PalenqueBob

from what most tourists see check out the movie This is England, currently released in the U.S.

Directed by Shane Meadows, who one reviewer calls one of England's best directors but rather unknown in U.S., the movie follows the travails of a young teen caught up in the skinhead culture of the East Midlands

"Adrift and stuck in a deteriorating urban village where the smell of hopelessness is as strong as that of the fish and chips grease"... his friends "have an obvious pride in their working-class lack of pretension"

or well for a different side of the England; a side i find intriguing but depressing.

bardo1

"Adrift and stuck in a deteriorating urban village where the smell of hopelessness is as strong as that of the fish and chips grease"

I think I'll just stay on the beaten path thank you.

alanRow

It's set in the 1980's - a generation ago

bobbymckaye

You want depression? Try 'The Green Street Hooligans'. BMK

audere_est_facere

It's called "Green Street" over here and makes every football fan laugh until they cry. "Unrealistic" doesn't even begin to cover it.

bobbymckaye

Thank goodness it's a fictionalized account. I feel much better. BMK

audere_est_facere

The reality is much much worse.

Audere - Who has "met" the ICF in their pomp. Not nice.

chimani

So is anyone in the US making equivalent films? Doesn't quite fit the Hollywood paradigm does it?

Perhaps they should and then we could all be enlightened about a "different side of America".

But then maybe we already know ...

sunny16

Thanks for the recommendation. I'm going to check it out on dvd.

"Trainspotting" is another good one in this genre.

flanneruk

Hollywood exists to make money out of films. People - as the inevitable commercial faliure of British films like this always shows - don't go to watch films about "the smell of hopelessness", so Hollywood won't make any.

But here's the question I find interesting. Look at any festival featuring indie British films and 99% of them seem to be about the misery (or authenticity, or glamour, or scandalous political exploitation or something equally Marxist Lite) of working-class life.

But I spent as few days in Berkeley last year, scouring what was on at art house cinemas. Gazillions of American non-Hollywood films - the kind that get shown at Sundance. But the only gritty one about the underclass (apart from stuff in Brazilian) was the British 49 Up.

It not just Hollywood that's uninterested in the smell. Hopelessness is simply unAmerican.

Personally I think it's unEnglish, too. But there's a wall of taxpayers'money available for anyone who wants to glamourise it.

Josser

When I were a lad, cinemas were rather luxurious places with men dressed like Ruritanian generals in charge of the long queues.
The majority of patrons were working class and they wanted to be taken out of themselves after working hard in unglamorous jobs.
They wanted thrillers, comedies and musicals with beautiful costumes.
The last they they wanted was gritty realism. They could get that at home ;-)
I doubt if tastes have changed.

alanRow

UK still suffering the effects if the Kitch Sink Dramas of the late '50s, early '60s

Still hasn't stopped us producing miserable commercial failures like Kes, Billy Elliot, Trainspotting, Withnail & I and The Full Monty

Next big miserable commercial failure - Hallam Voe

flanneruk

Kes, Billy Elliott and Full Monty were absolutely NOT about hopelesness. They were popular precisely because they were about the commercial (and very American) story of success against the odds.

I doubt anyone outside British art houses, apart from a few drunken students watching dvds, has ever even heard of Withnal. Its total takings in the US, for example, heve been $1.5 mn in 20 years, which means 300,000 people at most have bothered with it.

audere_est_facere

The American equivelent of Withnail is probably Cheech and Chong.

I can see why Americans wouldn't go for Withnail as it would baffle the hell out of them (as it would most non British).

I have a friend called Monty and Withnail has ruined his life. Whenever people see him they invariably shout "Monty, you terrible ****".

The fillums that drive me garrity are the bloody costume dramas and Jane Bloody Austen. That and the sub Lock Stock type gangster fillums.

hanl

"...as it would baffle the hell out of them (as it would most non British)."

Definitely agree... I practically forced my (French) husband to watch it with the promise that it was the funniest film ever made. He didn't understand a word of it!

Except maybe "We've gone on holiday by mistake." and "I demand to have some booze".

chartley

Before we all sit down for a nice re-run of Summer Holiday with Cliff Richard, can I put in a word for Mike Leigh. His films get critical acclaim, are reasonably popular, use good actors yet show people struggling against the odds. "Secrets and Lies" is a wonderful example.

And his "Abigail's Party" is still the best reference point for all things naff and quintessentially British.

MissPrism

Ah, it takes me back
Those Ruritanian generals. "Two doubles in the one and nines!"

I hate Jane Austen films too because the makers insist on the women wearing evening dress in the morning so as to show off their bosoms and they insert all the sex that Jane "forgot" to put in.
In fact, I would never see the film version of any novel that I had enjoyed.
I agree that the average person doesn't want to come out of a cinema depressed.
Mind you, my mother loved a good "weepie".

alanRow

<<< Kes, Billy Elliott and Full Monty were absolutely NOT about hopelesness >>>

Kes - dashed hopes, as the Kestrel was killed
Full Monty - what did they do the day after, they were back to where they were before
Billy Elliot - he succeeded, his friend became Boy George, everyone else lost

audere_est_facere

Billy Elliot, Kes and Full Monty - all set in the north, therefore all grim.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=dxtf7pNhGlY

chimani

Wonder where the OP is in all this, eh?