Atonement

[DB7]

Town transformed for film

Mark Brown, arts correspondent
Tuesday August 22, 2006
The Guardian

Filming of Atonement on the beach at Redcar, Cleveland
'Atonement-mania' ... filming on the beach at Redcar, Cleveland. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA


Buildings have been bombed, craters are etched onto the beach amid rubble and debris, while a Thames barge sticks out of the sand, battered and forlorn. This was Redcar yesterday and the small coastal town is delighted.

Cameras rolled after a stretch of the Cleveland town's promenade and beach was transformed into Dunkirk, 1940, for the £36m film of Ian McEwan's novel Atonement.

The film-makers' arrival has boosted the local economy, provided jobs to extras and forced local libraries to call in extra copies of the book, in what the council has called "Atonement-mania".


The film's producers chose Redcar because, like Dunkirk, it has both a seaside location and heavy industry in the form of the Corus steelworks. The town's front was turned into a warzone by 300 crew members and 1,000 residents are appearing as fleeing British soldiers during the three-day shoot.

Dave Fitzpatrick, a culture, leisure and tourism councillor at Redcar and Cleveland council, said: "People are delighted that the film is here. It's creating a terrific amount of interest right across the borough and beyond."

Film-makers looking for bleak stretches of coastline are spoiled for choice in the north-east. Roman Polanski filmed his Macbeth at Bamburgh while the end of Get Carter saw Michael Caine running along two stretches of coastline in the same scene - Cambois in Northumberland and Blackhall Rocks near Hartlepool.

Atonement, directed by Joe Wright, winner of Bafta's most promising newcomer award for Pride and Prejudice, stars Keira Knightley as Cecilia Tallis and James McAvoy as Robbie. Vanessa Redgrave and Brenda Blethyn also star in the film that is due to be released in 2007.