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This is England
Sep. 11th, 2010 02:23 pmWith the appearance of This is England 86 on Channel 4, I thought it might be a good idea to get round, finally, to watching my DVD of This Is England.
The comparison between the two programmes (one a film, the second the first of a mini-series) is interesting.
This is England probably wasn't the best movie for me to watch last night. Uplifting for the human spirit, it is not. And although it's a highly watchable film, attempting to show the motives for nearly all of the characters, even the "baddies", I was still left with the feeling that this was a rather shallow coverage of England in the aftermath of the Falklands War. Too many bits of it, for me, did not ring true.
Part of the problem for me, I guess, is that 1983 strikes me as the wrong year to cover a group of suedeheads and skinheads (director Shane Meadows fails to differentiate between the two) and the threat of the National Front. For me this reached its peak in the late 1970s (Tom Robinson's "The Winter of '79" remains one of the best songs covering that era) and by 1983 the rise of Thatcher had somewhat stolen the thunder of the NF. Meadows does his best to extricate himself from this self-created problem, but the net result is that you have the "hard-line" skinhead effectively taking a class-war view of the Falklands War (almost word for word the SWP's attitude at the time), and grafting a hatred of "Pakis" onto the top.
Still, this is Sheffield, so perhaps that's what it was like. It just doesn't gel with my memory of London at the time.
Only at one point does Meadows indicate an interesting forgotten part of history (one to which I have alluded before) -- that skinheads were a development of Mods and that they got their original clothing style from Stockwell and Brixton black kids. The love of ska and reggae linked into this. Sure, it was a movement of the disaffected white working class youth, but it only gained a right-wing flavour when Martin Webster spotted that fighting footy fans could be recruited for the "This is England" cause. But this was the early 1970s, not the early 1980s.
This Is England 86 is a very different beast, and my fear is that it might become another Shameless. Except, of course, that the first series of Shameless was magnificent.
There's a big difference between a mini-series and a movie -- the narrative drive can be slowed down, sub-plots can be introduced. And in places these sub-plots are clearly there to lighten the tone. The "army" of twats on their hair-dryer motor-bikes (led by head twat, dressed of course in a Sergio Tacchini training suit -- nice touch) was one such interlude.
But the nub of the story, the wedding day of Lol and Woody, is beautifully done. All soap directors should watch this to see how it can be done. One particular shot, a la opening shot of Saturday Night Fever, catches it spot on.
It will be interesting to see how This Is England 86 develops. I suspect it might follow the Boys From The Blackstuff route, gradually getting darker after the viewer is "hooked". But it does have one plus. I actually care what happens to at least a couple of the characters, and that's quite an achievement for a grizzles old cynic like me.
_____________________
The comparison between the two programmes (one a film, the second the first of a mini-series) is interesting.
This is England probably wasn't the best movie for me to watch last night. Uplifting for the human spirit, it is not. And although it's a highly watchable film, attempting to show the motives for nearly all of the characters, even the "baddies", I was still left with the feeling that this was a rather shallow coverage of England in the aftermath of the Falklands War. Too many bits of it, for me, did not ring true.
Part of the problem for me, I guess, is that 1983 strikes me as the wrong year to cover a group of suedeheads and skinheads (director Shane Meadows fails to differentiate between the two) and the threat of the National Front. For me this reached its peak in the late 1970s (Tom Robinson's "The Winter of '79" remains one of the best songs covering that era) and by 1983 the rise of Thatcher had somewhat stolen the thunder of the NF. Meadows does his best to extricate himself from this self-created problem, but the net result is that you have the "hard-line" skinhead effectively taking a class-war view of the Falklands War (almost word for word the SWP's attitude at the time), and grafting a hatred of "Pakis" onto the top.
Still, this is Sheffield, so perhaps that's what it was like. It just doesn't gel with my memory of London at the time.
Only at one point does Meadows indicate an interesting forgotten part of history (one to which I have alluded before) -- that skinheads were a development of Mods and that they got their original clothing style from Stockwell and Brixton black kids. The love of ska and reggae linked into this. Sure, it was a movement of the disaffected white working class youth, but it only gained a right-wing flavour when Martin Webster spotted that fighting footy fans could be recruited for the "This is England" cause. But this was the early 1970s, not the early 1980s.
This Is England 86 is a very different beast, and my fear is that it might become another Shameless. Except, of course, that the first series of Shameless was magnificent.
There's a big difference between a mini-series and a movie -- the narrative drive can be slowed down, sub-plots can be introduced. And in places these sub-plots are clearly there to lighten the tone. The "army" of twats on their hair-dryer motor-bikes (led by head twat, dressed of course in a Sergio Tacchini training suit -- nice touch) was one such interlude.
But the nub of the story, the wedding day of Lol and Woody, is beautifully done. All soap directors should watch this to see how it can be done. One particular shot, a la opening shot of Saturday Night Fever, catches it spot on.
It will be interesting to see how This Is England 86 develops. I suspect it might follow the Boys From The Blackstuff route, gradually getting darker after the viewer is "hooked". But it does have one plus. I actually care what happens to at least a couple of the characters, and that's quite an achievement for a grizzles old cynic like me.
_____________________
