ID 6120
Haider, Sandra-Elisabeth: Scotland in feature film - The country's screen-image then and
now, with focus on the City of Glasgow and the development of a Scottish film industry
Hamburg: Diplomica GmbH, 2002
Zugl.: Wien, Universität, Diplomarbeit, 2002
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I
Inhaltsverzeichnis/ Contents:
Preface ... 1
Introduction... 3
1
Chapter I: The debate on Scottish film and the representation of Scotland and
Glasgow on screen... 8
1.1
Introduction Chapter I: Scotland and Film... 8
1.2
Scotch Reels Edinburgh 1982... 12
1.2.1
Introduction... 12
1.2.2
Aims ... 14
1.2.3
Results ... 15
1.2.3.1 Tartanry and Kailyard ... 17
1.2.3.1.1 Introduction ... 17
1.2.3.1.2 Historical connections... 19
1.2.3.1.3 Literary connections... 21
1.2.3.1.4 Pictorial connections... 28
1.2.3.1.5 Cinematic connections... 29
1.2.3.2 Clydesidism/ The image of the city... 31
1.2.3.2.1 Introduction ... 31
1.2.3.2.2 Historical connections... 32
1.2.3.2.3 Literary connections... 33
1.2.3.2.4 Pictorial connections... 37
1.2.3.2.5 Cinematic connections... 39
1.2.4
Conclusion ... 41
1.3
Reactions to and criticism of Scotch Reels... 42
1.3.1
Introduction... 42
1.3.2
John Caughie... 42
1.3.3
Cairns Craig ... 45
1.3.4
Pam Cook... 47
1.3.5
David McCrone ... 48
1.3.6
Duncan Petrie... 49
1.3.7
More criticism... 52
II
1.3.7.1 John Brown ... 52
1.3.7.2 Thomas Elsaesser ... 54
1.3.7.3 Scott L. Malcomson ... 55
1.3.7.4 Forsyth Hardy... 56
1.3.7.5 Jeffrey Richards... 57
1.3.8
Conclusion ... 57
1.4
Conclusion Chapter I... 58
2
Chapter II: Popular images of Glasgow and its people ... 59
2.1
Introduction Chapter II ... 59
2.2
Details ... 62
2.2.1
The Hard Man ... 62
2.2.2
Slums... 64
2.2.3
The legacy of the "Red Clydeside" ... 67
2.2.4
Heavy drinking ... 69
2.2.5
Sectarianism... 71
2.2.6
Football... 73
2.3
Conclusion Chapter II... 74
3
Chapter III: The development of a Scottish film industry... 76
3.1
Introduction Chapter III... 76
3.2
"A Poor Scottish Cinema"... 76
3.3
Critics of "A Poor Scottish Cinema"... 79
3.4
Chronicle ... 82
3.4.1
1920s ... 83
3.4.2
1930s ... 84
3.4.3
1940s ... 88
3.4.4
1950s ... 89
3.4.5
1960s ... 90
3.4.6
1970s ... 92
3.4.7
1980s ... 93
3.4.8
1990s ... 98
3.4.9
2000 ... 105
3.4.10
2001 ... 106
III
3.4.11
2002 ... 109
3.5
Conclusion Chapter III ... 114
4
Chapter IV: Recent films and their depiction of Glasgow ... 116
4.1
Introduction Chapter IV ... 116
4.2
Films ... 118
4.2.1
Ratcatcher... 118
4.2.2
Orphans ... 121
4.2.3
Small Faces ... 123
4.2.4
My Name is Joe ... 126
4.3
Conclusion Chapter IV ... 129
5
Conclusion... 131
6
German Abstract/ Zusammenfassung auf Deutsch... 139
Bibliography ... 152
A) Books ... 152
B) Newspaper-articles, essays, periodicals and URL-addresses... 155
Appendix ... 162
A) Abbreviations ... 162
B) Film list 1995 to date ... 164
1
Preface
During my studies I have always tried to attend as many film-related courses and
seminars as possible, because I am both interested in and fascinated by the
medium of film.
My fascination is due to the fact that film is such a multi-layered medium and
allows many interpretations.
Every single part of a film e.g. its story, the forms of narration used, its
characters and their development, its rhythm, the use of sound and music as well
as its pictures - is important, and analyses of the whole "product" can be very
informative. By watching a film and concentrating on a different aspect of it every
time, it can be enjoyed over and over again.
In my Erasmus
1
year abroad 1998/99, which I was lucky to be able to spend in
Glasgow, the "European City of Culture 1990" and "UK City of Design and
Architecture 1999", I attended various film lectures, participated in the short film
festival "Longshots" organised by Glasgow University and worked as a voluntary
"Information Assistant" at the Edinburgh International Filmfestival 1999.
One of my favourite (and one of the many) cultural places in Glasgow was and is
the Glasgow Film Theatre (gft)
2
, where I watched numerous new releases and
classics alike.
I have become especially interested in British, and in particular Scottish film and
film history, which is also due to the highly acclaimed Edinburgh International
Filmfestival with its annual focus on Scottish filmmakers.
1
Scholarship 1998/99 from the ÖAAD (Österreichischer Akademischer Austauschdienst) within
the European Union's Socrates-programme.
2
URL: http://www.gft.org.
2
Considering my love of Scotland and the medium of film it is perhaps no surprise
that I chose to combine both aspects in the topic of my thesis.
My aim is to find out which kind of image(s) of the City of Glasgow and its
inhabitants is/ are conveyed in recent feature-films.
3
After all, a city's image is -
besides other important influences
4
- also a result of its representation on screen.
There is hardly any recent investigation on the subject available, leaving out of
account a few books and articles on the Scottish film industry and the popularity
of a small number of Scottish actors and actresses in the 1990s. Please see the
chapter of introduction for more detailed information on the contents of my thesis.
At this point I would like to take the opportunity to thank my professor at Vienna
University, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johann Hüttner for his help. Also, I want to thank my
parents for their financial and psychological support, patience and trust in me.
3
Note: The British Film Institute defines a feature film as being over 72 minutes long and made on
celluloid with the intention of theatrical release in at least one country. (Scottish Screen Data 1998,
Section 3).
4
Cf. Katherine Jean Haldane, Imagining Scotland: Tourist Images of Scotland, 1770-1914
(University of Virginia: Dissertation, 1990). In this study, Haldane examines the influence of 18
th
and 19
th
century literature and art on the popular (tourist) image of the country and shows how,
under the influence of Romanticism, Scotland became associated with the wild and primitive - an
image that is in part still existent today, although it bares (and bore) little relation to contemporary
Scotland. A similar approach can certainly be applied to the development of Glasgow's image,
although with different contents.
3
Introduction
At Glasgow's University Library I discovered a book about Scotland on film,
Scotch Reels
5
.
Originally, Scotch Reels is the title of a research carried out in 1982 about the
depiction of Scotland on screen. It was revealed then that the predominant image
of Scotland was very much engaged with stereotypes (defined as the "heather and
haggis image"
6
by one of the book's critics) and had obviously nothing to do with
the contemporary reality of Scotland. Not surprisingly, that radical view has found
a lot of stern critics.
On superficial examination, when I think of all the recent films set in Scotland
(ranging from the historical epos Braveheart to the contemporary fast-paced drug
story Trainspotting, to mention two of the more popular examples), it seems to me
that contemporary films set in Scotland show a wider spectrum of Scottish life
than they apparently did before the 1980s, when the stories were mostly (with a
few exceptions only) set in the Highlands or on an island, in a community far
away from contemporary (modern and industrial) life. As a classic example of
those films one can mention the musical Brigadoon by Vicente Minnelli from the
year 1954.
However, in my thesis I want to concentrate on films set in the City of Glasgow,
since there would be far too much material concerned if I considered every single
available recent film set in Scotland.
7
5
Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels. Scotland in cinema and television (London: BFI, 1982).
6
Hardy Forsyth, Scotland in film (London: BFI, 1990), p.128.
7
Note: I include a list of films reflecting some aspect of "Scottishness" in my appendix, though,
from 1995 to date. There, not only British or Scottish films are taken into consideration. I cannot
claim completeness of this list, but it should give the interested reader an impression of the range
of films produced.
4
I would like to find out whether the image of Glasgow has improved (or widened
in its conception) through the release of recent films, compared to its depiction in
older movies.
As I could not analyse all recent feature films set in Glasgow in this context, I
decided to concentrate on a few examples. By taking a closer look at these films I
hope to be able to demonstrate how varied (or one-sided as will be determined)
the contemporary portrayal of the city is.
I do not want to omit mentioning my awareness of the fact that my selection is
very subjective. Had I selected other movies, the result would naturally have been
a different one. Also, I have not taken into account television films or series set in
the Glasgow area. Especially in recent years a whole range of series has been
produced and broadcasted, for instance the surreal hospital-drama Psychos,
starring Douglas Henshall, the controversial Tinsel Town, set in Glasgow's lively
clubbing scene, or Glasgow Kiss, which portrays the city as a modern, airy place,
inhabited by sympathetic, educated middle-class people something the title
might not indicate.
8
The following films have been chosen for closer examination:
Small Faces (Gilles McKinnon, 1995)
My Name is Joe (Ken Loach, 1998)
Orphans (Peter Mullan, 1998)
Ratcatcher (Lynne Ramsay, 1999)
What I considered of importance for this selection are the facts that I have actually
seen these films on screen at least once, and that they are available on VHS.
Actually, I would have liked to include more recent films set in Glasgow (such as
the digitally shot One Life Stand by May Miles Thomas, 2000; Sweet Sixteen, Ken
Loach, 2002; Morvern Callar, Lynne Ramsay, 2000), but as most of them are not
available on video (yet) an analysis is made more difficult. Another important
8
A "Glasgow Kiss" means a headbutt.
5
point for selection is, naturally, that the story of those films is wholly or at least
partially set in Glasgow.
Looking at the films it becomes obvious that all these productions are British,
some even Scottish. This was not intended, but should not influence my analysis
of Glasgow's recent screen image in any way.
This lack of non-British film-makers' interest in setting their films in Glasgow is
interesting to note, especially because films set in Scotland's rural areas do exist
(mostly in the Highlands or on the Islands; e.g. Braveheart, Mel Gibson, 1995;
Rob Roy, Michael Caton-Jones, 1995; Breaking the Waves, Lars van Trier, 1996).
However, Glasgow has been the backdrop for a range of films, although not
featuring as itself: In House of Mirth (Terence Davies, 2000), for instance, the
Scottish city doubles as a fin de siècle New York. In some scenes of Aberdeen
(Hans Petter Molland, 2000) as well as Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994),
Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1995) or Regeneration (Gillies Mackinnon, 1997)
Glasgow stands in for Edinburgh.
General facts on the screen-image of Scotland and examples of how films are
interpreted by the Scotch Reels authors are included in my thesis, as they are
important for a basic understanding of the topic.
I hope to have been able to make clear that the topic I have chosen is of interest to
the academic discussion on "Scotland on film". Since the early 1980s no
extensive research has been carried out. However, taking into consideration the
prerequisites of this publication, I have to maintain certain limits and therefore
concentrate on a selection of films.
A broader analysis, taking into account all productions (productions for television
as well as documentaries, feature and short films), would surely be informative.
During recent years there was a discussion going on about the building of a
Scottish film studio. On one hand it was said that such a studio is urgently needed
6
if Scotland wants to assure a striving film industry, on the other hand it was
argued that money should be put into specific local productions rather than into a
big studio complex that hardly any young Scottish film-maker would be able to
afford. Those arguing against a film studio claimed that such a project would only
be affordable for big non-Scottish film companies, mainly American or also
English ones, who have no interest in carrying out productions in Scotland
anyway, since they have their own, usually better infrastructure available.
9
I have decided to include a chapter on the Scottish film industry in my thesis,
since this industry is undoubtedly a strong factor in providing certain prerequisites
for (here: Scottish) filmmakers. This is done in the form of an extensive chronicle.
The kind of filmic analysis I am going to do is not based on a specific school. I
have merely worked with general introductions to the topic.
10
In general I have
used a very personal approach, by trying to confirm and being able to explain my
initial impression by watching the films over and over again.
In selecting the films I have not paid attention to the criterion of representation.
Therefore my results should not be generalised. The result is merely a personal
and subjective one.
The literature I am going to work with is based on four publications: Scotch
Reels
11
from 1982, although often criticised, is cited as groundbreaking research
on "Scotland and film" in nearly every publication on the topic. Another
influential book was published eight years after Scotch Reels: Eddie Dick's From
Limelight to Satellite
12
shows already different and more positive points of view
than its predecessor. Also from 1990 is Forsyth Hardy's Scotland in Film
13
. The
9
Cf. e.g. Rich Grant, "Lights, cameras, mixed reaction...", The List, Issue 398 (Oct 5-9, 2000),
p. 8.
10
Knut Hickethier, Film- und Fernsehanalyse, 2
nd
edn (Stuttgart/ Weimar: Metzler, 1996);
Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film, 3rd edn (New York et al: Longman,
1998).
11
Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels.
12
Eddie Dick (ed.), From Limelight to Satellite (London: BFI, 1990).
13
Hardy Forsyth, Scotland in Film.
7
most recent work on Scotland on screen and the Scottish film industry is
Screening Scotland
14
by Duncan Petrie, published in 2000. Petrie "examines the
longer and deeper history of Scottish cinema in a more positive light than
previous commentaries"
15
.
I want to introduce these publications and the different views or their authors in
my thesis and will also use newspaper-articles and essays from various specialist
periodicals to give an insight into the Scottish situation.
What I do not intend to do here, though, is an in-depth study of the complex field
of the search for a Scottish identity, or a historical survey. My main focus is on an
aesthetic analysis of recent films and their depicted image of Glasgow, then and
now.
14
Duncan Petrie, Screening Scotland (London: BFI, 2000).
15
Ibid., backcover.
8
1 Chapter I: The debate on Scottish film and the
representation of Scotland and Glasgow on screen
1.1 Introduction Chapter I: Scotland and Film
I want to start this chapter with a short outline of the general subject of "Scotland
and film".
John Caughie in his encyclopaedia of British and Irish cinema under that heading
writes the following:
(...) The problem is, of course, that like most other small countries (...)
Scotland has had a limited capacity to represent itself in feature films. The
appetite for film was prodigious from the start, and in the 1930s Glasgow
had the largest cinema in Europe Green's Playhouse and more cinema
seats per capita than any other city in Europe. Production, however, was
restricted almost exclusively to documentaries and educational films and
to politically motivated activists and inspired amateurs (...).
16
His closing sentence on the subject (which as a whole takes up only two pages in
the book) contains the claim that it is "still too early to talk about a Scottish film
industry"
17
. He wrote this in 1996.
Four years later Brian Pendreigh, journalist of The Guardian, draws an altogether
more positive picture of the Scottish film industry. In his book on the so-called
"Scot Pack"
18
, which is aimed at an audience interested in celebrities' life stories
rather than in film studies, he enthusiastically speaks of a sudden dominance of
Scottish talent on (international) screen. In his eyes, beginning with the success of
the film Shallow Grave (Danny Boyle, 1994), a phase of international recognition
16
John Caughie, "Scotland and Film", in John Caughie (ed.), The Companion to British and Irish
Cinema (London: BFI, 1996), pp. 144f.
17
John Caughie, "Scotland and Film", pp. 146f.
18
Brian Pendreigh, The Scot Pack (Edinburgh/ London: Mainstream Publishing, 2000).
9
for Scottish actors and actresses such as Angus McFayden
19
, John Hannah
20
,
Dougray Scott
21
, Ewan McGregor
22
, Kelly Macdonald
23
and others began.
In introducing the topic of "the representation of Scotland on screen" I have
chosen a quote by Peter Meech. It is applied to Scotland's popular cinematic
representation:
Tartan and the sound of the bagpipes are probably the most immediately
identifiable cultural symbols of Scotland. Throughout the world, and not
only in areas with high concentrations of emigre Scots, they have long
been accepted without question as a visual and acoustic shorthand for the
imagined (Highland) essence of the country. In Scotland itself, however,
they represent aspects of a cultural phenomenon which for many, in
particular leftwing intellectuals, has been problematic.
24
This critique on the predominantly stereotyped representation of Scotland on
screen will be discussed in more detail in another chapter. Here I just want to
outline the situation to give a first impression.
Considering that most films show clichés of a romantic Scotland it is maybe not
surprising that "real Scots" have rarely constituted important parts of those
movies at all. Instead, English, American or Australian actors have been playing
Scottish protagonists, mostly with false accents.
19
E.g. Braveheart, Mel Gibson, 1995; Titus, Julie Taymor, 1999.
20
E.g. Four Weddings and a Funeral, Mike Newell, 1994; Sliding Doors, Peter Howitt, 1998, The
Hurricane, Norman Jewison, 1999.
21
E.g. Twin Town, Kevin Allen, 1997; Ever After, Andy Tennant, 1997; Mission: Impossible II,
John Woo, 2000.
22
E.g. Brassed Off, Mark Herman, 1996; Velvet Goldmine, Todd Haynes, 1998; Star Wars
Episode 1: The Phantom Menace, George Lucas, 1999; Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann, 2001.
23
E.g. Stella Does Tricks, Coky Giedroyc, 1996; Elizabeth, Shekhar Kapur, 1998; Some Voices,
Simon Cellan-Jones, 2000.
24
Peter Meech, "The lion, the thistle and the saltire: national symbols and corporate identity in
Scottish broadcasting", Screen, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Spring 1996), p. 72.
10
Similarly, Scottish actors hardly had any chances to make careers in Scotland, as
they were mainly used for minor, often comic roles. So most of them emigrated
south to the film-centre of London (or to the United States) and denied their roots
and regional accents in order to be able to succeed: "The biggest stars seemed to
play down their Scottishness, for the simple reason that to be seen as Scottish
relegated an actor to character roles."
25
In an interview in 1997, the Scottish actor Robert Carlyle confirms this, but also
admits that the situation has improved in the past few years:
Scottish actors tend to be quite good at accents because their whole
experience of the media from early childhood is English accents. It's
perhaps more difficult the other way round, for English actors to do Scots
accents. And it's really only been in the past five years that it's been in any
way acceptable to hear a Scottish accent in a lead character.
26
It is probably also due to Sean Connery, that Scottish vernacular on screen has
been more and more accepted. As Pendreigh points out, the actor's Scottish accent
has become "an integrant part of the Connery screen persona"
27
. John Millar
elaborates:
He has (...) refused to let his natural soft Scots burr become a hang-up.
When you cast Sean Connery in a movie that's exactly what you get. So
we've seen him, Scots accent and all, as an Arab sheikh in The Wind and
the Lion, a Spaniard in Highlander, an old Irish/ American cop in The
Untouchables, a high-powered Norwegian cop in Ransom, a Saudi
diplomat in The Next Man and the Lithuanian hero of The Hunt For Red
October.
28
Most of the time, however, so Pendreigh writes, "Scotland supplied the basic
storylines, and it sometimes supplied scenery, and supporting cast, but Hollywood
or London supplied the stars."
29
25
Brian Pendreigh, The Scot Pack, p. 27.
26
Robert Carlyle in an interview by Sally Chatsworth, Sight and Sound (Nov 1997), p. 13.
27
Brian Pendreigh, The Scot Pack, p. 41.
28
John Millar, "Sean Connery", in Eddie Dick (ed.), From Limelight to Satellite, p.167.
29
Brian Pendreigh, The Scot Pack, p.24.
11
Here, once again one can give examples from early film history, such as Annie
Laurie (1918) with silent-film star Lilian Gish, Wee Willie Winkie (1938) with
Shirley Temple, or the often-cited Brigadoon (1954), which starred Gene Kelly
and was shot entirely in a Hollywood-studio. More recent films, such as
Australian Mel Gibson's Braveheart from 1995 (largely shot in Ireland) or Rob
Roy (Michael Caton-Jones, 1995) with Irishman Liam Neeson as protagonist can
be cited as further examples.
It is not only the Hollywood or London film industry which is to blame for the
stereotyped representation of Scotland and the Scots on screen throughout the
history of film: many of the Scottish-based movies themselves do not show any
different kind of images.
Hardy mentions, however, that as late as 1955
Scottish films were still not being made by Scotsmen in Scotland. (...) It
was hardly surprising that the film-makers in Hollywood and elsewhere
had seized, when making Scottish films, on the most easily identifiable
elements in dress, character and background. These were, in the short
term, assets in a visual medium.
30
And he continues, "if Scots wanted to change the image, or even influence it, they
had to do it themselves."
31
The cliché-ridden discourses, called "Tartanry" and "Kailyard" in critical
literature, have their roots in 18
th
century literature and were not first and foremost
apparent on screen. They "entered various forms and artefacts: poems, novels,
operas, paintings, prints, photographs, postcards, shortbread tins and soft
furnishings as well as films and, later, television programmes."
32
30
Forsyth Hardy, Scotland in Film, p. 100.
31
Forsyth Hardy, Scotland in Film, p. 100.
32
Colin McArthur, "Scotland and Cinema: The iniquity of the fathers", in Colin McArthur (ed.),
Scotch Reels, pp. 44f.
12
I will describe Tartanry and Kailyard in more detail later. I wanted to introduce
the terms here already though, since they are of great importance to the subject.
The impact of these discourses on Scottish film is obviously so strong, that an
escape from them seemed (and seems?) nearly impossible. As Colin McArthur in
Scotch Reels claims:
Since there were simply no alternative traditions of representation with
comparable power, the tendency was for any film dealing with Scotland,
or having a Scot as a character, to be pulled strongly towards the armature
of images, characters and stories making up Tartanry and Kailyard.
33
I have to note here that McArthur's opinion was often criticised as too negative or
even biased in recent publications. Critics accuse McArthur of not having
researched thoroughly (and above all not objectively)
34
- but the so-called Scotch
Reels debate, mounted in Edinburgh in the year 1982 (followed by the publication
with the same title from which I have taken the above quotes) was so central to
the discussion about "Scotland and film", that it cannot be ignored.
In my first chapter I want to introduce the whole event and its outcome and also
give some examples of critiques of the results. I will not, however, include in it an
in-depth study of the films analysed at Scotch Reels. (For that the reader can
always refer to the publication itself.)
1.2 Scotch Reels Edinburgh 1982
1.2.1 Introduction
Although re-evaluating the outcome of Scotch Reels rather critically in 1990, John
Caughie, himself one of the event's organizers and contributors to the book,
cannot deny the importance of the event:
33
Ibid., p. 45.
34
I will introduce these reproaches of "Scotch Reels" in the second part of this chapter.
13
(...) `Scotch Reels' does seem important as a particular moment at which
the idea of a Scottish cinema began to take on some material force for
many people who had not hitherto been directly involved in its production.
More than that, in the event and the publication, `Scotch Reels' did
articulate a coherent cultural analysis of the representation of Scotland in
film and television. However, preliminary, polemical and `of its time' that
analysis may now seem, it will be difficult for any new analysis to ignore
it.
35
Also Duncan Petrie in his book Screening Scotland, published in the year 2000, is
still aware of the importance of Scotch Reels and calls it, compared to other
publications on the topic "the most influential critical and cultural analysis"
36
.
Apart from one book from the year 1945 on the representation of Scotland on
screen
37
that I came across during my research, there had not been, according to
McArthur
38
, a single sustained debate about the topic in Scotland before the
initiation of the three-day discussion event Scotch Reels in 1982, organised within
the Edinburgh International Filmfestival
39
(Duncan Petrie in this context also
mentions Fifty Years at the Pictures by Charles Oakley
40
, which mainly concerns
itself with Scottish picture-houses and exhibition, though.
41
).
35
John Caughie, "Representing Scotland: New Questions for Scottish Cinema", in Eddie Dick
(ed.), From Limelight to Satellite, p. 14.
36
Duncan Petrie, Screening Scotland, p. 2.
37
I.e. Norman Wilson, Presenting Scotland. A film survey (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Film Guild, 1
st
edition January 1945).
38
Cf. Colin McArthur, "Introduction", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, p. 1.
39
Note: The organizing group actually consisted of John Caughie, Murray Grigor, Jim Hickey,
Colin McArthur, Gus MacDonald, Tom Nairn and Gillian Skirrow, who are all either Scots or
were living and working in Scotland at that time.
40
Charles Oakley, Fifty Years at the Pictures (Glasgow: Scottish Film Council, 1946).
41
Cf. Duncan Petrie, Screening Scotland, p. 2.
14
This is surprising, considering that Scotland and the Scots had been present on
screen since the very beginnings of filmmaking and Scottish film institutions
already began to develop in the thirties.
42
1.2.2 Aims
What the participants of the Scotch Reels-debate wanted to discuss was "why
Scottish film culture is so limited in achievement and what can be done about
it"
43
. As McArthur states in his article in the Scottish periodical Cencrastus, the
cinema audience in 1982 is (was)
(...) of course aware of movies like Brigadoon, The Maggie and Gregory's
Girl; they know names like John Grierson and Bill Forsyth; they may even
have heard of Films of Scotland and recall that one of its films, Seawards
the Great Ships, won the Oscar in the Best Documentary category in 1961;
and it is just possible that they have heard of the Scottish Film Council, the
publicly-funded body responsible for the development of film culture in
Scotland. What is lacking, however, is any general perception of the
relationship of these elements to each other and to Scottish history and
culture as a whole.
44
So the participants of the event did not limit their discussions to the area of film-
culture, but tried to widen their viewpoint by taking into consideration the general
problems of Scottish history and culture, topics that are for instance also
examined in more detail by Tom Nairn in The Break-up of Britain
45
.
With the event and the following publication, a collection of essays, McArthur
hoped to "help Scottish film workers to take stock of their situation, to question
where they have come from and to clarify the directions they wish to go in"
46
. He
42
Colin McArthur, "Introduction", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, p. 1.
43
Ibid.
44
ColinMcArthur, "Scotland: The reel image. `Scotch Reels' and After", Cencrastus. Scottish and
International Literature, Arts and Affairs, No. 11 (New Year 1983), p. 2.
45
Cf. Tom Nairn, "Old and New Scottish Nationalism", in Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain.
Crisis and neo-nationalism (London: Verso, 1981), pp. 126-195.
46
Colin McArthur, "Introduction", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, p. 5.
15
stresses, though, that he not only wants to address Scottish film-makers, but all
others who are in some way involved in local film-culture, like film festival-staff,
teachers, journalists writing about film, or politicians.
However, McArthur was often criticised consequently for not suggesting actual
alternatives to the current situation.
1.2.3 Results
Summing up the results of Scotch Reels, Scott L. Malcomson lists the following
points:
Broadly, the Scotch Reels event sought to establish (1) that filmic
representations of Scotland had generally fallen into two "frozen
discourses" labelled Tartanry and Kailyard; (2) that these discourses have
perpetuated a representation of Scotland as politically and culturally
irrelevant; (3) that a debate is needed to discover how these discourses
might be overcome by progressive (Left) modes of cinematic
representation.
47
McArthur in his summary of the event states
that the discourses within which Scotland and the Scots have been
represented in films have been wholly inadequate for dealing with the
historical and contemporary reality of Scotland. Some of these filmic
discourses (...) Scots film-makers have been powerless to oppose, since
they were deployed within production structures fashioned outside
Scotland. Nevertheless, they had a pernicious two-fold effect. On the one
hand, they defined the cinematic terrain within which several generations
of Scots actors could function, setting a limited range of roles and
foregrounding particular modes of acting. (...) The second pernicious
effect of the dominance of Tartanry/ Kailyard is that, when indigenous
Scots film-makers came to make their own films, these powerful existing
traditions of representation beckoned them Circe-like and lured more than
a few onto the rocks.
48
47
Scott M. Malcomson, "Modernism Comes to the Cabbage Patch. Bill Forsyth and the `Scottish
Cinema'", Film Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Spring 1985), p. 16.
48
Colin McArthur, "Scotland and Cinema: The Iniquity of the Fathers", in Colin McArthur (ed.),
Scotch Reels, p. 66.
16
However, McArthur does not want to blame individual Scottish filmmakers for
their disability to withstand those questionable traditions; he rather allocates these
failures to institutions, which in his eyes were simply not able to provide the
circumstances needed:
Put epigrammatically, institutions like the Scottish Film Council, the
Scottish Federation of Film Societies, Films of Scotland and, more
recently, the Scottish Arts Council, have failed to keep a historic
appointment with the discourses of marxism and modernism, the
conjunction which has dynamized analogous institutions in other cultures.
The single Scottish institution which to any degree has made this
engagement, the Edinburgh International Film Festival, is the only one
with any reputation in international film culture.
49
I will include in my thesis a separate chapter on the Scottish film industry, in
which the above mentioned institutions as well as others are portrayed.
In retrospect, McArthur mentions two more points of criticism. Firstly he
denounces the stereotypical representation of women within Scottish life and
history on screen, the lack of any critical reflection in contemporary film-culture's
discussion on women's experiences and the dearth of women in the Scottish film-
business in general. Secondly he attacks the limited conception of contemporary
politics in the discourse of the so-called "Clydesidism"
50
.
51
I will discuss
Clydesidism in more detail later, but will not delve in feministic approaches to the
topic here.
In order to close that chapter with a more positive comment on the dilemma of
Scotland's screen personage, I want to cite a quote by Forsyth Hardy from 1990:
49
Ibid., p. 67.
50
For an explanation of the term "Clydesidism" please see Chapter One.
51
Colin McArthur, ,,Scotland: The reel image. `Scotch Reels' and After ", Cencrastus. Scottish
and International Literature, Arts and Affairs, No. 11 (New Year 1983), pp. 2f; and Colin
McArthur, "Scotland and Cinema: The Iniquity of the Fathers", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch
Reels, pp. 67ff; note: Petrie in Screening Scotland (2000) already comments much more positive
on women's involvement in Scottish film business.
17
There was a time when the easiest way to establish Scottishness was to
employ the familiar symbols: the kilt, the bagpipe, heather, whisky,
haggis, Highland cattle and the thatched cottage by the lochside. That time
has passed, although there are still film-makers overseas who have
recourse to these symbols when they want to identify Scotland.
52
Nine years later, Philip Kemp takes an even more positive stock of the situation:
Trainspotting was defiantly Scottish. (...) Tartanry is in retreat, or
banished to the Hollywoodisms of Braveheart or Loch Ness: east of the
Atlantic at least, on-screen Scotland has become a country in its own right,
not a tourist construct.
53
A list of material screened round the Scotch Reels event (which included features,
documentaries and TV-material) can be found in the New Year 1983 issue of the
Scottish periodical Cencrastus
54
.
1.2.3.1 Tartanry and Kailyard
1.2.3.1.1 Introduction
The representation of Scotland on film is a much-discussed topic and various
authors have expressed many different points of view.
John Brown in Sight and Sound (1983/84) explains
(...) that cinema audiences in Scotland are not at all accustomed to seeing
Scottish movies. The result (...) is that a complex set of presumptions,
suspicions and indeed fears comes into play as soon as the audience is
presented with itself on the screen. (...) but the problems are thornier than
a worried scepticism about the quality of home-made movies. At root, they
connect with the needle-sharp Scots sense of national identity and image,
and with the way these have been traditionally mediated for Scots
themselves as well as for the wider world by cinema.
55
52
Forsyth Hardy, Scotland in film, p. 211.
53
Philip Kemp, "New Maps of Albion", Film Comment, Vol. 35, No. 3 (May/ Jun 1999), p. 64.
54
Cf. Colin McArthur, ,,Scotland: the reel image. `Scotch Reels' and After ", Cencrastus. Scottish
and International Literature, Arts and Affairs, No. 11 (New Year 1983), p. 2.
55
John Brown, "Land Beyond Brigadoon", Sight and Sound (Winter 1983/84), p. 41.
18
He further explains that there are three films that are often mentioned as
emblematic examples in this context - Brigadoon by Vincente Minnelli (1954)
and Alexander Mackendrick's two Ealing comedies, Whisky Galore! (1949) and
The Maggie (1953):
(...) the way they represent the Scots (...) has long been the subject of
bitter attack (...). (...) First, there is a profound distaste for what might be
called the infrastructure of these films: for the way the Scots are insistently
portrayed as quaint and old-fashioned, comically innocent or comically
cunning, and for the way the country is characterised as no more than a
natural paradise for romanticised mountain, loch and glen. This is made
worse by the consistent thematic use of `Scotland' as being superior to the
real modern world, sophisticated and industrialised, by which the natural
paradise is blessedly untouched (...). The second level of the attack
follows on from this and focuses on the base or substructure, as it were, for
it takes the form of a political revulsion against the cultural/ industrial
institutions themselves (Hollywood, i.e. the commercial cinema) which by
their very mode of operation create such images of Scotland and then
impose them on the international consciousness to the exclusion of other,
more authentic images. The charge is therefore essentially one of wilful
misrepresentation.
56
The points of critique Brown mentions here can be summarized under the terms of
"Tartanry" and "Kailyard". Both ways of depicting Scotland stem from 18
th
century literature and are not limited to the realms of film.
Scotch Reels constructs a detailed analysis of the continuities of these
tropes [Tartanry and Kailyard] from nineteenth-century literature and
painting to cinema and television and various other forms of popular
cultural transmission: postcards, whisky bottles, shortbread tins, tea towels
and popular songs.
57
56
Ibid.
57
Duncan Petrie, Screening Scotland, p.2.
19
1.2.3.1.2 Historical connections
Historically, the myth of Tartanry can first and foremost be connected with the
battle of Culloden, which ended in 1746.
58
After the Jacobite rebellion, led by
"Bonnie Prince Charlie",
London was determined to subdue and control the North. The government
ensured the effective end of Jacobitism with mass transportations,
executions, and measures designed to extinguish the distinct aspects of
Highland life. Highlanders were forbidden to carry arms, and the kilt,
tartan, and the bagpipes were outlawed.
59
In 1707 the Act of Union had united Scotland and England. Although this
merging bore many economic advantages for Scotland, it put an end to her
political autonomy.
60
The long-term result of the measures taken after 1746 was that typical Highland
traditions, previously often judged as primitive (in a negative sense), started to
become attractive again and were then seen as unique and distinctive symbols for
Scotland.
61
In that context, the example of the history of tartan is often mentioned. McCrone,
Morris and Kiely draw attention to the fact, that the tartan, as it is sold in tourist
shops throughout the country today, had never existed like this before: "There
was little evidence of a systematic association between family names/ clans and
specific designs such as appear in the sales catalogues of tartan manufacturers of
today."
62
On the contrary, "Tartan was `made' for the modern world in the
relatively short time between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century."
63
58
Cf. John Caughie, "Representing Scotland: New Questions for Scottish Cinema", in Eddie Dick
(ed.), From Limelight to Satellite, p. 15; or Scott L. Malcomson, "Modernism comes to the
cabbage patch. Bill Forsyth and the `Scottish Cinema'", Film Quarterly, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Spring
1985), p. 16
59
Katherine Jean Haldane, Imagining Scotland, p. 3.
60
Cf. ibid., p. 2.
61
Cf. ibid., p. 4.
62
David McCrone/ Angela Morris/ Richard Kiely, Scotland the Brand. The making of Scottish
Heritage (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995), p. 51.
20
When the restrictions of wearing kilts were lifted in 1782, this was the result of
"political pressure from a group of rich and influential `chieftains' living in
London who were becoming conscious of the interest in the Gael, as were
Scotland's élite generally."
64
By the repeal of these restrictions "the peasants had
got used to wearing trousers and did not return to the kilt. But the middle and
upper classes took up trews, plaids, and kilts."
65
It was at this time, that Scottish nationalism grew strong again, as it gained a
focus: Romanticism, with its particular liking for the wild and primitive, was
fostered by literature and art, and resulted in a romantic and somewhat backward
image of Scotland which is in parts still prevalent today.
66
Hence, apparently
distinct Highland symbols, such as the kilt in its contemporary appearance, "came
to signify the mystery of primitive society and consequently what had been lost
since 1746 or had never been known was simply invented."
67
After the battle at Culloden, tartan was restricted to army uniforms: "(...) both kilt
and tartan were appropriated by the British state to kit out its erstwhile enemies
while in its military employ."
68
New tartans were invented subsequently:
This proved to be a master-stroke by the British state in literally stealing
its enemy's clothes, and helped to incorporate tartanry into an élite rather
than a rebel form of dress. By the late nineteenth century, the myth of
tartan had been made.
69
Kailyardism
70
, as we will see later, was originally a literary movement whith its
heyday at the end of the 19
th
and beginning of the 20
th
century. At the centre of
such Kailyard-novels the minister of a small parish often figures. This stress on
63
Ibid.
64
Ibid.
65
Jeffrey Richards, Films and British National Identity (Manchester/ New York: Manchester
University Press, 1998), p. 183.
66
Cf. Katherine Jean Haldane, Imagining Scotland, p. 4.
67
David McCrone/ Angela Morris/ Richard Kiely, Scotland the Brand, p. 51.
68
Ibid., p. 52.
69
Ibid.
70
Note: "Kailyard" is a Scots word which literally means "cabbage patch".
21
religion can be linked to the Great Disruption of the Church of Scotland (1843).
At that time, over 400 "(...) ministers seceded from the Church of Scotland to
form the Free Church, so that for the rest of the century internecine struggle
raged within Scottish churches."
71
The break "involving issues of local
democracy, moral authority and social welfare (...) left traces within the stable
communities of the small townships well into the twentieth century."
72
1.2.3.1.3 Literary connections
Cairns Craig is one of the authors who contributed to the Scotch Reels-
publication. In his essay he gives examples for Tartanry and Kailyard myths in
19
th
century Scottish literature.
73
I found these examples very useful for a basic
understanding of the discourses, and that is why I also want to include them in my
thesis.
The Tartanry-discourse has its roots in the works of Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
as well as in the idea of a Romantic Scotland. As mentioned above, the Jacobite
Rebellion of 1745 (with the battle at Culloden) is central to the idea of Tartanry.
Duncan Petrie indicates that this insurrection produced "the idea of the romantic
and noble Highlander"
74
, and McArthur mentions that by the late 18
th
century
Scotland was seen as "the Romantic domain par excellence"
75
.
To illustrate what the Romantic literary vision of Tartanry was like, Craig uses a
quotation from Scott's most popular novel, "Waverley" (1814):
(...) A short turning in the path (...) suddenly placed Waverley in front of
a romantic waterfall (...) After a broken cataract of about twenty feet, the
stream was received in a large natural basin filled to brim with water,
71
Jeffrey Richards, Films and British National Identity, p. 184.
72
John Caughie, "Representing Scotland: New Questions for Scottish Cinema", in Eddie Dick
(ed.), From Limelight to Satellite, p.15.
73
Cairns Craig, "Myths Against History: Tartanry and Kailyard in 19
th
-Century Scottish
Literature", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, pp. 7-15.
74
Duncan Petrie, Screening Scotland, p. 3.
75
Colin McArthur, "Scotland and Cinema: The Iniquity of the Fathers", in Colin McArthur (ed.),
Scotch Reels, p. 41.
22
which, when the bubbles of the fall subsided, was so exquisitely clear that,
although it was of great depth, the eye could discern each pebble at the
bottom. Eddying round this reservoir, the brook found its way over a
broken part of the ledge, and formed a second fall, which seemed to seek
the very abyss (...) The borders of this romantic reservoir corresponded in
beauty; but it was beauty of a stern and commanding cast, as if in the act
of expanding into grandeur (...)
Here, like one of those lovely forms which decorate the landscapes of
Poussin, Waverley found Flora gazing on the waterfall. Two paces further
back stood Cathleen, holding a small Scottish harp (...) The sun, now
stooping in the west, gave a rich and varied tinge to all the objects which
surrounded Waverley, and seemed to add more than human brilliancy to
the full expressive darkness of Flora's eye, exalted the richness and purity
of her complexion, and enhanced the dignity and grace of her beautiful
form. Edward thought he had never, even in his wildest dreams, imagined
a figure of such exquisite and interesting loveliness.
76
According to Craig, Flora is "the archetype of Romantic Scotland, a world that
has not been demeaned by modern civilisation and is still in touch with the
nobility we associate with classical antiquity"
77
.
As a contrast, he gives an example from J.M.Barrie's "Auld Licht Idylls" from the
year 1888 ("auld licht" stands for the doctrine of Scottish Calvinism, which
Barrie's protagonists are still devoted to):
When they had red up the house, the Auld Licht lassies sat in the gloaming
at their doors on three-legged stools, patiently knitting stockings. To them
came stiff-limbed youths who, with a `Blawy nicht, Jeanie' (to which the
inevitable answer was, `It is so, Cha-arles'), rested their shoulders on the
doorpost, and silently followed with their eyes the flashing needles. Thus
the courtship began often to ripen promptly into marriage, at other times
to go no further. The smooth-haired maids, neat in their simple wrappers,
knew they were on trial and that it behoved them to be wary. They had not
compassed twenty winters without knowing that (...) Finny's grieve turned
from Bell Whamond on account of some frivolous flowers in her bonnet
(...) Some night Bell would have `seen him to the door', and they would
76
Sir Walter Scott, Waverley (1814), chapter XXII; quoted by Cairns Craig, "Myths Against
History: Tartanry and Kailyard in 19
th
-Century Scottish Literature", in Colin McArthur (ed.),
Scotch Reels, pp. 7f.
77
Cairns Craig, "Myths Against History: Tartanry and Kailyard in 19
th
-Century Scottish
Literature", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, p. 8.
23
have stared sheepishly at each other before saying goodnight. The parting
salutation given, the grieve would have stood his round, and Bell would
have waited with him. At last, `Will ye hae's, Bell?' would have dropped
from his half-reluctant lips; and Bell would have mumbled `Aye' with her
thumb in her mouth (...) The only really tender thing I ever heard an Auld
Licht lover say to his sweetheart was when Gowrie's brother looked into
Easie Tamson's eyes and whispered, `Do you swite (sweat)?' Even the
effect was produced more by the loving cast in Gowrie's eye than by the
tenderness of the words themselves.
78
Here, Barrie is describing "a world of grotesquely impoverished human
potential"
79
. Tom Nairn very clearly describes Kailyard in the following manner:
Kailyardism was the definition of Scotland as consisting wholly of small
towns full of small-town `characters' given to bucolic intrigue and wise
sayings. At first the central figures were usually Ministers of the Kirk (as
were most of the authors) but later on schoolteachers and doctors got into
the act. Their housekeepers always have a shrewd insight into human
nature. Offspring who leave for the big city frequently come to grief, and
are glad to get home again (peching and hoasting to hide their feelings). In
their different ways village cretins and ne'er-do-wells reinforce the
essentially healthy Weltanschauung of the place.
80
What Tartanry and Kailyard, which the Scottish director Bill Forsyth calls "the
gaping trap that awaits every Scottish film-maker"
81
have in common, is the
denial of any examination of the realities of the modern world
82
- or as Craig
elaborates:
Tartanry and Kailyard, seemingly so opposite in their ethos, are the joint
creations of an imagination which, in recoil from the apparently featureless
78
J.M.Barrie, Auld Licht Idylls (1888), chapter IV; quoted by Cairns Craig, "Myths Against
History: Tartanry and Kailyard in 19
th
-Century Scottish Literature", in Colin McArthur (ed.),
Scotch Reels, pp. 7f.
79
Cairns Craig, "Myths Against History: Tartanry and Kailyard in 19
th
-Century Scottish
Literature", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, p. 8.
80
Tom Nairn, The Break-Up of Britain, 2
nd
expanded edn, (London: Verso, 1981), p. 158; also
quoted by Duncan Petrie, Screening Scotland, p. 3.
81
Bill Forsyth, "Comfort and Joy. Glasgow locations for a serious comedy", Sight and Sound
(Spring 1984), p.85.
82
Cf. Duncan Petrie, Screening Scotland, p. 3.
24
integration of Scottish life into an industrial culture whose power and
whose identity lies outside Scottish control, acknowledges its own inability
to lay hold of contemporary reality by projecting itself upon images of a
society equally impotent before the forces of history.
83
In Barrie's novels, a rather condescending view of Scotland is expressed.
Kailyard's humour
is based almost entirely on convincing the reader that he/she and the author
share a sophisticated sense of the world, and that the characters whose
lives they look down upon are backward, parochial, narrow-minded and
utterly incapable of becoming conscious of the values by which they are
being found comic.
84
This stems from the fact that Barrie, although born in Scotland, did not see
himself as a part of Scotland anymore (like so many other members of the
Scottish cultural elite at that time), but rather strived to be part of a sophisticated
English society. So, in his works he "is not expressing the values of the Auld
Lichts, but using them as a reinforcement of the presumed values he shares with
the literary culture he aspires to join."
85
Although one might get the impression upon first examination, Scott actually did
not subscribe to Romanticism either. In fact, for him "the world of Jacobites [the
time-period he chose to write about] is a world as false to the true needs of
civilisation as Barrie's Auld Lichts are to the true needs of culture."
86
What Haldane determines as the dominant element in Scott's literary works, is
"the theme of a romantic, almost spellbinding past in opposition to the
established, practical present"
87
.
83
Cairns Craig, "Myths Against History: Tartanry and Kailyard in 19th-Century Scottish
Literature", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, p. 13.
84
Ibid., p. 8.
85
Ibid., p. 9.
86
Ibid.
87
Katherine Jean Haldane, Imagining Scotland, p. 115.
25
His stories often centre on relations between a romantic adventurer and a modern
hero, who is very much intrigued by the past. "Although Scott sees the
adventurers as dangerous, reckless characters who have no place in the real life
of the hero, he is also intrigued by them and invests in them romance and
magnetism."
88
Subsequently, the author's image of his country was less progressive than he
intended it to be, as "his depictions of the glories of former days were so
captivating that the impression they made was stronger than Scott's renunciation
of them."
89
The problem with the establishment of such a backward and unprogressive myth
is, according to Craig - and this is also the point of view of the other Scotch Reels
authors (who all sympathise with the Left) - the fact that those, who could have
worked against such discourses, namely members of the educated middle class,
were not fulfilling their responsibilities in building up a national identity, but
assimilating to English culture instead. The question remains open, however, as to
whether the problem is not too complex for such a relatively "easy" solution.
Craig elaborates, that whereas these literary works, on one hand, provide a kind of
confirmation for middle-class Scotland that they were right in turning their backs
on their country and its back-minded culture, on the other hand they provide a
means of identification for the working-class:
(...) it is important to recognise that Kailyard's success is not just the
exploitation of Scottish lower-class life by exiled Scots for a public largely
made up of exiles who want to remember, nostalgically, the land they have
left behind but also want to be convinced that they were right to leave it
behind. Kailyard also gave expression to the only class in Scotland which
still felt itself to have, or to be burdened with, a separate identity the
working class.
90
88
Ibid., p. 116.
89
Ibid., p. 118.
90
Cairns Craig, "Myths Against History: Tartanry and Kailyard in 19th-Century Scottish
Literature", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, p. 11.
26
Apparently, these fictional works do not contain a critical view at the
contemporary situation with its religious or political conflicts,
because such conflict would have brought into focus the tension between
the different meanings different groups of readers would ascribe to
Kailyard authentic expression of lower-class life or parodic justification
of a middle class's assimilation to a higher culture.
91
Additionally, it is interesting to note that J.M.Barrie was also the author of Peter
Pan. The boy who never grows up escapes to a world similar to the Kailyard one,
and finds himself unable to deal with the issues of a modern world.
92
Another literary influence on the myth were the Ossianic poems. Published in
1761 by James MacPherson and translated into ten languages, they had a big
impact all over Western Europe and hugely contributed to the construction of a
romantic Scottish identity. Haldane about the impact of the poems: "Suddenly the
Highlanders were seen not as savages but as a Kulturvolk, capable of producing,
at a time when the English were still barbarians, an epic poet equal, if not
superior to Homer."
93
Richards and other scholars blame MacPherson for having created "an entirely
fictitious history and culture of Celtic Scotland"
94
. He argues that the Celts as a
people never existed and that the concept of a distinct Highland culture was an
invention of the 18
th
and 19
th
centuries, in order to construct a national identity of
the peripheries:
95
91
Ibid., p. 12.
92
Cf. ibid., p. 14.
93
Katherine Jean Haldane, Imagining Scotland, p. 108.
94
Jeffrey Richards, Films and British National Identity. From Dickens to Dad's Army, p. 182.
95
Note: This concept is also elaborated by Malcolm Chapman, The Gaelic Vision in Scottish
Culture (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1978); Hugh Trevor-Roper in "The
Invention of Tradition: the Highland tradition of Scotland", in Eric Hobsbawn/ Terence Ranger
(eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 15-41;
Charles Withers in "The Historical Creation of the Scottish Highlands", in Ian Donnachie/
Christopher Whatley (eds.), The Manufacture of Scottish History (Edinburgh: Polygon, 1992), pp.
27
The entire cycle of Scottish ballads which he [MacPherson] ascribed to an
ancient bard Ossian were in fact Irish stories simply taken over and
relocated in Scotland. Reverend John MacPherson then wrote a critical
dissertation proving the existence of Celtic Highland history and culture
based on this forgery. It had the effect of claiming that Celtic Scotland was
the `mother nation' and Ireland its cultural dependency whereas it was in
truth the other way round.
96
As Craig shows, the consequences of such Tartanry/ Kailyard-dominated
discourses are not to be underestimated:
What Kailyard did was to turn the language of Lowland Scots into a
medium necessarily identified with a couthy, domestic, sentimental world.
After Kailyard it becomes impossible to give expression to a vernacular
working-class environment in Scotland without provoking those
connotations.
97
He goes even further and suggests that
(...) the problem that these mythic structures have left to twentieth-century
Scottish art is that there are no tools which the artist can inherit from the
past which are not tainted, warped, blunted by the uses to which they have
been put. The speech of Lowland Scotland, the landscape of the Highlands
have become clichés which need to acquire a new historical significance
before they can be released into the onward flow of the present from the
frozen worlds of their myths of historical irrelevance. And what that
historical significance needs, of course, if it is to come into being, is a sense
of the nation's particular and individual development, both past and future.
98
143-156; or Malcolm Chapman, The Celts: The Construction of a Myth, 4
th
edn (Basingstroke:
Macmillan, 1996).
96
Jeffrey Richards, Films and British National Identity, p. 182.
97
Cairns Craig, "Myths Against History: Tartanry and Kailyard in 19th-Century Scottish
Literature", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, p. 11.
98
Ibid., p. 14.
28
1.2.3.1.4 Pictorial connections
Murray Grigor's contribution to the Scotch Reels book is a photo-essay, which
shows the influence of traditional paintings on the representation of Scotland on
cinema.
99
Edwin Landseer (1802-1873), a popular painter of Scottish scenery, and a
personal friend of Sir Walter Scott, is probably best known for his painting The
Monarch of the Glen (1851), which depicts a majestic stag in typical Highland
scenery - a metaphor for the powerful forces of nature.
As Haldane points out in her study on tourist images of Scotland, visual images of
the country often went hand in hand with the backward image conveyed by
literature at the same time.
100
Often, artists served as illustrators for novels. The
first depictions of Scotland's landscape on canvas were made in the 18
th
century.
Those paintings always stressed the picturesque qualities of the country. The
Highlands and Islands were favourite sites for artists, professionals and amateurs
alike, and obviously especially suitable for the Romantic art at the turn of the 18
th
to the 19
th
century.
In Romantic paintings, showing the mood of the depicted scene was often more
important than an accurate image of the landscape: not the actual physical scene,
but rather the atmosphere, either very green and pleasant or mysteriously gloomy,
was shown.
This sometimes meant, that exaggerations were necessary: mountains were
depicted higher than they really are, dramatic cloudbanks added to the gloomy
mood. Human features like houses, on the other hand, were small, which made the
scenes even more impressive.
Paintings were then widely known and very popular, as they were printed in many
tourist guidebooks. Also national newspapers regularly printed Highland-pictures.
As tourism increased at the turn of the century, the Highlands, which had come to
99
Murray Grigor, "From Scott-land to Disneyland", in Colin McArthur (ed.), Scotch Reels, pp.
17-39.
100
Cf. Katherine Jean Haldane, Imagining Scotland, pp. 159-192.
29
stand for all of Scotland, were considered the ideal Romantic destination. Not
only were they easily reachable within the newly developed railway system, but
they were also quite cheap as a destination. Tourists, English as well as Scots,
often went in search of the picturesque spots they knew from paintings (or
novels). Haldane stresses that they were seldom disappointed by reality, as they
tended to see what they expected to.
101
One has to keep in mind that, as the beginning 19
th
century was a time of rapid
change, people were looking for a place seemingly untouched by the industrial
revolution. Of course, reality was different - with the Clyde-region being the
prototype of an industrial area with modern problems such as congestion,
dependence on the industry or diseases - but the romantic image of Scotland was
so widely known and accepted at that time, that people just seemed to ignore
those signs of modernity.
Interestingly, the vision of Scotland as "a simple rural haven, unchanging and
timeless"
102
lasted for years, although modernity had already moved into
Scotland. Haldane: "Only in the early twentieth century did artists, such as
Muirhead Bone, begin to depict Scottish urbanization and industrialization."
103
1.2.3.1.5 Cinematic connections
Interestingly, many films dealing with Scotland boil down to the same kind of
storyline: it often revolves around an intrusion from the (modern, industrialised)
outside world into a small Highland or Island community.
104
Mostly, those
intrusions are unsuccessful and Scotland "(shows) the world (...) that whatever
historical processes might be doing to Scotland, it was still (...) `the best wee
nation ever God put breath in'."
105
101
Cf. ibid., p. 186.
102
Ibid., p. 178.
103
Ibid., p. 188.
104
Cf. e.g. Cairns Craig, "Visitors From the Stars", Cencrastus, No. 11 (New Year 1983), pp. 6-11.
105
Colin McArthur, "Scotland and Cinema: The Iniquity of the Fathers", in Colin McArthur (ed.),
Scotch Reels, p. 48.
30
Examples for such films are for instance The Maggie (Alexander Mackendrick,
1953), in which a Glaswegian puffer crew outwits an American businessman,
Trouble in the Glen (Herbert Wilcox, 1954), in which an Argentine creates ill
feeling in a Scottish rural community, Rockets Galore (Michael Relph, 1958), in
which Hebridean islanders resist a rocket base intrusion, or, as a more
contemporary example, Local Hero (Bill Forsyth, 1983), in which an American
oil executive who is sent to a coastal village in order to buy up land is faced with
various difficulties.
106
The most noteworthy contribution in the Scotch Reels publication is undeniably
McArthur's chapter on "Scotland and Cinema"
107
. The author traces the depiction
of Scotland from the Silent Cinema era onwards. He remarks that "a concern (...)
with popular sentimental forms is evident right from the beginnings of cinema"
108
.
Later versions of Kailyard-films have put stress on comic aspects, rather than
sentimental contents.
109
McArthur especially emphasizes a range of films being made in the 1940s and
1950s, which for him "constitute the definite modern statements of Tartanry and
Kailyard in the cinema"
110
. With those films, including the Gainsborough pictures
106
For all these films and their production details please see: Janet McBain, "Scotland in Feature
Film: a Filmography", in Eddie Dick (ed.), From Limelight to Satellite, pp. 233-253.
107
Colin McArthur, "Scotland and Cinema: The Iniquity of the Fathers", in Colin McArthur (ed.),
Scotch Reels, pp. 40-69.
108
Ibid., p. 42.
109
Note: Here, Stan Laurel's and Oliver Hardy's Bonnie Scotland (James W. Horne, 1935) comes
to mind, for instance.
Stan Laurel was born in Lancashire as Arthur Stanley Jefferson. He made his debut on the
miniature stage of Pickard's Museum, Glasgow Trongate. His father, himself actor, playwright and
producer, had wanted him to become a theatre manager like himself, but soon recognised his son's
comical talent. (Cf. Allen Foster, The Movie Traveller. A Film Fan's Travel Guide to the UK and
Ireland (Edinburgh: Polygon, 2000), p. 229.)
110
Colin McArthur, "Scotland and Cinema: The Iniquity of the Fathers", in Colin McArthur (ed.),
Scotch Reels, p. 45.
31
The Wicked Lady (Leslie Arliss, 1945) or The Man in Grey (Leslie Arliss, 1943),
the British succeeded in penetrating the American market. The popularity of such
films then led to the making of films such as Bonnie Prince Charlie (Anthony
Kimmins, 1948), the Disney production Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue (Harold
French, 1953) and last but not least the American film Brigadoon from 1954
(Vincente Minnelli).
The latter productions all inhabit the already mentioned detestation of modernity,
which for McArthur lacks any examination of contemporary politics: "With a
nod, a wink and a dram the Scots once more triumph at the level of the
imagination while in the real world their country gets pulled out from under
them."
111
The author then continues to examine a range of seemingly more radical films,
which in his view also fail in the end to challenge any political contents. (Please
see the next chapter on "Clydesidism" for more information.)
1.2.3.2 Clydesidism/ The image of the city
1.2.3.2.1 Introduction
Clydesidism concerns itself with the depiction of the City of Glasgow and its
working-class. There are numerous novels, plays and films centred on the
shipping industry on the Clyde, which from the late 19
th
century was the most
important factor of British industrial labour.
What mostly is forgotten is the fact that the discourse of Clydesidism, although in
its contents very different to Tartanry and Kailyard, became just another
mythology. As John Caughie puts it:
`Clydesidism' is the mythology of the Scottish twentieth century, the
discourse which seems currently most potent, and not yet universally
acknowledged as mythology. The gritty hardness of urban life parades itself
as an antidote in the real world of today to all those legends of tartanry and
111
Ibid., p. 51.
32
couthy tales of kailyard. It turns out, nevertheless, in most of its available
forms, to be just another mythology: a modernised myth of male industrial
labour, with its appurtenances of labour, pub and football field alive and in
place, surfacing, for example, in the celebration of a `real Glasgow' beneath
the yuppie surface of shopping malls and Garden Festival and City of
Culture.
112
An interesting shift occurs when (e.g. the shipping or steel) industry does not
predominate the city's appearance as in earlier days: masculinity cannot identify
itself with labour anymore, and in order to oppose itself to the feminine domain of
consumption (the "New Glasgow"
113
of shopping-malls and wine bars), shifts into
another image, the image of "the `hard man' for whom anguish, cynicism and
violence are the only ways to recover the lost dignity of labour"
114
.
1.2.3.2.2 Historical connections
115
At the end of the 19
th
and beginning of the 20
th
century Glasgow was known as
the shipbuilding capital of the world. In the 1850s and 1860s as much as seventy
per cent of total UK iron tonnage was produced at the Clyde
116
, and in 1913, after
a downswing in the 1880s, more than one third was launched at the Clyde (which
is more than one fifth of the world tonnage produced at this time).
117
A great share
of Glasgow's companies was either directly or indirectly dependent on the
shipbuilding trade and its fluctuations.
118
112
John Caughie, "Representing Scotland: New Questions for Scottish Cinema", in Eddie Dick
(ed.), From Limelight to Satellite, p.16.
113
The so called "New Glasgow" was promoted in the late 1980s with a powerful campaign, based
on the slogan "Glasgow Smiles Better".
114
John Caughie, "Representing Scotland: New Questions for Scottish Cinema", in Eddie Dick
(ed.), From Limelight to Satellite, p.16. Please see Chapter Two for more information on the
"Hard Man" type.
115
Please find more information on Glasgow's history in Chapter Two.
116
Cf. Irene Maver, Glasgow (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000), p. 116.
117
Cf. Glasgow Herald (Dec 23, 1913); quoted by Irene Maver, Glasgow, pp. 117f.
118
Cf. Irene Maver, Glasgow, p. 139.
33
But strangely, as Petrie points out, despite being the most urbanised country in the
world (after England) as early as 1911, Scotland's dominant cinematic projection
still contained its rural areas.
119
1.2.3.2.3 Literary connections
The dominant narrative of Glasgow, with its "darkness, poverty, drunkenness,
sectarianism and male violence"
120
can be traced back to the end of the 19
th
century, when reports on public health and housing conditions increased. Before
that time, articles about the city were much more positive, often stressing the
quality of its air and comparing it to Oxford.
121
McArthur also traces the roots of Clydesidism back to a range of fiction on similar
topics.
122
No Mean City from the mid-1930s by A. McArthur and H. Kingsley
Long, about a dark and dirty Glasgow and its razor-gang wars can be cited as the
most popular example of such novels.
As Peter Zenzinger points out in his essay on Scottish contemporary fiction,
Glenn Telfer, in an analysis of Alex Cathcart's novel "The Missionary" (1988)
has wondered, not without cause, whether the portrayal of `the urban, post
industrial environment of the West' as `undramatic, unheroic, serious,
bitter, unashamedly working class but still dislocated [...]' has finally
developed an antithesis to the Kailyard, or whether we are not rather
observing `another Scotch myth in the making'.
123
119
Cf. Petrie, Screening Scotland, p. 74.
120
Colin McArthur, "The Scottish Discursive Unconscious", in Alasdair Cameron/ Adrienne
Scullion (eds.), Scottish Popular Theatre and Entertainment (Glasgow: Glasgow University
Library Studies, 1996), p. 88.
121
Cf. ibid.; or Michael Pacione, Glasgow. The Socio-spatial Development of the City (Chichester
et al: John Wiley and Sons, 1995), p. 236.
122
Cf. Colin McArthur, "The Scottish Discursive Unconscious", in Alasdair Cameron/ Adrienne
Scullion (eds.), Scottish Popular Theatre and Entertainment, p. 86.
123
Peter Zenzinger, "Contemporary Scottish fiction", in Peter Zenzinger (ed.) Scotland: Literature,
Culture, Politics (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1989), p. 235.
Ende der Leseprobe aus 179 Seiten
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