I was joking about it making top 3 haha.
Yeah yeah sure you were. Stop trying to style it out.
"
I got one question for you. Do you consider yourself English or Jamaican?" 3.
This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2006)
Shane Meadow's
This Is England is a remarkable slice of British cinema that perfectly encapsulates the bleakness of 80's Thatcher Britain just after the Falklands War. Drawing on his own childhood experiences, the film starts off as a coming of age drama that tells the story of 12 year old Shaun (a charmingly cheeky Thomas Turgoose) who finds himself befriended by a gang of nice and friendly and multiracial skinheads. The boss of the group is Woody, who is Shaun's first mentor and confidence, and arguably the one responsible for Shaun's subsequent growth from boy to teenager.
The introduction of skinhead Woody (amicable Joe Gilgun) and co is Meadow's challenging our notion of skinheads, immediately educating us on the origins of the skinhead culture. Most people around the age of 30 and lower are not too aware that the original skinheads were, in fact, a very lefty subculture who were heavily influenced by social interaction between the white were class and black jamaican immigrants. This subculture listened to reggae, ska and other types of black dominating music genres. There are no fixed stereotypes in these groups, just a bunch of music, weed, fun lovin' groupd of youngins who enjoy nothing more than to drink pints of beer and hang around abandoned wharehouses so they can get up to some innocent havoc.
A touching and genuinely halirious first half gives way to something far more disturbing and uncomfortable as Shaun becomes seduced by another group, the more familiar hardcore skinny's who make up neo nazi gangs. This group leader Combo (the incredible Stephen Graham) is just as charismatic as Woody, but backs the far right and is extremely violent, angry and ultra aggressive. He is a hardcore skinhead, a poster boy for the hate campaign against immigrants and a big nasty piece of work to boot. The spectator can only hope Shaun can get as far away from Combo as soon possible.
Shaun's alliance shift is very dramatic but feels completely plausible and authentic at the same time, which is a testament to the writing as well as the performances. Even though most of the film features improvised acting, Meadow's dialogue can be felt, specially the power of Combo's now infamous "This is England" speech. Graham has never been better as he effortly and fearlessly allows venomous words to leave his lips. He is powerful, an enigma and scarily convincing.
He's also a bit of a bastard but I guess that I more or less indicated that with the whole nazi thing. Anyways, instead of having fun drinking and meeting girls, Shaun's association with Combo includes National Front meetings, tattooing the St George's flag and racial verbal abuse at other minorities. It's chilling stuff and the way in which the racism creeps up on you is handled in as honest way as possible.
Take Combo's indirect verbal assault on Milky, the black member of the nice skinhead group. It's a perfect sequence of tension, sadness, and eventually, anger. It's done slowly and deliberately and Meadow's makes sure that we catch every motion of Milky's humiliated face, and the weakness of his friends who feel too threatened and uncomfortable to stick up for him. It's an amazing scene and probably the best scene I have ever seen that depicts the realities of racism and it's effect on both the individual and the group. You are not just seeing the physical ramifications such bigoted cruel acts have on people, but also how the verbal actions can be as bad as a physical one.
Look at films like
American History X and terrible
Romper Stomper. Films that deal with similar themes to
TIE, but neither have the skill and clairty to really convey what they are saying. Both of those films unintentionally attracted a group of neo nazi who worship the films as some sort of fascist media bible. Both features acts of violence on ethnicities we never get a chance even get a chance to see properly and both don't seem to know what they want to say about race and consequences of such weird groups. If you go on imdb you will find a lot of dodgy types saying how much they like the aforementioned films. But the
TIE imdb board features none such things, and that's reflective of how amazing Meadow's vision was and how he is one of the few contemporary directors to really show the disgusting nature of racism in it's full glory.
So, is this England? Yes and no. The film's title is tricky, and full of lots of different meanings, but to me it suggests asserts the claim that England, despite it's rich history and it's seemingly down to earth inhabitants, still has a very long way to go to in terms of letting go of 'purity' and nationalistic pride. Just my 2 pence.
"They'll believe... "WHAT I WANT THEM TO BELIEVE" 2.
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
Officially the greatest film debut ever made is just one of the many tags you can put on a
Citizen Kane poster. Orson Welles' perfect debut was one of the first mainstream American films to challenge the conventions of storytelling using flashback techniques, overlapping dialogue, long takes, cellinged sets and psychologically strong characterisation.
This much applauded art is widely considered the best of the best, the creme de la creme, the greatest film of all time, the big bad booty daddy, etc. And there is a damn good reason for that. Orson freakin' Welles. Welles was 25 years old when he made
Kane. He got most of his experience from stage and radio work. He was instrumental in the success of the Mercury Theatre company, of which he used fellow colleagues to perform in
Kane for him. The result is the defining film of American cinema. Believe it or not, I was actually torn about whether to place this film at number one or not because truth be told,
Kane is the granddaddy of all these great films that have come after it.
The Godfather, There Will Be Blood..I think that it is almost safe to say that none of those films would have existed if it hadn't been for the greatest debut of all time. Hell, half of the films in my top 100 would not have existed if it hadn't been for
Kane. Despite his youth, Welles was a one man production having co-wrote, produced, directed and starred as the lead. And he handled each role like a pro. As far as I know, it was rare back then for somebody to take on multiple tasks in the film world. I mean being your own producer, star, director, etc is something that only few can understand. The stress, time and money drained out of you is something that I can only imagine, but doing that at such a young age only for the film to become talked about 7 decades later is something that's even beyond a remarkable achievement. He raised the ante on film noir and general filmmaking by experimenting with all these techniques. And I use the word experimenting loosely because, obviously, the film feels anything but experimental.
One of the most immersive things about
Kane is the sheer visual quality of it. It's a visual feast and a lot of that has to do with with his dp, Greg Toland. The look is incredible, specially when you consider that it's black and white. A black and white film that feels colourful, if you will. The moody slightly horrish opening sequences gives you an idea of what to expect, or rather, doesn't as it's a film that really is unpredictable (i'm not even going to bother going into the infamous 'rosebud' ordeal as it's beend discussed heavily elsewhere on this board) and just exciting on so many levels. The budget wasn't very high and I think that Welles and Toland do an exceptional job in disguising that.
There are 1000000 things I want to say about this film but like I mentioned before it's been talked about to death already on this board. Wha I will say though is that this is visual drama at it's most purists and aesthetically pleasing. If you haven't seen it, believe the hype. Utterly unmissable art by the artist known as Awesome Welles. Landmark film personified.