THIS IS ENGLAND (A British Case Study)

THIS IS ENGLAND (A British Case Study)

The British Film Industry

    Then

IN the past, the British film industry conceded defeat to the mite of Hollywood films. Hollywood budgets went into the millions, whereas, British films could only achieve funding in the thousands. Therefore, the most successful talent moved to Hollywood in search of fortune to accompany their fame and reputation, meaning the British film industry would only have access to poor talent and new talent.

    Now

The Hollywood domination over the film industry continues to reign, although the British film industry has managed to develop, and move closer, to matching Hollywood’s superiority. I feel that there are two key directors in the British film industry today, Shane Meadows and Christopher Nolan. I say Christopher Nolan because he has taken personal feelings to create successful films, with support from Hollywood Studios. Christopher Nolan’s most personal film is “Inception” which was spurred on by corporate espionage. However, Shane Meadows is a much more key British director, because he, not only appeals to his personal feelings, but to the feelings of British culture. In his film “This Is England”, he shows the people of today, what it was like growing up in an urban landscape carved by a racist movement, the National Front.

British films became much more successful by appealing to British culture with independently made films, such as, “This Is England”. “This is England” is not the first successful film in Britain to appeal to British culture, but it is, certainly, one of the most iconic. Check out this image taken from Boxofficemojo.com -

The image above shows that “This Is England” made over $8,000,000 (Approximately £5,000,000), despite a very low budget of approximately £1,200,000.

British filmmakers face many difficulties in the current cinema, although the current cinema also produces opportunities for them.

Difficulties are aplenty to the British film industry, with its rivalry to the Hollywood film industry. This rivalry is the result of British actors relocating to Los Angeles, where Hollywood is situated. Although, some famous actors have relocated back to England from Los Angeles (i.e. Keira Knightley), when they see more opportunities in England to increase their attention.

Influential Factors of the Production Context

    Institutional Factors

        Director

Successful, British directors tend to relocate to Los Angeles for the extra work and income. Take Christopher Nolan for an example, he has a unique idea of how a film should be made. His methods of filmmaking have been so successful, he has been offered work in Los Angeles and has now been sucked into American mainstream cinema and has not returned to Britain. Not all of Britain’s successful directors transfer themselves to American mainstream cinema. For example, Shane Meadows has found a similar amount of work as Christopher Nolan, but, unlike Nolan, Meadows has remained a completely British director making British independent films for a British culture.

Meadows has made “This Is England” institutionally British by implementing themes of community, father figures, respect, friendship, local atmosphere, British icons, social realism, working class, ordinary people and his own childhood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

        Funding

The funding achieved for British independent films is considerably far away from the amount of funding American mainstream films can achieve. For example, Christopher Nolan achieved a production budget of $160 million (approximately £100 million) for his film “Inception” from mega rich film studio, Warner Bros. Whereas, Shane Meadows’ film “This Is England” achieved a production budget of £1.2 million.

Shane Meadows gained funding for “This Is England” via multiple routes, all British, with Film 4 and the UK Film Council contributing a total of £758,000. By accepting funding from only British contributors, “This Is England” becomes even more iconic as a propeller to the British film industry.

        Production

Independent British films tend to use no star marketing and low budgets. “This Is England”, being institutionally British, agrees with these tendencies. The film uses actors which have not gained any attention for their talents. The no star marketing of the film allows the audience to be more engaged to the film more easily. However, despite adding to the British feel in the film, the low budget may not have been intended. The low budget shows that, although British film is catching up with Hollywood, they are seen as much more risky than the typical American mainstream film.

Looking at the production values of American mainstream film, “Inception”, we see star marketing and a very high budget. The high budget, again, tells us that films made by internationally established filmmakers for the American mainstream film industry are much less risky than British films. With star marketing, the film is telling potential customers that the film has been respected since pre-production and that the acting talents featured in the film are of a very high calibre. Although, this is a very expensive option and is not usually an option for British filmmakers making films independently.

        Distribution

Hollywood’s domination of the film industry has attracted success to distributors, meaning that the distributors based in Hollywood become more able to put a client’s film on more and more cinema screens. This causes a significant impact on the distributors of British independent films. British independent films are finding hard to gain success via distribution. Take a look at “This Is England”. “This Is England” was distributed to, approximately, 100 screens and restricted to the UK. The mainstream film, “Inception”, gained distribution to 3,792 screens worldwide. The reason for Hollywood’s distribution domination is down to two key factors, money and status. Money enables them to hire better distributors, while the ‘Hollywood’ status grabs the distributor’s attention.

    Cultural Factors

        Genre

The British film industry has excelled in the ‘Social Realism’ genre. Social realism is the genre of a film that realistically portrays ourselves. The reason for Britain excelling in this genre, is that Hollywood has never been able to stick to the facts, while making a fictional film, like “This Is England”. “This Is England” shows us an insight into what Britain was like in the 80’s and follows the story of a young boy that experiences the full force of 80‘s Britain at first hand.

        Genre Conventions

“This Is England” followed many conventions of the social realism genre. Such as: set in the industrial north; based around a working class lifestyle; primarily male protagonists; low production values; no star marketing; specific narrative themes; natural lighting and a moralistic point of view. These conventions have been brought forward to the social realism genre from 1950’s British cinema.

In “This Is England”, Shane Meadows has chosen to have the choice of being racist as the narrative theme. Meadows has also used many male characters, no star marketing, darker indoors, brighter outdoors, unchanged windows, de-saturated colours and extremism in racism. All of these techniques that Meadows has used help enhance the social realism genre.

        Characters

American mainstream films tend to use stereotypical characters to portray stereotypical roles. For example, Arnold Schwarzenegger got the role of the Terminator, mainly because he won a bodybuilding competition. However, in British independent films, actors are chosen to represent characters based on how enticing the film could be. In “This Is England”, Meadows opted for no star actors in the film and chose the actors based on talents, rather than credits. This technique allowed “This Is England” to be a more enticing film.

Meadows also included scenes of trends becoming part of the characters’ lives. An example of this in “This Is England” is when Shaun has his head shaved to be part of the skinhead trend, which his new mates were also participating in.

        Representations

The national identity is often represented in films, no matter what country they come from. In “This Is England”, the national identity of Britain shows the country as racist and naive, but united in an urban location.

In all films, the national identity can be seen by looking at the actors used in the film, the accents, dialogue, costumes and settings.

Looking at “This Is England”, Shane Meadows has used his experiences of the 1980’s to choose actors for the film, setting, costumes, etc.

In American films, we often see signs of national pride. Ask yourself this, how many times do you see the U.S.A flag in American films?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

        Issues

            Social

There are many social issues in all films, although, the issues can vary from country to country. In American mainstream films, using stereotypically attractive characters is seen as a social issue because it causes people to go to extreme measures to look like their idol character. However, in Britain, showing racist ideologies is seen as a social issue because it is sometimes seen to spur on racist thoughts, rather than eliminate and discourage them. “This Is England” is one of Britain’s films that is controversial for its heavy use of racist ideology, despite racism being the narrative.



   

          Political

Political issues arise from films in Britain and America very often. Therefore, America has been seen reducing the amount of political films they make, although Britain has not reduced the amount of political films it makes. In fact, in the last decade, three iconic British independent films have been made. The three films are all biopics of famous figures. They are “The Queen”, “The King’s Speech” and “Iron Lady”. “The Queen” and “Iron Lady” have seen issues arise after their release. “The Queen” showed the current queen of the UK portrayed as evil, during Princess Diana’s death. While, “Iron Lady” was expected to be centred around the politics of Margaret Thatcher, but it, instead, was based around the effects of dementia.







“This Is England” has seen political issues arise. With its narrative being the choice of being racist, it has been seen to spur on the racist ideologies of the BNP (British National Party).

            Regulatory

Regulatory issues are the most common form of issue that arises from films. The 2002 American mainstream film “Spider-Man” came under scrutiny for its certification from the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) of ’12’. This scrutiny eventually forced a new certification of ‘12A’. The ‘12A’ rating gives everyone over the age of 12 to watch the film, whilst under 12’s must be accompanied by an adult.

“This Is England” doesn’t have any regulatory issues as it was given an ‘18’ rating for its display of  extremist ideologies.

The British public do argue against some of the certificates given to British films, much to the annoyance of the British film industry. For example, horror films “Paranormal Activity” and “Woman in Black” have been given ratings ’15’ and ’12’, respectively. These ratings were questioned by the public for the psychological impact the films had on viewers.

    Themes, Messages and Values Explored in “This is England”

The themes explored in Shane Meadows’ “This is England” are: Friendship; Survival of the fittest; Skinheads; 1980’s; Margaret Thatcher and Rebellion.

All of the themes listed, used by Meadows in “This Is England”, are associated with 1980’s British culture. They all combine to form the message that racism should not exist, shown in the final scene of Shaun throwing the St. George’s flag (a symbol of the National Front) into the sea.

To help promote Meadows’ values, he has made it clear that Milky is British, regardless of skin colour, loyalty should always be with the ones who help you, bullying is wrong and alienation is wrong.

    Film Form and Style

Shane Meadows likes to add his own personal style to his films with montage sequences, along with slow motion shots and group shots. More specifically, Meadows Directorial style is to use the characters’ angles, handheld camerawork, low resolution, natural lighting and de-saturated colour. Meadows encodes realism into “This Is England” using 80’s costumes, hair and make-up and popularity in the narrative.