Faithless

Faithless ---

In 2003, when asked by the writer Bernard McLafferty for advice as he embarked on his first short film, (“Bye-Child,” nominated for a BAFTA) I replied that the director’s job was to make decisions no matter how trivial, otherwise someone else would soon make them for you. Perhaps I’ve been looking in the wrong places but advice on directing is in short supply. Where some directors focus on the actors’ performance, others concentrate on aesthetics – the look and tone of a film. Where some are technically literate, others rely on the wisdom of the crew. No two ever take the same approach.

If there’s been any plusses to making this film entirely on my own it’s having the ability and freedom to make changes. On a conventional film this means a complex backtracking because the smallest edit impacts on the whole, obliging me to return to a post-production house. At least by shooting on HD I don’t need to worry about a neg cut. Mostly the changes were made after testing it on the big screen, first at the Glasgow Film Theatre and more recently at my local Cineworld where I decided several audio cues were too prominent and that generally the storytelling would benefit from replacing one or two specific shots.

The task complete, the film’s first screening is imminent. For a long time I’ve wrestled with the decision of where to host a private showing because over the past two years “Voyageuse” has attracted a small band of supporters asking when it will screen locally. My reply – that a rep cinema needs to be willing to show it – is met with incomprehension even by those in a position to influence such a decision. It’s moot, of course, because until I exhaust the festival route all bets are off, as is VOD.

In weighing the decision of where to show my film it occurs to me that I’m the only person – and certainly the only woman – to have made an indigenous narrative feature in Scotland in the last couple of years, if not longer. It’s quite a damning thought which, if it were theatre, say, would be declared a national scandal. Modest as it is, the existence of my film should be a cause for celebration but it raises a fundamental question: why is Scotland so uniquely ill-equipped when it comes to making and promoting its own films? For decades I’ve struggled for an answer only to conclude – to quote Diogenes – ‘I’m practising disappointment.’

The lost cause that is Scottish film was confirmed to me last week, when I attended a civic reception hosted by the Glasgow Film Festival to celebrate Canadian filmmakers. Here I was introduced to the American producer and doyenne of indie cinema, Christine Vachon in town to deliver a Masterclass. During our conversation, as she talked of the advantages of the European film subsidy, I informed her that my fourth feature film was unencumbered by public money, citing the New Yorker’s film critic, Richard Brody’s view on independent filmmaking not as a matter of financing but of urgency and its experiential value to the maker. By which point I noted Christine’s eyes glaze over.

With a surfeit of time to reflect I’ve had to confront profound truths about my own identity and about why with “Voyageuse” I chose to portray an older, educated, middle-class Englishwoman whose background could not be more different from my own. My decision involved a measure of calculation: to make a film not readily identifiable as Scottish in order to improve its chances of finding an audience in the wider world. This is informed by a simple fact: given that no Scottish director can progress or sustain a career in their own country, the choice they face is to either quit, die or leave.

The departure list is long: John Grierson, Alexander Mackendrick, Norman McLaren, Donald Cammell, Bill Douglas, Bill Forsyth, Michael Caton-Jones, Gillies MacKinnon, Kevin Macdonald, Paul McGuigan, Saul Metzstein, Lynne Ramsay, David Mackenzie to name a few.

Perhaps I’m suffering from post-production blues but never have I felt so pessimistic nor detached from my native land. Making a film – any film – is nigh on impossible when the current tactic (as opposed to strategy) of the Scottish Government, its arm’s-length agencies, national broadcasters – is to ignore indigenous filmmakers while extending largesse and exposure to large-scale film and TV productions who parachute in, lured by the landscape, subsidies and tax breaks and cheap labour. Likewise cinemas – both multiplex and arthouse – don’t give local films a fair shake (see my last post) and apart from a few academics, cultural commentators either don’t care or don’t exist.

The picture is further blurred by the ongoing sideshow of the lack of a film studio, an issue irrelevant to homegrown producers when even the most modest budget takes years to raise, making a studio unaffordable given the cost of hire, and of construction, standing, lighting and striking sets. Speaking as an ex-production designer, I should know.

At another level, my deepening malaise with Scottish film isn’t only about money or facilities, it’s about the mindset that keeps the nation tethered and cringing. The stagnant, rock-bottom level of production speaks to a lack of ambition: professionally, technically and creatively. In Scottish film the narrative hasn’t evolved much since George Orwell’s description of class stereotypes in his essay, “Boys’ Weeklies” (1940) where “the working classes only enter into the Gem and Magnet as comics or semi-villains.” Missing from that list is the caricature of the wily local underdog who outwits the authoritarian incomer, as seen in “The Maggie” (1954) and “Local Hero” (1983). If the middle classes exist in Scotland you wouldn’t know it by going to the pictures.

Rather than present characters as complex individuals forced to the limits of their usual behaviours in pursuit of a goal, Scottish film – be it indigenous or made by Hollywood – tends to portray people through exterior, symptomatic signifiers that ad nauseum present Scots on screen as drunkards, junkies, victims, violent, sick, poor and ill-educated because it’s easier to elicit pity or raise a cheap laugh than it is to interrogate – and understand – the lives of normal folk in less-than-normal circumstances.

By contrast, quietly undramatic (and middle-class) English films such as “45 Years” (2015) or the upcoming “On Chesil Beach” (2017) could never be produced in Scotland. Among other, complex factors, a dearth of an establishment willing to endorse, finance and promote Scottish film condemns its makers to produce fewer films than any other Western nation. In a pre-Brexit, pre-Indyref2 scenario this dire state of affairs speaks to an overweening lack of confidence that augurs ill for the culture-at-large.

I should worry. Over the coming months I’ll know whether “Voyageuse” can find an audience. If it succeeds then perhaps my faith in filmmaking can be restored. If not, then it’s no great loss to cinema – or in my case, the taxpayer. At least my hands are clean. In the end I’ve decided to screen privately, of course – at the BFI, Stephen Street, London at 6.00pm on March 1, by which time I’ll have a better idea about its prospects – and my own.

The above image is a frame grab from the film, shot by me in 2014.

Comments ---

Alan Knight
(reply)

Hi May,

Thanks a lot, we’ll keep hustling soft No voters with this film.

Thanks for the info on the arrogant CS, they treated you really badly and as they have their own grubby little agenda it doesn’t surprise me, but we need to get rid of this cartel and hopefully independence can help. I had the same problem with my Buffalo Bill project, CS demanding a 5 figure sum, which as you well know is designed that way to keep people like us out.

I’m still in Edinburgh, so if there’s any screenings coming up over here please let me know _ I look forward to seeing it. Best of luck with the new screenplay.

Ciao, Alan

May
(reply)

Thanks Alan,

Personally I don’t think I was treated badly by CS because I don’t have a sense of entitlement. They’re too bound up in the politics – e.g. – ScotsGov’s drive to link culture to tourism – that neglects the very thing that creates the culture: the people who make things here, freely, unconstrained and – dare I say – with passion.

On that note, as I said in my last reply – sadly I don’t think Voyageuse will be seen in Scotland. I don’t have a distributor and no one – and by that I mean cinema programmers, festivals, film agencies, commentators, the media at large – who all know I’ve made this film have not – as yet – approached me with a view to screening it. If I’m honest it’s as if there’s a very pointed cognition/ignorance thing going on at the very idea of me having done it again, under their noses.

I’ve just started work on my new script – a ton of research needed for the next few months, then back in my shed to write. Can’t wait, my subject – American politics 1970s-1990s – is so exciting.

All the best,
Mx

Alan Knight
(reply)

Hi May, great news that your film was really well received in London, and no thanks to those useless pretentious parasites at Creative Scotland who didn’t give you a penny. When are we going to get an opportunity to see it in Glasgow and/or Edinburgh? I’d love to see it. By the way, please check my doc “London Calling” if you get a chance, an expose of the BBC during the referendum. Try the Vid.me link in HD – https://vid.me/ZdTg

Alan

May
(reply)

Thanks Alan,

I’ve followed the progress of London Calling for a while now and it’s a fine investigative piece so more power to you.

As for Creative Scotland – here’s my story, so bear with me. In 2014 my last film played at the CCA, Glasgow. I asked their director, Francis McKee if he’d be willing to partner with me on Voyageuse because originally I saw it not as a film but as an installation. I asked him because I planned to apply for funding to CS’ Quality Arts Fund since I was deemed ‘ineligible’ for their Screen Fund. Four months later Voyageuse was rejected in a 2-line email. When pressed for more substantial feedback, CS told me they had ‘other, higher priority projects’ – quite an admission for a public body with an apparently open submission policy – in other words they awarded funding to projects they already favoured.

In October 2014 I decided to make Voyageuse with only what I had available to me. In hindsight it was the best outcome since as a condition of CS funding I was obliged to contribute a 5-figure sum to the project – money I didn’t have – plus I would have had to deal with a set of onerous T&Cs.

At the moment I’ve no plans to show Voyageuse in Scotland. No one in a position to screen it has approached me or shown any interest. My experience of screening work in Scotland has been pretty dismal – usually I’m left out of pocket and, as someone trying against the odds to contribute to the culture, I feel undervalued. I know many of my peers feel the same. My efforts now are on getting to festivals elsewhere. I’m also about to start work on a new screenplay – set in the US.

All the best, Alan – and good luck with your future projects
May

Andimac
(reply)

May, your rant was more than justified. Your reference to T2:Trainspotting perfectly illustrates the point. Not only 4 English-based companies and a US distributor, but based on the work of an ex-pat Scottish author, starring several ex-pat Scottish actors but premiered in Edinburgh – maybe the last is what the 500K from Creative Scotland was for. I’ve no grouse with people going where the money/work is but it’s about time, nay long overdue, that we fostered and supported native talent. I’m not narrowly nationalist or chauvinist, I just believe we could do much more. We’re always being told that Scotland “punches above its weight” – not in the film world it doesn’t. I’m based just outside Glasgow by the way but if “Voyageuse” screens anywhere, let me know – it might be somewhere I could travel to.

Cheers,
Andy.

May
(reply)

Thanks Andy,

Just back from London where the film was wonderfully received. I’ll write about it in my next blog.

Mx

Andimac
(reply)

Sadly, May, I think many in Scotland suffer from the “cultural cringe”. Oh aye, we’re O.K. with “Braveheart”, “Trainspotting”, etc., – anything that is big-time, commercial, mainstream, “popular” but there seems to be little or no real support for indigenous, original, Scottish work. To be fair, I’m not an authority or expert on cinema – indeed, in light of the seeming torrent of superhero and such-like dross that seems to comprise popular cinema these days, I’ve seldom crossed a foyer in recent times. Even so, one would have to be extremely isolated not to notice that there really is no such thing as a Scottish film industry/culture nowadays: the country only seems to be a set, a backdrop, against which to film bits of other countries’ productions – more’s the pity. There must be many of us who’d appreciate seeing original, innovative work that speaks to the undoubted and under-funded talent that must be out there. I know none of that helps, May, but the best of luck with your BFI screening and I sincerely hope that “Voyageuse” will grace many more screens in time to come.
All the best,
Andy.

May
(reply)

Great comment, Andy – thanks for that. I didn’t set out to have a rant about the state of Scottish cinema. I’d rather been more reflective and more positive about the film. But there’s no escaping the fact that the climate for Scottish cinema is dire and it angers me that so many people think there’s a career to be had – there are currently over 500 courses in Scotland in film/TV and media that promise to pave the way to a job in the industry so I feel for those who sign up only to amass huge debts with no prospects. What bothers me more is the lie of what makes for a ‘Scottish’ film. T2:Trainspotting was made for a reputed £18m by four English-based production companies and a US distributor. The film was awarded 500K – the maximum award by Creative Scotland. Did they really need the public money? Will any of the profit find its way back to the public purse? Like you, I don’t go to the cinema much these days. Hollywood rarely makes good dramas now, preferring the superhero franchise above all else. It’s amazing that Moonlight (budget – $1.5m) won the Best Picture Oscar. Sadly, I’m likely to be dismissed as a naysayer and a self-loathing Scot but in the scheme of things, film is barely worth our sympathy when the world’s falling apart. My only wish is that our cultural arbiters and those in government could see the value of film as a powerful artform and in Scotland, a means of promoting the culture to the world, not a poor relation to a dominant England and Hollywood, but as a distinctive entity in its own right. As I said before, I’d be pleased to show the film anywhere that will have it so hopefully you’ll get to see it at some point. Let me know where you’re based and I’ll try to make it happen.

Cheers, M.

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