DB7

'Depressing and dispiriting… it's no wonder nobody watches British films'
Chris Hastings, Arts and Media Editor
(Filed: 02/07/2006)

The British film industry produces depressing and dispiriting films which nobody wants to watch, one of the country's leading screenwriters claimed last night.

Julian Fellowes, the actor and Oscar-winning writer of Gosford Park, has accused a new generation of film-makers of living in a "child's paradise" and thinking they can sustain a career on "irritating and naive polemics".

Fellowes, who also wrote the screenplay for Vanity Fair, said that far too much lottery funding was going to films which either struggled to be released or flopped at the box office. He added that there was a mindset that had led to a wall of prejudice against "commercial and bourgeois" films.

"The French go to see French movies, the Italians go to see Italian movies, the British go to see American movies. We don't trust British films any more," he said.

"Here, the word 'commercial' has acquired this strange kind of pejorative pattern. If you make anything popular that might appeal to a lot of people, you have sold out. It is worthless, it has no real value."

Fellowes, who delivered his broadside at the Cheltenham Screenwriters' Festival last week, said: "We had a sort of session here, with some young writers doing pitches for ideas for scripts they either had written or were intending to write, and what was interesting about the exercise was that one couldn't imagine why anyone would want to see about three quarters of the films they were pitching.

"Someone was talking about a film about drug traffickers where one of the characters ended up in a woman's prison. And someone said, 'Oh well, of course, I understand why you want to do this because it's real life'. Now, of course, it is real life, but whose real life is it?"

Fellowes, who made his directorial debut last year with the highly acclaimed Separate Lies, said films could still convey powerful social messages without alienating an audience.

He said great films such as the Oscar-winning Crash and the 1978 classic Midnight Express knew they had to earn the respect of audiences.

Far too many modern British films that tackled social issues were not even released.

"Normally the film-going experience for most people is they want to go out, they want something entertaining, and your job, I think, is to make it an interesting good time, to make it a grown-up good time, to make it complicated to make things linger in their brain… but that doesn't mean giving them a terrible time."

Fellowes said the 1960s had produced a string of acclaimed and socially aware films such as The Servant and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, which were also commercial because they appealed to mainstream audiences.

"These are great movies, and we all went to see them. It wasn't that kind of obscure little art film that wins 56 awards and the Golden Pig's Trotter in Rimini. I find the rather earnest, naive polemics of a lot of modern British films irritating. The first guy walks on, and he's got a suit on and red braces and he's rude to the taxi driver and he says, 'Wasn't Mrs Thatcher wonderful?'. You know you are going to hate him."

Fellowes, who is also the host of the BBC quiz show Never Mind The Full Stops, said that the way lottery money was being used to fund some poor films was "shocking".

"If you look down the list of pictures made on lottery money, something like a third were released in cinemas, about one third go straight to DVD and the last third were never seen again. I mean, this is ridiculous, but we can't just alter it over night. We have to stop going along with it." In February, this newspaper revealed that a third of the films backed by the UK Film Council, which invests up to £20 million of taxpayers' and lottery money per year, would struggle to recoup their investment.

A number of films such as The Republic of Love, which was released in 2003 and which had more than £1.2 million from the Film Council, failed to make any money.

Fellowes cited Working Title Films, which has produced hits such as Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral, as the UK industry's strongest asset.

"Working Title's record, given the atmosphere within British film, is incredible, and we should all get down and kiss these people's feet."

Cheeky Bob

This broadside is a good five years out of date - the irony being that it's precisely the "obscure little art films" that are having extreme difficulty getting funding these days.

Terence Davies, one of our few genuinely world-class filmmakers, hasn't managed to make a film in seven years, and it certainly isn't for want of trying. Patrick Keiller's been in the wilderness for even longer (even though his films cost an absolute pittance and London turned a handsome profit) - and God knows where the new generation of Peter Greenaways, Derek Jarmans and Bill Douglases are going to come from, because while they could have approached the likes of the BFI Production Board in the past, that no longer exists and nothing has come along to replace it.

The problem as I see it is that the UK Film Council is actually too obsessed with "commercial appeal" (hence its decision to fund the wholly commercial Sex Lives of the Potato Men) and consequently wary of anything truly distinctive. Working Title owes its stature to the fact that it really does take risks - let's face it, neither My Beautiful Laundrette nor Fargo, to name but two randomly-chosen examples (there are many more), was an obvious commercial proposition - largely because Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner have enough experience and clout to be able to operate on gut instinct rather than by focus group.

But they couldn't have reached that position without considerable help - and they benefited enormously from being associated with the one British organisation that really did make a difference to the way British films are made and marketed. It's well worth reading Michael Kuhn's One Hundred Films and a Funeral for an illustration of how to do just about everything right (including spending years establishing a US distribution presence before getting into serious film funding), and the real tragedy of PolyGram Filmed Entertainment was that it was shafted by its parent company, not by its commercial track record.

But if we're to become seriously competitive in the way that Fellowes envisages, we need another PolyGram - a vertically-integrated company that covers development, production and distribution with a genuinely international reach.

Wolfgang

There needs to be more development at grassroots too. Visual arts are virtually ignored in state education and yet there are lots of 'dead' courses that boys are forced to take on. For example they are forced to learn how to sew and cook in 'home economics' - these classes have no interest or value for boys and something like photography could be offered in its place.

Cheeky Bob

Not just at the grassroots. The history of British cinema shows that we've always favoured production (glamour) over development and distribution (tedium), but unless you're prepared to spend realistic amounts on all three, you're going to end up with a dog's breakfast. No point citing examples: we can all think of loads!

I heard this in the mid-1990s, so I'm not sure how true it is today (though I bet it's not far off) but apparently Hollywood typically spends 8% of a film's budget on development, while Europe spends less than 1%. Frankly, it shows. And domestic distribution has always been our weak point, especially since the demise of the Rank Organisation (a rare example of a genuinely vertically integrated company), which is why so many films don't open theatrically aside from a couple of festival screenings.

What really depresses me is that many recent British films would be much better if only they'd had a couple of extra script drafts (possibly by a different writer - my heart sinks whenever I see the credit "written and directed by", as the number of people who really have truly mastered both disciplines is minuscule). They'd get this as a matter of routine in Hollywood, but here it seems to be a matter of macho pride that the script goes through as few revisions as possible before going in front of the cameras.

Of course, another problem is that we really aren't very good at producing professional screenwriters, and when we do they tend to take the next plane to Hollywood as soon as they've made their mark. Too often we think in literary/theatrical terms and not enough in visual/cinematic ones - and, again, it shows. (A strong television culture doesn't help: writing for the big screen is a different discipline)

JamesM

Wolfgang, I suspect you are playing with us.

Fellowes fails to mention that French films are helped by good distribution, the backing of appropriate marketing and a quota system. To him, it is the failure of British screenwriters to match the quality of his work. What else would you expect from someone who produces a murder mystery series and puts his name in the title of the programme, 'Julian Fellowes Investigates'.

Cheeky Bob

Well, the French have at least addressed two key issues - production and distribution - which is one stage beyond what we've managed. Though of course it helps immensely that they take film seriously over there in a way that we don't, so audiences are generally more sympathetic - albeit veering increasingly towards US films themselves. (Mind you, we have a grossly distorted impression of French cinema, as we generally only get the cream of the crop - routine French comedies are just as bad as anything starring Robin Askwith!)

But if you look at the truly successful film-producing countries - the US, India, Hong Kong - you'll see that each of them has successfully managed to get all three legs of the development-production-distribution table at roughly the right length. Fellowes doesn't really address the distribution issues, but he's certainly not wrong about British scripts not being up to scratch.

DB7

In many ways his argument is flawed, he claims "The French go to see French movies, the Italians go to see Italian movies, the British go to see American movies." and then holds up Working Title and films like The Servant and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning as homegrown successes. I'm sorry but WT films are artificial and mostly set in a postcard London as Americans see it and they are a billion miles away from the work of Losey and Reisz.

Wolfgang

But that is his point though - Working Title films perform well in England, they do well in America, but yet there is perception that making something like Notting Hill or Love Actually is 'selling out' because their presentation of British life is artificial. That kind of criticism was being employed against Powell and Pressburger sixty years ago.

Harbottle

I think Julian Fellowes makes a very valid point, I wonder how many folk are flocking to the pictures to enjoy Kenny Loach's latest masterpiece for example?

DB7

Imho WT have made the same mistake as FilmFour (just churning out the same big budget formula) and if they don't have a true box office hit soon (Love Actually was probably their last) they could wind up the same way. At the moment it's probably their US backers absorbing the losses.

DB7

But how much did it cost? It might easily break even. WT's Thunderbirds cost $57m... and was a country mile from breaking even.

Cheeky Bob

Not quite sure what relevance "Kenny Loach's latest" has to a discussion of British films, as it's overwhelmingly Irish - as has been pointed out in some detail by Irish journalists who are justifiably incensed at the way we've been trying to claim it as one of our own.

But only a tiny fraction of its budget came from the UK Film Council - half a million quid out of a total of £4.5 million, most of the rest of which came from Irish sources. Granted, the director and screenwriter were British, but pretty much everyone else involved with it was Irish too, not to mention the subject matter, political sympathies, you name it.

Anyone know how well it's doing over there? Given the Irish box-office performance of Michael Collins and The Magdalene Sisters, I'd be very surprised if it flopped, but I don't know either way.

Steve Crook

Hardly. They were criticised for making artistic films with elements of drama and fantasy and for not making films in the realist, documentary style that the critics loved at the time.

Steve

DB7

If I'm honest I don't see following the Working Title route as the answer for creating a vibrant homegrown industry. What we tend to get is a worldwide hit like Four Weddings then 50 clones attempting to ride on its shirttails, similarly the success of Lock, Stock was the spark for a glut of second-rate Cockney gangster films. I'd rather a diverse industry with room for all and without the snobbery both art house and ribald comedies at either end of the spectrum receive.

The raising of Ken Loach's name is interesting because when reading the article originally I suspected it was a veiled attack on him as not too many young polemic directors spring to mind.

David Brent

Like it or not, reality is that the majority of British films made today are aimed towards the American market.
To guarantee funding and distribution British films now tend to introduce American actors ( with fake English accents) into roles that quite clearly could be taken by lesser known homegrown actors.
It's a never ending cycle. Britain is known for it's hard hitting, realistic (although sometimes gloomy) films - films that are not attractive to American audiences. As such funding and distribution suffers.
Water down the storylines, blow up a few cars, introduce American "stars" and you have a bigger budget and distribution access. Only thing is that this type of film is usually rubbish.
Unfortunately the American dollar will always dictate the future of British films.

Dave.