A perennial of film journalism here in Britain is the special feature evaluating the success of home-grown talent in the movies. At least once a year, every British film magazine and broadsheet culture supplement has a ‘special’ issue wherein they list the biggest British stars and/or discuss the most successful British films, perhaps with a Ewan McGregor interview somewhere and a few ‘hot new talent’ profiles thrown in for good measure.
The results are invariably depressing for us ‘plucky’ Brits, leaving the reader to conclude that the British film industry is in decline and has been for many years. As a matter of fact, in a recent interview with Empire magazine, The Office star Ricky Gervais cited that all British films are “shit” as his reason for turning them down.
Officially, a British film is one made with British money. Of the few major feature films that are funded with British money, most are filmed in Britain with predominantly British casts and tell stories about British characters. Using this definition, Trainspotting (Boyle, 1996) is probably Britain’s greatest critical success of the last decade. But while Trainspotting was a good film, it’s only life-changing if you’re a reformed junkie or you desperately liked the soundtrack and poster.
Because our little island is often clouded over, our architecture and landscapes far from exotic, and our road infrastructure littered with the graffiti-like excess of our government’s road markings, there isn’t much artistic scope for films made with British money. So we settle for gloomy realism and Mike Leigh films. In the last ten years, we have endured a glut of rags-to-riches tales, usually set in the North of England, which follow a painfully familiar and worn formula: Billy Elliot (Daldry, 2000), Little Voice (Herman, 1998), Brassed Off (Herman, 1996), The Full Monty (Cattaneo, 1997). Perhaps the optimism in these stories is necessary to deter audiences from suicide. When tripe like Love Actually (Curtis, 2003) is considered a British triumph, and Shaun of the Dead (Wright, 2004), an amusing but unremarkable zombie comedy, wins Best British Film at the Empire Awards, it’s easy to see where Ricky Gervais is coming from. British films really are shit.
However, when examining the extent of Britain’s contribution to film, it is a big mistake to overlook how heavily British talent is involved in films that aren’t made with British money and don’t focus on British characters. There is a distinction to be made between screen personalities who are famous for being British (the bumbling Hugh Grant, for example) and versatile screen personalities who just happen to be British (like Helena Bonham Carter and the underappreciated Minnie Driver). Playing American characters, Hugh Laurie – of all people – is striking US television ratings gold in House, and Damian Lewis was the standout of the Band of Brothers cast.
As the Steve Coogan and Alfred Molina segment of Coffee and Cigarettes (Jarmusch, 2003) highlights, the US – and not London – is the place to be for aspiring British actors. Surely it makes more sense to regard Hollywood as the film capital of the world than it does to regard it as the film capital of the US. Its key players come from all over the world. Its locations are international. Its stories span different times, cultures and places that often have nothing to do with the US and its brief history.
Having said that, it should be noted that Britain probably has more to be proud of as a movie nation than any other country. With about a fifth of the population size of the US, Britain has given the world what many would consider to be its greatest director (Alfred Hitchcock), its most prestigious actor (Laurence Olivier), its greatest screen hero (Cary Grant), its greatest performer (Charlie Chaplin), its most versatile actor (Gary Oldman), its greatest villain (Alan Rickman) and, well, Peter Sellers to boot.
We British people complain about Americans stealing our legends and making them American. There are two things that we are forgetting. Firstly, we should be flattered that our stories are the ones worth telling, and that our personalities are the ones worth hijacking. It is a compliment to Michael Caine that Alfie (Gilbert, 1966), The Italian Job (Collinson, 1969), and Get Carter (Hodges, 1971) all received a Hollywood makeover in the last five years, even if all three remakes were practically as feeble as the originals. Secondly, it is with smug self-satisfaction that we can watch this summer’s Batman film: aimed at resuscitating one of America’s greatest franchises, it is directed by a Brit (Christopher Nolan) and stars a Brit (Christian Bale) in the leading role.
Who cares if John Constantine, a virtually unknown British comic book hero, has been corrupted as a Keanu Reeves vehicle? Batman is British! And so are Gandalf, James Bond, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Hannibal Lecter. Who, one wonders, is the rest of the world left with?
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