They say that in politics, if you're in a hole, you should stop digging. And yet there's something about the subject of British cinema that gets the prime minister repeatedly reaching for his spade. Perhaps it's something to do with Meryl Streep's Maggie gazing down from every bus, and maybe that film's sentimentalisation of a Tory leader has emboldened David Cameron to believe this is solid ground for him. He will keep on making these eye-catching and brazen announcements about British film – a topic on which, as Clement Attlee once said to Harold Laski, a period of silence on his part would be most welcome.
On Radio 4's Today programme, Evan Davis cheekily asked him to comment on a listener's view that in a Cameron biopic, Malcolm McDowell should play the lead (having famously played the public-school cad Flashman). Cameron opined that If … was a good film of McDowell's. Huh? Did Mr Cameron fully understand that Lindsay Anderson's If … was a searing attack on the public school system from a socialist director? Well, he was responding to a question, and he was caught on the hop.
But now he has made a calm and considered visit to the set of the new 007 film at Pinewood Studios and, on the occasion of a report into film-funding from Lord (Chris) Smith, that Blair-era figure who once wrote a solemn study titled Creative Britain, commented publicly that lottery money now needs to be targeted at "mainstream" films. Yes, of course, those commercial blockbusters and box-office sizzlers, as opposed to lefty chin-stroking arty-liberal fare (like, presumably, Lindsay Anderson's If …) Really, prime minister? What a bold new idea!
The sheer audacity is staggering. He says he wants to "build on the incredible success of recent years", but one of his administration's most sensational acts of party political grandstanding and spite was to cancel the UK Film Council – a creation of the Labour years – just when it was delivering not merely critically admired work but precisely those commercial hits of the kind Cameron professes to yearn for.
Could there be any better example of the classy, Brit-heritage smash than The King's Speech, a film which would not have existed without the UK Film Council's support? And yet just when this movie's producers were taking their Oscars away in a wheelbarrow, the Film Council was in the process of being wound up. It was the equivalent of David Cameron rushing on to the field at the final whistle of 2003 Rugby World Cup, calling for silence, and announcing that the coaching system was all wrong, and Clive Woodward and Jonny Wilkinson should be given their P45s right away.
I suspect Cameron now realises the UK Film Council move was one of his government's silliest blunders. It wasn't broke – so he broke it. Now he's returning to the fray, with some choice rhetoric about getting our British movie industry to up its game to rival Hollywood, a rhetoric he has learned from the Blair-Brown administration which, in fact, really did care about boosting cinema.
But it's not just a case of taking the "commercial"-looking projects and throwing money at them for higher returns. It doesn't work like that. Producing movies – any kind of movies – is a gamble. As the great screenwriter William Goldman said: nobody knows anything. The UK Film Council got it pretty wrong in the early years of its existence in chasing, and being seen to chase, commercial hits. It resulted in some embarrassing dross, chiefly about mockney gangsters.
Are we destined to go through this again? The UK Film Council was not perfect, and it certainly had its critics, but its successes were coming through the pipeline because it was always keen on self-scrutiny and research, always trying to get the balance between supporting crowd-pleasers and critical darlings. Because these go together, and the distinction is never clear in any case.
The challenge is to make good films, and to make as many as possible and to raise the statistical likelihood of success as high as possible. It may sound naive, but not as naive as this implied image of hearty commercial films starved of cash by lefty arthouse conspirators.
Cameron says he is against big government. Perhaps politicians like him will now resolve to leave the world of film alone for a bit.
• This article was amended on 12 January 2012. In the original Harold Wilson was attributed as saying "a period of silence", when in fact it was Clement Attlee. This has been corrected.
Comments
Sign in to comment or to join the conversation
11 January 2012 9:41PM
So tell me, what is so feeble about the UK film industry that it needs the safety net of public funding?
Most other enterprises offering entertainment appear to function quite adequately by producing stuff that people are happy to purchase.
11 January 2012 9:42PM
Well said Mr Bradshaw. Cameron is displaying further evidence of control freakery! Alex Salmond appears to have the measure of this man's deluded and misguided arrogance.
11 January 2012 9:45PM
Although I'm American, I believe there's an appropriate British response that can be employed here for Mr. Cameron: get stuffed.
11 January 2012 9:45PM
Attlee, not Wilson, said that.
Not sure who he said it to.
11 January 2012 9:46PM
How very post modern. And useless.
11 January 2012 9:48PM
Cameron all too often is ready to display the cultural barbarism of his great aunty Margaret.
11 January 2012 9:51PM
Nobody is saying that. How much public money does Hollywood need? Or indeed Bollywood?
But when you're trying to sell a 20% cut in Disabled Living Allowance across the country, you need to have a bloody good case for shovelling public money at Mike Leigh to make another pile of crap that 12 people might watch.
"Risky" stuff like Monty Python's "Life of Brian" got made because an investor (George Harrison) was willing to put his own money on the line, and indeed mortgaged his house to do so.
The government has no role in picking winners, or indeed in arbitrating what is, or is not, "art".
It should however provide a level playing field, including tax breaks competitive with those available elsewhere, to give all film makers an equal chance of succeeding or failing according to the only test that matters: bums on seats.
11 January 2012 9:52PM
Cinema is one of the most commerical and highly profitable art forms. It's not a precious, threatened antique like opera or ballet. Putting public money into films that do the film festival rounds but nobody wants to see, is well meaning but depressing.
If they don't have a script for a cheap east end gangster flick or a tale of alcoholic misery from Scotland, I'll bet film makers don't even consider applying for money.
Any funds would surely be better spent to develop genuinely diverse projects, commerical and escapist as well as the cinematic social work lectures that seem to be churned out, bring new talent to the fore, apprentice and train young people into the business, and then make connections to let market forces buy up their talent and skills to make brilliant films.
Hang on. Isn't that what the British film council used to do? Oh shit.
11 January 2012 9:58PM
Why does the British film industry need our tax pounds, possibly because its run by aging marxist know it alls, and can't stand on its own two feet. .After seeing Mr Ken Loach on the box tonight good riddance to it.
11 January 2012 10:00PM
Fantastic. More 'Great' British comedies with Simon Pegg. And the guy who always plays Simon Pegg's sidekick. And Ricky Gervais. And the woman from Black Books. (Although she is funny).
So we leave Europe in the lurch, kick the unemployed in the bollocks - but when there's a sign that 'mainstream cinema' is under threat, Cameron swings to the rescue?
Don't know what he's bleating on about anyway. Doesn't most of the revenue from British film end up in the Isle of Man, because they're all filmed there for tax reasons?
11 January 2012 10:01PM
Absurd it may be, but he also argues that taxpayers are starved of cash by the disabled and that rolling back health and safety in the workplace is desirable, for example. He's a figment of a nightmare made flesh.
11 January 2012 10:02PM
Attlee to Laski.
11 January 2012 10:03PM
And no doubt Hollywood would fold tomorrow if it weren't for all those Government hand outs.
11 January 2012 10:05PM
It was Clem Attlee to Harold Laski.
11 January 2012 10:06PM
Would National Lottery funding also require product placement?
M: 'And one more thing, Bond.'
007: 'You want me to take out the Russian?'
M: 'Yes, of course, but I also need you to pop into Spar and get me a lucky dip on the Euro...'
11 January 2012 10:12PM
"films that do the film festival rounds but nobody wants to see"
Aah, but you see that's the paradox. The problem isn't that people don't want to see these films. It's that the distribution network is so fundamentally broken they don't get a choice to ignore them.
11 January 2012 10:12PM
The only sure-fire British movie hits are heritage dramas starring Judy Dench. Cameron is ordering lottery funding to go only to literary adaptations with frocks. His great idea is Jane Austin ad nauseum.
You don't need film-makers to churn out this stuff. A bunch of managers and a costume store will do. And hey presto! A glut of shit flops.
God save us from politicians telling artists what to do.
Cameron is a pillock.
11 January 2012 10:13PM
I think Mr Cameron is missing a trick here.
Instead of ploughing money into 'back to work' schemes for the unemployed, give them all a video camera and encourage them to make their own, ahem, home movies.
Within a year we'd half halved our social security bill and cornered the lucrative world wide market for amatuer porn.
11 January 2012 10:16PM
It's all about distraction from reality suckled by the media.
While he's out there spouting minutiae he's nurturing a country that is now the money laundering capital of the world where corruption and deception are the rules of the game.
He wont feel ashamed because he's just following the mantra of his predecessors and with the banal coverage of the truth by the equally guilty media he'll get away with it.
I'm too old to give a damn any more but this country is pathetic. It doesn't deserve anything. All it's ever done is rape and pillage with scant regard for the hoi poloi.
You the ignorant deserve what you think.
11 January 2012 10:17PM
A tax on gullibility and desperation called the National Lottery? That's what it was set up for.
11 January 2012 10:23PM
That's what you think is the main test of artistic endeavour is it?
11 January 2012 10:24PM
"Hands off British film"?
If you really mean that, then why are you complaining about the government cutting funding for the UK Film Council?
That sounds like the government taking your hands-off advice.
It appears that what you really meant was "Give us lots of money and don't ask any questions".
11 January 2012 10:26PM
Art house versus commercial is a false division to begin with. We all know and understand that except it would seem for our very expensive, dull and gutless politicians.
11 January 2012 10:27PM
The perfect epitaph for this bunch Cameron, Clegg or Osborne. Or Lansley. Or Give. Or Alexander.
Vandals.
11 January 2012 10:28PM
Well... I understand where you're coming from Peter...
On the other hand, if it is trully hearty creative productions you're talking about then... I think that funding cuts would prove fruitful!
The heart grows under poverty, it's very resourceful and what it doesn't find in materials, it compensates by creativity...
You don't need a lot of money to create art and you definitely don't need elaborate special effects to make a point in a genuinely inspired movie. A couple of laptops and a camera are fine for underground, core shacking movies right?
Anyway, that's just the way I see things :-)
Good luck!
11 January 2012 10:31PM
Sadly Mr Bradshaw, this government contains a lot of the type of person who thought that the Transformers films were good. So expect some more cultural vandalism.
11 January 2012 10:33PM
A bit odd that Minority Dave has expressed his appreciation of If....,which was a mordant,semi-surrealist,savage satire/critique on public schools as PB states,and not a hagiographic celebration of elitism as he perhaps thought it was.Lindsay Anderson like him was a patrician public schoolboy,but unlike him a radical sort,who was a primary figure in the British New Wave,that sought to free UK cinema from it's insulated and parochial attitudes towards the working classes,whom Anderson and other public school alumni (Karel Reisz,Tony Richardson,John Schlesinger) empathised with,and gave opportunities to working class writers and actors in collaboration in films like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Alan Sillitoe,Albert Finney),A Taste of Honey (Shelagh Delaney,Rita Tushingham),Loneliness of The Long Distance Runner(Sillitoe,Tom Courtneay) and A Kind of Loving (Stan Barstow).
When Anderson worked on This Sporting Life,it wasn't a background or environment he experienced or knew,but at least he went there to film around the coalmines and rugby clubs of Yorkshire and artists involved in the film from this kind of background.He was familiar with the elitism associated with If.... but was not especially happy with such privileges and made strong satirical points as to why he wasn't,something which I suspect Minority Dave didn't understand.
We seem to be having these stereotypes in British filmmaking at present,with The King's Speech and The Iron Lady merely tugging forelocks to the royal and political establishment,whereas working class dramas and comedies are using familiar stereotypes,both in film and TV,as either lazy,violent,uncouth,substance abusers,promiscuous,scroungers or the like.It was not surprising that one of the contributors to the related report issued today was Julian Fellowes (Gosford Park,Downton Abbey),a fellow elitist of Minority Dave,who is reinforcing such stereotypes of the glorious privileged and the grubby oiks.
11 January 2012 10:37PM
Hands off British film, Mr Cameron
.
Can't agree more. There is no way that we should be subsidising the film industry.
11 January 2012 10:48PM
Er ... that should be "Jane Austen ad nauseam."
11 January 2012 10:50PM
Hypothetical question for those of you who believe film should be subsidised -
if I had a clever, witty script and a bunch of unknown, talented actors on standy and I was going to make a film that painted Bush and Blair in a very favourable light, should I get public money to make the film?
11 January 2012 10:54PM
He may have misread some of the satire, but 'If' obviously made a striking impression on Mr Cameron, given that he could absolutely relate to the public school system. Certainly, he would have had his toilet seat warmed by a fag, and he would have administered corporal punishment to anyone who dared oppose him or his views.
He would also have learnt that anarchy was a dangerous concept, that required an immediate and forceful application of law and order.
So, he was not caught on the hop. These are the life lessons that he now applies as core principles.
And fagging? Maybe Evan should ask Mr Clegg about that...
11 January 2012 10:58PM
No, art is inherently subjective so why throw lots of money at non-elected people who get to decide?
11 January 2012 10:59PM
I'm surprised Cameron hasn't decreed that all new films have to be about the Big Society.
11 January 2012 11:01PM
It's extraordinary how out of touch some people are - and I don't mean Cameron.
11 January 2012 11:03PM
Cameron is absolutely right.
The luvvies in the film industry need a shot of reality.
Make movies that have a shot at making big money.
Stop makng art house flicks for the Hampstead and North London 'acting' posse.
And dont insult my intelligence by telling me you cant tell whether a movie's got a chance to be a box office success or not .
11 January 2012 11:13PM
I'll go further than Dave and suggest that we only invest in stocks that are going to go up and put a few bets on some dead certs with decent odds.
11 January 2012 11:16PM
Disabled living Allowance has got nothing to do with it - film money comes from the lottery money, which is set aside for the arts and sport (sport's winning this year by a long shot).
It's not a case of film vs benefits, though it may be film vs opera :-)
And arguing that British film doesn't need financial help because Hollywood doesn't is like saying the Hackney Marshes football pitches can fend for themselves because Arsenal is a gold-mine, or because the superbowl is.
11 January 2012 11:17PM
The power of satire, my friend.
But then, maybe not.
11 January 2012 11:18PM
Very interesting comment that is revealing about the history of British film and also revealing about Cameron... Thanks
11 January 2012 11:19PM
It works for TV, book publishing, print media, painting, most theatre, music...
I am innately suspicious of any arriviste pretender who turns up demanding public money because his art is "more serious" than anyone else's art.
In fact, I'd call that a load of bollocks. If no-one wants to watch it, no-one is usually right.
11 January 2012 11:22PM
Correction: artists are of course free to make unwatchable drivel for art's sake. As long as they do so with their own money and not mine.
11 January 2012 11:22PM
Why doesn't Dave (clown) Cameron, stick to politics and getting the economy back on its feet and keep his ignorant ,breadhead ,money grabbing pig snout out of the arts.He is culturally illiterate, a blind man trying to tell the seeing which way to go .
Why is he sticking his pig snout in, he wants to hollow out our film industry and sell it out to highest bidder, so it turns out crap film after crap film, turn it into the Tesco of film, owned by Fox probably. he probably sees it as subversive if they are not in it for the money, he will do to film what Simon Cowell did to music.
11 January 2012 11:29PM
Hmmm...
Movie production incentives in the United States
11 January 2012 11:42PM
There's plenty of unwatchable mainstream plot-by-numbers drivel as well.
11 January 2012 11:53PM
Please don't insult Flashman by comparing him to Cameron. Flashman may well have been a cad and a bounder but even he had limits!
12 January 2012 12:00AM
I'm not really decided on the topic of whether cinema should be paid for by tax. It's a worthy cause, but benefits, the NHS, etc. are worthier causes.
Nevertheless, if Cameron chooses to portray the debate as mainstream shit cinema versus anything actually original, I know which side I'll end up on.
12 January 2012 12:05AM
The Bums on Seats test is always going to be shaky ground. Theres certainly nothing wrong with mainstream film and I'm not going to insinuate that its a sin to enjoy a Blockbuster. God knows I love a love a good big action movie. But it's a real shame if we can't have smaller, less mainstreams film to enjoy as well.
Here is a list of some of the films that the UK Film Council helped fund:
In the Loop
The Wind That Shakes the Barley
This is England
The Constant Gardener
Severance
I think its fair to say that the world would be a poorer place without these films. Yes even Severance.
12 January 2012 12:06AM
If it was so straightforward then wouldn't pretty much every movie made be a hit, instead of the majority not even making their money back? Go to imdb.com and browse the films at random, then figure out how many you've even heard of.
But take Cowboys & Aliens: Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Sam Rockwell, directed by the director of Iron Man and Iron Man 2, lots of effects. Surefire hit, right? Last I read it had lost $75,499,388 on worldwide gross.
Now take Paranormal Activity. No big name actors, virtually zero effects, budget of $15,000. Opening weekend it made $77,873. Worldwide gross now something like $200,000,000. That's over 650,000% return.
So, pitch Cowboys & Aliens, then Paranormal Activity, to David Cameron a few years ago. Which one do you think he'd say the British film industry should be making?
Oh, wait, I get it: Cameron must want the British film industry to only make porn. Of course, dumping the Film Council was just pure genius when every quid spent by it generated a fiver in revenue.
12 January 2012 12:09AM
I think the state of British film more or less represents the state of us as a nation. Cameron blundering is par for the course.
12 January 2012 12:25AM
So hands off, but can we still have lots of money please?
Seems to me Mr Cameron is as hands off as its possible to be. By this logic, the closure of the Film Council is something to be celebrated by Mr Bradshaw, as no one in government now has any influence whatsoever.