character we wish to see succeed; but instead  has us rooting for both of them as they train for the same title, unknown to each other. As Tommy rages on in his animal-like fury, we watch him and grow to love his rough charm; the bitter disputes with his father adding further tension to the film. Brendan works his way up in a cleaner, more organised environment. We are given two perspectives of the same world. This a contrast that mirrors in the two brothers themselves: Tommy, who fights brutally for reasons unknown to us until the film’s final act and Brendan, who fights for his life, his family and for a future. It is in this contrast that the film maker’s deserve recognition. Not many films can balance such a hefty plot with so much in the way of drama and action as well as Warrior does. Not only does it balance the stories of the brothers’ excellently, it handles the sporting scenes and the drama scenes equally well. As well as the not-too bittersweet family scenes with Brendan, the training scenes, the random side plots such as the headmaster of Brendan’s school and his pupils following his progress in the tournament; and the soldier’s in Afghanistan who uncover Tommy’s identity through the internet. A lot is going on, but nothing is forgotten and there are no loose ends.
 The heart of Warrior is in the bitter relationship between Paddy and his two sons and the most emotive and engaging scenes in the film are not the epic fights which conclude it but the verbal confrontations between the three of them. Paddy – the War vet and former alcoholic who seeks forgiveness but never receives it, Brendan – as angry as Tommy at the childhood his father inflicted on them but guilty of abandoning his younger brother. Then of course there’s Tommy, who lashes out at his brother, his father, his opponents and the world for allowing his life to unfold the way it has. His life has been plagued by suffering since his childhood and he seeks both revenge and forgiveness in his anger. Tom Hardy does an outstanding job of expressing this rage; the turmoil of Tommy’s life and this creates a notable contrast to Brendan’s sombre and honourable demeanour.
 Of the many scenes in the film, three stick in my mind more than any other, and each one features a face-off between two of three main characters. In the first half there a scene set in a Pittsburgh cafe where Tommy reluctantly – and rudely – asks his father to coach him. It’s a great scene, with the two men putting each other in their places. “You get something through your skull, too. You called me. So don't go threatening to walk every five minutes” – says Paddy, and in reply Tommy spits “You wanna tell your war stories, you can take 'em down to the VFW. You can take 'em to a meeting, or church, or wherever.” There’s another excellent scene which takes places during the Sparta tournament later on in the film, where the two brothers come face-to-face for the first time since they were teens. On one of Atlantic City’s empty beaches they show-down, Tommy hitting out at his big bro for not being with him as their mother died. It is at times brutal to watch Tommy as he destroys any hope of having a normal relationship with his brother, distancing himself further and further from normality. It helps builds the whole aura of animosity around Tommy himself, the swelling rage, all adding to the intensity of the following fight scenes.
The best scene, however, is when Tommy finally succeeds in breaking his father’s spirit, driving Paddy back to the bottle. He returns to their Atlantic City hotel suite to the father he left behind as a teen - the dangerous, unstable, angry drunk - and it’s in this scene that we see the humane side to the character of Tommy. He returns to familiarity, a father full of hate – like he himself is - and in this scene he shows the only signs of respect for his father in the film as he cares for him and sees him to bed. Nick Nolte reaches his peak as the character of Paddy in this scene, believable and terrifying as the tortured war veteran.
 Warrior is charged by its three central performances from Hardy, Nolte and Edgerton, but is not solely dependant on them for its impact. It is well-filmed; the cinematography is honest and often absorbing, driven mostly by natural light, selling Warrior as a real, believable film. The soundtrack is fittingly minimal; music is reserved for moments of emotion or triumph. Worth noting is the split-screen montage midway into the film, documenting the training of both brothers – probably the best sports montage in recent memory. As already discussed the environment of the characters plays a massive role in our overall perception of these characters , and it’s in the cameras exploration of the setting in the first half that sets the mood of the film. These men mirror their own surroundings and were born on the streets of Pittsburgh. The city of Pittsburgh itself was an excellent choice for the setting of the film, a fairly unknown place, forgotten arguably – torn between the East-Coast and the mid-west; between busyness and emptiness. All this mounts up, adding to the grittiness and the realism we feel watching Warrior.
 There is however smalls anchors weighing Warrior down, for starters the Commentary which is used heavily for the final tournament in the film feels slightly out-of-place to begin with and takes a while to adjust to. Soon enough  the commentary blends into the mood of the final act and eventually helps with the build-up of the fights; but it is a big leap to go from such heavy drama to snappy-line commentary. Another problem is the character of Tess Conlon, Brendan’s wife – played well by Jennifer Morrison - who plays an important role for the films first half but fades away towards the end. She ends up a side-character with little to do as the film progresses, until eventually she is torn between side character and extra, lost and out-of-place in a film essentially about a Father and his two sons; not a father, his two sons and one of the son’s wives. The casting of UFC fighters themselves and wrestler Kurt Angle might confuse a few people, but they play their parts well and are not given enough screen time to destroy the film.
At the end of the day though, this film belongs to O’Conner and Tom Hardy. Hardy is nothing short of glorious as the enraged Tommy, and it would be good to see a few awards go his way for his turn. God-knows he’s earned it.


There will be inevitable comparison here to the other stand-out fighting film of the year – no, not Real Steel – The Fighter, but to me these are two very different films. Yes, they are both set in nearby states. Yes – they both contain a substantial amount of drama; but they are structured in different ways. Plus Warrior doesn’t have a character that resembles the likes of Christian Bale’s unforgettable Dickie Eklund. On top of this, Warrior is made-up. The Fighter was real. Though both films are on equal terms critically, they are great for differing reasons. All comparisons are - as they always are with great fighting films – put side-by-side next to Raging Bull. A film whose representation of the world of competitive fighting has never been matched, Warrior comes close to engaging the viewer in Raging Bull’s themes of brutality and rage, but ultimately has too much of a Rocky-style climax element to it, which works better for it I believe. O’Conner does not delve into as dark a place as Scorcese did, but it works brilliantly for Warrior, whose tone is perfectly real.
Warrior is a film about human nature, animosity, rage, forgiveness and redemption - and it handles all of its themes remarkably. We see the world of Mixed Martial Arts, not as a blunt world of blood and bones where brainless thugs bash skulls; but as a world where hard men with hard lives fight because fighting is all they know. The cage itself becomes a metaphor for the animal kingdom that is the world, and these characters exploit it to us, they show us that violence will always be a part of our culture. When we see the characters beating each other in the ring, we see men exposed as the animals we often forget we are. In every way Warrior is a film about confrontation. Confronting the past, the present and our way of life. In Warrior, physical confrontation is a means of communication far more effective than speech.

Monday, 26 September 2011

Page One: Inside the New York Times (2011)

  Probably the most memorable quote in Page One is from the mouth of Julian Assange, the controversial founder of Wiki-leaks, when he tells a New York Times Journalist in a phone conversation during the film that, “Journalism is just a tool.” It is fitting not just to his trail of thought but to the nature of the documentary ,  which explores the King of all Newspapers, and the empire which has been built around its example in the States. This documentary also attempts to address important and relevant issues in the modern world, such as the apparent death of the newspaper format in a world where news can be blogged and tweeted to the masses before most editors can say the word “pitch.”
  Page One begins with some nicely composed shots of the production of an edition of the New York Times, we see giant rolls of paper loaded onto huge machines and forklifts roaming with flashing lights: its newspaper production on an epic scale. Almost immediately the film delves into one of the many issues it aims to confront: why is the newspaper dying? We see old news reports charting the decline of some of America’s top papers, some of which were forced to shut down due to poor sales – all but the New York times, whose readership only increased. The film then throws us straight into the New York Times’ office environment, a busy and stressful place where-in work people who have dreamt of working in its walls for most of their lives. Such is the nature of this film, all of the above takes place in a short space of time, almost like news itself, the plot points come and go, taking us in different directions but never fully absorbing us in one singular story for longer than a few minutes.
  Unexpectedly the documentary is given some much appreciated depth in the form of David Carr, a media columnist at the New York Times with a fantastically natural charisma and filmable charm; the scenes in which he features are far more absorbing than anything else in the film. Carr’s honesty on the screen when speaking of the youth he spent as an addict merged with his own personal nerve and wit in the workplace makes the film worthwhile. God-knows there may have been a better documentary to be made in merely filming the man himself as he goes about his daily life.
  That’s not to say that this documentary fails, it is informative and will be interesting even to those who couldn’t care less about the newspaper industry; its problem is that it twists and turns a lot in terms of focus. Page One’s camera men stumble across so many fascinating stories in passing that it actually becomes a slight annoyance when they delve slightly into certain ones before unceremoniously pulling us out again. This does however give off the energy of the newsroom to great effect, and perhaps this was the intention of its director Andrew Rossi, because it certainly does this well.
  Page One’s most obvious aim is to humanise the New York Times. It addresses the fantasy of the Times – the 50’s-esque, perfectly run newsroom, that’s more “Daily Bugle” than anything else – and infuses the reality: the office spaces, the redundancies, the tough stories, the law suits and above all else the worrying thought that some stories are bigger even than the paper itself and may never see the light of day. It makes for an enjoyable watch.
  Still the film, though superbly edited and well-researched, could have done with a few improvements. It’s a shame that we never see much outside of the New York Times office, save in small doses. New York City could have been a great playground for the camera crew; even a few shots of the city itself could have boosted the energy of the documentary and the mood of its character’s environment. The best scene in the film in fact takes place in an office at Vice Magazine and features Carr, who argues three heads of the magazine to the ground when one of them insinuates that the New York Times is too mainstream.
  Carr is the hero of this picture, and it really does feel like a waste to not have had more of the man in the film. If he had more screen time then this documentary might have held a candle next to the other great docs of recent years: Catfish for one, with its impulsiveness which was gripping, or Senna, which was emotionally involving in a way which few films in recent memory have been. Sadly it doesn’t, and in the end the film itself feels nothing much more than old news.

Sunday, 3 July 2011

One of the Best: The French Connection (1971)

“I had this epiphany that what we were doing wasn’t making fucking films to hang in the Louvre. We were making films to entertain people and if they didn’t do that they didn’t fulfil their primary purpose.” These are the words of the  landmark film director William Friedkin, speaking of his 1971 film, The French Connection.  Very few films will grip you with their suspense the way this film does, a suspense which for forty years film makers have ached to establish in their films. It’s the kind of tension that only great films carry along with them, it is a feeling present as the haunting and unpredictable Travis Bickle roamed the sidewalks in Taxi Driver, it is in the twisted nausea of A Clockwork Orange, in the vice grip of Pulp Fiction’s Ezekiel 25:17 and in the lingering and darkly comic violence of Fargo. The French Connection is the grand-daddy of this greatest of film attributes. Gritty, intense, pessimistic and mesmerising; The French Connection is one of a kind.


 New York City Detective “Popeye” Doyle (Gene Hackman) and his partner Buddy Russo (Roy Scheider) are attempting to unravel a drug smuggling ring between a small group of French criminals and NYC crooks. Doyle is an obsessive, short-tempered man, rough, hard-drinking and sleazy; but ultimately fascinating and determined to break a major narcotics case. Doyle and Buddy are rogues, not playing by the book. They are old fashioned, their story taking place before the CCTV takeover of society when cops did not depend on surveillance but on their own vision and hearing for investigations. This makes The French Connection is unique; the film is essentially one enormous chase with the authorities’ always one step behind their suspects. There is an air of cluelessness about the cops. Does Doyle know what he is doing? How does he prove there is a “French Connection” at all? But Doyle is possessed by his “hunch” and as a result the viewer is too, Doyle whose “brilliant hunches cost the life of a good cop,” convinces us. We are at one with him and his hunch. Thus this unique and dastardly character grows on us, as he does so he blurs the preconceptions of the traditional screen protagonist. Popeye is both the good guy and the bad guy; a loveable bastard. John McClane and Hans Grüber. He will protect the life of a child but he will also shoot an unarmed man in the back.
  Doyle and Buddy are amongst the few stand-out characters in the film, alongside the key French men Devereaux and the hit man  Nicoli. The film does not introduce many characters but instead depends on the visuals of the streets of New York City to give off its gritty charm. The dialogue too is thin, coming to us only when crucial to the plot. This is something which is really quite spectacular about the French Connection; it has us almost solely depending on its visuals for the unfolding of the plot. Nothing is verbally explained. Friedkin has really tapped into something here; it is almost as if he’s saying to the viewer “if you don’t have the brain capacity to understand this film through its action then I don’t want you watching it.” He has made an effort to not have everything explained through dialogue. Friedkin has even said in interviews that the script was partially abandoned during the five-week shoot and that much of the dialogue was ad-libbed. The script was just a “guideline.” It all works beautifully, the energy of New York City, its busyness and often its bleakness adding to the wonderful intensity of the action.
  The first few scenes of the film establish a nice contrast between the dangerous metropolis of New York and the picturesque beauty of Marseilles, where the “French Connection” is rooted. In dialogue-free moments we watch as a man, presumably a French detective wanders the city’s pleasant streets only to be shot at point blank range in the face by an assassin. Whilst in the cold New York evening, Popeye and Buddy pursue a crook through the messy and graffiti-adorned Brooklyn alleyways. The message is clear: violence is everywhere. New York is no more or less dangerous than any other city, and the style in which the chase in Brooklyn is filmed, and in fact all other chases in the movie are filmed, give off an inspiring city vibe that only American cinema can achieve.  
  Mixed in amongst the many chases of The French Connection are snippets into the life of the protagonist Doyle. We are given flashes of this character’s “other side,” the side that is not a determined Detective; and it is a life which is pitiful, ordinary and humorous. Doyle is revealed to be apathetic and sleazy. In one of the film’s best scenes he wakes up on a bar stool with his head resting next to his beverage. Arising, he puts on his noir-esque hat and wanders outside into the empty street by the Brooklyn Bridge. He gets into his car, still drunk, and begins to stalk a young female cyclist, staring lustfully at her backside as she cycles. Cut to a minute later in the film and Buddy finds Doyle in his filthy apartment, naked, handcuffed to his own bed by the cyclist whom he had managed to woe. Buddy unlocks him, and without showering he puts on his clothes and they get back to work. This scene really spoke to me. Not only is it funny and gritty but as someone who has grown up into the “slacker” generation, Doyle seems to be on the same level as the modern man. When he is not working he is drinking and chasing after woman; he has no family tying him down. Doyle exists just to seek pleasure and respect. This is something I think many men can relate to.
 My favourite scene in the film however is the “Popeye’s Here!” scene which takes place in a small New York bar filled with African Americans. Popeye’s mere presence here is tense, him being a moderately racist Irish-American cop makes him immediately out-of-place. When he bursts into the bar proclaiming “Popeye’s Here!” you may even cringe at his boldness. Immediately the men in the bar begin to hurriedly empty the illegal pills and the dope from their pockets onto the floor, causing an echoing clicking sound. Popeye soon holds the whole bar in his wrath, commanding them all to stand against the wall as he inspects the various pills and bags and pipes. A man steps out of the toilet, immediately named “haircut” but Doyle, and Popeye takes him outback where the man turns out to be his insider. At the end of their chat he says to the man ,“Where do ya wan’ it?” before landing a punch on the left hand side of his face.  It is one of those rare scenes in cinema which will have you smiling at a character’s nerve; a “Dirty Harry” moment that has the viewer both laughing and shaking their head.
  However the most intense and suspenseful scene in the film is the famous subway chase. In all my years of wasting away my life watching films I have never witnessed a more gripping chase. It has more in common with the “Grand Theft Auto” game franchise than with any other film. What is most incredible about the scene is the way it is stretched out from one small incident into an epic chase which sees Doyle racing after a hijacked subway train. One moment Doyle is walking to his apartment block, a sniper tries to assassinate him, next thing Doyle is “borrowing” a civilian’s car as he chases after the train which the French assassin has boarded. “When will I get it back?” – asks the car’s owner, but he does not get an answer and soon the car is flying down the streets, underneath the subway line, through red lights and into oncoming traffic. In one nail-biting shot, the camera has been placed on the front of the car as Doyle shoots straight into a busy intersection. It is another kind of intensity.
  The two aspects of The French Connection’s production which triumph are the cinematography and the sound; and the two combine and coincide beautifully, emitting a rare excitement and energy – and this may be the correct word to sum up the film itself – energetic. It is non-stop like a great Hitchcock film only set in a seedy, underground world that Hitchcock himself never explored. Friedkin has often spoken of the influence of the 30’s and 40’s-era American action films as his inspiration for the movie, but at the same time he has kept something of his love for the French New Wave alive through the often dizzying and accidental beauty of the character’s surroundings. The cinematography is the element which stood out to me because I have seen the range of its influence in so many films over the years: Tarantino’s works, Heat, A Guide to Recognising Your Saints, The Wrestler, and so on. The camera is shaky, moving, stalking, following – like a cop itself tailing the characters. There are shots in The French Connection which are stunning in their subtlety, and they come for brief moments, unexpectedly; and with the superb editing they blend to produce a wondrously edgy portrait of the character’s New York City environment.
  The French Connection, however, is Hackman’s film. He blends perfectly into Doyle and the wastelands of Brooklyn which he roams. Like the culmination of every noir cliché of the American cinema and Brando’s legendary Terry Malloy, he merges beautifully into the bloody underbelly of America. The character of Popeye Doyle, his demeanour, his swagger, his recklessness was surely a catalyst for the swarm of cinema anti-hero’s which would emerge in the wake of the French Connection’s release, not just in the 70s and 80s with the like of Nicholson’s Randall.P.MacMurphy and Jake Gittes, De Niro’s Bickle and La Motta, Pacino’s Carleone and Montana, Sheen’s Kit Carruthers and Willard and every Gordon Gecko, Barnes, Mr Blonde and Chopper to come, but also in cinema today. Nothing brings more pleasure to the big-screen than an amoral, reckless anti-hero, an “inglorious bastard,” the anarchic “Joker’s” and Cool Hand Luke’s; and Popeye Doyle is the Godfather of them all. Only in the final minutes of the film do we realise that Doyle’s obsession has consumed him, his story is doomed, and The French Connection ends with a fitting, echoing gunshot.
  If you have never seen The French Connection before then please for your own good – do. If you have seen it, - watch it again, and again, and again, and again. It’s that good.

Sunday, 17 April 2011

"What's you're favourite Scary Movie?" Certainly not this one: Thoughts on: Scream 4

Just a few things that pissed me off about ghost-face's 11-year's-in-the-making 4th stabbing:

Number 1: Douey is the worst cop EVER

How on earth did he ever get promoted to sheriff? All he does is drive around Woodboro, constantly missing out on all the killings; arriving at the scene of the murders ten minutes too late, running his fingers through his sweaty hair. Scary Movies "Dufus" comes to mind more than once, most prominantly when Douey is beaten - nearly to death - with a bedpan. Although that is hilarious.



Number 2: Syd - Will You Ever Learn?

  Sydney. We're four movies in now. Everybody in your life has died and you've lived on, scarred, in turmoil; the witness, "The angel of death." You've watched tradgedies most fictional characters cannot even imagine. Would it really have hurt to have taken some self-defence classes? Usually ghost-face turns out to be some moronic twat or a dumb teenager with Daddy issues, surely if you learnt a few moves you could take him - your a big girl now. E.G: "Lesson number one: If a creep comes at you with a butcher's knife raised above his head, kick that bastard right in the family jewels, then toss him down the staircase."
  Personally, If I were Syd, I would have gotton myself a gun licence - say round Scream 2 time - and blown ghost face to Tim-buc-fucking-too before he even had time to hang up his shiny-new I-Phone.

Number 3: Woodsboro Teenagers Are Completely Retarded

  "There's some dude in a mask killing people around about our age, lets totally have a party in an abandoned barn where no one will find us, especially police."

AMATUERS

SO to sum up, Scream 4, though enjoyable, is without a doubt one of the most idiotic films I have seen for quite some time. It's not bad, it's not great. It's OK. You will get a good few laughs here-and-there, but theres no real point to this sequel. The eventual motif behind this batch of Woodsboro killings feels like a last minute brainwave from one of the writers; it is a very lame reason to go on a killing spree (cough - FAME - he-hem). I would not advise you to not see Scream 4 because if, like me, you just fancied a laugh with a few of you're mates then you will not be disappointed. However, fans of the great original Scream and such other classic horrors will find themselves much like David Arquette's hapless Douey, forever lagging behind the films events, confused and frustrated at yet another round of pointless Woodsboro stabbings.

Just Avoid thoses bedpans.

Wednesday, 23 March 2011

Favourite Films of 2010

Very, very late - but without further ado I present my favourite films of last year, and I would like to hear everybody else's too :) :

  1. A Prophet
  2. The Social Network
  3. Kick-Ass
  4. The Town
  5. Invictus
  6. Lebanon
  7. Scott Pilgrim VS The World
  8. Nowhere  Boy
  9. Inception
  10. Four Lions
Other amazing films : Shutter Island, The Illusionist, Toy Story 3, The Road and some others I'm sure that have slipped my mind!

Friday, 18 March 2011

Another Modern Classic: Million Dollar Baby (2005)

 On the 29th of February, 2005 the man with no name, becoming both the oldest man in history to receive an Oscar for best director and one of very few to receive two Oscars a piece in the categories of directing and best picture, graced a stage with the eyes of the stars, the world’s media and a large chunk of the western population anticipating his words. Gone was the roughened, battle-hardened voice of his film persona. Clint Eastwood the cowboy was for the evening stored away in the corner of a musty, old tobacco-stained shack filled with ponchos, empty bottles of whisky and colt revolvers somewhere in an unforgiving desert; Clint Eastwood the director, a stranger to us, was instead present. Smiling to his audience, genuine and modest – he humbly accepted his golden statue with many “thank you’s” before singling out his own mother in the crowd for a special thanks – “At 96 I’m thanking her for her genes.” It is fitting to the film for which he received this award that Eastwood would bring such a topic as age up in his Oscar acceptance. Million Dollar Baby is a sports film, but a sports film like no other. It’s blend of crowd-pleasing boxing scenes mixed with gritty, unromantic drama is the story of an ageing man, riddled with guilt, whose whole life has been a series of bad decisions and failed relationships with friends and family and has lived to see the world around him crash and burn, time and time again. Million Dollar Baby is a superbly acted and executed boxing drama, made only more powerful and endearing by Eastwood’s trademark directing charm (and developed by his other trademark – his stage anti-hero).



  If Million Dollar Baby’s Frankie Dunn (an ageing boxing coach and formally the best “cutman” in the business) is not the long lost twin brother of Gran Torino’s prejudiced Korean War vet Walt Kowalski, then he is certainly a distant cousin – like Walt he is an ageing dirty harry for a modern audience.  The plot follows the lives of Frankie, a moderately successful boxing coach and boxing gym owner, his best friend and maintenance man (and failed fighter) Eddie “Scrap Iron” Dupree – played by Morgan Freeman – and of course, Hilary Swank’s strong-willed, white-trash boxer Maggie “mo cuishle” Fitzgerald. These three roam the same environment, their sport the only thing they have besides each other. The sport of boxing means something different to them all. To Maggie, it is her only escape from a life spent dining tables. To Eddie, who was blinded in one eye as a promising young boxer in a fight which ended his career, boxing is what defines him and also what ruined him. To Frankie, alone in the world save for his only daughter (who has removed him from her life), training people to box is his only path, his fate. The lives of these three characters reflect each other. They are the centre of this film; their stories piecing together this tale with one inevitable outcome – boxing will be the downfall of each of them.
  Frankie Dunn, having recently lost his most promising young fighter, point blank refuses to train women. Boxing to him is a man’s sport; and women have caused him nothing but heartache in his life. Maggie, like Frankie, is insistent, stubborn and arrogant. She pursues Frankie, determined to have him as her boxing coach, and no one else. Maggie knows little of boxing, what she has learnt of the sport has been from her mistakes, coach-less, within the ring. Frankie stubbornly refuses to train her despite her purchase of a six-month membership at his gym. We first see the length of her determination to box when Eddie first catches her in the gym after hours, still walloping the same punch bag she has been at the entire day (and walloping it the wrong way, with no skill). In the darkness of the gym, a sliver of light reaching in onto their faces and the punch bag, Eddie gives her some advice. We see also in this scene the world lived in by Eddie. His home is nought but a dim room in the gym, graced only by a miniscule television, a bed and nought much more; we get the impression that this man has strolled into the gym one day with no where else to go and never left. He has become as much a part of this gym as the ropes on the boxing ring.
  The film is made whole by the bond of these three and the strength of Maggie’s belief in Frankie Dunn as her trainer; it is as if she feels the connection between them before she even knows him. It is both a humorous and excellent moment when Frankie agrees to train Maggie, coming just after a series of disputes over Maggie’s use of Frankie’s long forgotten speed bag. As soon as he begins to train her the film kicks off into sports-movie glory. Maggie, who “grew up knowing one thing, that she was trash,” finds herself weaving the sense of purpose she discovers through boxing into her work and home life; she takes in every word of what Frankie teaches her, using his knowledge to better her style in the ring. However Maggie proves to be a rogue fighter, abandoning the tactics she has learnt in order to knock-out her opponents as quickly and ferociously as possible. Thus begins the films dive from underdog tale to full-blown sports movie. The scenes with Maggie in the ring will have the viewer edge-of-seat, fist-punching-air ecstatic; and the fights keep coming one after the other, knock-out after knock-out. Imagine Rocky Balboa knocking out Apollo Creed time and time again – only in a different time period and environment where boxing seems less lavish than in the rocky films. Eastwood never loses track of the films true heart, weaved in between these boxing matches are some great emotional-charged moments.  The more famous a fighter Maggie becomes, the stronger the relationship between her and Frank grows, and the fact that Maggie sees Frankie as a replacement for her dead father; and he for his daughter is not avoided but embraced in an obvious, heart-on-sleeve manner. Such is Eastwood’s style as a director. He takes no influence from any other film maker in history or in modern cinema. Things are shot run-of-the mill, blatant, realistic and true to the world we live in. There is no denial from the characters of Frankie and Maggie; they happily accept the fact that he is the father she wants and she the daughter he misses. The two characters make the most of their rare connection towards each other; embracing the loss of their loved ones and the arrival of a new soul mate.
  Morgan Freeman – as always – shines like the acting marvel he is. His familiar, comforting narration accompanies the moving story line with smooth, vocal charm. Freeman’s Eddie is the lonesome observer of the events in the film; the voice of reason and the true hero of the story. At once his character gains our sympathy and respect and graces the most spectacular scenes in the film. Such as when he takes Maggie out for dinner one evening, before prompting that she should switch managers to avoid upsetting Frank when she eventually, and apparently inevitably turns his back on him like all the other fighter’s have – he gives to her, and the audience, an involving and magnificent speech about the fight which lost him the sight in his bad eye. The strength and determination with which he fought in his youth is reminiscent of Maggie’s, the brutality of the story reminds us of the boxing world as a “man’s” world; thus promoting Maggie further more as a rare, empowered and strong-willed character. The speech involves us, sucks us in, and moves us in the way that Million Dollar Baby does without really meaning to. It reminds us of the diminishment of youth; and the long and costly price of making the wrong decisions in life. It shows us how one bad move, one glimmer of young arrogance can land a man old, blind – and at a complete dead-end. Thus Million Dollar Baby’s message is devastating.
  Each of the three central characters play an important role in completing the films message. Eastwood carries the film on his shoulders, something he has done expertly since the nineteen-sixties, and he provides the viewer with a sense of realism through on-screen honesty and wit. Whereas Freeman watches the world around him tear itself to pieces in what is nothing more to his character than the blink of an eye. Swank plays her role exceptionally in a performance that is more than worthy of the golden boy it won her; she has us entirely convinced as the roughened hillbilly Maggie Fitzgerald. Her character is the bringer of joy to these ageing, lonely men. She drifts through the story spreading youth, courage and happiness; before she strips it away from them, herself, and us, forever. The old men emerge from the film physically unscathed; but she is not so lucky.
  What spoke to me personally about Million Dollar Baby is that despite its modern setting, and the rise of Maggie as a boxing champ; the characters live in a world which seems largely old-fashioned. Maggie’s home is as bare as Eddie’s single room, her apartment nought but a run-down empty expanse to contain her; yet she shows no shame in revealing her world to Frankie. In the section of the film where Maggie and Frankie visit her family’s trailer park home in the hot, dusty American mid-west, this is put on display. We are given a glimpse into the upbringing of this fighter, as well as her despicable, greedy mother and the selfish siblings she has grown up around. Having saved money from her winnings in the ring, Maggie surprises her mother by buying her a house – something that has become something of an ambition for the determined boxer. When shown around the house, her mother shows no joy, no happiness nor pride. She rounds on her daughter, telling her that she will never receive her benefits from the government with such a place; asking her if she ever thought about her dear mother. Her mother is a character so infuriatingly obnoxious she gives the films greatest villain, the masculine German, former-prostitute, harder-than-nails boxer, Billie "The Blue Bear,"with whom Maggie inevitably will fight – a run for her money. Maggie does eventually fight her, in the film’s final and most shocking fight.
  This is when the film truly turns on us. What was forming into a rousing story of determination and victory back flips into a drama of heartache and guilt. It is this twist in the plot, which had been hinted at throughout by freeman’s past-tense narration, combined with its alternative take on the sport which makes Million Dollar Baby unique amongst other boxing dramas – seeing such brutal competition from a woman’s perspective adds just the edge that boxing films, though rare, may have grown to lack had it not been made. The hardest part of Hilary Swank’s performance was to portray a character who at once is both a strong and competent fighter, but also a woman with real fragility; and for the film’s final half hour she shows an astonishing grasp of both. Frankie, who has been a regular at his local catholic church for most of his life despite his shaky views on religion and faith, and his tendency to ridicule and contradict Father Harvark at every available moment seeks comfort from him as the final events of the film unfold. He confesses the guilt he feels at having let Maggie into his life, a guilt which seems to have boiled within him since before he knew her. Frankie too shows his fragility, the tortured state of his conscious. Here is a man, born and raised catholic, who has grown to doubt his faith and eventually lose track of it; but in his most desperate moment turned back to it. It is strange for us to see this man, strong-willed and tough, dependant on anything. Going back to my point about the film feeling old-fashioned, Frankie is clinging to a sense of guilt and need for forgiveness which stems back probably to his youth.  By this point, the films two strongest characters are broken; one faced with the most difficult of decisions and the other completely powerless. Freeman’s Eddie is the only character recognisable in this respect from the films start. The events which occur as the film concludes can be related to a point which Freeman’s character makes earlier in his narration, whilst Frankie is training Maggie for her first match, he claims that that in the training process a  trainer “strips ‘em (the fighter) down to bare wood.” This is how the film feels, how the audience feels and how Eastwood’s and Swank look. We have all been stripped down to bare wood by the events. In one swing Million Dollar Baby ropes you in to its sports-movie glory, feeding us knowledge of boxing and the true nature of fighting; and just as our love for the film’s format begins to reach its height, with one haymaker it knocks us back into place with a serious, heart-wrenchingly upsetting finale.
It is easy to see why Million Dollar Baby had such an impact on audiences upon its release; there are very few flaws in its production, which is somewhat remarkable considering it was made in a stunning 37 days. Eastwood’s signature direction gives the script just the compliment it deserves. The camera, as always in Eastwood films is always in the right place but never in the perfect place. Nice shots which could have been crafted into exquisitely beautiful ones represent the film and its environment best. The best way to describe how Million Dollar Baby has been crafted is ‘honestly’ – every set feels real, every room lived in, every boxing ring feels bled on and thus all the characters feel on the same level as the viewer. The soundtrack, composed by Eastwood  (making him director, star, composer and producer of this one) is just as complimenting as the visuals. However, Jay Burchel’s “idiotic-hillbilly” act as weedy, wannabe boxer “Danger” delves on the slightly annoying, getting more screen time than he deserves; his character does however get redeemed half way in, during one of the best sequences – featuring Eddie’s 110th and final fight. Another slight problem, which is a common problem in all boxing films (most recently David O Russell’s excellent “The Fighter”), is when Maggie and Frankie go for a fight in London. The rundown LA environment which these characters are dominant in for the whole film is scrapped in a split second with a shot of Westminster Abbey, though the fight that follows is one of the best in the film, it would have been nice and more fitting to the story to have these characters bound to their native America for the duration of the film. However, in the larger scale of things, these miniscule flaws can be over-looked, the film pieces together perfectly as it unfolds.  This film’s great strength is its narrative, its involving script and the execution of the events; the abandonment of the superficial (CGI) and the stories ageing and alternative characters who seem to live in a world different to our own, one not engulfed and overwhelmed by popular culture.
   Million Dollar Baby transcends most boxing films with its moving themes on family, old age, faith and religion. It’s most obvious message being that life will leave us with more wounds than any boxing match ever could; life outside of the ring is far more harmful. The character of Maggie Fitzgerald seems to feel more at home in front of a punch bag or within the ring than she ever does waiting tables, in her apartment or her family’s trailer. She is a woman drawn to a sport for unknown reasons, like a calling similar to that of Muhammad Ali’s, who simply woke one morning and believed God was telling him he should be a boxer. This film is about a suppressive, rough woman with deep emotional issues stretching back to the death of her beloved father and the treatment she has received from her pig-headed mother coming out of her shell. For me, it does not quite top the only other boxing drama on the same level in terms of the drama-out-weighing-the-boxing format, Raging Bull. It does however come very close. Like Raging Bull, Million Dollar Baby has turned the boxing film on its head. Raging Bull showed us the life a boxer who was dangerous, despicable, unlikeable and arrogant; Million Dollar Baby presents the woman’s perspective, her struggle to be taken seriously as a fighter and the glory which is stripped from her. Where Raging Bull was unsettling and edgy; Million Dollar Baby is thought-provoking and sentimental.
  “Everyone’s got a particular number of fights” – says Freeman’s wise Eddie, and this may be true for a lot more than just the boxing world. There is only so much a person can take in life. What Million Dollar Baby represents is the fight that is existing. The world that can beat and break us until we are unrecognisable, and at the same time it reminds us that pain, loss and guilt are all inevitable consequences of the passing of time; all life is travelling towards the same eventual end. In this message which he transmits there is a great beauty and simplicity. This film is about the irony that the old men must live on in a cruel world, whilst youth is sabotaged and wasted.  It represents the pain of time passing us by and the struggle of living and breathing. The joy of Million Dollar Baby is in its execution and its subtlety; the story, though sad, is more humane and moral than any other boxing film I have seen. Its final shot, which lingers in the way all final shots should, leaves us in wonder. It reveals very little; which is just the right amount.
 So it was indeed fitting that in his Oscars acceptance, Eastwood brought forth the topic of old age. In his life, he has given us some of the greatest American films around: Unforgiven, his western swansong, is now considered one of the greatest westerns ever made and with good reason. This man has also given us the likes of Mystic River, The Outlaw Josey Wales, Pale Rider, Heartbreak Ridge, Changeling, Flags of Our Father, Letters from Iwo Jima, Gran Torino and Invictus – the list goes on and on - the format in his films never swaying from its honest subtlety. Though his mother has since passed on, with Eastwood pushing 81, we’re thanking her for her genes. Here’s to another ten years of Eastwood gems.


Wednesday, 2 March 2011

It's Hard to Explain: Great Brits: KES (1969)

It's Hard to Explain: Great Brits: KES (1969): " Even if you have never seen Ken Loach’s 1969 film “Kes” you will be familiar with its iconic, grainy black and white defining image. ..."

Great Brits: KES (1969)

  Even if you have never seen Ken Loach’s 1969 film “Kes” you will be familiar with its iconic, grainy black and white defining image. For nearly forty-one years the film’s young star, David Bradley, has yelled “fuck you” with two of his fingers from the shelves of our video, book and  DVD shops; standing out from the crowd much un-like the lowly, working class life it depicts. In Britain, Kes has a special place in our hearts and minds. It is an incredibly low-budget film and could easily have been wiped off the face of the earth upon release; but this sad and honest story has lived on and grown. Based on Barry Hines book “A Kestrel for a Knave” - It is a heart-felt story, symbolic of a hugely important era in the history of our country.


Billy Casper, described by his brutish older brother Jud as a “weedy little twat” and by teachers as “a bad ‘un,” lives a life with little luxury. His council estate home in Yorkshire has been built around the mines – or “pits” – from which its citizens work and his home life is dominated by shouting matches between himself, Jud and their single mother. Abandoned by their father at a young age, the Casper’s are notorious in their estate. The film captures Billy at a transitional point in his teen years. Having newly turned his back on his old gang of friends, he sets off on a new friendship with nature; where he finds his footing in life. In nature and wildlife he finds a passion and capacity to learn which teachers and family alike never believed he had.  
  The first fifteen minutes or so of Kes lay the foundations of the film and the life lead by it’s lead character, and it’s a life chock-a-block with paper-rounds, early morning back-and-forth with his brother and his employer, nicking sweets from the shop and milk and eggs from the milkman, finally finishing before his school day begins with Billy reading the Dandy on a hill overlooking the smoky industry of his hometown (ina fittingly beautiful shot.) Here we see a nice young lad – borderline scoundrel – with the hard head and the smarts of a child brought up into a rough world. The banter he shares with the milkman (“first class ridin’s better than first class walkin”) humours the viewer; the shot of him reading the Dandy in youthful ignorance of the smoky destiny which awaits him reminds us of his fate. We know from the start that Kes is a film about a young man with no way out; until of course Kes herself presents one.
  Billy is a young man who is visibly unsure about his future, he dislikes school and at the same time he dislikes the idea of work (“but at least ah’ll be paid for not likin’ it”). He does not excel at school, only showing interest in what is not forced on him. Nature is truly his field of study. Through his love for nature he is granted a purpose in life where there was no purpose before; his brother and his mother having squeezed that out of him along with his sense of belonging. At school, if he is not being ignored, he is being bullied by students and teachers alike. The scenes within the school show us a children’s point of view on their education, here we see why so many are keen to rebel against the teachers, many of whom are clinging onto a then-dying method of teaching through fear and physical punishment (caning) unable to accept that times are changing. These youths see school as a pointless intermission between childhood and manhood. A needless preparation for years and years of hard labour.
  There is an excellent scene early on in the film which displays the relationship between Billy and Jud. Forever at each others necks; the two brothers are constantly offloading their frustrations at the world upon each other. In this scene Billy – usually the punch bag – sees the tables turn. Returning home from a night at the pub, Jud stumbles to his room and to the bed he shares with Billy. He struggles to remove his trousers and commands Billy to help him take them off; Billy – reluctant – obliges. When his brother is in states such as this it is clearly the only opportunity Billy has to insult him without receiving a beating. Billy puts his brother to bed and afterwards begins to insult him, spitting in his face “Pig, ‘OG, Drunken Bastard!” – Before striking him across the face. In a spur-of-the-moment decision Billy runs from his brother and out to the woods, then to the farm where he had earlier spotted the nest of a Kestrel Falcon. He climbs the ruined wall – atop which is the nest – and grabs the young Kes.
  It is with the aptly named “Kes” that Billy forms the strongest relationship in the whole story. His hawk cannot thump him, insult him, bully him or dampen his spirit; and so Kes becomes his passion, his best friend and his closest family. Billy connects with other characters in the film: Mr Farthing, apparently one of the only decent teachers at the school, who takes a liking o Billy and his hawk, and his own mother – but she is distant, slightly cold and extremely self-absorbed. Besides the connection between himself and Kes the only character on the same level as Billy is the farmer whom he speaks to briefly -  he too is a man in awe of nature, free of the city like Billy longs to be ; a man of the outdoors.
  Though in the end the film is about young Billy and Kes - and the heart and determination this supposedly hopeless case of a boy pours into training it – the film’s best scenes take place within the grounds of the school. There is a scene where Billy and several of his classmates are sent to the headmaster’s office for punishment. An innocent young boy of ten or eleven with a message for the headmaster ends up mingled amongst the crowd of lads awaiting punishment; but the headmaster, not listening to the young innocent, drags him into his ritual. The scene ends – after the ignorant headmaster’s rant at “The generation that never listens” – with each boy receiving a caning per hand. He punishes the innocent boy for a misdemeanour he never committed. This scene shows us the blind anger with which schools such as this one were run; the great contradiction of the character of the headmaster being his ignorance. Ranting and raving, he inflicts pain on the generation which never listens on a daily basis, and when an innocent speaks out for himself – he is silenced and beaten. The headmaster himself is the one who is not listening. He creates the anger and sense of injustice which makes the children unruly.
  Billy finds himself singled out to bullying by one teacher in particular, the great buffoon that is Mr Sugden – a teacher with no regard whatsoever for the principles of teaching. His aim is simply to score goals at the game of football, beating his opponents no matter what their age or stature. Mr Sugden rounds on Billy at every opportunity, viewing him as the butt of all his most glorious and idiotic jokes. Mr Sugden represents, alongside the headmaster, the ignorant face of the educational system. His goal as a teacher should be to improve the lives of his pupils and to prepare them for the future; but his only intent is to participate in fantasy games of football (Man United Vs The Spurs) – placing himself as striker and ref , authority and star, so that he may be viewed by these children as the popular, centre of attention he never has been or would be anywhere else. Mr Sugden blames Billy (placed in goals) for the outcome of the match. Forcing Billy to shower after the game, he waits until the showers are empty, commands some large boys to block the exit and changes the shower temperatures to freezing. The joke is wasted on everyone but Mr Sugden, believing himself to be a master trickster, but he does not bargain on Billy clambering over the wall of the showers – stark naked, freezing and slippery – to applause from his school mates. This moment displays Billy’s spirit in the face of intimidation.
  Collin Welland’s performance as Mr Farthing is one of the films strongest and Farthing himself is one of the films most endearing characters. In a school holding onto an ageing and strict system, he is the only teacher we see who shows a genuine passion for his job; he is the fresh face of change. When Billy gets into a fight with the bully Macmillan – where he is beaten on a pile of coal (fitting to the mining community where the story is set) - Mr Farthing breaks it up. He assesses the situation with justice, pinpointing Macmillan as the aggressor before rounding on him. He squashes Macmillan’s ego with a rant which is a mixture of intimidation and decency. In reply to Macmillan’s old “My Dad’ll” claim he roars, “MY Dad’s heavyweight champion of the WORLD!” He cares not whether Macmillan’s father storms round the corner with a cricket bat to give him a hiding; his only concern is his moral integrity, to sticking up for what is right.
  In another scene Mr Farthing is teaching a class the difference between “fact and fiction” – a theme which represents the story of Kes itself. The story is both fact and fiction; the characters are fictional yet their story, their environment and their hardships are believable, and in that sense very real. We feel a great connection with the characters in the film, as if we may have passed them in the streets; or that they have drifted in and out of our lives somehow. Billy is forced by Mr Farthing to share a story with the class which is pure fact. Reluctant at first, he later begins an engaging speech about the training of his beloved hawk. He absorbs the class and the teacher (and us, the audience) alike in his speech. It is here that we see for the first time the length of Billy’s commitment to Kes; prompting Mr Farthing to request to see Billy and Kes in action. In his speech to the class we can see the nerves on the face of the young actor and feel it on every word. For a teenager with no experience in film whatsoever, this moment must have been a real challenge; but it shows just how pure an actor the young David Bradley was. Fresh off the street, confident, innocent; there is a very fine line between the actor himself and the fictional character of Billy Casper.
  Kes is a film which aims to teach us about morality. It will also, by the time it reaches its heart-breaking conclusion teach you about the cruel nature of life. The story itself is a lesson in fact and fiction, on fate and destiny; and it poses a question. If your future is certainly a life of hard labour (in “t’pits”) then what was the real need for years of school and strict punishment? We see the educational system exposed as a pointless exercise. When the young children gather for an assembly we see this in full. The teachers, high above on the stage, ruling over the young ones whom they train for a life of labour in offices and mines – where they will work for years on poor wages. The assembly comes fittingly after a scene documenting the start of Jud’s work day in the mines. The Faces of the miners – young and old and middle aged – collide and converse; bored, happy or tired – and they are the faces of the determined people who kept Britain afloat. It shows us the position of Britain’s working class in this era – the sun rising and gleaming off of their hardhats.
  The character of Billy Casper is beaten by the end, his life devoid of joy; his youth fading away into a dusty, undetermined future. By this point we can feel his childhood and adulthood merging into one dark blur. The point of Kes therefore is to present to the viewer in full the harsh world in which we live. This is a film which is not about Casper’s youth; but about the death of his youth and the victory of his aggressors. Billy, like Kes, longed to fly away, to roam the skies a free spirit detached from contact with others; but by the final shot of the film – which will stick with us forever – we learn life is not so kind.
  Billy’s struggle, both at home and at school, is symbolic of the struggle faced by Great Britain after the Second World War, the economic and moral struggle to get back on our feet, to keep working towards a better future for our people. Casper himself is a portrait of the post-war youth, beaten on all fronts, confused. Torn. His struggle was ours; his pain is ours to share. Perhaps this is why Kes has lived on, loved, for so many years. Upon its release, audiences could connect to the character of Billy because he was to them a modern child; his life mirrored the lives of many. Nowadays we connect to Billy because he connects us to our past. We watch him and draw admiration from his tough life; in awe of his passion and determination.
  Kes is a miracle of a film in many ways. It has the potential to change your life with its messages about youth and Britain’s-then-educational system. It is a grainy film, old-fashioned in every way; it’s cinematography – basic - there is no great mastery of the camera here. The most in terms of soundtrack that it has to offer is the occasional flute playing in certain moments, accompanied occasionally by one or two chords from an acoustic guitar. It is, to be perfectly honest, a flawed film; but when we assess it - the miniscule cast and crew, the sliver of money that was the budget- the film is a true miracle to have been made and to have survived for four decades still loved by so many. Its “flaws” - the inexperienced actors, dodgy cuts, dodgy sounds and dark lighting – become its greatest strengths. The film practically runs on natural light. The shots filmed within the rooms of Billy’s council estate home are lit only by the daylight which spills in through the windows. It is all perfectly fitting to the story; everything adds to the realism of the environment and the film’s era. Every aspect of Kes’ production has made it stronger and more powerful in every way. Ken Loach has made this environmental realism a signature of his films, bringing the feel of Kes into such modern gems as “Sweet Sixteen” and “Looking For Eric.” At the time of Kes, across the Atlantic, the look of cinema was changing forever to a rock’n’roll beat, doped up on weed, booze and rebellion with films such as Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider and M.A.S.H. Britain however, remained in limbo. Kes presents this unchanging sameness, the frozen society of labourers, the cold towns in the North of England which were apparently immune to the Cultural Revolution gripping the rest of the Western World.
  Kes is a life lesson. Bill Casper is the pupil who becomes the teacher. His story preaches the unfairness of his existence, the pain of living and of dying. Though “Kes” herself has limited screen time, by the film’s conclusion she will no doubt have broken your heart into pieces and set up an uncomfortable nest in its remains; here she will stitch the pieces back together. Kes moves you in a way which is rare, spearheaded by a sadness which will linger with you forever like the true pain of loss.