New British Cinema From Submarine To 12 Years A Slave: The Resurgence of British Filmmaking — Reviewed

Under the Skin plus Q&A, Curzon Soho

A powerful and significant spotlight on today’s young filmmakers: Toby Hood reviews a collaborative book from Curzon and Faber & Faber on the directors and producers who are redefining British cinema…

An ambitious title in its broad scope, New British Cinema From Submarine To 12 Years A Slave: The Resurgence of British Filmmaking, by Jason Wood and Ian Haydn Smith, features 24 direct Q&As from a colourful range of today’s UK-based filmmakers. Brilliantly simplistic in its format, what emerges is a very powerful and extremely personal set of responses to the field.

Lenny Abrahamson opens with a unique take on the Irish middle-classes, regarding his teenage social drama What Richard Did (2012); his reproach from “the more saccharine Hollywood representations” of Ireland, where rugged men douse themselves in Guinness and serve to make Hilary Swank blissfully happy. Abrahamson focuses more on characterisation through spontaneous improvisation. In one scene, lead actor Jack Reynor recalls a story from his own childhood: “He told it as we were setting up and we just recorded it there and then.”

It is this urgency and strive for realism that presents itself at the centre of Jonathan Glazer’s Under The Skin (2013, pictured), an unsettling thriller starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien from outer space making sense of Earth — on the Glasgow streets. However, Glazer’s guerilla-style filming, using the public as unwitting extras, is not without its hurdles: “Regrettably, one of the best moments involved a couple breaking up, which Scarlett interacted with. Not surprisingly, the couple didn’t want to sign a release form.”

“One of the most prominent views put forward in New British Cinema is the necessary decline of the director’s authority on set”

One of the most prominent views put forward in New British Cinema by editors Wood and Haydn Smith is the necessary decline of the director’s authority on set. As sci-fi drama Ex Machina (2015) director Alex Garland claims: “My own approach to directing is in some respects to deliberately undermine the perceived importance of the role [...] This is a firm separation from any expectations that stem from auteur theory — which I see as a kind of monotheism that doesn’t stand up to much inspection.”

New British Cinema From ‘Submarine’ To ’12 Years A Slave’: The Resurgence of British Filmmaking, by Jason Wood and Ian Haydn Smith, is available to buy now from Faber & Faber in association with Curzon (paperback, £17.99)

Docu-drama director duo Ian Forsyth and Jane Pollard subvert their genre altogether, in their depiction of musician Nick Cave in 20,000 Days on Earth (2014); mainly by putting the needs of the subject before those of the audience. “We all shared a healthy cynicism of the conventional rock-documentary form [...] with Nick, so many of our shared references were about understanding what we didn’t want to do [...] seeing him drive the kids to school or make a cup of tea doesn’t truly reveal anything.”

“Amma Asante speaks of her acting career, as well as a side job as a typist, as a productive segue into becoming a prolific director”

What keeps Wood and Haydn Smith’s New British Cinema on trend is in its inclusion of not only young, first generation Brits, but producers from all walks of life and all schools of cinema. Amma Asante speaks of her acting career, as well as a side job as a typist, as a productive segue into becoming a prolific director: “If you’re the child of an African father for whom formal education is important, there’s normally a pressure to be a lawyer or a doctor. My father was very good at looking at what [I was] interested in, or showed a talent for. So I ended up in stage school.”

Asante’s directing debut A Way Of Life (2004), set in Wales, concerns the murder of a Turk through the eyes of his racist neighbour. It is a unique point of reference, not only in terms of the story told on screen, but what it says to us off the screen. “Being female and a woman of colour probably made it easier for this film to get made”, she says, “to convince financiers to let me tell this story from this particular perspective. [...] I wanted to explore what racism is from the inside out. It makes clear that when you don’t let members of society contribute to the world they live in, you’re creating problems for that society.”

“It didn’t represent the boys I saw on my estate everyday, so I decided to make a film that revealed their lives honestly”

Another female director, Sally El Hosaini, also discusses racism. Shot in her home borough of Hackney, My Brother The Devil (2012) was inspired by the 7/7 bombings in London, and the media’s presentation of young Arabs in Britain thereafter. “It didn’t represent the boys I saw on my estate everyday, so I decided to make a film that revealed their lives honestly.” Fixating on the theme of otherness, El Hosaini progresses from the daily struggles of the wider British Arab community and singles out one homosexual. “I realised that [some men] would rather have a brother who is a terrorist than gay. This realisation blew my mind! I think it’s pretty tragic that people feel more comfortable seeing two young Arab men holding guns than holding hands.”

Perhaps the one failing of Wood and Haydn Smith as interviewers — who have achieved a gripping and really mixed read as authors — is that, presented with a group of brilliant and open-minded people, there is not enough criticism. The over-complimentary atmosphere around each director’s work in New British Cinema, mixed with lengthy questions showcasing their own working knowledge of the industry, gives the voice of the book an almost patronising tone. It’s a shame Wood and Haydn Smith seem withdrawn in engaging with their subjects, as not to provoke or even challenge any prevailing views or methods; especially when tackling hot-button topics such as mental health, social justice, and the ‘auteur theory’.

Nonetheless, this book is a significant step in the footfalls of the contemporary British filmmaking that it elicits. Each article within has much to offer anyone with a cursory interest in film trends, or all those committed to creativity.

Toby Hood

New British Cinema From ‘Submarine’ To ’12 Years A Slave’: The Resurgence of British Filmmaking, by Jason Wood and Ian Haydn Smith, is available to buy now from Faber & Faber in association with Curzon (paperback, £17.99)

Posted on 27/08/2015 by thedoublenegative