Aesthetics and Neo-Romanticism in Film: Landscapes in Contemporary British Cinema 9780755698615, 9781848859012

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For Keith, Tom and Emily

Published in 2014 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 www.ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © 2014 Stella Hockenhull The right of Stella Hockenhull to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. International Library of Visual Culture 6 ISBN 978 1 84885 901 2 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress catalog card: available Typeset by Dexter Haven Associates, London Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

List of illustrations

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The lone figure of Tom in The War Zone (Roth 1999) James gazes with awe upon a shimmering cornfield in Ratcatcher (Ramsay 1999) Pagan burials and sublime landscapes in The Last Great Wilderness (Mackenzie 2002) David Tress, Study For Glen Coe (2004), mixed media on paper; 38 x 57 cm; courtesy of the artist Jenny entrapped by the industrialised landscape in Eden Lake (Watkins 2008) Simon Periton, Stairway to Heaven (2004), black, fluorescent pink, fluorescent yellow, pale pink, pale blue, white, silver, red paper; 272 x 418 cm; unique; copyright Simon Periton; courtesy of Sadie Coles HQ, London Landscape as hostile presence in The Hide (Losey 2009) A magical experience for the Queen and the spectator in The Queen (Frears 2006) Justine Kurland, West of the Water (2003); courtesy of Mitchell-Innes and Nash, New York Impure landscapes in Ladies in Lavender (Dance 2004) Kaye Donachie, Wandervogel (2005); courtesy of Maureen Paley, London; oil on canvas; 51.5 x67cm Nina’s Heavenly Delights (Parmar 2006) Dreams of home in The Last Resort (Pawlikowski 2000) Peter Doig, Girl in White with Trees, 2001–2; oil on canvas 300 x 200 cm; courtesy of Victoria Miro Gallery, London, and Bonnenfantenmuseum, Maastricht; copyright the artist

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Acknowledgements I would like to thank friends and colleagues for their continuing support including Dr Eleanor Andrews, Dr Fran Pheasant-Kelly, and Pritpal Sembi. I also acknowledge the following art galleries and artists who gave their permission to reproduce their work. These are: The Maureen Paley Gallery, London and Kaye Donachie, MitchellInnes and Nash, New York and Justine Kurland, Sophie Coles HQ, London and Simon Periton, Victoria Miro, London and Peter Doig. I particularly thank David Tress who has been a supportive figure throughout, furnishing me with ideas and images. I acknowledge Julian Freeman for his suggestions and ideas concerning this project, and Professor Christine Gledhill and Dr Martin Shingler for their kind words and continuing interest in my work.

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Introduction Aesthetics and Emotion: Remystifying Film Studies

It is likely that future contributions to a film-and-art history will also be accomplished by thinkers who make similar imaginative leaps with nary a thought about staying inside the academic pigeonholes we call disciplines and departments…the difference between film studies and art history is largely semantic and the result of academic contrivance (Crafton 2003: x–xii).

Part-way through Stephen Frears’s recent British film, The Queen (2006), the monarch (Helen Mirren) undergoes an extraordinary magical experience whilst journeying into the landscape that surrounds Balmoral, her grand ancestral Scottish home. Despite the anxious offers from her estate workers to chauffeur her, she drives alone into the mountains, and subsequently proceeds to break down in the centre of a shallow but fast-flowing river. While awaiting help, a strange event occurs. A stag appears magically as if from nowhere and, unable to hide her admiration for the beast, the Queen gently utters the words ‘Oh, you beauty’ before the animal disappears as mysteriously as it arrived. Framed in a painterly way, and providing a marked punctuation to the urban settings which have dominated the film so far, this short sequence presents a series of sumptuous landscape images which evinces in the spectator a response which is instinctive and intuitive. When analysed using an aesthetic approach, a methodology one might use for painting, an emotional relationship is elicited between the spectator and the film, one that is not necessarily mobilised through a narrative reading. The Queen concentrates on the aftermath of Princess Diana’s death, and the hysterical response from the British public in the lead-up to the funeral. Emotion is a narrative theme in the film – in particular, what is perceived by the public as the Queen’s suppression 





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of emotion, although this is never fully explicated. However, by implementing an aesthetic analysis of the landscape, images which occur as ‘frozen pictorial moments’, presented in excess of narrative motivation, propose a particular kind of ‘affect’ as a pleasure of cinema. It is the identification of spectator emotions, derived from images of the landscape in the ensuing analyses of contemporary British cinema, which forms the focus here. Film Studies has been governed by narrative theory since the 1970s, and this domination rarely permits a detailed analysis of the aesthetic dimension of a film. By implementing methods that one might use to analyse other visual media, such as painting and photography, it is possible to discern Romantic and Sublime vocabulary inherent in the presentation of the landscape. A comprehensive study of a variety of visual imagery proposes that this chimes with a general predisposition towards romanticism in the visual arts which, as a consequence, acknowledges what Raymond Williams (1981: 10) terms ‘a structure of feeling’ present in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Film is rarely considered an art form comparable to painting, commonly raising prejudices regarding these two media as popular and high cultural forms respectively, although these circumstances have not always predominated. In early critical debates a traditional perception existed that film was a pictorial art form. At the beginning of the twentieth century, seminal figures such as Rudolph Arnheim (1936) considered the artistic merits of film, recommending that a comparative analysis was possible between the two media. Indeed, in Western cultures the activity of ‘going to the pictures’ was a frequent expression used to suggest a visit to the cinema, a concept which, as Christine Gledhill asserts, partly ‘emerges from the array of pictorial practices of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century popular culture’ (2003: 31). Critical reviews from the 1920s reveal verbal references to the painterly techniques deployed in cinematic form, thus acknowledging the contention that film and painting share aesthetic similarities. The concept of an interdisciplinary approach between the visual arts found voice in the mid-twentieth century with the writings of film director and critic, Eric Rohmer. He implies that painting and film have more in common than film and theatre, contending that,

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‘[t]he very nature of the screen – a completely filled rectangular space occupying a relatively small portion of one’s visual field – encourages a plasticity of gesture very different from what we are used to seeing on stage’ (cited in Dalle Vacche 2003: 25). Similarly, theatre historian Martin Meisel created a study of drama and painting entitled Realizations (1983). In this work, he examined the relationship between painting, theatre and narrative in the nineteenth century, proposing new possibilities for drawing parallels between various different media.1 Why aesthetic theory? The term ‘aesthetic’ was borrowed from the Greek in eighteenthcentury Germany to describe an immediate and intuitive response to an art work, or to nature itself, prior to the organisation of the knowledge processes of the brain. This notion was developed by philosophers such as Sir Edmund Burke in 1759, and later by Immanuel Kant in 1763, a contemporary and critic of Burke’s work. By the nineteenth century the concept of aesthetics had developed into an area of philosophical study centring on the principles of pleasure, which are traceable to a sensory experience. Writing in 2000, Geoffrey Nowell-Smith discusses the notion of aesthetics in relation to the study of film. His concern is that as a result of the political situation in Europe in 1968, film analysis shifted away from aesthetics and towards narrative theory as a mode of study. This method focuses on ideological meaning through historical materialist, semiotic and psychoanalytical approaches, which disregard aesthetic affect. Tactically, however, these three methodologies have become tangential to theoretical concerns around representation and to the search for the ‘meaning’ of film. Nowell-Smith believes that the revolutionary zeal which has governed Film Studies since the 1970s has lost momentum, and contemporary film analysis might be better suited to other, more apt methods, such as the reinstatement of aesthetics promoted by the French film critic André Bazin (1918–58). Bazin (1971) referred to the domination of narrativity in Film Studies and advocated temporarily deferring this in favour of other theories that examined emotional responses. According to Nowell-Smith,







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the advent of sound accounted for the marginalisation of the image, whereby ‘verbal communication came more and more to be seen as the heart of a film, with montage and mise-en-scène as mere effect’ (2000: 11). His work challenges the existing status of Film Studies, calling for ‘a return to theories of the aesthetic so thoughtlessly cast aside a quarter of a century ago’ (2000: 16). Nowell-Smith finds kindred spirits in the ideas of two seminal figures in the field: George Toles and Jeff Crouse. Toles advances Nowell-Smith’s arguments, revisiting the concept of aesthetics as a mode of film analysis. He proposes that the most noteworthy aspect of the process of cinematic viewing is ‘a healthy psychic dependence on the work itself ’ (2001: 13), and places emphasis on the formal elements of the image within the film frame. Likening film to a painting, he emphasises the significance of the viewer’s engagement with the actual image; by this he means a formal analysis of the composition to enable emotion, as opposed to the secondary information generated following this encounter. As he explains, ‘I am most imaginatively receptive to art that seems, in ways that are worth pursuing, stronger than I am within its spheres of knowing’ (2001: 13). In other words, Toles is arguing for the immediacy of the impact of the art work on the spectator to create an affect. For him, a return to an aesthetic analysis is crucial. This type of analysis, he believes, lacks respect in academic circles, and he remonstrates that any interest in artistic value ‘is tantamount to an admission of theory ignorance, and an accompanying retreat from the daunting complexity of our present cultural situation’ (2001: 14). Rather than presenting abstract contentions, Toles anchors his debate through a number of case studies that relate to specific examples.2 Narrative theory is not wholly appropriate to the study of film because the distinction between literature and cinema lies in the importance of the latter’s emphasis on image, a facet clearly not present in the written word. Although literature can engage emotion, the process requires more energy on the part of the reader to translate the language into pictorial imagery, and to deal rationally with this information. For Toles, the contemporary study of film is limited by narrative theory, a factor which disenchants the moving image, and acts as a draining phenomenon, stripping it of its magic. Discrediting

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much contemporary scholarly activity in the field of Film Studies, he claims that the excitement and pleasure of the images on screen have been blighted in favour of detachment and scepticism. Akin to Nowell-Smith and Toles, Crouse also maintains the necessity of regaining a formal approach to film analysis. He proposes a re-enchantment of film through revisiting the arguments of Bazin, who observes the neglect of the aesthetic facet of analysis, in favour of profound theoretical debates. Crouse candidly argues for a connection between cinema and the soul, of ‘human creativity … connected to a spiritual dimension, a transcendent awareness greater than oneself ’ (2008: 9). Both Toles and Crouse uphold the conviction that film is an emotional medium, and that it relates to sensibility and demands spectator involvement through its spectacle. Aesthetics and emotion One reason for this study is to focus on emotion, and the ways in which it might be related to the formal aspects that a film image offers to create an affect. Despite its inclusion in the medical and related professions, the concept of emotion has been neglected in the serious academic study of film. David Bordwell (1993), in his seminal work on narrative, discusses ‘the viewer’s activity’. Amongst other elements, his work involves the ways in which a film is constructed as a narrated language, and the resultant spectator response. Bordwell traces the notions of perception and cognition in film spectatorship, and discounts psychoanalysis. However, he does not address the emotional experience of perception, preferring to examine the spectator’s conception of the storytelling process. This he undertakes as an epistemological scrutiny using constructivist theories of psychology, and he presupposes that it is not viable to research heightened spectator sensory awareness as affect without an attached cognitive process. As Bordwell proposes: ‘The organism constructs a perceptual judgement on the basis of nonconscious inferences’ (Bordwell 1993: 31). For Bordwell, the spectator must be an active responder to the artwork, consciously reacting to the film based on his/her own past and previous experiences. In terms of spectator perception, he concentrates on the scientific process that







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occurs when the illusion of a moving image is encountered by the human eye. Another aspect he considers is what he terms, ‘schemata’, which are based on ‘organized clusters of knowledge [which] guide our hypothesis making’ (1993: 31). Although Bordwell allows for an interaction between perception and knowledge, his research does not explore the notion of an intuitive emotion or reaction as a response to an image, otherwise known as affect, or the external expression of such a feeling without the correlative schemata. Given the growing interest in this type of analysis, Jennifer Harding and Deirdre Pribram (2004) discuss the need for a greater focus on the study of sensation, in particular on the analysis of emotions as part of a collective process. Presenting their case for studying emotion, they propose that Western society has concentrated its enquiry into the study of rational powers to the neglect of emotion, a concept traditionally perceived as irrational, individualised and gendered as female. From a feminist standpoint, they propose that Western society assumes a male perspective, whereby the study of emotion is neglected in favour of reason and logic, whereas any enquiry into the analysis of emotion has been perceived as irrational, individual and female-gendered. When emotion is identified as a judicious area for study, it tends to be in association with specific social and political groupings. Harding and Pribram leave room for further exploration in this arena, although their work is mainly concerned with the concept of emotion as power. The importance of the work, however, lies in their belief that emotion requires examination ‘as part of broader cultural and historical processes and knowledge production’ (2004: 866). As they point out, the academic study of sensations has traditionally taken place within the medical arenas, or in what they term the ‘psy’ disciplines.3 This has resulted in a scientific rather than a cultural studies mode of examination. Indeed, the twentieth century has witnessed a growing interest in ‘the emotional self ’, a state of mind associated with the nineteenth-century artistic movement, romanticism, which might be characterised more as an attitude, seeing its development in the work of a variety of artists, poets and writers of different nationalities. This is a point mooted by Joseph Koerner, who puts forward the argument that: ‘Romanticism democratises aesthetics. By allowing emotion to dominate reason and

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education, it undermines the authority of all evaluative institutions that are founded on absolute values’ (2009: 73). Harding and Pribram note that this recent interest in the emotional self has promoted debates on the concept of emotion. They propose that, rather than undertaking a scientific approach, this type of analysis would benefit from a cultural studies methodology. Drawing on the writings of Raymond Williams, they examine the place of emotion through his concept of structure of feeling. This, Williams explains, is ‘the felt sense of the quality of life at a particular place and time’ (1975: 47), and he locates affect in specific historical circumstance. Williams recognises that, in the process of transfer between an artwork and an audience, an experience takes place. This he describes as ‘the continuity of experience from a particular work, through its particular form, and then the relation of this general form to a period’ (1981: 9). Harding and Pribram use the work of Williams to introduce a cultural studies perspective, and their line of enquiry seeks to ‘investigate how specific emotions are formed and function as part of the historical, cultural, and political contexts in which they are practised to reproduce’ (2004: 865). One of the underlying tenets of this book is the notion that the study of film is multifaceted, and that its complexity is only realised through a variety of methodological frameworks. While not discounting the value of narrative theory, film has many interrelating components that form a complex whole, and, for various reasons, a narrative mode of analysis does not always fulfil its task, as it relies on a process of cause and effect relationships in time. However, images are habitually offered in cinema that do not perform a narrative task, yet nonetheless elicit emotion from the spectator. Instead, it is their immediacy or affect that provokes a response which enhances the cinematic experience. Professor of philosophy, William Lyons, attempts to identify this by proposing that it is the natural senses of vision and hearing that relate directly to the image and sound, and that these affect the viewer before any subordinate functional thought or knowledge processes occur. In a similar vein to Crouse and Toles, Lyons is arguing for an immediate impression on encountering a work of art, based on its formal elements. This occurs before the gradual introduction of the secondary and, in turn, consequential







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physiological reaction. What he terms the ‘classical taste’ is based on the instantaneous pleasure experienced on encountering the form, line and colour of the art object. This is different to the art critic, who provides an intellectual contribution gleaned through expertise in the field. Lyons traces a line from the emotions of the artist through to the content of the artwork as an expression by the artist, to the actual emotion incited by the painter and the connection with the spectator. He proposes that there are three categories of emotion: ‘Emotion In and Transferred from the Painter, Emotion Depicted by or Generated Through the Painting, and thirdly, Emotions Discovered in, Provoked by, or Connected with a Painting’ (1997: 143).4 In short, his ideas put forward the notion that emotional responses to an art work are both interior and physiological rather than behavioural, and he distinguishes between what he terms the coarser and the more subtle emotions, and suggests that the latter are ‘moral, intellectual, and aesthetic [which] are not so much the mirror image in our consciousness…as the direct effect…on our consciousness of the immediate stimulation of one or more of our senses’ (Lyons 1997: 140). Greater emphasis is placed by Noel Carroll on the spectator and the audience’s reception than the actual artwork; in a similar vein to Lyons, he discounts the use of psychoanalysis as a means of analysing emotion, stating that psychoanalysis of the sort that is popular among scholars in the humanities today is not really concerned with the garden-variety emotions – that is, the emotions marked in ordinary speech, like fear, awe, pity, admiration, anger, and so on – which garden-variety emotions, in fact, are what keep audiences engaged with artworks (1997: 191).

Carroll favours the uncomplicated ‘garden-variety’: the connection between the artwork and the spectator is strengthened through emotion. What is salient here is Carroll’s belief that a work of art may elicit emotion despite authorial intent. He claims interest in ‘the emotions elicited by artworks whether or not they parallel the emotions felt by the artist in creating the work’ (1997: 193). He posits the notion that the artist may subliminally express an emotion without fully realising it, or without intending to do so, and this may be achieved through a formula intended to elicit specific sensations.

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Although emotions are moderated by culture, for Carroll they are primarily biologically rooted. They are adapted by the brain and inform actions and decisions. Thus, to encounter a large, dark object which overpowers the film frame may suggest harmful elements, alerting the spectator to danger and enabling the emotion of fear. Carroll provides examples from literary sources to support this point, and in terms of cinema this structuring may take the form of the situation in which the characters find themselves: in other words the narrative structuring or the plot. Alternatively, it may take the form of the framing devices applied to the film: the physical framing of the image at any one time. Finally, it might be present both narratively and visually. For the purpose of this book, the ways in which the landscape is formally structured by the film-maker and technical staff, whether intentionally or not, elicit an emotional response from the spectator and relate to the notion of affect. This is further enhanced, though not always, by the ‘prefocusing’ of the spectator through the narrative. In the film London to Brighton (Williams 2006), an example to be discussed later, the spectator is aware that the central protagonists, young susceptible girls, exist on the margins of society: this fact is structured into the narrative from the outset. However, the landscape is presented in such a way as to sometimes elicit a correlative emotional response, and sometimes an alternative reaction to their situation. Thus, the combination of the frozen moment and narrative facilitates particular sensations, although the two are not necessarily always codependent. For Carroll, character identification is not the issue. Instead, he argues for the notion of the text ‘managing’ the spectator’s response. This involves a study of the critical reception of the text, and in so doing determining the sentiments and beliefs of an audience at a particular juncture in time. For Carroll, to analyse emotion the text must relate to what might be considered a ‘normal’ spectator. He relates this to the customary modes of reception, whereby ‘there is room for limited generalization in this area where theorists are able to identify recurring formulas – both in terms of constructing emotive salience and enlisting audience preferences – that are routinely used to secure certain affects’ (Carroll 1997: 207).





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My intention here is not to conduct audience analysis; rather it is to enhance a narrative reading of film through the examination of the landscape in contemporary British cinema in relation to contemporary visual culture, therefore arguing for a prevailing mood, or structure of feeling. Thus, an aesthetic approach arguably elicits a spiritual dimension and an engagement with emotion through an immediate response to images, a sensation not necessarily gained or understood through the application of narrative theory. I put forward the argument that specific shots in the films discussed below are more or less static, and that these owe a debt to the principles of an artist’s composition. However, the use of aesthetics as a means of analysis is complicated. Undeniably, Nowell-Smith’s initiatives do not offer a solution to this problem, further exacerbated because, although film shares a number of properties with painting, the latter is fixed, whereas film remains perceptible only as a moving image. The next section provides a methodology to explain how this process might be implemented. Landscape as spectacle and setting: the ‘frozen moment’ or ‘temps morts’ The notion of the frozen moment as part of an aesthetic analysis, as referred to in this book, might not seem unrelated to a mise-enscène approach, as both centre on the composition within the frame. However, mise-en-scène is perceived as part of a narrative process of study which searches for patterns and repetition throughout a film – in other words through time and space. In film criticism these features have been used largely to explain narrative meaning rather than aesthetic affect. Moreover, a mise-en-scène analysis includes the movement of actors, while this study is concerned mainly with those moments when a static camera, in the absence of figures (or their static positioning in a pictorially composed and illuminated landscape), effectively freezes movement and allows the shot to attain the condition of painting. As Nowell-Smith proposes: ‘There is more to films than is allowed for in the theory of narration [which] is not everything and that there are pleasures to a film which can even derive from the fact that narrativity is suspended’ (2000: 14). Recent

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scholarly activity has proposed various methodologies which sanction the consideration of aspects of film as a frozen moment, or, what Martin Lefebvre (2006) terms ‘temps morts’. The temps morts offers a number of opportunities throughout the duration of the film to approach it using an aesthetic analysis, just as one might analyse a still image such as a painting or photograph. As noted in the examination of the opening sequence of The Queen, notwithstanding that cinema is perceived as a moving image, it is feasible to analyse the numerous shots that a single film contains. This does not necessarily involve creating a dialogue between film and painting, although this type of scrutiny does aid an understanding of a specific period in history. However, it does entail the deployment of a visual analysis of specific frames at given moments in the film. As noted, to apply an aesthetic approach to film requires the capacity to isolate specific shots or sequences for analysis, and a useful commonality between film and painting lies in their presentation of landscape. Lefebvre develops this theme, creating a distinction between setting and landscape in film. For him, customarily setting forms part of narrative space. As he suggests, ‘setting, like action, constitutes an entirely variable conceptual construction. In other words, setting is usually devoid of fixed boundaries; or at least any such boundaries are definitely divisible’ (2006: 21). Setting in film includes spaces that are part of larger unseen spaces. For example, the characters may discuss their location, and they may operate within a landscape that purports to be a specific place, which the spectator accepts unquestioningly. A film that contains a setting of a bleak housing estate in London might not depict any of the famous landmarks that indicate that it is Britain’s capital city, but the proximity of London as a capital city is established through the spectator’s interpretation, acceptance and knowledge of that location. For Lefebvre, setting is also presented as disjointed because it is divided up into action, shot and frame, whereas landscape on the other hand is ‘space freed from eventhood (e.g. war, expeditions, legends)’ (2006: 22). It is placed for spectator contemplation and need not form part of the story world of the film. Clearly, there can be no inherent meaning in an image: the significance lies with what the organisation of the film permits the spectator to understand, an understanding enhanced through his/her own cultural experiences.

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Lefebvre differentiates between narrative and what he calls ‘spectacular’ modes of viewer activity which allow for the spectator’s reflection on the filmic spectacle. Aligned with Carroll’s point, that there is a connection between the spectator and the artwork, despite authorial intent, this involves imagining a halt in the narrative action in order to contemplate the landscape, although the narrative is never far from mind. Thus, setting briefly becomes landscape, before the spectator again engages with the narrative. Lefebvre distinguishes between the ‘intentional landscape’ which he terms ‘pure’ and is that which is attributed to directorial intention, and its antonym ‘impure’, (an idiom coined by art historian Ernst Gombrich), which is also referred to as the ‘spectator’s landscape’. To elucidate, when the impure landscape materialises for the spectator, it briefly becomes independent of the narrative, but is based on existing knowledge of the principles of landscape-painting traditions. This does not mean that spectators are only responsive to landscape through existing knowledge of landscape painting. Awareness may be part of an acculturated viewing practice learnt through the circulation of tourist information, picture postcards, birthday cards, calendar art and prints – all of which facilitate and enhance this imaginary. Nonetheless, a consequence of the intentional landscape is that the spectator is aware that this forms part of the setting and does not ‘invest the whole shot, i.e. the shot in its entire duration, as a landscape’ (Lefebvre 2006: 31). Thus, in the intentional landscape rural imagery is presented as an enhancement of the narrative, and is mobilised by the director, the scriptwriter and the art designer with that purpose in mind. The viewer may shift between a spectacular gaze and narrative involvement, but the former is not reliant on narrative, and the spectator’s attention is guided towards space in such a way as to release it from narrative motivation. The images can shift between landscape and setting, between the spectacle and scenes that have a narrative plausibility, as a result of the style of the cinematography, the framing and the duration of the shot. Sometimes landscape shots are motivated by a point-of-view shot, which also leads the spectator to engage autonomously with the landscape, although arguably this interrupts the story less than the unmotivated shot. Generally, and traditionally,

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classical cinematic style has few unmotivated shots, and the setting is nearly always subservient to the action. Thus, to abridge Lefebvre’s arguments, the spectator’s landscape or impure landscape relates to landscape which might not necessarily be seen as pure, in other words that which the director intended or which is diegetically driven. It is interpreted in such a way as to become autonomous, and its implications are expounded by a spectator understanding of the traditions and style of the genre of landscape painting. Similarly, not only are spectators capable of mentally encapsulating specific instances for reflection, but also of enhancing their own experience of engagement with the image. In other words, whatever the artist/film-maker intends, the spectator is rewarded a further experience of the artwork through their own visual authority. As Lefebvre summarises it: ‘pure’ landscape is the object of a consensus among painters and spectators so strong [that] we establish it as an institutional and generic ‘law’, forgetting that interpretation underpins it. Conversely, the space of ‘impure landscape’ directly stresses its ambiguity through the different interpretations and different uses to which we subject it (2006: 35).

By ‘pure’, Lefebvre means setting/narrative space, but – to direct his arguments to an art-historical perspective – it is the ‘impure’ landscapes, i.e. the presentation of landscape per se rather than as background, which originally led the way to the landscape-painting genre. Landscape as a genre exists in fine art, but not in film,5 and because fiction film is narrative driven with characters (either human or animal) as plot motivators, there is no such demand. As Sam Rhodie points out: There is no film genre called landscape, as there is in painting, no more than there is a film genre of self-portraiture. In painting, these genres have been crucial for modernism, landscape because it undermined classical rules, emphasised the uncertainty of a direct apprehension of nature and reality and dissolved a sureness of perspective and thereby the security of the viewer, and self-portraiture because of its attention to the act of painting and the presence of the artist in the frame, raising questions about perception, time, doubling, the relation of hand to eye, the point of view with which the subject was to be seen. Self-portraiture and landscape called attention to an ambiguous regard that overlapped and was contradictory, that of the artist and that of the spectator (2004: 2–3).

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The notion of a film comprised entirely of landscape settings without any action is not an option: space nearly always functions as a backdrop to the action. However, landscape painting as a genre leads the spectator to a better understanding of what a ‘good view’ should be. Lefebvre discusses the notion of a landscaping gaze, and suggests that land becomes landscape through a process of what he terms ‘artialisation’. Through Lefebvre’s work, a system or method is presented for the application of an otherwise neglected mode of scrutiny. By selecting this process it is possible to isolate specific sequences for analysis, admittedly a technique more readily accessible through new technologies available to the film scholar.6 The advantage of Lefebvre’s work lies in the fact that he has isolated an area which is not covered by narrative analysis, and the process of aesthetic scrutiny potentially offers meanings, emotions and pleasures to the spectator, and enhances a greater understanding of the film. A significant benefit of this is the link with emotions, particularly those sensations that one might experience that are not necessarily attached to the narrative of a film, but derived from the affect experienced through the formal composition of the art work. Admittedly, the problems that arise with this type of analysis are that film is not static, and the frozen moment only occurs for a brief space of time through the cinematic language. This entails reliance on technical practices such as the duration and framing of the shot, and the use of the panoramic, distance perspective. However, cinema constantly frames and reframes its images as part of the storytelling process; hence the necessity to isolate landscape and setting, consequently deploying Lefebvre’s line of reasoning. An aesthetic approach to the study of film The study of art is an older discipline than the study of film, and the two branches of learning saw little convergence until after the Second World War, although there exists some legacy of film analysis using art-historical practice. To implement an aesthetic study using Lefebvre’s ideas as a means of analysing film also involves drawing on traditions of image analysis used in art-historical practice.

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Key figures in the field include Alöis Riegl (1858–1905), an Austrian art historian and scholar who studied at the University of Vienna and became interested in modes of perception. Riegl’s focus lay in the experience of art which he categorised as ‘Kunstwollen’. As Eric Fernie remarks, ‘For Riegl the history of art was governed by universal laws, and each period by its particular version of those laws. Works carry the spiritual hallmarks of their time, as a result of the Kunstwollen, that is the “will to form” or aesthetic urge of the period’ (1995: 14). Riegl was interested in the object and the ways in which it was a manifestation of society. This was an argument which reached fruition in the work of Max Dvořák (1874–1921), who considered art as a spiritual concept rooted in its own histories. In terms of the arguments presented here, one of the most salient aspects of Riegl’s work is that he divides the reception of art between ‘haptic’ and ‘optic’, terms derived from the sculptor Adolph Hildebrand (1847–1921), whose seminal essay The Problem of Form in Painting and Sculpture, written in 1893, engaged in these concepts. Riegl indicates that the haptic refers to the close-up, whereas the optic referred to the distant view; the result of this is that the former relates to the sensory perception of touch, and the latter to the visual sensations. Thus, ‘what opticality handles well is an overall frame of mind, a general sensation, atmosphere, or mood, instead of separate elements’ (Dalle Vacche 2003: 6), all characteristics which might induce a trance-like state typical of the cinematic viewing experience. Riegl’s ideas were developed by Heinrich Wölfflin (1864–1945) into corresponding dialectical categories of the linear (haptic) and the painterly (optic). Wölfflin championed Northern European Art, in particular the work of Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), praising the German Romantic’s style as painterly, or optical. For Riegl, the optical perspective relies on the presentation of light and colour and is typified by natural objects, for example, the landscape. Thus, opticality depends on some knowledge of the object – in this case landscape – and the ways in which this is encountered by the spectator enables a link to emotion. Translated into an aesthetic approach to film, cinematic perception may include both the haptic and the optic experience, but the emphasis lies here on the occurrence of the latter. The notion of distance and human emotion is also rooted in eighteenth-century

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theories of the Sublime, and nineteenth-century romanticism, in particular the work of David Hume. In A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), Hume considers the concept of distance and passion, claiming that a great distance increases our esteem and admiration for an object; it is evident that the mere view and contemplation of any greatness, whether successive or extended, enlarges the soul, and [gives] it a sensible delight and pleasure. A wide plain, the ocean, eternity, a succession of several ages… (1998: 200).

Although Hume’s observations are more complex than this, the basis for his arguments lies in the relationship between the viewer and their distance from the object. A distance perspective enables a particular type of grouping to take place which, through its arrangement in the frame, enables something that is greater than narrative space. This is noted by Riegl and, in turn, Wölfflin, who offers a conduit for an aesthetic mode of analysis between art history and Film Studies, although they were not the only theoreticians to provide the foundations for these correlative processes.7 The formal arrangement of a film’s image is important in creating an affective response and, crucial to this response is the art of framing. The power of the frame to delimit is crucial to the image whether it is in film or painting, and it succeeds in determining the relationship between the viewer and the viewed. In terms of the commonalities between the formal compositions of painting and film, the frame is a feature of both, (although some examples used here move beyond the framed image to consider more avant-garde works which possess similar underlying principles and motifs in other guises, such as installations and land art). Bazin considers the importance of this in his 1950 essay entitled ‘Painting and Cinema.’8 He distinguishes between the two media, advocating that the frame of a painting is fixed and centralised, thus controlling the image, while, in film, the image extends beyond the frame because it is moving and therefore without boundaries. However, to adopt Lefebvre’s arguments, the spectator of a film is permitted a similar experience to the observer of an art work because, if a shot is of a lengthy duration, the image becomes fixed rather than the situation whereby ‘the world stages itself from one mise-en-scène to another, reframing after reframing’ (Bazin, cited in Dalle Vacche 2003: 25).

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The common denominator of the two media of film and painting is the framed representation of the land which then becomes landscape. The framing of the shot limits the view and as Malcolm Andrews asserts, land rather than landscape is the raw material and…in the conversion of land into landscape a perceptual process has already begun whereby that material is prepared as an appropriate subject for the painter or photographer, or simply for absorption as a gratifying aesthetic experience (1999: 3).

The concept of landscape is based on the notion of the manipulation of the land from its unprocessed state into an artistic response. Land processed and prepared into a satisfying image might be termed landscape, and there is no mistake in the way that artists and filmmakers create this impression. If ‘landscape pictures breed landscape pictures’ (Andrews 1999: 1), then this proposes that the spectator recognises a ‘good view’, partly through a familiarity with Western traditions in landscape painting. For Andrews, [this] very familiarity has contributed to the way in which we perceive land as landscape. These works of art are not the end products, nor are they the initiating stimulants in the whole process of perception and conversion. They happen along the way. We may not recognize the extent to which we are involved in this process, especially if we see ourselves simply as consumers rather than creative producers of landscape images (1999: 1).

Thus, the natural world is organised into the interior space of the frame, and the spectator is enabled to adopt a special relationship with the imagery, essentially favouring one aspect of the landscape above another. The limitation or bordering of the image by the frame is a demarcation process which highlights certain features as superior to others. The camera constantly frames and reframes in cinema, and this act both instructs a reading, yet controls the choice of explanations. The above is by no means an exhaustive list of existing academic work in the field, but recognises that a number of scholars within the sphere of the arts have hinted towards, or established a connection between, the two visual media. Through the ensuing analysis of film and painting, the presence of Romantic and Sublime vocabulary has been noted as a predominant feature, and the following section locates a lineage in British painting from the eighteenth century to the present day.

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Romanticism and the Sublime in the visual arts The concept of aesthetics and landscape is typically explored through the discourse of the Sublime. A complex theory with no specific definition, the Sublime is based on the work of a group of seventeenth-century writers and philosophers who advocated a number of attributes as key activators of Sublime experiences. These include ‘wildness’, ‘vastness’, ‘infinity’ and ‘magnificence’, all qualities to be found in nature. Claiming that nature is akin to the divine, the philosophers emphasised its spiritual aspects achieved through the formal compositions and use of dramatic lighting: for the Sublime experience to function,the spectator must be involved and participatory. The notion of the Sublime was to emerge a century later through the work of Romantic artists, who revealed a fascination with the wild and untamed aspects of nature. Identified conversely as the ‘Sublime’ and the ‘Beautiful’ by the eighteenth-century philosopher Edmund Burke, in his treatise entitled A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757, reprinted 1759), the landscape has traditionally been perceived as falling into two camps: the Sublime and the Picturesque. The Picturesque draws on models dictated by seventeenth-century Italian and Dutch painting, which modified wild, uncultivated aspects of nature into familiar and domesticated spaces. The Sublime challenges the Picturesque, contrasting unrestrained nature and the awe-inspiring elements with artifice and control. Romanticism is a nebulous term, but embodies a variety of belief systems and approaches, such as an empathy with nature as infinity and as a conduit to spirituality, a solipsistic belief in self, and a morbid fascination frequently illustrated through images of night and day. As Simon Schama reflects, ‘the term “landscape” … came to be associated with loyalty not only to a particular geography, but also to a particular idea of God, and to a particular set of ideals’ (cited in Zuvela and Hoffie 2008: 51). Evidence that the elements comprising Romanticism in the visual arts can still be seen by examining the work of the Neo-Romantic artists operating during the Second World War,9 and, arguably, Romantic topoi persists through to the present day. Art historian Robert Rosenblum claimed, furthermore, that Romanticism has never

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died out; in 2007 an exhibition was held posthumously entitled ‘The Abstraction of Landscape: from Northern Romanticism to Abstract Expressionism: from Friedrich to Rothko’, to commemorate his ideas. Rosenblum proposed that there exists a Northern Romantic lineage through to abstract expressionism, and the exhibition broadly traces this line through an illustrated history of landscape. Rosenblum’s original arguments examine what he perceives as the religious and spiritual artistic presentations of nature. From the late eighteenth century, artists, poets and writers observed landscape as invested with divine status. They also searched for an inner truth accessible through nature: either as a direct response to the elements, or through their visual representation. As a number of commentators have argued, the key to the notion of the Northern Romantic tradition lies in the acceptance that ‘the artistic experience of landscape bears the mark of subjectivity: man is a part of that nature that we isolate from the cosmic whole and call “landscape”’ (Hofmann 2008: 17). Artists such as John Constable (1776–1837), Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851), Thomas Girtin (1775–1802) and John Robert Cozens (1752–97) correlated what they saw, and reproduced their experiences on canvas. However, they also drew from an inner subjectivity, and their work offered an approach detached from established artistic principles. Both Turner and Constable experimented philosophically with form and colour, the former painting cloud formations, engaging with Goethe’s colour theories in his later work, including Shade and Darkness: The Evening of the Deluge (1843) and Light and Colour: The Morning after the Deluge (1843). These two images appear as investigations into darkness and light, their swirling use of colour forming circular motifs of black and orange cloud. Little wonder that Rosenblum perceived the work of the American abstractionists Mark Rothko (1903–70), Barnett Newman (1905–70) and Jackson Pollock (1912–56) as metamorphoses of the earlier Northern Romantics, reducing the respective geographical and temporal spaces between the two periods through his examination of the continuities between the centuries. Rosenblum dismissed criticisms that American modern painting bears little relation to the Romantic European traditions, contending that Friedrich’s and Rothko’s work share similarities; he states that:

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I was actually attracted to the work of Friedrich because of my experience with Rothko. I suddenly saw a kindred spirit, an artist who also put you on the brink of eternity, made you feel as though you were on a threshold between life and death, between one world and another, so that there were emotional connections as well as visual connections (2007: 236).

Rosenblum’s original work was published in 1975 and is based on a series of lectures presented at Oxford on his appointment as Professor of Fine Art at the Slade School of Art. Hence, his interpretation that the Romantic tradition ends with Rothko was based on the period when these lectures were first produced. In 2005, some 30 years later, Rosenblum was asked whether there were any descendants of Rothko and his contemporaries. In his response he argued for a continuation of Romantic imagery, listing a number of American artists such as ‘the earthworks of the 1970’s [sic], for instance…works by Robert Smithson or Walter de Maria. Another artist, American, would be James Turrell with his fascination for light and infinity and landscape’ (2007: 242). In defence of abstract expressionism, Rosenblum discovered an empathy for and similarity between the work of Clyfford Still (1904–80), Rothko and the nineteenth-century British artists, James Ward (1769–1859) and Turner. Gordale Scar, the immense Sublime image painted by Ward in 1812, provides him with a comparison to Still’s 1957 oil entitled 1956-D. As Rosenblum sees it, No less than caverns and waterfalls, Still’s paintings seem the product of eons of change; and their flaking surfaces, parched like bark or slate, almost promise that this natural process will continue, as unsusceptible to human order as the immeasurable patterns of ocean, sky, earth or water. And not the least awesome thing about Still’s work is the paradox that the more elemental and monolithic its vocabulary becomes, the more complex and mysterious are its effects. As the Romantics discovered, all the sublimity of God can be found in the simplest natural phenomena, whether a blade of grass or an expanse of sky (2007: 161).

Rosenblum also found the Sublime through abstraction and the process of spectator involvement, and Romantic legacies in the visual arts continue into the twenty-first century. In 2005, an exhibition entitled ‘Ideal Worlds: New Romanticism in Contemporary Art’ was mounted in Frankfurt, its purpose being to showcase the work of

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a ‘selection of artists who hold outstanding positions in the NeoRomantic movement’ (Hollein 2005: 18). Symptomatic of what Williams might term a structure of feeling, the content chimed with what one of the curators of the exhibition, Max Hollein, sees as a key moment in modern art. After the discourse-analytical art of recent years, which clearly foregrounded social action, had worked its way through the failed utopias of post-industrialization and the consequences of globalization almost to the point of self-dissolution, the new romantic current presents a positive creative project beyond our everyday lives – and it includes the deliberate provocation that one can again deploy beauty as an argument in art and regain the status of creative processes, and thus it propagates the reanimation of the classical image of the artist (2005: 18).

‘Ideal Worlds’ is one of a number of exhibitions to emerge postmillennium, a trend which points to a growing interest in romanticism in the visual arts, and confirms Rosenblum’s claim for the prolongation of such a legacy by showcasing a variety of works by contemporary artists, such as Peter Doig (1959–), Christopher Orr (1967–) and David Thorpe (1972–). What such events demonstrate is a conviction that romanticism lives on, found in ‘structures, phenomena, set pieces, and fragments even today, be it in Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity) and its magic of objects, its landscape voids, and its isolation of figures; be it in lyric abstraction; or even in Surrealism’ (Weinhart 2005: 37). In these exhibits, Martina Weinhart finds contemporary emotional parallels to the nineteenth-century Romantics, professing that ‘it is back again: the desire for intimacy and security in the face of the infinity’ (2005: 37). The artists of ‘Ideal Worlds’ demonstrate a propensity towards Romantic and Sublime vocabulary, and respond to the challenges of contemporary society through fantasy, utopia and melancholy. Alongside this notion of an escapist romanticism, the director of the art museum for the University of Houston, Terri Sultan, points to two other categories of romanticism at play in contemporary art: the ‘harsh visions of reality that foreground the more disturbing aspects of existence [and] works [that] offer the cathartic potential of resolution and redemption’ (2008: 11). Sultan defines three contemporary Romantic situations in evidence in the twenty-first century and, by suggesting

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a structure of feeling at play in the visual arts, including film, it is these themes that are pertinent here. Notable examples of romanticism and the Sublime are evident in the contemporary British art scene, including the work of artist John Timberlake (1967–). Inherently concerned with obliteration, his work constructs images derived from British nuclear experimental bombings conducted abroad, resulting in imagery depicting the fusion of nuclear devastation with the iconography of, among others, Constable, Cozens and Turner. Another artist to find impetus from the work of the Northern Romantics is David Tress (1955–). His art is truly NeoRomantic in that he not only draws inspiration from Romantic imagery, but in addition documents the journeys of nineteenth-century painters such as Turner, Girtin and Paul Sandby (1731–1809), all of whom were landscape artists attracted to a specific form of scenery associated with the Sublime. This involves journeying to locations such as the Lake District, Wales and the Scottish Highlands, all settings which traditionally formed the subject for Romantic artists, with their breathtaking scenery and unpredictable weather conditions. As Tress points out: ‘The journeys were fascinating, revealing a whole spectrum of changes from wild and almost unchanged stretches of moorland and coast, to the untidy urbanisation of locations overtaken by the industrial expansion of the nineteenth century’ (2008: 5). This is not an exhaustive list of contemporary artists currently deploying Romantic and Sublime vocabulary, and the rest of this book selects work from a composite and eclectic group of practitioners. The choice of artists is not entirely random, as the focus of analysis lies with British cinema, and the examples chosen from British artists therefore correlate with this.10 The turn of the twenty-first century saw a large number of artists seeking expression through the deployment of Romantic motifs, and this spirit seems ubiquitous in cinema, particularly in the cinematic landscape. The majority of artists and photographers selected, offer images concerning the relationship between nature and the human condition, and, as noted earlier, despite the emphasis on framing as a tool available to both film and the other visual arts, some of the art work discussed here operates outside the frame (albeit framed by the gallery). Land art occupies a place both inside and outside the frame, its exterior evocations frequently

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reproduced within the framing device of the gallery itself, or reframed through topographical photographic evidence. To underpin this, the individual sensibility of artists such as Andy Goldsworthy (1956–) and Richard Long (1945–) further rekindles the notion of NeoRomantic preoccupations with landscape, and a discussion of their work is also included here. Given that film is perceived as a moving image, part of the subsequent analyses proposes a relationship between artists’ film and video. The latter is a progression of landscape painting, while still attaining some properties associated with a framed art work.Traditional representations of the landscape were abandoned for a period of time in favour of abstraction and, as Catherine Elwes and Steven Ball point out, for artists ‘growing up in the experimental ferment of the 1960s and 1970s, a simple reconstitution of romantic traditions of landscape painting was untenable…Painting was jettisoned along with conventional sculptural forms and was regarded as a redundant landscape tradition’ (2008: 5). This situation has altered, and a number of contemporary artists eschew modernity to produce invented landscapes, while still drawing on traditional iconography. However, rather than using the customary static, framed vista, their short films and installations interrogate, renegotiate and subvert this approach. For example, Sophie Dahlgren (1978–) uses landscape as symbolic of an inner subjectivity based on Romantic paintings of the nineteenth and twentieth century, and if romanticism continues to exist in painting in various guises, as is claimed, then arguably it must be perceived as a convention of film, a medium which successfully translates the Sublime. Landscape and British cinema James Leggott notes the proliferation of academic research in cinematic representations of urban and rural space. This is not to contend that rural space is manifested solely in British cinema, but the latter nonetheless enjoys an extensive and creative output of films focusing on the rural experience, a point noted by Sarah Cardwell, who suggests that: ‘Rural settings and spaces have always been important to English cinema and have indeed shaped entire genres and cycles of films’ (2006: 19). To trace the origins and trajectory of

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films that feature extensive landscape sequences is beyond the scope of this book, although a succinct attempt will be made to track a British pastoral lineage. A number of early British film-makers developed strategies in their representations of landscape to produce pictorial aesthetics. Just as his father’s profession was a magic lanternist, so Cecil Hepworth began his film career with some art training. His films Tansy (1921), Comin’ Through the Rye (1923) and Pipes of Pan (1923) all explore elements of the pastoral, both as narrative device and as pictorial affect. Bucolic images of rural Devon function as more than a backdrop to the exploits of young, innocent Tansy (Alma Taylor) in the film of the same name. The protagonist becomes the centre of a love triangle and the object of rivalry between two brothers, Will and Joad, at Fairmile Farm. As Gledhill’s study observes, ‘Hepworth’s pictorialism … emphasises the aesthetic and emotional effects of situation … rather than in the way one thing leads logically to another’ (2003: 97), thus emphasising the focus on the visual rather than narrative structure. The film ends as Will, her lover, rescues her from his brother in an idyllic rural setting in which strong lighting produces chiaroscuro effects, and, in turn, Romantic affect. Hepworth’s inclination to prioritise the pictorial over the narrative continues in his later film, Comin’ Through the Rye. As Higson confirms: The picturesque photography…is, likewise, very much within the pictorialist tradition and, as such, entirely conventional. The mise-enscène of the rye-field in particular encourages the spectator to look at it from a distance as an object of beauty, rather than a narrative space to be inhabited by character and spectator (1995: 56).

Higson’s description of the soft pastoral imagery is described by Gledhill as a ‘mosaic’, and a detail which is prioritised over narrative. In 1937 film-maker Michael Powell visited the Shetland island of Foula to make The Edge of the World (1937), a film based on the true story of the 1923 evacuation of St Kilda. Unlike Hepworth, Powell drew inspiration from the wild, rugged aspects of nature, features that were maintained throughout his working collaboration with the Hungarian émigré director, Emeric Pressburger. The duo, working under the company name ‘The Archers’, produced a number of films

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that visually embraced characteristics associated with the philosophical ideals of romanticism and the Sublime. During their partnership Powell and Pressburger wrote, produced and directed a vast number of films, establishing an iconography and style which correlated with that of the Neo-Romantic artists working simultaneously during the Second World War. The film-makers translate painterly images of tempestuous seas, grand mountainous regions and diminutive figures overpowered by nature – all features of romanticism and the Sublime. The most striking aspect of Powell and Pressburger’s landscapes lies in their pictorial quality, presented in excess of narrative plausibility: frequently they disrupt or arrest the story, and painterly images are offered as a montage affect.11 Powell and Pressburger’s wartime films may also be perceived as an expression of patriotism, a point noted by Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards, who observe the emphasis on the representation of landscape in a number of key films released during the Second World War. Referencing the critically acclaimed Ministry of Information adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel Went the Day Well? (1942), they point out that Cavalcanti’s ‘setting is very rural and peaceful, with much more emphasis on the idyllic nature of the English countryside than was evident in Greene’s short story’ (1994: 128), thus stressing the importance of the rural to an audience in a situation of wartime conflict. If a number of more contemporary films offer mawkish renditions of the landscape, this is, according to Leggott, a legacy harking back to the 1950s. Scottish cinema, admittedly from diverse periods, such as Whisky Galore (Mackendrick 1949) and Local Hero (Forsyth 1983), ‘peddle the kind of nostalgia astutely parodied in Hot Fuzz, arguably one of British cinema’s most trenchant statements on how the British both ridicule and sentimentalise the parochial’ (2008: 40). With the changing structure of the studio system in the 1950s, there was little by way of independence or innovation in filmmaking, which included location settings foregrounding the landscape.12 As Sue Harper points out: ‘A substantial part of 1950s British cinema displays natural settings which yield nothing and which are blank and featureless…These natural settings are unmarked, and are there to throw emphasis on to existential issues’ (2010: 157). Exceptions to

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this were examples such as Laxdale Hall (Eldridge 2002), produced by a marginal and esoteric production company. The 1960s saw the emergence of a style of cinema that became known as ‘kitchen-sink’ dramas. Featuring gritty narratives, characters that inhabit the margins of society, and filmed on location in Northern industrial towns, the storylines left little room for Arcadian idylls. Despite their urban emphasis, however, films such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Reisz 1960) and A Taste of Honey (Richardson 1961) provide space for what Higson terms ‘pleasurable spectacle’. Focusing on the country/city dichotomy, Higson points out that: The city-dwelling protagonists of A Taste of Honey, Room at the Top, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and This Sporting Life all go on trips into the countryside. In each case, the countryside is invested with a sense of romance, a sense of escape from the drudgery of everyday life in the city, a sense of what might have been (if only things had turned out differently). These semi-romantic rural scenes are in a sense a reprise of similar scenes in some of the melodramas of everyday life in the 1940s (1996: 145).

Highlighting the importance of this, Higson notes the number of British ‘New Wave’ films from the 1960s that contain a mixture of townscape and landscape sequences, the latter offering respite from the narrative, or arresting it to provide an affect. He comments that this technique provides a contrast between the urban and the rural, to entice the spectator with a poeticism not found in the city settings that dominate the films. In Higson’s view, critics align the term ‘realism’ and the notion of social realism within these films to authenticate their essential characteristics and to position them within the canon of quality British cinema. Nevertheless, he claims to discern ambiguity in many of the British New Wave films, positing that the landscape shots are partly narrative driven, and partly spectacle. For Higson, the emergent result of this is ‘poetic realism…which transcends ordinariness, which makes the ordinary strange, beautiful – poetic’ (1996, 137). Like Lefebvre, Higson also claims that a film, like a novel, contains moments of narration and moments of description – in the case of the British New Wave, a dichotomy between documentary realism and romantic atmosphere. He augments this argument by explaining that images are never

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quite fully contained by narrative and always present superfluous information, or ‘pleasurable spectacle’. Throughout the history of British cinema, landscape appears to operate as a significant feature. Invariably it is imbued with ideological considerations, particularly in relation to patriotism and nationhood. Again, Higson has conducted a significant amount of research in this sphere, highlighting a perception that the British quality costume films of the 1980s owe a debt to the presentation of the landscape as symbolic of a national past. He contributes to the debate by contending that these heritage films (ostensibly the costume film adaptation) such as Chariots of Fire (Hudson 1981), A Room with a View (Merchant Ivory 1986), and Maurice (Merchant Ivory 1987) amongst others, display ‘the past as visually spectacular pastiche, inviting a nostalgic gaze that resists the ironies and social critiques so often suggested narratively by these films’ (Higson 1993: 109). This is partly a postmodern reading on his part, based on Jameson’s notion of history displayed as spectacle for the tourist gaze, but also extends to the connotations of patriotism through the presentation of the landscape. Invariably exhibiting the English rather than the British countryside, the heritage film nostalgically presents a rural idyll unscathed by industrialisation or warfare. Higson’s logical claims for the 1980s’ cycle of films may be extended to include more recent examples such as Howards End (Merchant Ivory 1992), Remains of the Day (Merchant Ivory 1993), and Sense and Sensibility (Lee 1995). The Merchant Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster’s Howards End displays the landscape extensively and in abundance through lengthy takes. Margaret Schlegel’s (Emma Thompson) intermittent forays to Howards End, her rightful home, are allotted considerable screen time, particularly her explorations of the lavishly displayed grounds and garden. These offer little narrative information, instead presenting the spectator with sumptuous pastoral views of the surroundings, together with close-up shots of a variety of flora in the garden. The cinematographer, Tony Pierce-Roberts, had trained as a wildlife photographer, and this skill is indicated through his intimately detailed observation of the flora and landscape displayed in the film. The common signifying feature in all the examples noted above, however, is landscape presented for the analysis of aesthetic affect.

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Rural and non-urban locations feature extensively in British cinema, frequently in the flag-waving patriotism of the heritage drama. However, this is not confined to British cinema alone; clearly other national cinemas feature landscape as privileged space, and this leaves scope for further study in this area. The above offers a lineage using a select number of appropriate examples to illustrate a trajectory, and a tendency in British cinema to insert a Romantic seam into its landscapes, albeit stronger during particular periods in history than others. To sum up so far, the methodology used here tends to circumvent narrative theory to a certain extent, although clearly this is not always possible, as all the films are fictional and constructed on a narrative basis. The focus lies predominantly with aesthetic theory, which is the analysis of the formal composition within the frame, and the ways that this elicits an emotional response within the spectator, drawing on Romantic and Sublime philosophical concepts. Although Williams’s concept, structure of feeling, is useful in identifying the prevailing mood of a period, this may only be seen in hindsight, and arguably the past decade is not a period sufficiently removed to conduct this type of enquiry. However, it is impossible to refute the increased global interest in nature and the environment, and difficult to ignore societal concerns over climate change, with its associative fears and problems. An awareness of nature as a spiritual entity, its permanence endangered, and the environment to be protected and nurtured, are all elements that remain at play in contemporary deliberations, and these are facets further evidenced on the contemporary visual art circuits. The beginning of this introductory chapter saw the Queen enter the landscape alone, and this sequence was highlighted for its sumptuous and rich landscape imagery. The formal composition within the frame and the cinematographic style of the film imply a Romantic and Sublime sensibility whereby the monarch is pitted against nature, and the spectator is privileged to a pictorial affect. This analysis is aided by the use of key Romantic features, such as the lone figure in the landscape, of rugged, inaccessible aspects of nature, and of dramatic and magical lighting. The Queen is only one of a number of examples selected from contemporary British cinema which possesses these attributes. The following chapters are primarily concerned with

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this contention in terms of the ways in which landscape has been used pictorially in British cinema of the past decade. The term ‘contemporary’ is somewhat amorphous, and due to the abundance of films produced in any one year, it is impossible to include all as examples. Hence this discussion is limited to approximately the millennium and beyond. Similarly, the debates around what constitutes British cinema are not discussed or developed. The selection has taken place based on the country of origin, albeit unconcerned with issues surrounding nationhood, and has ignored the various considerations around finance and industry. The definition of a British film is usually industry-based, and some commentators argue that it is the flavour of the film that makes it British. The films selected for analysis in this book are either British-funded, or have a British director and cast, or look at the world through a British consciousness. For the purposes of organisation, the ensuing four chapters adopt a thematic approach. The assemblage is to an extent idiosyncratic, being confined to this book; the process of selection has involved those films that fall loosely into genres. This is not an ideal model, as films transgress boundaries – particularly British cinema, which has always been renowned for its eclecticism. The films have been chosen for their extensive and pictorial use of landscape, and are grouped either according to the cohesion of their narratives, or as films identifiable as belonging to a specific genre. On the other hand, the grouping of films in this book is not cast in stone, and the intent is to avoid being hindered by genre considerations. For example, Chapter One has been assembled based on the vagaries of the social realist text. Films such as London to Brighton might easily be alternatively categorised; as Leggott has remarked, this hybrid production might be compartmentalised as a gangster film: Within British cinema, stories involving crime and the criminal underworld have never been the sole preserve of the gangster film. Indeed, realist films such as Sweet Sixteen (2002) and London to Brighton (2008) have placed a spotlight on the insidious, predatory impact of organised crime and drug trafficking upon the resident and migrant underclass, whilst the mundane realities of the criminal justice system throughout the twentieth century have been explored in the historical dramas Another Life (2001), Vera Drake (2004) and Pierrepoint (2005) (2008: 62).

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For Leggott, the realist impulse is ever-present in contemporary British cinema, ‘[continuing] to manifest itself through subject matter or form, or a combination of the two’ (2008: 72). Based on this assumption, this first chapter selects five recent British examples which demonstrate realist characteristics. The chapter examines the pleasurable lure in examples where the central protagonists are characters inhabiting the margins of society. Sweet Sixteen (Loach 2002), London to Brighton (Williams 2006), Ratcatcher (Ramsay 1999), The War Zone (Roth 1999) and Better Things (Hopkins 2008) seemingly and falsely offer poetic rurality as a counterpoint to the characters’ bleak environments. Liminality, disconnection and selfreflection are the key sentiments of these films, expressed visually through the Romantic vocabulary of the landscape. The British horror film has witnessed a revival since the turn of the twenty-first century, albeit with an eclectic group of films ranging from the zombie ‘splatter’ films such as Evil Aliens (West 2005) to the psychological thriller. Chapter Two investigates the notion that the horror film appropriates the landscape as hostile and primitive space. The horror genre is notoriously difficult to define, covering everything from the psychological thriller to monster killers, and the films discussed here only fall loosely into this grouping. Nevertheless, whereas Britain is not renowned for genres such as the musical and noir, it enjoys a long history in horror films. Contemporary British cinema remains loyal to the genre, albeit now deploying a more eclectic approach than its predecessors. What is apparent is that many horror films use the landscape to acquire its own agency. The horror landscape does not have a marginal presence to create atmosphere. Instead, it acquires its own visual authority drawing on specific codes and features evocative of the discourse of the Sublime. Chapter Two advances this concept, again drawing on the aesthetic theories of romanticism and the Sublime and their investment in the awe-inspiring aspects of nature. The term ‘horror’ is used flexibly and includes also the psychological thriller The Hide (Losey 2008), the ‘slasher’ film Eden Lake (Watkins 2008), Danny Boyle’s zombie film, 28 Days Later… (2002) and Children of Men (2006), Cuarón’s film of a dystopian future where infertility reigns, anarchy rules, and brief respite is solely to be found at Jasper’s (Michael Caine) rural

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hideaway. The Last Great Wilderness (MacKenzie 2002) struggles to be assigned to any of the above sub-categories, but nonetheless invests the landscape with Sublime affect through its wild Scottish scenery. The emphasis of Chapter Three lies in the centrality of the female figure in the landscape. While not intrinsically drawing on the work of feminist theorists in this field, the chapter discusses the landscape as a site of emotion for the spectator, to enable engagement with the women, drawing on the work of Jacqueline Labbe (1998), who discusses the notion of the prospect view in relation to gender. The Queen, Ladies in Lavender (Dance 2004), The Magdalene Sisters (Mullan 2002) and Miss Potter (Noonan 2006) might be described as melodramas; all make extensive use of the landscape to imply subjectivity, although this is rarely made explicit in the narrative. This chapter engages in an analysis of the aesthetic affect produced by the female figure in the landscape to create spectator emotion in the female-centred film. The final chapter is based on the notion of, what Hamid Naficy (2001) terms an ‘accented cinema’, and analyses the use of landscape in a number of films from a diasporic, exilic or ethnic perspective. This section examines the deployment of the landscape from an outsider perspective. All the films selected are products of exilic, diasporic or ethnic film-makers, rather than films that deal with controversial issues of race. Although the settings are British, by focusing on the various areas of Yorkshire, Kent and Glasgow, the film-makers offer the spectator a sense of the other through Romantic and Sublime vocabulary. What should seem familiar and traditional instead appears strange and exotic. Drawing on Naficy’s ideas about accented cinema, and Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1895–1975) notion of idyll chronotopes, I argue that, in an attempt to retain some fragment of national identity, exiled or displaced film-makers communicate both liminality and yet a desire for stability through their landscape representations. Frequently, displacement occurs as a result of territorial disputes, thus provoking instability; therefore, the landscape as immovable space is relevant and represents specific qualities, such as endurance and permanence. Films as diverse as Pawel Pawlikowski’s The Last Resort (2000) and My Summer of Love (2004), to Parmar’s Nina’s Heavenly Delights (2006) are included here. The Polish-born director Pawlikowski deals with issues of marginalisation and periphery in both the films

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discussed, and Parmar similarly centres her film on liminal existences, both in terms of race and sexuality. This Filthy Earth (Kötting 2001) is a film that challenges categorisation, yet deploys strong Romantic imagery in its pictorial representations. Defying date and time, it is a loose adaptation of Émile Zola’s La Terre (1887). If This Filthy Earth’s visual appearance is perplexing, and its landscape at times markedly extraordinary, then this adheres to the director’s outsider status, and his captivation with Britain as representative of homeland. The application of an aesthetic treatment to the analysis of landscape in British cinema is appropriate for a number of reasons. These films present lengthy shots of the landscape, and not necessarily in support of the narrative. The neglect of such an analysis chimes with Leggott’s criticisms of the study of British cinema. As he remarks: Pertinent aspects that are all too often overlooked in studies of the national cinema include the creative deployment of genre, the level of artistic ambition, the ways in which the British landscape is rendered familiar or unfamiliar, and the distinctive qualities of performance, miseen-scène, cinematography and sound. Other than in the form of longer review essays, close textual responses to contemporary cinema are still frustratingly rare (2008: 14).

Both despite, and because of, its lack of a large-scale or systematised studio method of production, the British film industry nurtures low-budget, independent films, although these two factors are not necessarily connected, and this is not a point considered here. However, these films seem to offer a wealth of imagery, superfluous to dialogue and diegesis. This work concentrates on British cinema with the aim of filling in the gaps Leggott has identified. It conducts a close analysis of, and opens up grounds for, the re-evaluation of a number of selected films that privilege the landscape in a pictorial, usually Romantic or Sublime mode. Analysis in the four chapters below utilises an aesthetic approach to the application of landscape in the films, but in view of Williams’s notion of structure of feeling, a number of films and paintings are scrutinised as comparative examples. The use of this method serves a variety of purposes. It validates the use of an aesthetic approach, traditionally used in art history, as an appropriate method for the study of film; it operates on the primacy of the formal elements within

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the film frame, and creates correspondences between cinematic and painterly modes of perception; it enables a consideration of film away from its literary posturing, and situates it within the concept that film is an art form. Williams’s position is not influenced by traditional art history, nor do his arguments foreground aesthetics; rather, he is interested in the cultural significance of such movements. His notion of the awareness of the ‘present as history unfolding’ is useful for this book in that contemporary Britain (mainly that of the first decade in the twenty-first century) might be perceived as a period receptive to both an understanding of nature in the context of the environment, for example through Green movements, and to debates over global warming, as well as a secular search for divinity and spiritualism. Such cultural changes may offer reasons for a renewed artistic interest in the landscape. As already noted, although the majority of the paintings selected are contemporary, a small number stretch back over 200 years, the premise being that the core elements and motifs that underpin romanticism may be modified, but for the most part remain constant. The critical approach taken here does not attempt to dismiss narrative theory as a redundant mode of analysis, but rather offers a more interdisciplinary and nuanced approach to Film Studies. As Rosenblum suggests, in referring to the reluctance of art historians to accept the concept that romanticism has never died out, to effect change in such an established field leads to feelings of insecurity: To most art historians, especially in the English-speaking world, such a challenge would be an uncommon one. For better or for worse, we feel more at home in the secure foothills of facts than in the precarious summits of ideas, and are happier proving a date than constructing a new historical synthesis (2007: 7).

Here Rosenblum is calling for a new historical synthesis, which chimes with the intentions of this work. To return to Crafton’s quote which opened this book, there is a divide between the analysis of different cultural forms, but nevertheless there is a ‘usefulness of looking at cinema with the aesthetic systems provided by art history’ (2003: ix).

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Rückenfigurs and Realism: from Sweet Sixteen to Better Things

There is a further way in which these shots can be read, however, and it seems again to cut against narrative meaning and flow. For the shots also can be read as spectacle, as a visually pleasurable lure to the spectator’s eye…Across this network of effects is a series of tensions which are brought out…the tension between the drabness of the settings (‘the kitchen sink’) and their ‘poetic quality’; between ‘documentary realism’ and ‘romantic atmosphere’; between social problem and pleasurable spectacle (Higson 1996: 134).

This chapter considers the pleasurable lure of the landscape in five recent British films which loosely demonstrate characteristics that might be described as realist, and fall in line with the main tenets of this style of film-making.1 All the examples used here focus on characters that inhabit the margins of society, and who are involved variously in incest, paedophilia, prostitution and murder. The selection for this chapter includes titles based either on this type of narrative focus, the documentary style of film-making, or a combination of both. Loach’s seminal film, Sweet Sixteen, draws attention to a disenfranchised adolescent, Liam (Martin Compston), who is approaching his 16th birthday. He is presented as a marginalised figure, endeavouring to survive in an exploitative and criminal environment. If the betrayal of hope is a central theme in this film, then Loach addresses this through his close surveillance of the harsh Greenock gangland milieu. London to Brighton similarly embraces a number of challenging and thought-provoking issues. The film affords a corresponding visual style to Sweet Sixteen, and merits serious consideration as a realist model. Elements of paedophilia, prostitution and human butchery are the fundamental constituents of the narrative, and these are supported by a matching raw visual imagery, as the central protagonists flee from 35



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London to Brighton to escape a predatory gang. Less observational and documentary in style than their two counterparts, The War Zone and Ratcatcher are more consistent, in their cinematic aesthetics, with an arthouse approach. If the latter two films are separated regionally and, in the case of Ratcatcher, represents a different era, they mutually engage with the thorny personal crises of the protagonists. Whereas Roth’s debut production relates the story of incest and pubescent sexual dalliance in a displaced Devon family, Ratcatcher engages with a deprived Glaswegian community during the strike of dustcart drivers in the mid-1970s.2 Ratcatcher’s narrative centres on the optimistic aspirations of the young boy, James (William Eadie), and his involvement with the accidental death of his friend. Leaving style to one side, and given analogies between narratives, another commonality between these four examples lies in their predisposition towards the use of pictorial vocabulary in their representation of the landscape, though arguably not always to present a pleasurable spectacle. Finally, Better Things (Hopkins 2008) is filmed in a semidocumentary style, and is loosely themed on romance, drug abuse and teenage anxiety. In his directorial debut, Hopkins presents the countryside, reminiscent of his upbringing in the Cotswolds, as a bleak space for the activities of teenage pubescence. It is the richness of the landscape images in these five films that elicits an emotional response, enhanced here by proposing a correspondence with painting or art-historical practice. The films are liberally interspersed with landscape imagery which inclines towards Romantic and Sublime rhetoric, finding typical correlation in a range of Romantic paintings spanning more than two centuries, but reaching fruition in contemporary art works. Sweet Sixteen (Loach 2002) If rural escape was a key feature of the 1960s, its reappearance in contemporary British cinema might be reinterpreted as a frustrated response to the disillusionments of the present, found particularly in the films of Ken Loach. Described as a ‘sinewy, punishing picture’ (Gilbey 2002: 16), Sweet Sixteen won the top accolade at the Best British Independent Film Award ceremony. Despite its gritty politics,



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and uncompromisingly bleak style, Loach exercises his authorial control through his carefully orchestrated film-making techniques. Negating the realist aspect of the film, one commentator asserts that Loach’s films possess ‘episodic narratives, fragments of which are magnified to a point of deliberate even melodramatic excess’ (Bromley 2003: 48). If Sweet Sixteen verges on the melodramatic, its fragments might be perceived as frozen moments, landscape sequences offered up as what Higson might term ‘pleasurable spectacles’, whereby the characters visit a countryside invested with poetic significance. These interludes are interspersed throughout the film, and it is implied narratively that they signify Liam’s desire for escape from his underprivileged existence. A shift from this notion through an arthistorical perspective, however, might substitute this perception, and lead to a more cynical outlook. The Scottish landscape is a signifying feature in Sweet Sixteen, and its importance is established at the outset when Liam, along with his grandfather Rab (Tommy McKee) and Stan (Gary McCormack), visits his mother Jean (Michelle Coulter) in prison. Travelling by car, the three leave Glasgow in the rain, the inclement weather according the landscape a distorted appearance through the wet glass. The car journey might connote transience, a key trope related to Romantic literary as well as painterly ideals, and, at this point, the camera cuts to a shot of the hills, albeit not from any of the characters’ perspectives. This is noteworthy because frequently images of the landscape in this film do not take place through point-of-view shots, and thus appear to lack narrative motivation, becoming what Lefebvre terms ‘landscapes freed from eventhood’. In this shot, the spectator encounters the Lowlands of Scotland. Roughly-fenced fields border the road and shape the foreground of the image, from which the eye is led to low hills with a small copse protruding on the horizon. Grander peaks overshadow the composition, forming pale mauve-coloured configurations which rise steeply to merge into the soft hues of the blue sky. In cinematic depictions of the country, images of Scotland and Scottish identity are often mythologised through overemphasis on the Highlands as an invented construct, consisting as Martin-Jones describes of ‘a premodern wilderness, using the vast, beautiful and bleak countryside …

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to stand in for the whole of Scotland’ (2009: 5), identified by Martin-Jones’s predecessor, Colin McArthur (1982), as ‘Tartanry and Kailyard’; but such is not the situation here. In this prolonged shot, the vehicle, along with its inhabitants, becomes diminutive and therefore insignificant in contrast to the distant peaks rising in the distance. What should be a pleasurable spectacle becomes a hazardous environment. The car rounds the corner and approaches the prison building, the only women’s prison in Scotland, situated near Stirling, an area known as the Gateway to Scotland owing to its position at the boundary between the Highlands and Lowlands. Constructed of grey concrete, the prison forms a strong horizontal line against the backdrop of the mountains, strategically situating the spectator at a low vantage point. Inside the prison Liam refuses to pass over some drugs orally to his mother. This act results in a severe beating from his stepfather and grandfather on the way home, an event that occurs against the backdrop of the Lowlands. Here, the representation of the landscape avoids any mythical construct. Instead of the majestic and the beautiful, it manifests as bleak and uninviting, and there is no hint that the characters are integrated or comfortable in these inhospitable surroundings. Instead, Loach has devised formal strategies summed up as a Sublime inventory of scenic detail to facilitate an emotional response from the spectator, whereby its overpowering stature subverts order and ‘bypasses the rational mind and concentrates its force directly on the emotions’ (Andrews 1999: 132). Loach makes the area seem unpalatable, unappealing and frightening. Throughout the remainder of Sweet Sixteen, Loach varies the locations between the more picturesque shots of the caravan park in Greenock where Liam seeks freedom for himself and his family, and the drab and austere architecture of Glasgow city. One noteworthy scene, which alters the course of the narrative, occurs part-way through the film, when Liam and Pinball (William Ruane), Liam’s childhood friend, steal a car and go joyriding in the hills above Greenock. From an initial establishing shot of the bay, the setting changes to more elevated scenery and, subsequently, the stolen vehicle veers around the corner and approaches the camera, accompanied by the diegetic sound of opera music from the car. This sequence has specific narrative



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significance in the film in that it leads Liam to a caravan site, aptly described by some critics as an ‘Arcadian idyll’ (Matthews 2002: 56). At this point, and in some respects, this sequence is not so different from Higson’s concept of pleasurable spectacle, with the same sense of compensatory escape as in the films of the 1960s. Indeed, this discovery is the basis for his personal campaign to provide a home for his mother on her release from prison, the consequences of which lead to gangster associations and violent crime. Continuing their drive through the site, which is perched high on the cliffs overlooking the bay, the two boys arrive at the particular caravan that Liam eventually buys. The camera frames them alternately in two situations: either from inside the stolen car, or monitoring their erratic progress from afar as the vehicle careers around the site. Leaving Liam’s nephew, Calum (Robert Rennie) in the rear of the vehicle, they amble towards the caravan, which is situated in a pleasing position above the sea. Liam and Pinball emerge to the edge of the frame, but the eye is compelled to view the blue water in the cove beyond, and subsequently the surrounding hills that rear up in the distance. This shot is what Lefebvre might term pure landscape, as the directorial intention seems to lie in the notion of a pleasurable lure which will provide Liam with some respite from his miserable existence. At this point, Liam also seems overwhelmed by the vision; his eyes shine and he is forced to comment, ‘Look at that view, man’, describing the situation as ‘paradise’. Framing the vista for an extended duration, the camera observes the two teenagers positioned looking out to sea, their figures, with backs to the camera, aspiring to own, not only the caravan, but also its vista. Their stance and Liam’s comments, in conjunction with the landscape, encourages a spectator response of desire and yearning, made more pertinent by the boy’s miserable existence. However, what should be a satisfying sight for both viewer and Liam – the Greenock Hills arranged in a painterly mode – instead is depicted as wild, untamed Scottish landscape. The notion of a pleasurable spectacle is negated by Loach’s visual vocabulary, which mobilises an emotion of dissatisfaction and frustration. Greenock is a town situated on the River Clyde, whose meeting point with the Firth of Clyde is known as the Tail of the Bank.

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Traditionally, this region has strong associations with travellers, owing to its position as a point of departure from Scotland for emigrants to Canada and America: a Romantic situation which implies loss and transience. Although a caravan appears to the left of the frame, it is marginalised – the eye is drawn to the expanse of glistening water and, subsequently, the wooded hills beyond. For Liam, liberty and hope are represented via the mobile home, which functions as an escape route and retreat for himself and his mother. This visual marginalisation of what should be a safe haven, presents conflict, a point noted by Brian McFarlane, who observes that the landscape draws a distinction between urban decay and sanctuary: Liam wants to buy a new home for his family, a caravan looking out over a picture-postcard scene: an expanse of river with mountains in the distance. The space framed in these evocative shots reinforces the contrast between the security and breathing space Liam seeks and the narrowed alternatives he is trapped within, literally in the entrapping mise-en-scène of his decaying drug-infested urban estate. Often these polarised settings are framed in the same shot because of the ‘spectacular’ setting of Greenock which, as Loach observed, ‘contrasts rather sadly with the quality of life of people who live there’ (2005: 252).

An analysis of the landscape in Sweet Sixteen subverts any possible positive outcome; what narratively might be read as gratifying space is, instead, comprehended as a repository for dejection and melancholy. The respite for Liam is always at a price, and the landscape’s visual vocabulary is ambiguous, even at this stage, offering the spectator only uncertainty and doubt. At this juncture, and throughout the film, images of the landscape and sea are placed in close proximity to presentations of the grim reality of Liam’s life. In a light-hearted moment, he and Pinball mischievously steal cocaine from Stan, Jean’s boyfriend. The drugs are hidden in a dog pen to the rear of Rab’s house, and the boys watch through binoculars from an adjacent derelict property as, to no avail, the police search the area. This sequence propels the narrative, enabling Liam to profit from the drug sale and subsequently to purchase the caravan. In contrast to this seedy urban scene, Loach depicts Liam and his sister Chantelle (Annmarie Fulton) supporting Calum between them, pursued by Pinball and Chantelle’s friend,



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Suzanne (Michelle Abercrombie) against a background of the sea. Tracking their progress, the camera retains a distance but, instead of focusing on the characters, frames a view of the sea from a similar perspective to that witnessed by Liam and Pinball earlier. This recalls Lefebvre’s notion of ‘narrative pause’, which he describes as follows: When I contemplate a piece of film, I stop following the story for a moment, even if the narrative does not completely disappear from my consciousness – to which I may add that it is precisely that the narrative does not disappear from my consciousness that I can easily pick it up again (2006: 29).

Loach has appropriated the beach as a space for leisure, yet the sea also offers a spiritual dimension: through its changing tides and unpredictability, it represents the transitory status of life as opposed to the permanence that Liam, Pinball and Chantelle desire. Accompanied by jaunty music, and softly illuminated, the sequence permits the characters some respite from their stark urban existences, albeit short-lived and ambiguous. It is clear from the outset that Liam has great hopes of the environment, which he perceives as a site both for a new home, and subsequently for an improved relationship with his mother. Nevertheless, even at this stage, as the five enter the caravan for a group photograph before exploring their new surroundings, the lush green setting is dissected by a solid vertical smokestack, providing a visual metaphor for the grim reality of Liam’s everyday existence. If the chimney hints at the industrial landscape, the water, in contrast, is brilliantly illuminated, resulting in a sparkling effect on the calm sea. The presentation of this pastoral imagery is timely for the spectator, who is allowed to engage with the elements of the landscape, enabling self-reflexivity and contemplation as a genuine emotional response. In a later sequence, Loach reproduces the seascape in the photograph that Liam presents to his mother while she is in prison. The face of her grandson Calum is seen in close-up, with a portion of the caravan and the sea beyond. As connoted by this photographic representation of the landscape, the dream seems, and proves to be, unattainable for the characters, summed up by its illusory encapsulation in the snapshot. Alternating between ‘lyrical and shattering’ (Danielsen 2002: 18), these ‘poetic’ moments punctuate the narrative and question truths about Liam’s existence.

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Narratively, a small reprieve occurs for Liam when he is offered an empty flat by his boss with ‘nice views of the river’, a verbal description of the scenery that Liam and the spectator have already encountered. To claim his prize, he must seek reprisals on his friend, Pinball, who has committed offences against Liam’s gangster boss by stealing his car and driving it through a window. In turmoil over the choice of either harming his friend or providing a place for his mother to live when she is released, Liam climbs the hill towards Pinball’s squat. As if to reinforce this difficult choice, the setting is divided between the mountains which rise up in the distance, contrasted with the firm horizontal line of an ugly industrial building and the overspill housing estates of Glasgow. Liam is acquitted of his duty because Pinball selfharms, cutting his face with a knife seriously enough to force Liam to ring for an ambulance. With Pinball no longer perceived as a threat, the camera cuts to a high-angle shot of the estuary, and although the foreground is composed of cranes and dock buildings, the eye is drawn to the centre of the frame, where a vast sweep of water encompasses almost a third of the composition. The same pale grey mountains complete the image, nearly eliminating the ‘desolate beauty’ (Danielsen 2002: 18) of the sky. These pictorial shots remain on the screen for a number of seconds as spectacle, before Liam appears in the frame and stands, his back to the sea, eventually turning away from the camera to survey the view. This pose, termed the Rückenfigur in art history, literally meaning ‘back figure’, is repeated later in the film, and is typically used in Romantic painting to incorporate the viewer, and to present a specific perspective on the landscape. According to Koerner, the Rückenfigur in a desolate landscape evokes a wretched and despondent frame of mind, and a longing for the unattainable in the spectator. As he claims: ‘Such disordered and macabre nature is, however, appropriate to the wanderer’s attitude for, exposed and in transit, gazing into a viewless prospect, he is now a seeker’ (2009: 26). Liam becomes a seeker, and his position facing away from the camera implies the inaccessible in life, as well as his remoteness, a status enforced through circumstance. The search for the unattainable in Sweet Sixteen is entrenched in the visual vocabulary of the landscape: recurrent images of lone figures are positioned against softly illuminated vistas. Nowhere does



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this become more apparent than in the final sequences in the film, when Liam’s fate is sealed. Following the party that Liam has thrown to celebrate his mother’s release from prison, Chantelle tells him that Jean has returned to Stan. She exposes some home truths, such as the lack of maternal affection – something their mother has never been able to provide – and, as a consequence of these unsurprising revelations, the siblings fight. Set against the backdrop of the sea, Liam is seen running towards Stan’s house, the drab colour of his clothing merging with the gloomy mist that emanates from the sea. Liam’s attempt to liberate his mother from Stan’s control fails and, following a violent altercation, Liam stabs his stepfather and flees. The camera cuts to a close-up shot of a dreary, colourless beach, albeit peaceful and tranquil. This shot remains static for some seconds before a figure walks across the frame; the camera tilts to reveal that it is Liam, positioned in front of the vista, indicating the existence (or life) he has always craved for himself and his family. The early morning light establishes the time of day, which should symbolically point to a new start. However, this approach is substituted by stark, gloomy imagery, instead implying Liam’s liminality, his positioning on the threshold of detrimental change. The film ends with the desolate figure of Liam on his 16th birthday, as Chantelle tries to contact him by mobile phone. Shivering, he walks towards the water’s edge and stands facing out to sea, before the screen fades to black leaving the spectator unclear about his future. For the spectator, ‘[t]here are no simple answers; the movie does not end but pauses, and on that pause we reflect upon the absences and the silences’ (Bromley 2003: 50). Liam as Rückenfigur merges with his surroundings, and his inner conflicts become those of the spectator’s. Through the Rückenfigur’s association with painting, Loach demonstrates an allegiance to romanticism drawing out the spiritual associations with the landscape, just as the German Romantic Caspar David Friedrich drew upon an inner spirituality invested with lyrical attributes in his work. Divinity has been a requisite of Romantic art for nearly two centuries, and this becomes an extension of Friedrich’s inner beliefs, biased by his own personal response. One such painting, View of the Baltic (c.1820–5), through its use of light, colour and

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formal language, appears mystical and symbolic. The formal style of Friedrich’s composition spells ambivalence and contradictions, and although this and Sweet Sixteen are separated by over 200 years, Loach adopts a similar technique. Consisting of a series of mountains in the foreground, Friedrich’s landscape rises to the right of the frame creating a gentle diagonal across the image. The verdant colour of the vegetation pales with the receding depth of field, and the mast perched on top of the hill presents a vertical construct raised up to the sky. Just as Loach presents the spectator with an occasional glimpse of the sea beyond to suggest Liam’s hopes and desires, so Friedrich has placed the view of the Baltic to the left-hand side of the frame, ensuring its partial obliteration by the mountains in the foreground. The image is calm and tranquil, creating a feeling of unity. Clouds, painted in creamy yellows and muted pink shades, illuminate the landscape. Tiny vessels floating on the water blend with the colours of the sea, creating an atmospheric presence connoting unfulfilled desire. The sea, mountains and sky are constant motifs in Friedrich’s work, and a number of commentators (Wolf 2006, Koerner 2009) have pointed out the allegorical importance of his painting, which lionises Christian belief structures. In these circumstances, the sailing vessels might be construed as signs of departure, and thus a reference to mortality, and as symbolic of faith and anticipation, an interpretation of the end of life. The visual manifestation of infinity that Friedrich presents is also mobilised by Loach, who presents the spectator with the perpetuity of the Scottish landscape, despite the narrative’s disruptions and complexities. While not claiming that Loach drew inspiration directly from this period, or that he is suggesting a Christian belief system, it is the rudiments comprising romanticism that have been repeatedly drawn upon by artists, poets and film-makers, and used subliminally to explore and interpret landscapes as mental projections of a state of mind. Romantic imagery offers the spectator self-reflection, where the landscape becomes an allegory for interiority and subjectivity. This is expressed in an earlier painting by Friedrich, Monk by the Sea (1809– 10), which places the figure in a continuous expanse of blue-grey light against a low horizon. The monk appears as a solitary individual who seems to be in contemplation of the sea or something beyond,



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disposed in a way similar to Loach’s figure in Sweet Sixteen: the attitude of both implies a point of conscious awareness, a literal and figurative location on the edge of a mystical and spiritual experience. Light, a traditional Romantic motif, might be perceived as an expression of the divine, representing a threshold, a blurring of boundaries between the familiar and unfamiliar. Friedrich’s painting appears to lack any depth of perspective, and, in a similar manner to Sweet Sixteen, the dark expanse of sea converges with the ominous, cloudy sky. In the same way that Liam gazes out to sea, the monk becomes a Rückenfigur who looks out on an open vista, hence mediating the image for the spectator by taking on the active role of directing attention to what lies beyond, thus in turn promoting a situation of ‘yearning for transcendence, for passage beyond the materiality of earthly existence’ (Koerner 2009: 143). As Angela Dalle Vacche explains, the Rückenfigur ‘spells out the ambivalent connotations of the landscape – a site of fears and expectations that overwhelm the viewer in the picture, while making the filmic spectators aware of their own projections onto the image’ (1996: 172). The Rückenfigur in Friedrich’s painting hints at the remote and private world of the wanderer. This is enhanced by the artist’s indistinct rendering of landscape, where the sky and sea merge to create an inscrutable composition. The link between Friedrich’s painting and contemporary art practice is not as remote as it might first seem. Indeed, as noted earlier, Rosenblum successfully made a connection between the early Northern Romantics and American painters of the 1950s. In what he describes as ‘the Abstract Sublime’, he links Friedrich’s Monk by the Sea (1809), Turner’s Evening Star (1830) and Rothko’s Light Earth over Blue (1954). The last of these places us on the threshold of those shapeless infinities discussed by the estheticians of the Sublime. The tiny monk in the Friedrich and the fisher in the Turner establish, like the cattle in Gordale Scar, a poignant contrast between the infinite vastness of a pantheistic God and the infinite smallness of His creatures. In Rothko, such literal detail – a bridge of empathy between the real spectator and the presentation of a transcendental landscape – is no longer necessary; we ourselves are the monk before the sea, standing silently and contemplatively before these huge and soundless pictures as if we were looking at a sunset or a moonlit night…These infinite, glowing voids carry us beyond reason to the

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Sublime; we can only submit to them in an act of faith and let ourselves be absorbed into their radiant depths (Rosenblum 2007: 163–4).

In a comparable way, the composition of the short sequence in the film is atmospheric – Liam recalls Friedrich’s character, which appears to reach out for something infinite and eternal, mobilised by the sea. The figures in both cases appear diminished in the frame, and overpowered by the landscape, resulting in a quasi-allusion to the divine power of nature. To further quote Rosenblum: We all know the experience of being on the beach. If you are on the beach thinking of Picasso and you are all alone on the beach you have a very different experience; you have a very different relationship to the natural world and to the mysteries of the cosmos than if you are walking with 20 people on the beach. So, you know, loneliness is essential to the experience, isolation (2007: 244).

Burke’s concept of the Sublime embodies the characteristics of powerlessness and solitude, and this is illustrated in the closing stages of Loach’s film, where Liam is left defenceless and alone on the beach. As noted, despite Loach’s reputation as a political film-maker his films are concerned not only with the characters in the film, but also with its aesthetics. In an interview, Kelly suggests to the director that his technique is to ‘quite often compose a group scene from a distance with a long lens [in] a desire to give the actors more space’ (2007: 32). Whether by directorial intent on Loach’s part or fortuitously, location filming and specificity of style are significant in Sweet Sixteen, as Barry Ackroyd, Loach’s long-term cinematographer points out: ‘Ken’s style can be summed up quite simply: the camera stays still and the story comes to it…The films are shot – and edited – in sequence. With few exceptions, everything is filmed on location, in very long takes, with the camera at eye level’ (cited in Oppenheimer 2007: 24). In Sweet Sixteen, Loach emphasises the aesthetic and emotional effects of Liam’s circumstances through the pictorial imagery of the caravan site and the spectacular mountain landscapes. This interpretation does not always aid narrative logic, offering a different set of emotions to the spectator. Bromley, echoing this explanation notes the harmful connotations of the landscapes which, although



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presented in a dramatic way, are pessimistic in terms of the narrative. As he points out: ‘Even when we catch glimpses of beauty – the sky, lochs, green hills, and a rainbow on the river Clyde – they are shot in a context of the negative, desperate and highly conditional’ (2003: 49). London to Brighton (Williams 2006) Pessimism also resonates in Paul Andrew Williams’s directorial debut, London to Brighton. The narrative centres on two young girls, Joanne (Georgia Groome) and Kelly (Lorraine Stanley), and a journey to Brighton. Kelly is a prostitute, and Joanne is homeless; both are escaping from a past misdemeanour, an incident which is related through a series of flashbacks during the progress of the film. A narrative reading of London to Brighton places the film within a realist trajectory, whose key traits consist of ‘editing and photography that present a coherent view of the world; settings that look real; acting which is naturalistic (the actors look and sound like people one might meet in real life); stories that are not far removed from what might happen to ordinary people’ (Murphy 1992: 34). More recently, Hallam and Marshment have argued that social realist texts are films that ‘emphasise situations and events [and have] an episodic narrative structure, creating “kitchen sink” dramas and “gritty” character studies of the underbelly of urban life’ (2000: 184). Undeniably, the characters, Joanne and Kelly inhabit the margins of society. Through dialogue, Joanne tells Kelly that her ( Joanne’s) mother is dead and that her father drinks heavily and is cruel and uncaring. She bears scars attributed to his abuse, showing Kelly a large bruise to her ribs acquired from a kick from her father because, she explains, ‘I stole his fags’. Despite living on the streets and stealing money to survive, Joanne has the appearance of an innocent child. She is fresh-faced and her hair is tied back in an unsophisticated ponytail. However, she is easy prey for grooming by the callous pimp, Derek ( Johnny Harris), who sends Kelly to lure her into a life of vice. Kelly, the older of the two girls, is more experienced and jaded in appearance. She wears poor quality clothing and smokes heavily. Gleaning little about her life, the spectator is informed through dialogue that she has experienced a difficult past and is now homeless.

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One might assume that some years previously she was recruited by Derek in much the same way as Joanne is now being primed. Derek is presented as heartless and insensitive and, as if to emphasise his callous traits, at one point in the film he munches dispassionately on a bowl of cornflakes and watches television while his tearful girlfriend is forced to have sex with his mates in the next room. It is not only Williams’s character representations that indicate a realist trajectory: correspondences may also be found through the style of filming, the seedy urban settings and the challenging issues examined in the narrative. Contemporary critical response at the time of its release further pigeonholes the film. Many reviews mention its debt to film-makers associated with a gritty, realistic style. One critic draws comparisons with the work of established directors whose preoccupations include the lives of the socially marginalised, and considers Williams’s ‘confidence and cinematic brio [to] have already drawn comparisons with the likes of fellow Brits Ken Loach and Mike Hodges’ (Brooke 2006: 12) For Brooke, London to Brighton’s gruesome and disturbing subject matter offers no relief for its characters, figures who inhabit and represent a sordid and dangerous world. The narrative alternates between flashbacks and the present, with Derek in pursuit of the girls. This unfolds through fast-paced editing and a raw visual style that involves the spectator in the precarious situation of the protagonists. Derek has been heavily intimidated by a prominent gang member, Stuart Allen (Sam Spruell), who has discovered the heinous crime committed by the runaways. Although not fully explained at this stage, it appears that Kelly and Joanne have stabbed Allen’s father, a wound from which he eventually dies. His life under threat, Derek is presented with a deadline to find them and return them to London. Aided by technical elements such as handheld camera work and grainy 16mm film stock, the documentary style of London to Brighton is further emphasised. Despite this, and interspersed throughout, the camera singles out isolated and lengthy shots of the seascape and landscape, images whose subject matter, combined with their pictorial structuring, might lead them to be described as Romantic and Sublime compositions. The first notable example of this occurs on the morning of Joanne and Kelly’s journey. Having stabbed their victim, a paedophile and



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wealthy gangster, and leaving him to bleed to death, the girls flee to Brighton, where Kelly’s friend lives. They are seated either side of the train carriage window as the camera cuts to a close-up of Joanne. Drinking from a cup, she declares, ‘I love the countryside’, predisposing the spectator to enjoy images of the landscape. Next, an extended pictorial shot of the vista from the train window appears: dense foliage borders the right-hand side of the frame and, from this, the spectator is directed across the composition to a herd of cows grazing in the distance. This is capped by a clear blue sky, before the camera cuts back to a profile of Joanne as sunlight illuminates the right-hand side of her face. Her tone is unemotional as she says, ‘I love the fields’. At this point, an edit occurs to a landscape shot comprising a level field with grazing cattle, a line of trees and, uppermost, gentle rolling hills. In this sequence, a series of simple horizontal lines offers the spectator a sense of quasi-spiritual communication. Notwithstanding Joanne’s comment, there is limited motivation for these rural images, and the train sequence ends as the camera cuts to a final rural shot of lengthy duration. Despite the brief benefit that the spectator has gained from this bucolic imagery, neither the characters nor the spectator are offered pleasure or satisfaction. The image, accompanied by soft music, is transient and unobtainable from the windows of the train. Much as she ‘loves the fields’, Joanne is figuratively and literally trapped on the train. When finally the fields disappear behind an embankment, the viewer’s perspective is obstructed by industrial terrain, and this barricade is paralleled by an almost imperceptible edit which phases in a row of shuttered, near derelict shops in London; similarly, these are also observed from a moving prospect, but this time the mode of transport is a car, and it is Derek looking intently out of the window rather than Joanne. This transition indicates the evanescent aspects of the landscape in the lives of the protagonists, and permits little respite for the spectator. Joanne and Kelly flee to Brighton to escape Derek and the gang who are now in pursuit. Up to this point, the camera has paralleled Derek’s search for the girls with their journey to Brighton, where they are relying on Kelly’s friend to help them. On realising that his own life depends on their return, Derek has visited an acquaintance’s flat to obtain a gun. At one point, he sits in pain from his wound inflicted by

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Allen when, glancing around at his surroundings, he declares rather abstractly, ‘I love this flat’. Narratively, this parallels Joanne’s earlier comment concerning the countryside and demonstrates a contrast in the nature of the two characters and their place in the environment. Derek is comfortable with his urban existence, and, in contrast, Joanne yearns for a different life, that offered by an uncomplicated rural existence summed up by Raymond Williams as the idea of a natural way of life; of peace, innocence and simple virtue. On the city has gathered the idea of an achieved centre: of learning, communication, light. Powerful hostile associations have also developed: on the city as a place of noise, worldliness and ambition; on the country as a place of backwardness, ignorance, limitation (Williams 1973: 1).

To reinforce this, the camera here cuts from a close-up of Derek’s face to a shot of the sea. In terms of panoramic views, this is one of the most significant images in the film. The initial shot encompasses a series of parallel, horizontal lines which intersect the composition, generating a sense of calm and tranquillity. Foregrounding the image, the beach creates a gentle diagonal towards the left of the frame and, in turn, the line of the groyne creates a promontory which intersects this at right angles. Silhouetted against the sun, and hence thrown into relief, a lone figure appears, walking towards the sea. Diminished in the frame, and facing away from the camera, the identity of the person is unclear. Although it might be one of the girls, this seems unlikely as, later in the sequence, Joanne plays child-like on the shore, treating this as her first encounter with the sea for some time. The calm sea, with the waves rolling gently onto the beach, provides a backdrop, which appears textured, the colour of the composition pastel and muted. Light emanates from a sky consisting of cumulus clouds, their blue/grey colour merging with the subdued hues of the sea. A number of sailing boats, though diminished in size because of their remoteness from the camera, are visible on the horizon. Illuminated by the sun, they appear to shimmer in the haze. In the distance, and forming a parallel with the groyne, the pier provides a similar parallel element to the composition. The sea and sky blend as one, but the horizontals appear endless and pass out of the frame at either edge, thus destabilising the spectator. The seascape appears



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to go beyond the image, and there is no visible evidence of what lies beyond, either in a visual sense or in terms of the girls’ uneasy future. The spectator remains marooned, neither orientated or grounded by the promontory, the sea indistinct and obscuring the boundaries between itself and the sky. This shot does not possess any real narrative motivation, nor does it take place from the point of view of any of the characters. In Lefebvre’s words, this might be ‘space freed from eventhood’, presenting the unattainable rather than the pleasurable spectacle. The sounds of the waves and cries of the gulls enhance the desolateness of the image, which appears static, enabling a period of time for spectator assimilation. Only at the end of the sequence is it clear that there are in fact two figures on the beach although, placed in the distance, their identity is uncertain. As Andrews (1999) notes, the beguiling feature of romanticism is the chasm between human and nature, and the Rückenfigur provides a conduit between the two, hinting at unfathomable distance, both visually and metaphorically. Williams’s image hints at a higher reality rooted in inscrutability and anonymity. The figures remain indiscernible and ethereal, emphasising the concept of transience. At the end of London to Brighton, following Kelly and Joanne’s ‘acquittal’ by Allen, the camera cuts to a close-up of the two as they journey to Joanne’s grandmother’s house. Derek and his accomplice have been murdered, with Joanne forced to complete the deed by pulling the trigger, albeit against her will. Now a murderess on two counts, she and Kelly cling to one another sobbing. This time they are free of their pursuers and, for a second time in the film they board a train, reversing their previous journey, now heading south-west instead of south. Following the murder sequence, the camera frames a landscape view from the train. The girls are now journeying towards Devon, and in a brilliantly illuminated sequence to that previously illustrated, trees crowd the image, yielding to empty rolling countryside, devoid of any human presence. The two girls are oblivious to this as they lie down opposite one another on the train seats adjacent to the window, in Joanne’s instance falling into a sound sleep. Some degree of closure for Joanne occurs in the Devonshire home of her grandmother; the elderly relative greets her at the door, and presumably provides her with a home, although this is never fully

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explicated. Observing Joanne and her grandmother’s reunion at a distance, Kelly appears uneasy and unhappy. There seems little future for the older girl, other than a return to her previous existence in London. The camera cuts from a close-up of Kelly’s bruised face to a night shot of her return to London, ending with a lengthy take of a back view of her figure as she walks back onto the streets. The spectator is left unsure of the girls’ future. 3 A more contemporary equivalent to the notion of a Rückenfigur in painting, and typical of this style, transposing a similar vision into his work, is contemporary British Neo-Romantic artist Peter Doig. Just as Friedrich’s Monk by the Sea fuses figure and landscape, Doig’s Figure in Mountain Landscape (1999) summons up similar attributes. The image consists of a Rückenfigur situated centre-frame, rendered from a back view position. The hooded figure appears in the foreground of the composition, and defies gender recognition. It is in a seated position and is clearly an artist, although the content of the artwork depicted is unclear. It is uncertain whether this is the artist himself, but the spectator is permitted to identify with the person as a conduit, a beholding subject for the viewer to mediate the landscape. The open aspect of the foreground, painted in broad strokes of green and grey, leads the eye to a much bleaker backdrop, which consists of immense mountains obliterating the sky. The figure looms large in the frame, but is separated from the mountains by a deep ravine, and subsequently becomes one with the landscape. Doig’s intent here involves spectator participation, positioning the viewer within the landscape. Whilst Friedrich’s monk is an extension of the artist, Doig more deliberately signifies that he is the artist, rendering the figure poised ready to paint the view. As Weinhart remarks: ‘Doig democratizes the painter, whom he repeatedly places on view in his series Figure in Mountain Landscape, by showing him as a cryptic figure seen from behind and thus installing him as a void – a place-holder for the viewer’ (2005: 40). This artistic kinship between Doig, Loach and Williams is evident in their depictions of figure and landscape, with an inherent emphasis on subjectivity and spirituality. Loach and Williams’s configurations of figure and landscape in Sweet Sixteen and London to Brighton point to hostility, transience and loss of self, a rescinding



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process that Doig frequently undertakes. An earlier work of his, entitled Lunker (1995), owes a debt to Monk by the Sea, which, as Beate Sönteg asserts, is literally reflected, and in his reflection he runs in streaks of paint that are caught by the painting’s edge. In the gleaming light of the bank area, the theme of vision is present: light is the precondition of seeing but at the same time means, at the height of its power, the rescinding of visibility (2005: 81).

Doig’s figures are ephemeral, connoting the momentary nature of life, and through their barely discernible, ghostly rendering imply otherworldliness or an existence beyond. This is exemplified in Reflection (What does your soul look like) (1996), a life-size oil on canvas where the entire figure is reflected in lurid reds as a reflection in a pond. As Barry Schwabsky maintains, ‘one no longer knows whether the pond reflects the person or the person reflects the pond’ (2008: 171). Doig’s work uses art-historical references, but mediated to produce Romantic affect. As noted earlier, Romantic characteristics and motifs might reoccur during any time period and are read accordingly; this seems apparent in the works discussed above. Art critic Malcolm Yorke, a defender of the Neo-Romantics, considers this tendency a structure of feeling. He believes: We are driven to the conclusion that romanticism is a mode of feeling that can appear at any time in human history, but that only at certain periods and under certain conditions of cultural climate can it find a full and adequate means of expression. Romanticism is an attitude of mind in which any human being, at any time, may, by virtue of his humanity indulge (2001: 19).

Early Romantics sought to escape the present, establishing a relationship between humans and nature. As Hollein puts it: ‘Now, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, we find ourselves standing before a not dissimilar situation – at least in terms of society’ (2005: 18). The themes reflected in the films and paintings might be summed up as a structure of feeling at the turn of the twenty-first century, and although Doig’s work occurs before this period, he continues to use this approach, currently producing similar imagery (some of Doig’s later work is discussed in more depth in Chapter Four). Terri Sultan

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has defined this as a contemplation of ‘alternative worldviews as a counterpoint to the multiple economic, political, and social challenges of our age’ (2008: 9). The War Zone (Roth 1999) The liminal figure in transition reappears in Tim Roth’s directorial debut, The War Zone, but this time in the rugged coastal regions of North Devon. Part-way through, in an emblematic image representative of the rest of the film, the camera frames such a coastline, littered with massive boulders. The foreground of the composition is dominated by an elevation of sand dunes, as the sea breaks fiercely on the shore. The only object visible on the horizon is a solitary sailing boat. Comprising parallel lines of a purplish hue, the rocky outcrops form part of the overall arrangement within the frame. The image occurs at an emotive point in the narrative, soon after Tom (Freddie Cunliffe) has discovered that his sister Jessie (Lara Belmont) is having an incestuous relationship with their father (Ray Winstone). In its similarity to the deployment of the landscape in Sweet Sixteen and London to Brighton, The War Zone has also been selected here because of its extensive use of rural imagery. The narrative follows Tom’s emotions and his feelings of confusion, loneliness and isolation, a central theme reinforced through the presentation of the landscape, and subsequently accessed by the spectator through Sublime and Romantic vocabulary. The cinematographer, Seamus McGarvey, was influenced by Krzysztof Kieslowski’s cinematographer, Jacek Petrycki, a person renowned for his pictorial imagery, and in The War Zone McGarvey adopts a specific style of filming, concentrating on the aesthetics of the landscape. Trained initially as a stills photographer, he demonstrates in his images a compositional awareness, and this he imports into the film. His aims for the completed project are made apparent when he (McGarvey) states: ‘We wanted to lend the landscape an epic quality, to look at people within a landscape, and [to convey] the weight of the land and the sky, [and a sense of ] isolation and remoteness’ (cited in Petrie 1999: 22). The film follows the life of a family comprised of heavily pregnant mother (Tilda Swinton), father, daughter and son, all recently



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relocated from London to a remote part of Devonshire. Neither Tom nor Jessie takes pleasure in their new environment, perceiving the recent isolation from their friends in London as a cruel action on their parents’ part or, in Jessie’s view, as a means for her father to continue their sexual relationship. McGarvey chose a deliberate style to film the grey, dank winter of north Devon [which] runs counter to the eternal summerland of happy youth, long summer holidays and innocent outdoor adventures that characterises the rural in early twentiethcentury popular fiction and film from Enid Blyton to The Railway Children (1970) (Leyshon and Brace 2007: 201).

The War Zone commences with the opening credits on a black screen before focusing on the horizontal lines of a seascape image. A wall completes the foreground of the composition, forming an oblique angle in the lower half of the frame; this is presumably the concrete bunker that features so prominently later in the narrative as the site where incest occurs, and chosen because, as the screenwriter, and novelist, Alexander Stuart notes, ‘I wanted a space that would be horrific and memorable…the art department’s version on the rocks here looks…desolate, yet with a kind of vast Turneresque seascape behind it that locates our characters firmly in a very primal Britain’ (cited in Leyshon and Brace 2007: 206). The remainder of the arrangement consists of a promontory of rocks and a series of inlets, all overpowered by a heavy, grey sky. Light emanates from the right, creating a contrast with the dark mass of boulders that project into the sea. A lone cyclist appears, pedalling at speed along the lane. From this, the eye is drawn to a windswept tree which forms a horizontal arrangement of leafless branches across the right-hand side of the frame. Distant, gently undulating hills complete the dull, grey composition and, although the camera retains the shot for a number of seconds, this is from an elevated position as the cyclist disappears down the road and becomes a speck in the distance. Filmed using a Steadicam, the boy’s progress is tracked using a sequence of medium shots that alternate between a front and rear view of his journey, and eventually the arrival at his house. ‘Framed in elegant long shots and nudged along by spartan editing’ (Brooks 1999: 59), this opening

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sequence reinforces Roth’s deliberations on the aesthetics of the film. Indeed, ‘[t]he opening shots of Tom cycling along … create a sense of freedom and dynamism that is crushed when the boy returns to the cloying atmosphere of the cottage’ (Petrie 1999: 22). The cottage is in fact a plain white house, the family’s new home, arrived at via a long, stony driveway, visible as a solitary secluded structure set against the sea. This juxtaposition of the empty landscape and the lone figure pitted against the elements offers a Sublime viewer response. Throughout The War Zone, the landscape is presented as bleak and uncompromising. Violent waves appear set against drab, grey skies, and huge, dark boulders form a backdrop to the powerful images of the Atlantic; these are invariably accompanied by the relentless weather conditions of driving wind and rain. One such scene occurs when Jessie and Tom return from an evening out. Against their parents’ wishes they have stayed out late, returning home in the early hours. Following a quarrel with each other, they confront their angry father, and his unreasonable behaviour belies his true feeling towards Jessie: those of a jealous lover, not a father figure. They all retreat to bed, and for no explicable reason the camera cuts to the same shot of the sea mentioned above. The image does not enhance the narrative; instead, it seems to be placed for its Romantic aspirations and to augment spectator emotion. The composition is comprised of monochrome tones: the grey sky blends into the rocky outcrop, merging with the similar grey hue of the uncompromising waves. Accompanied by low-key piano music, a medium close-up shot of Jessie reveals her staring out at the vista, followed by another shot of a more extensive landscape; this consists of the moon rising over the rocks, and diagonals of the outcrops and the sea, as Tom appears in the frame walking towards the camera. Romantic imagery abounds throughout. Tom climbs to the top of the cliff and surveys the surrounding landscape in a shot corresponding to the position of his sister in an earlier image. This offers the spectator pictorial imagery indicating a coming storm, in what Burke might have considered an awe-inspiring experience of the forces of nature. Here the Romantic and Sublime nuances of this shot are exemplified through the wild surroundings, the brutish sea and the ominous juxtaposition of illumination and shadow to create



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chiaroscuro. The sheer rock face to the right of the frame diminishes the lone figure of Tom, a scene which is not shown from any of the characters’ perspectives, indicating Roth’s desire to implicate the spectator. In fact, Jessie is on the other side of the cliff and Tom is in the frame, where she eventually sees him observing her. As Lefebvre points out: ‘Landscape appears when, rather than following the action, I turn my gaze toward space and contemplate it in and of itself. This is cinema’s “impure” landscape, whose existence we cannot clearly attribute to a director’s intention’ (2006: 48). The World War Two observation post becomes a site for Tom to vent his feelings and anger, and a location which brings about the spectator’s interaction with the seemingly motionless painterly images. Much as London to Brighton and Sweet Sixteen concentrate on two contrasting settings, the city and the country, so The War Zone compares the family home to the intimidating exteriors. This is a point noted from the critical reception of the film at the time of its release. Suggesting its Sublime rhetoric, Danielsen describes the wind-swept coast thus: ‘Situated on a high cliff, at the edge of a desolate landscape, the bunker functions as an exclusionary zone – a space outside the limits of the family home, the location that otherwise dominates’ (1999: 9). Following the scene where Tom witnesses the incestuous rape of Jessie, the camera cuts to an exterior shot as the boy picks his way down the path, away from the concrete bunker (Figure 1). Throughout The War Zone, Tom’s isolation is emphasised; he is frequently depicted as a lone figure, a Rückenfigur, facing out to sea or towards the landscape. Often he is juxtaposed between the rocks and the waves, appearing to fuse with his surroundings. These shots are pictorial and not fortuitous – aspects wrought both by their depth of field and lengthy duration to elicit a ‘primary’ aesthetic emotion, as identified by Lyons (1997), which are arrived at initially through Roth’s deliberate sense of artistry. Roth describes the film as an attempt to ‘marry the grubby physicality of British realism to the more austere (if Picturesque) tenets of the European art house film – an aesthetic of leisurely takes, careful compositions and deliberate editing’ (cited in Danielsen 1999: 8). Thus, the tone of the The War Zone is dark, underpinned through the drab visual construction of the austere cinematography.

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The composition of the seascape shots appropriates qualities which relate to Romantic painting. Again, this is not to imply that Roth was overtly knowledgeable about romanticism, although he and his cinematographer, McGarvey, treat the landscape as a powerful and infinite space, a mood evoked by the deliberate style of filming. McGarvey chose to film using an anamorphic format which captured a widescreen image of the family and their environment. In terms of colour, he explains his approach: For the interiors, production designer Michael Carlin created an appropriately subdued tonal range devoid of any primary colors. The exteriors are even bleaker – the rocky coastal landscape is practically monochrome in many sequences. The scarred, war-era cement bunker where Tom witnesses his father abusing Jessie looks as if it has been hewn from the same rock as the cliffs. The opening shot of the landscape is from inside the bunker, an image replete with foreboding and secrecy (cited in Petrie 1999: 22).

Roth uses Romantic motifs subliminally to explore Tom’s subjectivity, and to enable the spectator to interpret the landscapes as mental projections of a state of mind. Tom’s shoreline wanderings point to an inner turmoil, and it is only at the end of the film, when he reveals his terrible secret to his mother, that the true importance of his landscape reveries is revealed. While Tom reports his father’s appalling behaviour, the camera cuts from his mother’s distraught,



The lone figure of Tom in The War Zone (Roth 1999).

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white face to a night-time shot of the landscape. Lit by the lights of Tom’s bicycle, broken fencing forms menacing horizontal shadows across the frame, significantly alluded to by McGarvey as ‘a sepulchral world…a bold chiaroscuro in which the light falls off rapidly into the darkness’ (cited in Petrie 1999: 22); McGarvey transposes Sublime vocabulary onto the visual senses. One of the most significant sequences in terms of the Sublime occurs in the final sequence. Tom stabs his father in the stomach and runs away, as a night shot of the boy running along a moonlit path transforms into a daylight shot of the concrete lookout post. The image, with the sound of the sea colliding with the rocks, remains on screen for a lengthy duration, until an ensuing shot reveals Tom, head in hands, weeping. Jessie finds him, but makes no response to questions concerning either their father’s condition or their mother’s welfare. She remains solemn and stares at him, red-eyed and unblinking. Shivering, he advances towards the solid metal door and closes it, its unyielding structure protecting the siblings and rendering the interior inaccessible. The sound of the door locking coincides with a jump cut to a medium shot of the bunker. Subsequently the camera pans left, situating the lookout to the right of the frame, and then pulls away to an aerial shot. The landscape is evocative of Burke’s rhetoric: mountainous, untamed and spectacular. As Leyshon and Brace put it: The landscape is scarred by the violence of natural processes. Static, disorganised piles of rocks, jagged cliffs, inhospitable windswept beaches and the cataclysmic geology of north Devon form the context for the film. Nature is used explicitly as an external marker of internal tumult, violent thoughts and confusion (2007: 205).

A distant island appears, bleak and overcast; it merges, through its muted use of colour, into its environs, whereas the foreground is dominated by large, ancient grey rocks and the inorganic concrete structure. Lasting over a minute, the sequence consists of one continuous helicopter shot that eventually zooms out from the building, ‘shrinking it to an insignificant spot in the unforgiving landscape’ (Petrie 1999: 22). Minimising the image in this way, results in a changing perspective through the modification of the frame, an act

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that further diminishes the concrete bunker and exaggerates the scale of spectator experience. Thus, in a truly Sublime approach, the affect is enhanced and becomes unmanageable, lacking any fixed boundaries. This shifting perspective becomes less reminiscent of a four-sided image and more evocative of a panorama, a vista on all sides, which was perceived as ‘an experimental response to a deeply-felt need for a medium that could surround the spectator and plunge them into a spectacular illusion’ (Andrews 1999: 142). Here, the framed becomes unframable, its boundaries constantly under modification. The disregard for boundaries, both narratively and visually, invests Roth’s complex images with the same intensity as Romantic art. NeoRomantic artist, Keith Vaughan (1912–77) demonstrates a similar disrespect for the frame in his work, which sometimes verges on near abstraction. Embracing wild and bleak austerity, he paints areas devoid of vegetation, such as rocky hillsides and ancient industrial locations. Vaughan’s work was never fully abstract, and the artist denounced what he perceived as the meaningless tactility of the American vogue for abstract expressionism, belittling it for its lack of spiritual connection between artist and spectator. As Vaughan remarked: Since nothing had been required from the spectator in the first place, he cannot complain if he gets little in return. The futility in the search for the Absolute – symptoms of an age without religion which cannot tolerate the anxieties and insecurities of relative and purely human values (cited in Woodcock 2000: 46).

Vaughan’s work, carried out during the Second World War, forms part of the Neo-Romantic tradition which was dominant at that time. His early compositions feature the solitary figure absorbed into the surrounding landscape, in a similar vein to his nineteenth-century predecessor, Samuel Palmer (1805–81), with whom he admits an allegiance. Seligkeit (1945) is a pen, black-ink and red-wash drawing which depicts a small, solitary figure seated against a dramatic sky. A road meanders through highly textured rocks, and the figure is curled into a ball, entrapped by the surrounding vegetation. The sun is rendered as a relentless entity, its rays brightly illuminating the cocooned character. Emanating despair, the figure is analogous to Tom in The War Zone, whereby the surrounding landscape operates



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to entrap and endanger both as sufferers. Seligkeit was produced near the end of the war, and, in a similar way to Roth’s aptly titled film, The War Zone, Tom and Vaughan’s figure in the landscape might be perceived as victims of conflict. Vaughan’s work and Roth’s film were created over 50 years apart, but Roth deliberately set out to create the film using such visual detail, as the screenplay author agrees: ‘A story on film must be told not through dialogue, like a play, but with what you see’ (cited in Leyshon and Brace 2007: 205). Roth’s visual vocabulary, including the juxtaposition of light and shade, his steep inclines and raging seas, both undermines the spectator and renounces any hope of respite or resolution for its characters. Disrespect for boundaries, and the deployment of steep, inaccessible inclines, are traits innate in the work of contemporary British Romantic artist Christopher Orr. He uses second-hand images from magazines and classical art for inspiration, and invests them with a Burkean emphasis. For both Roth and Orr, romanticism means more than escapism: their images subversively cross boundaries, both morally and visually. Just as The War Zone landscapes indicate gulfs in relationships and subjectivity, so Orr’s work indicates moral chasms. The use of self-awareness in visual imagery might be translated as an abyss: The duplication and multiplication of the images within the primary one is in this sense a very clear mise-en-abyme. It is a placement in the abyss, next to the abyss, toward the abyss. The image, which also displays the level of reflection on itself and reaches out into the deep stratum beneath it, has to overcome something – a caesura, a gap, a cleft, an abyss (Metzger 2005: 58).

Sometimes, the abyss might be metaphorical; the figure within the landscape must conquer the fissure. Orr’s painting All We Need Is The Air That We Breathe (2004) depicts two figures against an abyss. The title refers to a popular song released in 1974 by the British beat group the Hollies, and depicts two figures standing on the edge of a precipice looking skywards. An apocalyptic light seems to warn the spectator of a numinous presence, but the figures seem unaware of or accepting danger. Although dressed fairly conventionally in

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contemporary costume, they are not unlike Friedrich’s figures in Two Men Contemplating the Moon (1819) or his more renowned Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818), paintings which present what Koerner refers to as ‘the halted traveller as trope of experience, or as surrogate for the artist, and the audience…[who] becomes inseparable from the very fabric of the represented landscapes’ (2009: 213–14). Almost the entirety of Orr’s small painting is occupied by the shards of light that emanate from above. Placed off-centre, the male figure appears to reach out in an attempt to encapsulate the unobtainable, whilst the female figure looks on. Through his asymmetrical composition ‘Orr aims at a disturbing effect by abruptly breaking the syntactical structure of the scene; he constructs the paintings so they rhetorically imply a resolution that is surprisingly unfulfilled’ (Manacorda 2005: 220).This produces a similar effect to Tom’s experience in The War Zone; although he is presented as the halted wanderer, an abyss prevents any resolution for him. This is metaphorically explored through the visual aspects of the rugged Devon coastline, with its fissures and hollows interspersed in the sheer cliff faces. In parallel, Orr’s imagery creates a distance between the halted wanderers and the elements.Through their costume and demeanour Orr’s figures too appear displaced in their environment, and under the misconception of belonging. The Descent (2004) reiterates this delusion. Two diminutive figures walk along a valley floor. The first man, clad in a white shirt, moves purposefully, staring straight ahead. He is followed by a second man who, head down, seems to be searching for something as he wanders aimlessly. Almost the entire canvas is covered by mist and, from above, a bright light emanates from the sky, enhancing a feeling of abandonment. The origin of the characters is unclear, and neither is their destination apparent. Just as Tom is frequently visually displaced, Orr’s figures appear forlorn, friendless and separated from their environment. Ratcatcher (Ramsay 1999) The three films discussed above deal with teenagers who, for various (often inexplicable) reasons, inhabit the margins of society, and Ramsay’s film is no exception. Just as Sweet Sixteen focuses on Liam’s desire to procure a piece of the landscape in order to evade the realities



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of life, so James attempts to achieve distraction through forays into the countryside on the outskirts of Glasgow. Although not truly a realist film, Ratcatcher aligns itself to those tenets through its bleak narrative, and in their Cannes Film Festival review Nick James and Jonathan Romney allude to the film’s artistic leanings, combined with a documentary tendency, describing it as ‘realist-impressionist’ (1999: 23). While following a fairly tight narrative structure, Ramsay permits the spectator and the characters arrested moments for the contemplation of rural imagery, albeit with a disposition towards Surrealism. While Spencer describes ‘Ramsay’s approach to storytelling [as] both symbolic and oblique’ (1999: 17), another contemporary critic comments on the cinematography, pointing out: ‘The impressionistic action drives the film by image and feeling rather than narrative’ (Rae 2000: 14). The central character, James, begins his journey in the film when he boards a bus to take him to his dream home; this he discovers by accident. It takes the form of a partially built grey concrete building on a new housing estate on the outskirts of Glasgow, and seems to offer hope and a new start for the troubled youth. If the rubbishstrewn streets of Glasgow comprise the main background of the film, then the brief incursions into the countryside make a strong distinction between the two settings, a point made by Petrie, who contends: that [ James’s] own desire for escape leads him to the discovery of a Greenfield building site on the outskirts of the city. In addition to providing a sanctuary beyond the overcrowded dingy tenements surrounded by the rubbish-strewn streets and courtyards, the new houses also overlook an expanse of green fields, the image framed by the window like a cinema screen in what functions as practically a fantasy of freedom and possibility for the young boy…In conventional narrative terms very little happens in the film, yet the audience is invited to experience a rich palate of experiences and emotions from James’s guilt and loneliness to moments of spontaneous bliss when he runs through the open fields, or in the tender scene in which he innocently takes a bath with Margaret Anne (1999: 216).

Although not explicitly stated, James is troubled by a distressing secret: he has witnessed the death of his friend, Ryan (Thomas McTaggart),

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a neighbour’s son, who drowns, and the boy is forced to live with the knowledge that he is partly responsible. To add to his guilt, in an emotional scene at the beginning of the film, the neighbour offers James’s mother (Mandy Matthews) the new shoes she has recently purchased for her now dead son. Described as ‘poetic’ and ‘surreal’ (Spencer 1999: 17), Ramsay’s film gives precedence to images of rubbish and debris throughout, the country sojourn emphasising them through the eyes of the boy. As James ventures into the countryside, he peers through the bus window, observing the uncollected detritus resulting from the strike. His journey progresses, and the solid pavement and concrete foundations terminate, to be replaced by a verdant grassy backdrop. The bucolic transposition is made apparent as the boy stares thoughtfully at the great cooling towers on the skyline, beyond the passing wheat fields. When the bus rounds the bend and faces towards the sea, it is no longer James who benefits from the spectacle. The boy sits, facing the interior of the vehicle away from the landscape, whereas the spectator is privileged to a glimpse of the coastline to the right of the frame, albeit reframed by the numerous glass casings of the bus windows. Jaunty banjo music is added at this juncture, injecting a Western folksiness to the sequence, and a possible allusion to the American dream. Ramsay’s eye for detail came from her background as a fine art photographer and her later study at the National Film and Television School, and her comments on this sequence imply careful planning and premeditation. Mentioning James’s aspirations for a new home she informs the reader that: The idea of the new house is built up into something that feels quite unreal. You’re not sure whether the family will ever get it, but there’s this vague hope. James’ first visit to this empty house is also probably the first time he’s seen a field, so I wanted to give this field a wide-open, almost Midwestern American feel. When he goes back to the rainy field and the glass has been put in the window, it shows his own loss of innocence (cited in Spencer 1999: 19).

The spectator sees what the boy does not. When James is informed by the driver that the bus has arrived at its destination, he rises and descends to the lower deck. Leaving the viewer with an image of rolling fields and a deep blue sky, the film cuts to a shot of the bus



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incongruously situated centre-frame in what appears to be a deserted landscape, with an unfinished housing estate at its core. A short montage sequence ensues as James collects various building materials from the deserted construction site, and subsequently transforms them into play objects. He blows soil pipes as though they are trumpets, and runs along their length in a balancing act. Scaffolding becomes a climbing frame, and a blank wall is transformed into a mirror to practise shadow play. The landscape sequences in Ratcatcher are memorable but truncated. However, those that occur before James’s death are poignant, and mobilise the surreal effects which should forewarn the viewer of the outcome at the close of the film. Following James’s inspection of the new house, albeit not his new home, he arrives in a partially completed kitchen. Illuminated by the bright sunlight, the boy moves into the frame, and the camera cuts to a point-of-view shot of the wheat fields close to the house (Figure 2). The boy ‘gazes with awe upon a shimmering, golden cornfield to the rear of the new development, dreaming of the day when he can leave behind his refuse-ridden past and escape to a new idyllic existence’ (Rae 2000: 14). What is salient about this shot is the framing device used to border the landscape. Neither the boy nor the spectator is permitted to engage with an unmediated view, thus not enabling any exterior access. The glorious golden imagery is enclosed by the dark interior of the bare, unplastered walls of the house, the interior of which is encumbered by a kitchen sink placed to the lower left of the window. The empty room is presented as featureless and dull, in contrast to the brightly illuminated exterior, rendered picturesque through a series of natural horizontal lines. The rigid line of the window, punctuated by James’s form, is mirrored in the parallel line of the wheat field as it meets the almost cloudless sky. As Charlotte O’Sullivan argues, the film provides an impression of intensity without judgement. Thus what might appear to be an easy distinction – contaminated rubbish versus pure countryside – is made complex. The rubbish is dangerous, but it’s not aberrant. It’s merely another layer, partially but never entirely obscuring the view (1999: 51).

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In this instance, the debris of the incomplete housing estate borders the landscape, the window operating as a mediator yet also a tripartite distancing factor between the spectator, the boy and nature. The framing device offered here operates on a number of levels. Ideologically, the borders present both the spectator and James with a positive, beneficial space that provides light and fresh air – in other words, physical nourishment. Also, the use of the window to frame the landscape effectively disciplines nature, thus controlling it from the boy’s interior perspective. Malcolm Andrews notes the importance of the frame in art history in his discussion of the Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina’s religious study of St Jerome in his Study (c.1474): The view of the outside in this painting, the landscape (such as it is) with its looser rounder contours, is subordinated to the discipline of the interior which itself is a projection of the orderly mind of the scholar saint who is the chief focus…in all of this, the interior is clearly distinguished from the exterior: against this ruled complex of spaces, landscape functions distantly as the relatively unruly ‘outside’ that will not disturb the composure of Jerome’s study. The mind is in full control…[t]he motif of the window view sometimes including a gazing



James gazes with awe upon a shimmering cornfield in Ratcatcher (Ramsay 1999).

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figure, has been associated with specifically northern European Romantic preoccupations, the longing to escape confinement, the inducement to liberate the imagination to explore the vast regions of light. The motif, as one critic put it, ‘brings the confinement of an interior into the most immediate contrast with the immensity of space outside…the window is like a threshold, and at the same time a barrier’ (1999: 110–11).

In a similar way, the unfamiliarity of the wheat field is subordinated to the order of the kitchen, further restrained through the window surround. Nowhere is the threshold/barrier metaphor more clear than through James’s perspective as he sits down on the window ledge. The aperture operates as the onset of a new start for James and his family, fulfilling a dream of rural dwelling. The deprivation of his home in the tenement buildings of Glasgow, along with the rat-infested streets, is replaced by this clean, sanitised environment. This is reinforced through the boy’s liminal positioning between interior and exterior. The camera, in a series of jumps, zooms in to the window and James’s back appears as a Rückenfigur within the frame, silhouetted against the sunlit fields beyond, as he gazes out at the vast golden crop; the implication here is that there is an impending possibility of the boy’s escape from the confines of his abysmal home. Unlike the Renaissance painting mentioned above, James confuses indoors and outdoors by transgressing the area between the two. This displaces the relationship between the interior and exterior space, fusing what Andrews terms the unruly ‘outside’ into the interior, disturbing James’s control over the situation. The difficulties surrounding the family’s move and the boy’s past are insurmountable obstacles. Typical of the compositions in much nineteenth-century Romantic painting, ‘[t]he effect of a window frame around a landscape is to accentuate the sense of distance, cultural as well as visual, which that outside world acquires’ (Andrews 1999: 111). James is separated from this environment both through his personal circumstances – never to achieve his goal of moving to a better life – and visually through the outside wall of the house. The alluring attributes of the vista are, at this point, unattainable. Ramsay and the cinematographer, Alwin Kuchler, carefully and pictorially prepare the boy’s first encounter with the landscape, through

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a straightforward track onto a window through which the boy first sees a field, and because there are so few of these moves in the film, that one shot gains power – you’re not expecting it, and your eye isn’t used to it. It’s a simple strong move toward the window, and you feel you’re being drawn out, or that you’re flying with the boy out the window (Rae 2000: 15).

As James remains seated, his eyes fixed on the vista, the spectator is further reminded of the contamination he has left behind through constant references to hygiene and cleanliness. The taps from the kitchen sink appear incongruously in the frame, just below the window, and in an earlier sequence James has reclined in a new plastic-protected bath, pretending to turn on the unconnected taps. Similarly, he has urinated in the uncoupled toilet, from which the fluid seeps out onto the newly laid floor. After remaining in this position for a number of seconds, James jumps to the ground. Subsequently, the camera zooms slowly into the window aperture, thus eliminating it from the film frame to enable an unblemished view of the fields, as the boy runs towards the horizon. He drops out of sight, permitting an engagement with a two-coloured composition, dissected horizontally into two equal parts: the wheat field and the sky. Here, the formal use of parallel lines indicates stability, yet the colours form a strange contrast. The casing of the view through the window frame presents a limited perspective as a specific value, a sign of a good view; despite the proximity of the housing estate and peripheral buildings, this is rendered as an uninterrupted vista of the landscape, filmed from a low angle to include the great expanse of sky. If light and freedom are offered through this glimpse of the countryside, this is not a condition attained by James. He only gains his liberty in death, as the camera frames him drowning, juxtaposed with a surreal view of his family moving house. Filmed from a variety of angles, and in a series of close-ups contrasted with long shots, there follows a short montage sequence as James frolics playfully in the tall wheat. At one point, a shaft of sunlight appears to the left of the frame, obscuring his features; eventually his face breaks into an uncharacteristic slow smile displaying his pleasure and enjoyment. On the film’s release, contemporary critical reviewers commented on the ‘freedom and solace [he finds] in the clean shell of a



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half-built house’ (Spencer 1999: 17) and, true to her training, Ramsay presents these images as snapshots. Filmed from a low angle, James’s antics cease and his actions are arrested as he gazes distractedly at the ground. At this instant the sky menacingly clouds over, a possible premonition and foreboding of approaching events. As noted, the film is ‘driven by emotions and images rather than narrative’ (cited in Spencer 1999: 17). At a later point, James returns to the housing estate, but this time his outing is not as successful. Instead of bright sunlight, rain subdues the atmosphere, and he is unable to gain access to the house. The camera becomes an interior spectator, filming his blurred image from behind the reinforced frosted glass, as this time he peers in rather than out. Tracking the child’s progress from an interior position as he attempts to force an entry, the camera frames him against the backdrop of the wheat field, albeit there is now a glass pane separating him from the spectator/interior space, and his image behind the partition is partially obscured by the dripping rain. In a reversal of the previous sequence, the camera zooms out to reveal that the kitchen is now complete, but the landscape is seen only in the distance, indicating the loss of the uninterrupted vista, and thus encloses the spectator. Instead of the window’s aperture appearing larger, it becomes diminished, overpowered by the interior space. James walks into the field, but this time the window is divided in two. Filmed from a distance, he stops and turns around, and the camera cuts to a close-up of his face; his hair is wet and he wears a look of contemplation on his face. In this sequence, Ramsay reverses the situation of the gazing figure looking outwards. Instead, she places James on the outside, and the spectator as the liminal figure mediating the landscape. Ramsay’s claims to an ‘intuitive’ (Spencer 1999: 17) style of filmmaking are no more apparent than in the final sequence of the film when James returns to the canal where his friend drowned; here the camera films him from a distance as he steps slowly down the bank and into the water. Initially, in a shot reminiscent of the earlier death sequence, bubbles appear on the water’s surface. A cut to an underwater shot reveals James’s suspended figure, arms outstretched below the grime of the canal detritus. The shot fades to black for

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a number of seconds, possibly indicating the child’s death, before cutting to a stark contrasting image: that of hauntingly bright golden wheat fields, presumably, in this instance, assembled from his final pre-death moments of imagination. Initially, this is viewed in extreme close-up, as the ears of corn blow gently in the breeze. From a low angle, a head appears on the horizon as the camera remains static. Although the narrative is unclear at this point, arguably this pure landscape is the fulfilment of James’s dream as he dies. The head is that of his father (Tommy Flanagan) as he makes his way through the tall ears of corn, incongruously carrying the white leather settee that previously occupied their Glasgow flat. He is aided by a friend and followed by his wife, friends and daughter. Editing to a shot from an interior viewpoint, Ramsay reveals the group of people, now framed by the window. In the distance, two small figures appear; one is James’s sister, her reflection gazing back at her through the mirror that she carries; the second is James, struggling with a piece of furniture. This he places on the ground and, looking directly at the camera, he smiles before the final fade to black as the film ends. Ramsay’s images borrow eclectically from art sources, and she and the cinematographer deliberately aim for a flat, pictorial plane to produce something ‘painterly, pastel-like and soft’ (Kuchler, cited in Rae 2000: 16). Ramsay’s training is undoubtedly shaped by her education, and her creative technique is matched by artistic tendencies associated with the surreal aspects of neo-romanticism. As noted, if romanticism has never died out, albeit recurring more prominently at some times rather than others, then it can also be found in aspects of surrealism, an art movement which focuses on the subjectivity of dreams, the unconscious and the imagination. These are approaches associated with much of the visual culture produced during the Second World War. Paul Nash (1889–1946) was one such artist, who experimented with the illusion of depth through the use of mirrors in his work. He was fascinated with its power to distort and misrepresent, as well as its function ‘as a metaphor of artistic perception, being at the same time faithful or objective and fickle or subjective’ (Cardinal 2000: 91). Nash’s Landscape from a Dream (1936) depicts a bizarre composition, purportedly Purbeck cliffs.



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Through the concentrated hues of yellows and oranges to represent the strength of the sun on the landscape, to his renderings of the rocks scattered across the beach, and the clearly defined waves on the shore, the artist introduces minute detail. This seascape might be a more convincing interpretation, except that Nash has inserted an enormous mirror atop the cliff reflecting a large hawk, as well as a number of large, unrealistic spherical rocks. Permitting a sense of depth to the composition, the mirror rules out the presence of a spectator, who should surely be visible within its reflection. Cardinal points out the significance of the mirror, which he proposes is ‘presented as a metaphoric eye … a way of communicating the artist’s authority over the visibility of things … mirror images are never alive in the way that things perceived straightforwardly are’ (2000: 92). Cardinal treats the hawk as a symbol of the artist, and subsequently, as a meditation upon a number of contrasted options: stasis or motion, proximity or distance, submission or initiative, security or adventure, being earthbound or soaring into the upper air. The dream here is a dream of hesitancy, articulated through the formidable conjecture of contraries and is supported by other motifs which point up the theme of seeing and non-seeing (2000: 93).

Cardinal maintains that the work is a meditation on death, a significance not lost in Ramsay’s final sequences in Ratcatcher, where the landscape also appears unnaturally luminous, and the act of transporting the furniture and the mirror across the cornfield challenges probability. The mirror becomes the abyss, rendering the image unstable, and representing James’s dream world or, beyond that, his own death. Strangely, the use of a mirror in painting invokes the notion of realism hinting at observation on the human experience; yet, in this final sequence in Ratcatcher, it has surreal implications indicated through the bizarre and unexpected twist in the plot. Spencer succinctly sums up Ramsay’s work thus: ‘[She] devised her own offbeat visual vocabulary. Experimental but accessible, it’s this distinctive style that distinguishes the 29-year-old director’s striking first feature’ (1999: 17).

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Better Things (Hopkins 2008) The final film discussed in this chapter offers the spectator a more immediate contact with the landscape. The directorial debut of Duane Hopkins was conceived because he wanted to return to his roots, which was the Cotswold area of his childhood. This he achieves in his first short film, The Field (2005), and it is an idea that he develops as the setting for Better Things. He chooses to introduce aspects which one might encounter in an urban environment, and to recreate them in a rural milieu which ‘made for a new dynamic between the stories we’d seen before and a new place’ (Hopkins 2009). Hopkins consciously introduces Romantic imagery into his work, assenting that Better Things seems disconnected, in that it is comprised of a compilation of ideas centred upon certain sounds, certain characters and the landscape. He deliberately sets out to make the work painterly: Everything from film is stolen from all the other arts…It is also Romantic in the way that if we talk about things like the old Romantic movement with painters…who [were] very influential for me when we were putting together the aesthetic of the film…this type of painting has a beautiful type of narrative to it, and a beautiful type of mystery to it which feels very heavy, it feels quite bleak, but there is definitely a Romanticism underneath it so I wanted that kind of element in the film (2009).

Better Things was shot on location, in a semi-documentary style and using some non-professional actors. The director prioritises sound and image, sometimes independently of each other to produce austerity and a sense of mystery. Towards the end of Better Things, Gail (Rachel McIntyre) walks into a woodland copse near her house. She gazes upwards into the branches of a silver birch tree which is rustling in the wind. Hopkins prioritises this, developing a loud piercing sound and, filmed from a low angle, the branches form a network across the frame, almost obliterating the sky. The noise becomes progressively louder, until an edit reveals the dead body of Rob (Liam McIlfatrick) who has overdosed on heroin. A further cut returns to Gail as she stands, her back to the camera, looking out over the landscape. Her voice-over



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repeats the words from a book she has been reading: ‘This was real life,’ it states in a matter-of-fact way, as the body of Rob lies prostrate on his bed, ‘and real life was difficult. At best, hadn’t she learned that, when she was a little girl?’ the voice continues as the camera cuts to a medium shot of her figure. ‘Why did she think falling in love would make it easier,’ it says as the camera returns to the death and shows an exchange of looks between Larry (Kurt Taylor) and Rachel (Megan Palmer). The voice-over here is disconnected from the imagery, establishing an equal but disparate status to sound and image. At the end of this sequence, Gail, who is an agoraphobic, is seen striding away purposefully from the camera through a plethora of trees into the open landscape, but not before she pauses in front of a silver birch with blossom growing from its trunk. An edit briefly ellipses time and she becomes smaller in the frame, but still in the exact position. However, by moving the frame but retaining the same image, in conjunction with the use of time-lapse photography, the landscape alters and a large tree and foliage flank the left- and righthand sides of the composition. Here Hopkins places the spectator in a voyeuristic position, watching Gail’s movements and possible recovery from her phobia. As Romney points out, ‘Better Things requires the viewer to do more connective work than just about any other recent British film’ (2009: 46). Although Gail has recovered from her illness, Hopkins provides little narrative explanation throughout. Instead, the film traverses the borders of established expectation and style by producing what in effect seem to be a series of photographic stills. What should be commonplace in terms of film style becomes equivocal, producing a similar effect to a photograph, an installation, or the dual nature of land art which divides the work into the ambivalent spaces of interior and exterior. As Weinhart suggests, all media possess the capability of chasm: ‘The image, the photograph, or the installation becomes an abyss where one falls into the otherness of reality’ (2005: 36). As a Romantic preoccupation, this intersection of borders into an alternative reality questions the constantly changing aspects of the landscape. Hopkins’s oblique style of metaphorically framing his images through the addition of aural suggestion demonstrates his allegiance to artists who work with the land, such as Richard Long and

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Andy Goldsworthy. Long uses his own experiences of walking and documenting an area as representative of the landscape, rather than actually manipulating the land. The artist continues a tradition of romanticism in art through his staging of the mystical concepts of the landscape in exhibition spaces. Long draws on the idea of Britain divided by celestial ley lines for his work, and commentators have noted the links with Line Made by Walking (1967), a photograph of a pathway on Exmoor leading up to a woodland, and the theory of ley lines, which link ancient historical sites to one another. Garnering materials such as sticks, stones and other natural miscellany, Long uses these as a personification of his encounter with the land. He then reworks his experiences in the art gallery, based on his familiarity and experience of an area. Similarly, Hopkins frames his own childhood experiences through his visual imagery, and also through documentation – in this case the audible thoughts of Gail, the lone wanderer, as she reads her book. Gail’s actions are ritualistic, and Long’s work also veers in this direction. Art critic Jenni Sorkin comments on the recent tendency for artists working with natural materials to focus on primitive civilisations and journeys. This, she believes, is a Romantic trend and may be found in Long’s work, in particular his compulsion to evidence his walks through a variety of visual records. As she maintains: ‘The impulse to walk is buried deep within the British persona. Moody, restless journeys in the landscape have appeared throughout British literature (Wordsworth, Hardy, the Brontës) and nineteenth-century landscape painting (Constable, Talbot, Turner)’ (1999: 19). Here Sorkin inadvertently refers to the experiences of the wanderer in the landscape, a figure in search of a mystical or numinous experience. Long assembles circles, consonant with the notion of a spiritual landscape, which are comprised of natural ephemera collected on his travels, and subsequently he places them in the gallery. His work possesses properties associated with healing processes and, as Sorkin states, ‘stones, sticks, and mud have all been sources of power, masculinity, and/or healing in pre-Modern cultures’ (1999: 20). On a more contemporary level, artist Andy Goldsworthy provokes similar responses to his work through the notion that the land should not be represented as landscape bound by the restrictions of interior



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exhibition spaces. He places his manipulations of the land and nature within the gallery, only to demonstrate their alienation and temporality. Goldsworthy believes in the notion that, traditionally, landscape art has represented an imagined ideal rurality, yet nature is constantly subject to modification. A Moonlit Path (2003) consists of a one-metre-wide chalk path through the woodlands of Petworth Park, the South Downs country house and estate that Turner frequented and on numerous occasions painted. The walk must take place at night, illuminated only by the moon and stars, with a 30-second interval between individuals to encourage the sensation of isolation. Goldsworthy’s sculpture aims at uniting the visitor experience with the fundamentals of nature, and the encounter with A Moonlit Path encourages a spiritual aspect which invites the spectator to ‘have faith in the artist. Sometimes the path goes up or down or through a very dark tunnel, but trust in Andy, and believe that the path is safe’ (Young 2003: 57). Venturing into A Moonlit Path has evocatively been described by the artist as ‘an idea of doing something for the night, the idea of a line which would lead you into a place you wouldn’t normally go’ (cited in Lowenstein 2003: 36). Goldsworthy’s description reveals a mysticism and observation of a power beyond, and the art work and the process of viewing fuses isolation and segregation through this solitary activity. Thus, Goldsworthy and Long involve the spectator in encountering the art work through a physical contribution and a response to nature. This need not be through conventional practice, as with a framed image; instead, ‘art and nature are joined through the ties these works have with their site and with their perceivers’ (Berleant 1995: 238). In some respects, Better Things develops a style that parallels Goldsworthy’s preoccupations. The film opens with a blank screen accompanied by the loud clamour of a gale. The visual does not here prevail over the aural, Hopkins providing equal weight to the relationship between the two. An edit to a shot of an open landscape, with a small copse placed centre-frame reveals a grey, almost black sky, as the trees sway backwards and forwards in the high wind. However, at this point Hopkins chooses not to introduce the sound previously heard over the blank screen. Instead, he initiates the voice of Gail as she states: ‘Nothing, nothing, she supposed, this was real

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life, and real life was difficult, at best.’ The camera alternates between shots of the written word (sometimes meaningless and out of context) on the page in extreme close-up, to a shot of Gail lying on her bed reading, to a shot of the landscape. This final image in the sequence, however, is from a different perspective. The camera is placed optically at a distance, and the empty fields stretch to the horizon, culminating in woodland. The sky is now blue, cast in a pink hue and appears tranquil and soporific. However, Hopkins alters the tone immediately by cutting back to Gail as the voice-over, presumably her imaginings asks, ‘hadn’t she learned that?’. She is gazing out onto the surrounding landscape, and her reflection is seen in the glass of the window, although it remains daylight. The devices deployed here include the Rückenfigur, and a partial window view which positions the spectator outside the character’s privileged space, signifying challenges to subjectivity. A second later, the exterior view is shown again, but this time it is night and the trees become dark silhouettes. As Romney points out: Hopkins’ style establishes itself in a quietly striking pre-credits sequence, which begins with 28 discrete shots of even length, so uniformly static that, at first they might be mistaken for a sequence of photographic stills. A series of shots of Gail in her room, [are] framed by images from the surrounding landscape (trees on the horizon, rows of nondescript suburban-style houses) (2009: 46).

Hopkins refers both visually and aurally to death and mortality through his images of the landscape. When Gail’s grandmother, Mrs Wilson (Lillian Hutt) is dying, she glances across at the photograph of a man, presumably her late husband, who was killed during the Second World War, leaving her to rear their ten children. A shabby scrap of paper is attached with an epitaph about his love of the landscape, and the opening sentences read: ‘He loved the open spaces, windswept moors and grassy slopes. His work was in the country, which fulfilled his simple hopes – a kind man, a good man’. The terminology evokes Sublime and Romantic vocabulary in tune with great expanses of landscape, which Hopkins reinforces visually in his film. At no time does the rural imagery change. Shots of fields set against a bleak, cloudy sky give the film its ‘severe mood



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[whereby] the predominantly blue-grey tones of Lol Crawley’s photography suggest an eternal Thursday afternoon of the soul’ (Romney, 2009: 46). The title of Hopkins’s film also implicitly proposes a substitute existence, or an alternative expectation. This occurs to some extent at its close. Two of the characters, Mr and Mrs Gladwin (Frank and Betty Bench), repair their differences, aided by a piece of Burt Bacharach music appropriately entitled ‘Please Stay’. David (Che Corr) catches a train to see his girlfriend, Sarah (Tara Ballard), Gail overcomes her fear, and Rachel and Larry exchange glances across the classroom indicating that reconciliation might occur. Rob overdoses on heroin, but his final moments are spent dreaming of Tess (Emma Cooper). Nan eventually dies, but not before she determinedly states that she wants to go outside, a beneficial action that prompts Gail to walk into the landscape at the end of the film. Nan sits in her wheelchair as Gail pushes her along, and the two appear to fade into the background, a possible allusion to Nan’s imminent mortality. The signification of a numinous presence is lent weight by the colouring of the sky, where a bank of dark cloud is illuminated by a shaft of sunlight, as though from a divine intervention, accompanied by the piercing sound of the wind blowing through the trees. The two remain immobile, until the camera cuts to a close-up of Nan’s wizened face, followed by a point-of-view shot of the vista. In a later sequence, Nan comments: ‘I thought it was beautiful out there, the trees always look special at this time of year. I prefer summer, mind. He liked autumn though.’ Her face, as she speaks, is placed against a white wall, suggesting ‘a soul already melting into abstraction’ (Romney 2009: 47). Weinhart defines romanticism as ‘in part a symptom of a social reality, as a reality with yearnings and needs that seek gratification among offerings that transcend the everyday’ (2005: 37). The films discussed in this chapter all focus on young people who desire and covet the unattainable. Ranging from James, a young boy with a terrible secret, who craves a new rural existence outside the grime of Glasgow, to Liam, a teenager with no future – these central protagonists are all products of contemporary Western film-makers operating in a rapidly changing global society, with its attendant problems. Lacking social mobility and the necessary communicative

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skills to traverse boundaries, the characters are undeniably overpowered by their surroundings, resulting in emotions of anxiety and insecurity manifested through the presentation of the landscapes considered here. Unlike the kitchen-sink dramas of the 1960s, rural vistas are not commonly rendered as pleasurable spectacles, but are presented as Romantic evocations, often contradicting narrative motivation. As Weinhart suggests, these Romantic moments are fleeting, yet they enable a cultural emotional vocabulary to evolve that oscillates between a certain melancholy, a mourning of loss, and desire or expectation. Therein lies the emotional parallel to the Romantic and Sublime imagery of the nineteenth century, as a time of political and economic upheaval. It is back again: the desire for intimacy and security in the face of the infinity and homelessness of a subject left to its own devices – and just as in ‘historical’ Romanticism, the visual becomes merely a foil for expressing a psychic state (2005: 37).

If the social realist film finds a means of expressing these anxieties through its use of landscape, then romanticism finds its way into the rural nightmares of the horror film. The next chapter examines the antagonistic ‘character’, the rural, in the psychological thriller and horror genre.



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Sublime Horror: Moorlands, Mountains and Mudflats in the ‘Not Home’ Setting

By looking at a range of critically popular horror films it becomes apparent that the landscapes within these narratives are specifically chosen in order to perform both an aesthetic and functional role: each environment is simultaneously depicted as being beautiful and chaotic, as both passive and aggressive. These visual qualities place a greater emphasis on their role as an isolated setting and, by doing so, become a quietly antagonistic character in themselves (Rose, J. 2007).

Film critic James Rose raises a frequent topic for discussion – the function of landscape in the horror genre. Although in a review of an Australian film, Wolf Creek (Mclean 2005), he suggests that analogies might be drawn between character and setting ‘to enforce tensions within the narrative’ (2007). For Rose, the horror setting possesses two important characteristics: it is both ‘civilised’ and ‘primitive’. As he maintains: ‘Within horror films, the threat often inhabits the depicted landscape and so must be equated with it, making them as hostile and as primitive as the space itself ’ (2007). Thus, according to Rose, in horror films the landscape becomes part of the narrative, each feeding off the other. As noted in Chapter One, the two cannot be divorced, yet arguably the notion that the rural idyll is transformed into a hostile space is materialised not only through the narrative, but also through its self-contained formal properties. This Rose acknowledges when discussing the Western genre in cinema: Each landscape remains unaltered by the narrative, continuing to exist as a space which refuses the progress of civilization. The landscape retains its sense of purity, its beauty and its hostile qualities. It is for these reasons that they provide such convincing locations: they can not be changed, remaining forever fixed in a hostile state, regardless of who ventures over their boundary (2007). 79



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Just as the pastoral in the Western has acquired its own aesthetic as antagonistic wilderness, so the horror landscape has more than a marginal presence: it acquires its own visual authority drawing on specific codes and features evocative of a Burkean Sublime. In the horror landscape, rural woodland idylls become spaces of entrapment, forming gloomy, sinister thickets as day turns to night. What should be tranquil, pastoral paradises develop into hazardous, remote locations, articulated through the films’ narratives which are designed to elicit a specific response of fear from its audience. This is provided through the form of a threat, usually a threat of death at the hands of a predator, indicated through the medium shot where the spectator can identify with the protagonists. Arguably, however, a sense of threat is also provided through the detached shot of the landscape, which evokes fear by removing the spectator sufficiently from the action, a process implicated in the creation of Sublime affect. Thus, landscape as Sublime in the horror film emerges, not only through the narrative, but also through the long-distance shot, a technique which constructs a perspective enhancing the threatening mood. A significant motif of the horror film is the pagan landscape. As Tanya Krzywinska points out: Jagged monoliths, eroded earthworks, stone circles, hillside chalk figures: the enigmatic remnants of pre-historical landscapes in the British countryside have fired the imagination of artists, writers, historians, archaeologists and filmmakers. From folklore to feature films, the ‘pagan’ landscape has inspired mystery, horror and romance (2007: 75).

If the pagan landscape is connected to the horror film, it is also a key component of romanticism. In the past the Romantics drew for inspiration from pagan myths in ‘order to evoke the sublime majesty of the stone circles and…a lost Arcadian age when the poetry had religious status’ (Krzywinska 2007: 77). The Last Great Wilderness (David Mackenzie) is a film that draws upon secular communities to create its horror, although ultimately it is not this gathering of disturbed individuals who commit the atrocities, but the city thugs in pursuit of the protagonists. Eden Lake sees its director create rural hillbilly equivalents, young boys who inexplicably react to the incomers, wreaking havoc and death. What



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should be a rural retreat for the two central protagonists adopts traits inherent in the genre; it manifests itself as a place of danger, full of strange, perverted locals. These two films might be identified as what David Bell (1997) terms ‘rural horrors’, in which isolated populations present a danger to incomers from the city. Their landscapes entrap the outsider, providing claustrophobic environments which prevent escape. Conversely, the narrative in Children of Men commences with unsettling images of London, before its central protagonist, Theo (Clive Owen), escapes to the supposed safety of the countryside. Similarly, 28 Days Later, Boyle’s film about a group of infected chimpanzees set free by an animal-liberation organisation, begins in a deserted hospital, also in the capital city, although the characters eventually escape to the country. Unlike these last two films, The Hide, a quirky low-budget British film, is a psychological thriller set entirely in the countryside – the Suffolk mudflats – using the same location throughout. All these examples use the landscape in different ways, yet there is a Romantic and Sublime thread throughout, with numerous equivalents on the contemporary British art scene. The Last Great Wilderness (Mackenzie 2002) Unlike a number of the examples discussed in this chapter, the narrative in The Last Great Wilderness starts in the landscape – at a remote motorway service station near the Scottish border. Ten minutes into the film, Charlie (Alastair Mackenzie) picks up Vincente ( Jonny Phillips), a gigolo who initially pretends to be Spanish, and is fleeing from contract killers after a recent sexual misdemeanour. The film follows the journey of the two men, and the development of their relationship. Charlie is in search of his estranged wife who, we learn, has settled on the Isle of Skye with her lover. Vincente, on the other hand, is fleeing from a group of vigilantes who have already made an attempt on his life because of his liaison with the wife of their boss. The two travel through open countryside, and, inevitably, run out of petrol. Searching for a fuel station, they stumble upon a retreat for damaged residents. Strange occurrences alert them to danger, but ironically it is the vigilantes who catch up with them, and who subsequently inflict harm.

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The spectator is predisposed towards the hostility of the landscape at the outset of the film. When asked where he is going, Charlie replies in ominous tones that he is headed for the Isle of Skye, subsequently explaining that he is going to burn down the house of the man ‘who stole my wife’. The implication here is that the countryside presents a threat, and that there are dangers ahead to be encountered by the men. As the two men cross the Scottish border, the cinematography changes from medium and close-up shots, to a more distance, therefore optical, perspective. Filmed in long shot, the car is overpowered by an enormous rocky outcrop in the foreground, and hence diminished in the frame. The sky is heavy and bleak, and the mention of the remote Scottish island insinuates the notion of a dystopian future for the two. Although, the imminent dangers are not yet apparent, already the landscape is presented as Sublime affect: desolate, hostile and uninhabited. The use of wild, turbulent landscapes in horror films pays homage to the Sublime vocabulary, which challenges order. This produces an affect on the senses which bypasses reason. According to Burke: The mind is so entirely filled with its object that it cannot entertain any other, nor by reason on that object which employs it. Hence arises the great power of the sublime, that far from being produced by them, it anticipates our reasonings, and hurries us on by an irresistible force (cited in Andrews 1999: 132).

Sublime landscapes symbolise control, and punctuate the narrative in The Last Great Wilderness. In horror films generally, it is often the landscape that controls the protagonist, and it is the characters’ lack of power which imprisons them within their environment. Again, this is a notion proposed by Burke, who claimed to ‘know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power. And this branch rises as naturally as the other two branches, from terror, the common stock of everything that is sublime’ (1998: 137). Burke listed the causes of the Sublime as ‘power, obscurity, privation, vastness, infinity, difficulty, and magnificence…All suggest experiences that rob us of control’ (cited in Andrews 1999: 134). Burke’s rhetoric is transposed into visual concepts in Mackenzie’s strange film. At certain points in The Last Great Wilderness, the wilderness of the title is released from



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the narrative fiction, ‘freed from eventhood’, in other words setting has briefly become landscape before the spectator again engages with the narrative. No sooner has Charlie run out of petrol, than he fortuitously discovers Moor Lodge, a rural retreat for misfits. The ‘not-home’ setting that Rose (2007) describes is emphasised – the characters visit the landscape as interlopers and outsiders, a feature repeated in the other examples examined here. From this point on, the exposed Scottish landscape where the entire film is set becomes threatening, and a site for entrapment. This might not be thought surprising given that the film has been compared by one contemporary critic with other seminal British examples, who comments on its ‘hints of pagan ritualism [which] brace us for sinister conspiracies to rival those of The Wicker Man (1973)’ (Richards 2003: 49). Indeed, a staple ingredient of the horror film is the terrifying setting, and Scotland features high on the list as a horror location, where the uncivilised and wild characteristics of the environment are permanently reinforced.1 The film’s genre moves from road movie to suspense as Charlie and Vincente encounter the inhabitants of the retreat. Managed by Ruaridh (David Hayman), the occupants consist of Morag (Louise Irwin) a nymphomaniac, Claire (Victoria Smurfit), a woman with a troubled past, Eric (Ford Kiernan) an agoraphobic and Paul ( John Comerford), a paedophile. The landscape as chaotic and aggressive emerges as the two men drive into Scotland. Prior to their arrival at the lodge, they pull into a remote Scottish garage, with distant snow-covered hills that flank the frame on either side. Initially, they are seen in medium shot, and the isolation of the fuel station is not overly apparent. The camera then cuts to a distant shot of the same image, but from a higher vantage point. A figure, presumably Vincente or Charlie, walks across the courtyard of the garage, and the connotation here is of a loss of power, both through the arrangement of the diminished figures and the appearance of the unwelcoming vista beyond. The image consists of a squat building, situated to the lower right of the frame on the edge of a lake; it is dwarfed by the mountains that rise up in the distance, and on the horizon a break in the clouds illuminates the sky, implying a numinous presence. The shot represents the qualities that Burke outlines as sources of the Sublime.

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The ‘vast’, ‘magnificent’ mountains are ‘obscured’ by mist and snow, and seem to stretch into ‘infinity’. This deprives the senses, leading to loss of control and placing the spectator at the mercy of nature. Tan and Frijda propose an emotion identifiable as the Sublime in filmviewing, which they term ‘The Awe-Inspiration Theme’. Unrelated to either the narrative, or the emotions of the characters, it is associated with spectator response, in particular the cinematic experience: Being in an environment in which one feels tiny and insignificant, such as a huge coliseum or a cathedral, experiencing the vastness or endlessness of a landscape or empathizing with music may provoke two kinds of emotional response. In both cases, the stimulus is appraised as larger than oneself, as it provokes a tendency of helplessness and surrender (1999: 62).

As Tan and Frijda might argue, in this sequence, the spectator yields to the awe-inspiring scenery, and this produces a ‘sense of loss of orientation and intimidation’. They discuss the action of capitulation and yielding in relation to a greater force, which includes the landscape, and propose that: ‘One stimulus of awesome sentiment is a filmic representation of an object that in reality, too, makes people fall silent’ (Tan and Frijda 1999: 62). Imagery is replaced by dialogue as Charlie unnecessarily informs Vincente that ‘there’s nobody there’, narratively elucidating their loss of control, a condition that the spectator has been made aware of through the previous landscape shot. At this point, Vincente encounters a young girl inside the deserted building. It transpires that this is in fact a ghost, the daughter of Magnus (Ewan Stewart) (a local inhabitant who drinks at the retreat), whom he murdered as an act of mercy; a victim of depression, she had set herself on fire and was burning to death. The encounter alludes to Vincente’s later demise in the film, as he is the only living person to meet her. This sequence both enables spectator engagement with the narrative, following a halt for a landscaping gaze or, as Lefebvre would suggest, to slip in and out of narrative involvement. The magnitude of the Scottish landscape is instrumental to the narrative, as Charlie is forced to go in search of fuel for his car, having abandoned the vehicle on the side of the road. He walks back towards



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the garage and is seen in a low-angle shot, in silhouette, set against the dramatic skyline. Illuminated by the setting sun, two trees flank the right-hand side of the frame, their darkened shapes portending a sense of menace. Though, as Koerner notes, it is not only the features of a landscape which inherently offer this threat, but ‘it is their obscurity, their presence and absence as objects of the viewer’s gaze that endows them with their power’ (2009: 212). This positions the Sublime as a state of mind in the spectator, and establishes it as a subjective aesthetic. The image reinforces the subjective standpoint of the viewer, but, by situating the figure of Vincente in the frame, a position of instability is created, consequently undermining that of the spectator. Charlie returns, and he and Vincente are shown outlined against the sky. Metaphorically and visually the landscape encompasses the two men and, from this point on, they are subsumed in the life of Moor Lodge. The sign for the refuge advertises itself as a ‘Wilderness Retreat’ where one is enjoined to ‘Leave Your Troubles Behind’, a command which embraces its remoteness. On first encounter, the spectator is presented with a white building surrounded by hills, where the absence of human presence, along with the domination of the mountains, enhances the sense of solitude. An empty road stretches ahead, leading the eye to the darkening clouds in the sky. The landscape is thus conveyed as immeasurable space, which not only enhances the narrative, as Charlie and Vincente are disempowered, but also operates to overwhelm the spectator, and hence make him/her vulnerable to suggestion. Moor Lodge fits into the clichéd Gothic ‘old dark house’ category associated with the horror genre. Its hallway is adorned with stuffed birds and animals reminiscent of Psycho (Hitchcock 1960), with the eyes of the beasts, shown in close-up, intimating the voyeuristic nature of the horror film. Charlie and Vincente encounter the inhabitants of the retreat: all troubled people with problems of a varying nature, and, for a short period, the pair becomes entrenched and entrapped in its way of life. At one point, Vincente goes shooting, but is unable to kill a deer. He and Magnus are shown in the mountains, lying amidst bracken, their guns poised ready to fire. Depicted centre-frame, only their heads are visible above the rise of a mound in the foreground. The

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bleakness of the surroundings is further enhanced by the flurries of snow that begin as the two take aim at a deer grazing nearby. Although Magnus and Vincente are in the forefront of the frame, the eye is led to the left-hand side of the image, which shows the desolate, snow-covered peaks of the mountains. For reasons inexplicable to the audience at this point, neither man can shoot the animal, and the camera cuts from an extreme close-up of their troubled faces to a long shot as they stand. The circumstances of Magnus’s daughter’s death are to be revealed at a later point in the film, and this sequence is thus narratively motivated. However, rather than dwell on this, an edit to a distance shot of the landscape gives the spectator a pictorial composition of the mountains, in which the characters now appear to the right of the frame, and instead of centring on the protagonists, the composition is dominated by the inhospitable Scottish landscape. Sepia-coloured bracken gives way to hills of the same hue, capped by the white peaks of the summits in the distance. Clouds and mist descend, blurring the distinction between land and sky, but light emanates over the right-hand peak, suggesting a spiritual presence. Wearing dark clothing, and blending in with their environment, the men are marginalised in the frame – dwarfed, and physically and metaphorically overpowered by their surroundings. A moment of tranquillity occurs in the film’s next sequence, which mixes both pure and impure landscapes. Magnus invites Charlie and Vincente back for coffee to his ‘humble abode’, which turns out to be an antler-adorned caravan, set amongst the hills. It is here that Vincente discovers the identity of the mysterious ghost that he has previously encountered. She is Flora ( Jane Stenson), Magnus’s dead daughter. As he and Charlie leave, Magnus’s profile appears through the caravan window, gazing upwards, the snowy peaks of the Highlands reflected as a backdrop. This shot blurs the boundaries between the actual landscape and an illusory setting, presumably an allusion to the transience of life, in this case that of the daughter he was forced to kill. In The Last Great Wilderness, the landscape shifts between horror space where evil deeds happen, to psychological and affective space, both imparted as pictorial imagery. In the final sections of the film, and in a twist of events, Vincente has been found by the vigilantes



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pursuing him. At this juncture, all the characters have cross-dressed for the wake of one of the residents, as was her express dying wish. Charlie is struck on the head as he goes in search of Magnus, and the camera cuts to a shot of Vincente as he is caught in the headlights of a car. Night turns to day as he uses the open expanses of the moors to flee his pursuers. At this point, the camera frames a rural environment devoid of any human activity. There is no sky visible and horizontal lines exaggerate the expansive spaces. Suddenly, the figure of Vincente appears; dressed incongruously in white, female clothing, he advances towards the camera. Never is the bleak aspect of the Scottish countryside more apparent than in this early dawn shot. Vincente runs towards Magnus’s caravan which stands isolated in the surrounding hills. It appears as a small dot, barely visible to the naked eye, and, although it spells safety for Vincente, this is not immediately apparent. A cut to a point-of-view shot through a viewfinder indicates that the vigilantes are in pursuit, and that they have sighted their prey. Vincente’s death occurs tied to a tree, where he is castrated by the hired killers; rather than murder him, they gouge his eyes out. He is discovered by Charlie and Magnus, and the men are left with no alternative but to shoot him, just as Magnus killed his own daughter. Following this terrible, graphically depicted event, the camera withdraws, framing the two men as distant spots on the landscape, and the image appears as space freed from eventhood, where at first it is difficult to distinguish any human presence at all (Figure 3). Their subdued clothing enables them to blend in with their surroundings; the muted colours of the heather and the bracken on the mountains reinforcing the effect. While Magnus and Charlie bury Vincente, the sun rises and light is introduced filtering through the snow-capped mountains, a feature which indicates dawn, and possibly a suggestion of some other spiritual entity, greater than the characters. The small mound of the grave remains barely visible, intimating that time will conceal the pagan burial site, and restore the landscape back to its primeval beginnings – all processes associated with regeneration and renewal. This static shot reveals no perceptible movement from the figures, thus enabling a spectacular gaze, with little narrative motivation. Although the task that the men are involved in is, as yet,

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unclear, through its lengthy duration and its distancing techniques the image acquires a pictorial quality cognate with various traditions of the Scottish landscape-painting genre. Only then does Mackenzie permit the spectator access to what is taking place, thus revealing the gravity of the situation. This occurs through a medium, slightly overhead shot of Magnus and Charlie, paused in silence over the grave. The entire sequence is linked by soft piano music, and as Magnus and Charlie leave the scene, the camera cuts to a low-angle shot of the branches of the trees; these are lit through their canopy by dappled sunlight which twinkles magically. Mackenzie has provided the spectator with a mix of emotions, ranging from fear and dread to existentialism and revulsion. He presents a combination of serenity tinged with horror through the moorland and mountain terrain. Narratively, the above leads into the final sequence, which intimates renewal and promise. The paedophile plays a ball game with Claire’s child; Magnus begins the reconstruction of his burnt-out cottage, with the help of Ruaridh and Morag; Eric the agoraphobic takes a few tentative steps outside, and Charlie and Claire part on amicable terms despite the fact that they have been engaged in a relationship. All seems well, although the spectator is left unsure as to whether Charlie will continue with his journey to Skye, and a favourable future for the Moor Lodge residents remains in doubt. As if to reinforce



Pagan burials and sublime landscapes in The Last Great Wilderness (Mackenzie 2002).

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these uncertainties, and in a motif that has been repeated throughout the film, as Charlie departs the camera frames his car, which becomes a small speck in the distance, overpowered by the might of nature. Dark evocations of the landscape are frequently expressed through representations of a mountainous terrain, and this has provided the focus of attention for Romantic artists and poets for more than two decades. Contemporary British landscape artist David Tress combines the remote with the industrial changes that have occurred over the last 200 years. The artist violates the canvas as a response to the elements by scratching, physically scraping or cutting the picture plane, and then patching it, to imply nature’s processes of renewal and regeneration. His debt to his early Romantic predecessors is made apparent through his re-enactment of J.M.W. Turner’s travels. Turner’s forays into the Scottish landscape took place in 1801 and 1831, and Tress bases his work on his nineteenth-century forerunner’s response to this area. As the artist himself points out: The word Sublime had a much more specific meaning in that time than it does today – it was applied to views which were awe inspiring or terrifying – and the places in Britain in which artists found these ‘awful’ and ‘terrific’ prospects were chiefly in North Wales, the North of England, particularly the Lake District, and Scotland (2008: 5).

His Study for Glen Coe (2004) (Figure 4) consists of broad, mixedmedia brushstrokes on paper. Described by Tress as ‘empty of traffic and powerful in scale’ (2008: 48), the ochre and green colours of the landscape are intersected by bold splashes of light for illumination. To the left, a block of white implies a snow-covered mountain, edged by a blue-grey sky. Tress’s images are consumed by the need to be personally subjected to the experience. As Ian Jeffrey remarks: At Norham Castle he noted that he had to scramble ‘along the private north bank through increasingly dense brambles and scrub’ until he found a position approximating to Turner’s view. In the west of Scotland, amongst the islands, he had to cope with sea breezes, choppy seas and – travelling from Mull to Staffa – ‘a rolling and pitching boat’. Where Turner was attracted by incidentals and by the idea of the near to hand David Tress cites something more existential: the resistance of things, and of places along with their complement of traffic and crowds. Normally we would shy away from choppy seas and brambles along the

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river’s edge, but in pursuit of Turner and sublime light natural resistances enhance the experience (2008: 12).

Tress’s Voyage to Staffa I (2004) and Voyage to Staffa II (2004) visually embody the private experience of his visit. Based on a colour palette of blue, grey and black, through jagged brushstrokes, the mixedmedia images on paper reconstruct the turmoil of the treacherous sea. Tress describes the affect of the trip using Sublime rhetoric, thus: ‘I took a small boat to the island on a day of stiff breeze and choppy sea. Rapidly changing patterns of sun and cloud gave a sea continually moving from deep charcoal grey and blue greys, to silver and pale green’ (2008: 44). His Sketch Book Study: Ben Mhor From The Sea (2004) consists of an annotated study of the same boat trip. The image is from the artist’s viewpoint looking back towards Mull. As he describes it: ‘There was a stiff breeze and a choppy sea, and the concentration required for making the drawing conveniently helped me to avoid being seasick. The discomfort was more than made up for by the wonderful changing pattern of light and shadow on sea and land’ (2008: 50). That Tress was concerned with the re-enactment of the artist’s journey as much as with the completed painting is part of the process which the artist perceives as inherent in creating the



David Tress, Study for Glen Coe (2004).

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artwork. Tress recreates the same journey, using the same materials, relying ‘on the exercise of memory, and on a kind of entrancement. Usually we think of a painter as a producer of pictures which might be examined at leisure, but Turner’s innovation was to show that the creative process itself counted for something to be valued in its own right’ ( Jeffrey 2008: 12). Placing himself in a vulnerable position in the landscape is part of the experience; and, much like a film-maker, Tress is interested in the notion of process as well as the final image. According to Burke, to induce a Sublime experience the spectator must be exposed to the landscape, but not be in actual fear of death. As he explained: If the pain is not carried to violence, and the terror is not conversant about the present destruction of the person, as these emotions clear the parts, whether fine, or gross, of a dangerous and troublesome incumbrance, they are capable of producing delight; not pleasure, but a sort of delightful horror, a sort of tranquillity tinged with terror (cited in Andrews 1999: 134).

Tress’s boat trip to Staffa gave him a Sublime experience without actual fear of death, and he revitalises Turner’s work by placing it within a contemporary context. To an extent, Tress questions the notion of framing and gallery preservation by re-familiarising the spectator with his Romantic predecessor in a different way. This he achieves through the visual quotation of Turner’s images, which interrogates the mummification of the completed project within the confines of the art gallery. His scored and grooved surfaces are testament to his experiences, and beneath these are situated the subjects that Turner enjoyed painting. Described as ‘surfaces sensitive to irruptions and to the impact of light’ ( Jeffrey 2008: 14), Tress’s image of Blea Tarn, Rain (Towards Langdale Pikes) (2005) consists of violent brush marks and scratches on paper, built up as a series of layers to express gradations. His Sketch Book Study, Langdale Pikes From Blea Tarn (Rain) (2005) is a watercolour on paper that he produced of the Lake District in pouring rain. The result is a washed out image consisting of white splashes of paint in a pastel landscape. Visible and vigorous pencil marks refer to both vegetation and rain, the latter element reinforced

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visually through the grey hues of the sky, which mirror the colours of the mountains. These images are then able to catch passing light, and it is this type of engagement which creates Romantic affect, and enables, literally, layers of meaning to be constructed. Tress makes a number of sketches on his travels, ultimately working these up from memory into the completed painting in his studio. His images are testament to his experience, in a similar way that the spectator encounters a landscape composition in film, mentally storing it and relying on familiarity, memory and an inherent knowledge of a ‘good view’. Through a combination of technique and his expeditions, Tress reveals a similar sense of remoteness combined with exhilaration and awe. Just as Mackenzie’s landscapes rely on their own visual authority, so equally Tress produces remote and distressed panoramas of wilderness. Eden Lake (Watkins 2008) Persistently in films, it is the city that functions as dystopian setting, and the landscape as rural idyll. However, in horror, the reverse situation can arise. From the hillbillies in John Boorman’s 1972 Deliverance to Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973), outlandish locals ostracise, maim or kill any incomer who attempts to infiltrate their society. This is the situation in Eden Lake, where the contradictory relationship frequently presumed between the countryside and the city is reversed. Eden Lake opens with the sound of children’s voices over a blank screen, before revealing a group of infants and their teacher Jenny (Kelly Reilly) playing a game. The setting is London on a sunny day; Steve (Michael Fassbender) is waiting for Jenny before their departure to the countryside, a place that soon becomes an archetypal horror scene of disorder and entrapment. However, Watkins frequently operates outside this convention by privileging the spectator to distance shots of the countryside devoid of human habitation. As in The Last Great Wilderness, the protagonists attempt to experience the wilderness as outsiders, a notion that Watkins first introduces through vast expanses of rolling hills, interrupted only by a row of electricity pylons; these operate as a reminder of change in the landscape, reminiscent of Tress’s images documenting the industrial



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transformations that have taken place in the British landscape. As the artist points out: Byland Abbey in Yorkshire, for example, shows very little change from when Thomas Girtin painted it in the 1790s, but in contrast to Girtin’s day, large lorries and other traffic now speed past it on the road that skirts the Abbey ruins. In a similar manner Kirkstall Abbey was painted by Girtin, the buildings alone in a wide sweep of river valley and empty moorland. After some searching, I found the spot from which Girtin must have taken his view some two centuries ago. The Abbey, now on the outskirts of Bradford, is surrounded by busy urban roads and railway lines and an electricity pylon (2008: 5-6).

Just as Tress is preoccupied with the changing face of the landscape, so Watkins incorporates this aspect into Eden Lake. This first occurs as Steve and Jenny drive on a bright sunlit day through rural, hedgelined lanes. As their car disappears from view, the already static camera remains overlooking a row of three electricity pylons, which stretch far into the distance. The eye is led to these structures through a gap in the leafy hedge, and this operates as a framing device, indicating some symmetry to the otherwise intrusive punctuation of the landscape. Here, the director employs distancing techniques to create what Riegl might term ‘opticality’, and the lengthy shot is bathed in sunlight. Throughout Eden Lake, the overbearing pylons dominate the frame and appear as giant edifices destroying the beauty of their rural surroundings. Eden Lake is the name given to a new development of ‘executive homes’ being constructed at Slapton Quarry. Steve is keen to preserve his memories of the lake as a beauty spot, rather than acknowledge progress and expansion; this is a train of thought in line with that of the locals, who have written obscenities and threats to the developers across the reverse of the sign. From this, the camera cuts to a shot of the rear of the vehicle as it follows a track through the woods, and from this moment on, the landscape becomes confined and limited. At this point, the spectator is placed at the base of the composition on a level with the vehicle which is now situated in shade, with sunlight filtering through the treetops. There is no sky visible, thus constraining any view or vista. The initial shot is of the car in close-up, but this cedes to a distant shot in which it becomes almost invisible as

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it disappears down the avenue of trees. Watkins carefully constructs this shot, in which the camera remains static and a cloud of smoke mushrooms behind the vehicle, obliterating it from view. Steve and Jenny are overpowered physically within the frame, and the sense of distance that Watkins initiates visually proposes a restricted future for the couple. In Eden Lake, Watkins deliberately inserts stock-in-trade imagery consonant with the horror genre. As Steve and Jenny arrive at Eden Lake, they are confronted with an upright metal gate. Its spikes are topped with barbed wire and the car follows the perimeter of the fencing; filmed from the opposite side of the metal barrier, it is literally barred from entering. Corresponding to typical horror vocabulary, this functions as a premature allusion to the precarious position of the couple and is narratively motivated. Here, the spectator is encouraged to engage with the narrative, but is simultaneously offered an autonomous engagement with the landscape. In a similar later sequence, when Jenny is attempting to escape the group of delinquent youths that have attacked her and Steve, she races towards a gateway and becomes caught in a metal trap. Presumably placed to prevent protestors entering the future building site or venturing near the pylon, the jagged metal and barbed wire ensnare Jenny, injuring her and causing her to stumble. Subsequently viewed from a distance, her barely visible, prostrate figure is revealed through the metal bars of the pylon. She is metaphorically yet visually entrapped by the barbed wire, which appears menacingly in close-up to the forefront of the frame (Figure 5). In Eden Lake, the beauty of the area, as described by Steve, is given a dual status, and ironically undermined by the terror inflicted on the protagonists. Initially, images of a claustrophobic landscape are interspersed with broad vistas of the lake and surrounding woodlands. In the early morning, the panoramic view is presented with great impact. Elevating the spectator to a viewpoint above the trees, the camera edges the landscape in symmetrical form, with the lake and shore centrally positioned. The outlook is calm, with a clear blue sky, although this situation is quickly transformed as Steve pursues the thugs who have punctured his tyre and threatened him, and from this juncture on the landscape changes: predictably, sunlit



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panoramas become dark, gloomy zones. The theft of the car prefaces a sequence of menacing shots, comprised of tortuous tree branches and undergrowth, as the couple search for the vehicle. Uncomfortably confined by the vegetation, and pathways which end abruptly, Steve and Jenny become further agitated and Jenny stumbles, falling to the ground. In an overhead shot of the surrounding area, as though to emphasise her vulnerability, the sky has developed a blue/grey hue and mist shrouds the trees which now obliterate any vista. A sense of claustrophobia ensues, accompanied by terrifying non diegetic music to encourage a fearful response. Watkins has created a frozen pictorial moment deploying Sublime vocabulary, which correlates with Burke’s philosophy. Flanked by vast conifers to the right of the frame, the couple are in a vulnerable attitude within the landscape. There is no sky visible and they appear diminished, defenceless and in a weak position in relation to their adversaries. Although filmed in summer, the bleak environs are far from the rural idyll conveyed through Steve’s earlier lyrical description to Jenny. Following a struggle with the gang of youths that have stolen the vehicle, Steve accidentally stabs their pet dog, and he and Jenny attempt an escape in the car. Their visibility is impaired because of the damage the teenagers have caused to the car. Following a



Jenny entrapped by the industrialised landscape in Eden Lake (Watkins 2008).

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crash, in which Steve is injured, Jenny runs for help but the youths discover Steve. A blank screen punctuates the drama, transferring the time to the next day. The camera is placed at ground level and tilts upwards, as sunlight filters through the trees. Initially, appearing as an unpopulated setting, enormous tree roots dominate the image. However, Jenny’s blue jacket, only barely visible through the vegetation, indicates her presence. Initially immobile, she moves slowly, emerging from the undergrowth, only to discover that Steve has been moved. Symbolic of a return to a natural order, the undergrowth in the film appears as an impermeable labyrinth of branches and vegetation preventing the couple’s escape. Numerous parallel tracks through the forest seem to lead to the same place, and each clearing in the forested area possesses a similarity in appearance, reinforcing the maze-like landscape. This Neo-Romantic imagery finds a correlation in the Second World War drawings of John Craxton (1922–2009). His 1941 pen and wash images, Poet in a Landscape and Dreamer in a Landscape acknowledge the work of Samuel Palmer, with their graphic illustrative qualities and sinuous lines. Craxton’s drawings are of unreal and menacing landscapes reminiscent of nineteenthcentury fairytale images, executed during this period of conflict as an expression of frustration and fear. A more recent evocation of confinement by landscape lies in the work of Simon Periton (1964–). Periton continues the Romantic lineage of the magic of place in his paper cut-outs, which become snares and spaces of confinement, indicating the artist’s anarchic perspective. Rural motifs representative of garlands of leaves and flowers point to pastoralism, yet the finished result denies any Arcadian idyll. Superstar Bhaji (2002) is a twisted sculpture, of barbed pieces of card, which, as Will Bradley points out, is ‘the symbolism of the natural order returning, the kind of thorny overgrowth that reclaims wastelands and colonizes abandoned buildings, that disrupts the outline’ (2005: 246). Periton frequently uses cut-out doilies, a symbol of a bourgeois lifestyle, yet subverts their intention by cutting them up, as a challenge to authority and class. His Back to Nature exhibition, held in 2007, reworks his sculptures onto glass, by layering the paint to create a collage effect. The content has been described as



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strange metamorphic creatures who appear out of the shadows, caught in spaces somewhere between landscape and domestic interior. Strange plant figures (part fashion, part flower arrangement) peer out from behind curtains, and mounted riot police stuck on a carousel must fight their way out of an overgrown organic trap (Anon 2009).

Periton’s work forms part of a recent tendency within international contemporary art, which focuses on ‘harsh visions of reality that foreground the most disturbing aspects of existence’ (Sultan 2008: 9). Sultan refers to a number of exhibitions held since the turn of the century, such as ‘Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque’ (2004–05), ‘Dark’ (2006) and ‘Day for Night’ (2006, the Whitney Biennial exhibition in New York), to propose a bleak disposition currently at play globally. She is not alone in her assessment: summing up the contemporary art scene, Weinberg and Brown notice the emergent pattern of [an] artistic situation [that] is highly complex, contradictory and confusing. It is an environment few can make sense of…that reveals overwhelming evidence of certain artistic responses to a broad range of aesthetic, social, political, and cultural phenomena…America today is engaged in a tragic and stressing war that has taken thousands of lives. Moreover, recent natural disasters in this country have upended the lives of many thousands. And though these events take place hundreds, or even thousands of miles away, they are omnipresent through the media. However, for many Americans such events exist more as the cackle of background static than as a palpable presence, seeing that much of this country lives simultaneously in a bubble of prosperity and security. This schizophrenic situation gives rise to at least two realities that discomfortingly coexist: one of anxiety, exasperation and despair; and another of exuberance, energy, and wishful thinking (2006: 15–16).

Although Weinberg and Brown are commenting on the American situation, their arguments may also be perceived as an observation on a global dilemma. In the light of this, more recently Periton’s work was exhibited in a British exhibition entitled ‘Dark Monarchs: Magic and Modernity in British Art’ at the Tate St Ives, Cornwall. Sordid Sentimental (2008) consists of a pastel set of images sprayed onto glass. Short lengths of barbed wire traverse the lower parts of the image, which consists of a watery reflection, possibly indicating

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a swamp. From this, the tall bare branches of trees create uneasy, threatening profiles in a variety of lurid colours. Collectively, the content of Periton’s work offers anarchy, rebellion and gloom, and the notion of the Sublime abyss is reinforced, again through reference, both verbally and pictorially. As Rein Wolfs explains: ‘Dark’ spirits walk somewhat hunched, steering their physical centre of gravity terribly close to the abyss. ‘Dark’ as they are, they choose the path we might characterise as unfathomable. In such a universe, obscurity can be a positive quality; enigma sometimes better than unequivocal clarity. Dealing in riddles, these dark minds often communicate only with the initiated. With works of art it is sometimes just the same (2006: 57–8).

The pylons of Stairway to Heaven (2004, Figure 6) materialise as sinister constructions in an enormous floor to ceiling image, which fuses the rural, the urban and the international in a mutually antagonistic way. As the press release for Periton’s exhibition at the Sadie Coles gallery observes: ‘Railway tracks, graffiti tagged walls and abandoned factories meet Suffolk hedgerows and an idyllic landscape taken from the repeated pattern of a net curtain’ (Anon 2009). The painting/cutout offers an image of a landscape destroyed by technology: five enormous electricity pylons and oil wells alter the face of Periton’s



Simon Periton, Stairway to Heaven (2004).

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pastoral landscape. What appears as an essentially British landscape also has global connotations ‘ranging from a parochial vision of damaged arcadia to the heart of destruction on a global scale’ (Anon 2009). Stairway to Heaven places the spectator at a low vantage point in relation to the great towers and, in a similar way to the representation of the changing landscape in Eden Lake, Periton’s arrangement hints at a melancholy longing for a past primordial world. The artist’s use of incising paper creates a threatening fretwork effect, and he joins the structures by cables. Compositionally, the towers are made more prominent as they disappear from view, and the spectator is unable to keep all of their entirety in vision. As Wolfs remarks: “‘Dark” [as a concept] has the status of a subterranean swelling that breaks through the earth with a rude and enormous force’ (2006: 60–1), and similarly Periton’s Stairway to Heaven extrudes its boundaries ‘with an enormous force’. Comparably, the trees at Eden Lake acquire a human presence. Later in the film, they arch their heads over the spectator/Jenny, in an intimidating act. Jenny has escaped death, although by this time her partner has been murdered. She cradles one of the injured boys in her arms and the camera points upwards to the sky. The trees are lit from behind, appearing ominously dark and threatening. They wave slightly in the wind, the noise of which becomes more strident and piercing perhaps informing the spectator of the unhappy outcome of the film.2 The Hide (Losey 2008) The mudflats of Suffolk present an equally forbidding landscape in Marek Losey’s directorial debut. Losey, the grandson of Joseph Losey, the blacklisted Hollywood film director, began his career in television advertising before directing The Hide. It is notable that his images are less magnificent than Mackenzie’s mountains in The Last Great Wilderness, and less deceptive than the labyrinth of vegetation in Eden Lake, yet an unfriendly presence permanently threatens beneath the inhospitable mudflats. It does not seem accidental that many of those included here are young, first-time directors, coinciding with a new Romantic spirit in the art world. As Max Hollein points out:

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We are experiencing the rampant artistic blossoming of a new romantic stance. A whole series of young artists are resolutely taking up the Romantic spirit, wanting to leave the quotidian well behind them. Instead they develop provocative poetic counter-worlds; devise a new relationship between the individual and nature; and take up the yearning for a paradisiacal, beautiful, and fairytale-like state; without, however, forgetting the abysmal, the uncanny, and the mysterious that is always lurking behind such idylls (2005: 17).

The abysmal, uncanny and mysterious certainly lurk in the Suffolk mudflats of Losey’s psychological thriller. Confined scenes in the interior of an old wooden building, used as a birdwatching sanctuary by Roy Tunt (Alex Macqueen), form the core of the film. The action takes place entirely on the intertidal areas of Suffolk (although it was actually filmed on the Isle of Sheppey), endangered by rising sea levels. In Losey’s film, intermittent images of this austere, ghostly landscape add a counterpoint to the tightly framed interiors of the timber shack. Albeit filmed in the south of England, the landscape appears equally as remote as the Scottish backwoods of The Last Great Wilderness, exemplified by the cinematographer, George Richmond, who emphasises the inaccessible estuarine environment through the use of wide-angle shots. From the opening credit sequences, the landscape is visually a hostile and intimidating presence (Figure 7). Dark, menacing clouds scud across the sky, which are backlit by the sun struggling to manifest its existence in the gloomy atmosphere. Lengthy shots reinforce the pictorial aspects of Losey’s impure landscapes, although such an affect is also relevant to the narrative, as the isolation of the birdwatching hut is key to Roy’s plans. The flat landscape, interspersed with electricity pylons, is introduced to the accompaniment of non-diegetic piano notes: an image which presages doom and catastrophe. Subsequently, a series of shots of the area introduce the spectator to the austere, desolate and windswept setting. A ramshackle gate and fence appear in the forefront of the frame, and through its diagonal placement across the screen it leads the eye to a patch of stagnant water and, beyond, to the estuary: an unwelcoming composition, drab and drained of colour. Dead, buff-coloured bracken completes the foreground, before the eye is led to the muted green and brown colours of the mudflats.



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‘Dirty strangled nature fighting its way through murky backgrounds’ is a phrase used by Jessica Lack (2008) to describe the artwork of contemporary British artist Clare Woods, and this description is appropriate to Losey’s film. Woods’s work was recently exhibited at the ‘Dark Monarchs’ exhibition in Tate St Ives, Cornwall. The artist produces large-scale works of enamel and oil on aluminium to create images of putrefaction and decay. In an equally semi-abstract mode, Woods’s Monster Field (2008) revisits Paul Nash’s image of 1938. Working from photographs taken at night to produce withered trees set against dark voids, Woods produced Black Vomit (2008). Putrefaction and swampland dominates this painting, where emaciated pines and gnarled vegetation fight for attention against black backgrounds. They are creepy, imbued with the horror of a thriller, and have that uncanny combination of the pedestrian and the supernatural, at once as enchanting as the dense thicket around Sleeping Beauty’s castle and as spine-chilling as the Blair Witch Project (Lack 2008).

Lack uses Sublime vocabulary, and if Woods’s work possesses a sense of menace, through ‘strangled nature fighting its way through murky backgrounds’, then similar colours and elements resurface in Losey’s visual vocabulary. Broken fencing and dark clouds dominate the expanses of water in the film, and the barren, infertile land stretches endlessly beyond



Landscape as hostile presence in The Hide (Losey 2009).

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the demarcations of the frame, reinforcing the desolation of the place. This inability of the director to encompass its entirety further reinforces human helplessness in the face of the elements: a salient feature of the Sublime. A subsequent, even more ominous shot reinforces the sense of imminent menace. Placed centrally in the frame, and flanked by two gnarled fence posts, a hooded figure advances towards the camera. An apocalyptic sky infers rain, further enhancing the bleakness of the exposed landscape. The film’s narrative is based on Tim Whitnall’s play The Sociable Plover, and focuses on the interplay between Roy and Dave (Philip Campbell), who are the only two characters to appear in the film. Roy is introduced to the spectator as a fanatical birdwatcher, a fixated character who enjoys constructing model railways, has built up a collection of garden gnomes and has his own potter’s wheel. His compulsive behaviour is reinforced at the outset, as he carefully removes his wellington boots, placing his feet onto plastic bags to avoid soiling his socks, before donning his ‘indoor’ shoes. He then neatly arranges a cushion on the seat, and laboriously lays his binoculars and camera on the bench: all aspects which infer the man’s obsessive behaviour. Yet, his demeanour seems mild compared to Dave’s, the interloper, who appears from nowhere at the birdwatching station. This is a narrative ploy to foil expectations, as, throughout the film, the spectator is led to believe that it is Dave’s character that presents a threat to Roy. Moreover, when Dave is first introduced, Losey uses sound to enhance the danger with a threatening piece of music to accompany his uninvited entrance into the shed. His face is in shadow, and the camera lingers on his tattooed neck and hands, and his dirty fingernails; his other sin is that he drinks from a bottle of whisky. The permanently haunted appearance of Dave’s eyes suggests inner torment, an emotion made available through flashbacks; these imaginings in turn suggest that a violent deed has occurred at his hands, although this turns out not to be the case. The old shed becomes the focus of the narrative, as it provides a hiding place for a murder, and a context for the development of the relationship between the two men. The spectator is first introduced to the shack when Roy advances towards it at the start of the film;



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placed centre-frame, the dilapidated structure stands alone on the mudflats. Roy lets himself in through a door, and the camera pans to the left to reveal the estuary. By this time the sky is dark, almost black, conveying an impending threat, and narratively the isolation of the hut is visually reinforced through the juxtaposition between the interior and exterior of the wooden structure. To demonstrate this, the building is ‘optically’ placed, and the camera is fixed at a distance to enhance the vista, which is illuminated by sunlight; and by this time, the tide has risen and the area of low muddy land is now under water. Throughout the film, the spectator is given, via the characters’ perspectives, a limited view of the surroundings through the window of the hut. However, at one point in the film, Dave ventures outside, and is framed at a distance, a contemplative figure situated in silhouette against the skyline, looking out to sea. This image enhances the location as contested space; on the one hand the lookout provides an intimate space for Dave and Roy to become familiar with one another, and it is here that the crime is revealed; on the other hand, it is a desolate, uninhabited place, with few points of geographical reference to locate its position. It transpires that the perpetrator of the crime is not, in fact, Dave, but Roy. He has murdered his estranged wife and her lover, and disposed of their bodies in the chicken factory where he worked. Subsequently, Dave discovers that the ‘chicken-paste’ sandwiches he shared with Roy were made from the wife’s remains. As the film progresses, the landscape shots become less frequent, until the final sequence when Dave kills Roy (with a gun he has brought with him to commit suicide, following his brother’s accidental death). As though through the viewing slot of the hut, although not from any of the characters’ perspectives, the camera frames a lone pylon against the setting sun, and a flock of birds as they traverse across the sky. Just as Woods’s images depict ‘[t]hese gorgeous haunted landscapes [which] are mesmerising in their complexity and contradiction; terror contained within a quiet, rigorous formality’ (McFarland 2001), so Losey presents The Hide’s lookout as simultaneously intimate and bleak. These contradictions permeate modern-day reality, and explore the landscape with an urbanite’s fascination, promoting correlations between the above images to combine as a structure of feeling. As McFarland proposes:

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As in Anthony Shaffer’s 1973 film The Wicker Man, her [Clare Woods] version of the countryside is founded in a notion of a comfortless and slyly savage place, pervaded with suspicion, mystery and ancient ritual. This is a place filled with dangers more ghastly than those presented by the urban environment, a place where any number of unspeakable things lurk in the undergrowth, watching and waiting (2001).

All are features found in The Hide. Children of Men (Cuarón 2006) The next two examples are films offering apocalyptic and ghastly visions of a future Britain. Although not strictly speaking a horror film, Children of Men reveals a corrosive dystopian future. Set in 2027, the opening sequence shows London as a crumbling city where the lead character, Theo (Clive Owen) drinks alcohol simply to get through the day. As Barbara Mennell observes, the more that films ‘move into the future, the more these films show cities of the past or in decay’ (2008: 131). At the outset, a montage of media reports informs the spectator of global disintegration, in which ‘Only Britain Soldiers On’, and images of interned exiles guarded by armed police and dog patrols next to buildings in a state of decay and collapse abound. Respite from this urban disarray appears to be offered through the unconventional Jasper (Michael Caine), whose home provides a sanctuary for his friend Theo. Jasper, it is revealed, is a political character intent on aiding refugees. He lives with his ailing wife in a remote property set in dense woodland. This is introduced early in the film, following Cuarón’s chilling introduction to this futuristic vision of the world. Theo alights from a train bathed in light, which has carried him from the chaos of London to a sunlit pastoral location. The landscape is introduced via an edit from a shot of the two men greeting each other, arms outstretched. Although green fields illuminated by shafts of light form the forefront of the image, black clouds of smoke appear from the left, indicating an apocalyptic future. As Jasper’s voice-over is heard discussing the contemporary political situation, the camera pans to the right to reveal a surreal image of the burning bodies of animals, their cloven feet poking incongruously through the flames of the fire.



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Further intrusions on the landscape appear as the sound of a horn makes Jasper pull over, and a sea of faces appear behind the barred windows of a bus. Jasper explains that they are refugees travelling to a camp in Bexhill-on-Sea. What was initially presented as visual relief is postponed, until Jasper and Theo move a screen of bushes aside to reveal a hidden entrance to the former’s rural home; the setting for this is never presented as a comfortable space, and at frequent intervals surveillance, a theme throughout the film, is represented via the positioning of the camera. Following a relaxed conversation between Theo and Jasper, the camera cuts from the interior of the building to an exterior shot through the trees. Placed at a distance, the light begins to fade, which leaves the house in semi-darkness. Silhouettes of tall fir trees emphasise the gloom, functioning to exclude any remaining natural light, and the house no longer appears as a safe haven. Children of Men offers no place of refuge for its characters, or the spectator. In the city, negative images abound – aggressive behaviour, warring factions and wastelands. The landscape shots are infrequent and, when incorporated, are from low-angle positions of wooded areas, suggesting entrapment. Theo has decided to help his ex-girlfriend Julian ( Julianne Moore), who leads ‘The Fishes’, an opposition political group working for the refugees. He obtains transit papers for a pregnant Fijian woman, Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey), and escorts her out of London to the coast. En route, a gang halts their vehicle using a burning car to block the way. The landscape becomes narratively motivated operating more as setting, as a group of people emerge from the trees and run towards the car wielding planks of wood. Julian is shot and killed, and a police chase ensues resulting in the shooting of the two officers. Throughout this scene the landscape operates as a backdrop to the action. However, as the vehicle speeds away, the camera remains static, and in a frozen moment, briefly observes the wooded landscape. All sky is obliterated, and the image of an open road flanked by trees is retained for a lengthy duration before the camera pans slowly to the right to reveal the bloody bodies of the dead policemen. In the same sequence, a more ominous shot occurs that is part narratively motivated, and part placed for a landscaping gaze.

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Following the burial of Julian’s body in what appears to be a pagan ceremony, Theo falls to his knees beside a tree and, covered in her blood, sobs uncontrollably before returning to the car. At this point, the camera, placed at a distance, cuts to a shot of a dark road which snakes in a diagonal across the image. Compositionally, the line of the road creates an uneasy impression because the eye is led from the foreground to a small speck in the distance: it transpires that this is the vehicle in which Theo and the pregnant Kee are travelling, now diminished by the trees which flank the road on either side. They are densely planted creating a dark canopy, a factor which aids the gloomy nature of the prospect. Dark woodland areas are recurrent locations for horror films, and these arboreal settings become the context of sinister activities, where the trees adopt dark and foreboding characteristics. Traditionally, trees hold a special place in pagan imagination and spiritual worship, and Neo-Romantic artist Michael Ayrton (1921–75) built on this doctrine, imbuing his paintings with a sense of menace, with disquieting anthropomorphic vegetation brightly illuminated by a mysterious glow. His oil painting Entrance to a Wood (1945) consists of a tangled mass of branches of gnarled trees that frame the access to the wood. The form of the vegetation creates a twisted menacing profusion which appears to prevent any form of access. This, along with the overhead branches, adopts a semicircular motif which frames a radiant glow beyond, providing a Gothic threshold as though to guide the spectator through the labyrinth. The tortured framing devices that Ayrton deployed create the dialectics of inside and outside the woodland, and, by doing so, the space beyond (the inside) becomes a place of uncertainty and fear. Although not a contemporary piece of work, Ayrton’s painting Skull Vision (1943) was recently exhibited at ‘The Dark Monarch’ exhibition (2010) in Cornwall, demonstrating a renewed interest in romanticism, along with its traits of other worldliness and inscrutability. The artist succeeded in creating tight, impermeable borders in his imagery, an artistic touch not lost on the work of the directors discussed in this chapter. Much of the action in Children of Men takes place in a rural setting. Following Julian’s death which, it transpires, was contrived by Luke (Chiwetel Ejiofor), one of the Fishes, Theo escapes from a



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farmhouse where the Fishes hide out, taking Kee and Miriam (Pam Ferris) with him. A chase ensues which involves the characters driving erratically through the landscape. The camera withdraws from the interior of the car and remains static as the vehicle disappears from view. At this point, a woodland area is retained in the frame and the voices of the characters may be heard discussing a safe house. The tops of the trees are not visible and the spectator’s viewpoint remains at the foot of the trunks, thus in a vulnerable position; this later reinforced as Theo seeks refuge with Jasper, who offers to help Kee escape. Once safely installed at his eccentric friend’s house, he walks outside and glances upwards to the tops of the trees. The camera cuts to his point of view, and the leaves rustle and stir as though some manifestation is about to occur. This is only partially narrative-driven as, when the camera cuts back to Theo, he has moved further into the woods, the indication being that he may not have encountered this phenomenon, and the numinous presence is created more for spectator than character contemplation. Loneliness, entrapment and seclusion are intimated in Children of Men, and if Ayrton’s work speaks of these themes, contemporary artist David Thorpe’s paintings also tell of isolation and solitude. Thorpe’s landscapes seem outwardly to be optimistic images of a future world. However, on closer inspection, small, disturbing details create a sense of unease, or, as Ralf Christofori states, ‘a world we thought we could have’ (2005a: 257). An early work executed as a paper cut-out and entitled We Are Majestic in the Wilderness (1999) appears as a huge rock hewn out of the landscape, towering above seven small fir trees. Placing the spectator at the foot of the edifice, and on slightly lower ground beneath the trees, Thorpe further reinforces the sense of remoteness and diminishment. Initially, there appears to be no form of human habitation at all, although three mobile homes are placed precariously on the top of the mountain. Illuminated from within, their blank windows bestow no further details, nor reveal inhabitants. Any sense of inclusion is denied the viewer because of the impenetrable verticality of the outcrop where the mobile homes are situated. This incline would be impossible to negotiate without ropes or climbing equipment, and it is difficult to imagine how the caravans could ever have reached their final destination. In contrast to the overpowering

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structure, Thorpe produces somnambulant skies in pale hues of pink and grey. Denied any geographical specificity, Thorpe’s ‘soaring views of nature and post-Blade Runner cityscapes make you ask, what if the utopias of the Enlightenment and of Modernism had worked?’ (Williams 2000: 16). Gilda Williams aligns Thorpe’s images with the freedom and democracy of Le Corbusier’s architectural designs, and the lone, dwarfed figure in the landscape approach of Caspar David Friedrich and Frederick Church (1826–1900). However, as she points out, his ‘figures are hardly transcendental, 18th-century explorers overwhelmed by the awesome spectacle of nature. They are more like Le Corbusier’s contemporary noble savages, [and] well-fed city dwellers’ (Williams 2000: 16). Although there is no evidence of any human element in We Are Majestic in the Wilderness, the title hints at an omnipresence, as in Children of Men: that of either an onlooker, us the spectator, or a being permanently in attendance, such as a divine creator. A later work by Thorpe entitled Life is Splendid (2000) also alludes to an appropriation of a personal awareness of environment. This time Thorpe integrates three figures into the composition, but again, they are precariously placed on an open walkway between a rock and a rocket-shaped structure. The title does not reinforce their position because, rendered as tiny specks perilously balanced, they wave their arms in the air, joining forces as if in protest or to survive a fall. As though to underpin their insecurity, to the rear of the composition, and therefore immediately behind the figures, arises an enormous snow-capped mountain. The figures wear white sweaters, and this blends with the grey/white of the mountain, a colour comparison which further highlights their vulnerability and insignificance in the face of the elements. A more recent work by Thorpe is an installation entitled The Defeated Life Restored (2007); it consists of a set of geometric sculptures mirrored by an enclosure of wooden screens, its ‘geometry invariably encouraging an anachronistic sci-fi reading, so that notions of history, fact and intellectual principality become unmoored’ (O’Reilly 2007: 128). As Thorpe creates a fictional and dangerous world for his characters, so Cuarón produces unsettling environments to elicit a similar spectator response.



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Wastelands and cemeteries abound in Children of Men. Kee is pregnant, the first woman to become pregnant for 18 years, and the Fishes are attempting to use her for political gain. The goal is to enable her to escape onto a ship named Tomorrow, part of the ‘Human Project’, an organisation whose aim it is to treat the global health problem of infertility. Revolving around the quest to save her and her unborn child, the narrative leads Theo further into a future dystopia, emphasised by the landscape, which becomes a sodden wasteland and a graveyard for humans and animals. A repeated motif in Children of Men, and also in some of the other examples discussed in this chapter, is the lone vehicle in the landscape, again embracing the feeling of isolation when confronted by nature and wilderness. At regular intervals a car leaves or arrives in the frame from a distance, and the camera lingers for a period of time on the landscape, minus the vehicle. Towards the end of the film, Theo has made contact with Syd (Peter Mullan), an old friend of Jasper’s. Syd drives a tank, and he, Kee, Miriam and Theo drive towards Bexhill refugee camp. The tank passes across the frame and disappears from view. At this juncture, the camera remains static, focusing on the desolate and uninviting countryside, a leafless tree further reinforcing the hostility, intimidation and infertility of the environment. Drab, grey skies drained of colour reflect on the open road. From this shot, the camera focuses on the settlement which fronts the sea. Viewed from a high angle, the camp forms a semicircle from which emits a grey cloud of smoke. The site appears dirtier and more disorganised than its surrounding environs, and punctuates the otherwise peaceful landscape. This creates a gulf: a divide between the harmony of the natural, with the industrial aspects of the camp operating as a site of disharmony and violence. Again, strong visual correspondences can be found with Thorpe’s Militant Lives (2002), which depicts a geometrically painted bridge over a large chasm. The link is not a flat structure, but is shaped, with windows suggesting a habitable space, yet it is devoid of any visible human presence or habitation. To obtain access to this conduit might prove difficult, if not impossible, owing to the vertical cliff faces, depicted in vibrant ochre, mauve and blue, which arise on either side of the collage. The summits of these precipices disappear

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through the top of the frame, eschewing boundaries, and the bridge, supported by geometric structures, appears precarious, yet succeeds in connecting the opposite sides of the valley. The horizontal edifice is illuminated by straight, strong shafts of yellow light, which converge onto the bridge, at times penetrating through it. A recurring feature of romanticism is the abyss, and here, viewed from below, it offers optimism to the spectator, unlike in Cuarón’s negative imagery. As Metzger argues: The abyss stretches out beneath some of the utopian bricolage architectures such as David Thorpe has fly across the countryside as if they were children’s swings…eventually, a zenith has been reached, and it is at the bottom of things. From here on it is in the abyss upward. You could consider this a bit of optimism (2005: 61).

In Thorpe’s work, the abyss represents something beyond, whereas the abyss in Children of Men is a chasm and cannot offer refuge for the characters. On some occasions it appears briefly as a tranquil space, but this illusion rapidly alters through intrusive elements such as burning bodies, vehicles attempting escape and thick grey smoke. It is only in the film’s finale, when Theo rows Kee and her baby out to the rescue boat through a steamy miasma, that hope is heralded. The characters are visible only through a blue haze that merges with the colour of the sea. The camera is placed at eye level, and an edit reveals thick fog in an image not unlike Turner’s nineteenth-century representations of the meteoric elements. If Turner’s illusions of mist are created through his renderings of uneven surfaces and indistinct hues, forcing the eye to constantly readjust, so this sense of uncertainty is created in Children of Men, where the use of colour merges sky and sea, and the boat is almost invisible, diminished by the inclement weather conditions. This allows for a sense of digression or departure from the literal gloom of reality, or what Koerner calls ‘fugitive landscape [which] does effect within us a certain mode of self-reflection, a certain apprehension of the contingency of object and meaning upon the viewing subject’ (2009: 115).



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28 Days Later (Boyle 2002) The final film discussed in this chapter is set in present-day Britain, and Danny Boyle’s zombie thriller 28 Days Later heralds a dystopian future similar to that depicted in Children of Men. The ‘rage’ (rabies) virus that has been spread through escaped chimpanzees extends through the country, contaminating its inhabitants. Jim (Cillian Murphy) is a cycle courier who wakes in a London hospital to find it deserted. This mise-en-scène is repeated when he ventures out into the city, to find a wasteland intermingled with the famous landmark locations that are recognisable traits of the capital, in a phenomenon which Charlotte Brunsdon describes as ‘uncanny’ – ‘the city is revealed as recognisable, but eerie: a city which is only buildings … its deserted beauty a register of a failed civilisation’ (2007: 50–1). The first 50 minutes of the film centre first on Jim’s attempts to understand his situation and, subsequently, his encounter with fellow survivors, Selena (Naomie Harris), Mark (Noah Huntley), Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and Hannah (Megan Burns), while he observes London memorabilia such as miniature statues of Big Ben, and notice boards requesting knowledge of missing friends and relatives. Commenting on the ability of 28 Days Later to express contemporary global fears, Peter Hutchings indicates that Danny Boyle points out how some of the details in the London part of his film were inspired by news footage of the aftermath of genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda, while the scene in which the protagonist finds a large public notice board covered with messages for lost relatives, something that is now commonly associated with the aftermath of 9/11, was apparently inspired by news reports of the aftermath of an earthquake in China (2009: 197).

Emphasis on the urban wilderness is only curtailed when, without Mark, the other four head for Manchester in search of a cure. From the murky, threatening streets of an empty London, the landscape changes to vast spreads of lush open fields. This metamorphosis first occurs in a sequence of shots between the interior of a supermarket, where the characters help themselves to food, to a panoramic, almost surreal view of a field of roses. Vistas of mountains are laid out in the distance as their black taxi cab, another emblem of London as well as

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their means of escape, travels across the screen. The disparate group pull up at a service station to refuel, and the landscape is reflected distortedly through the aluminium side of a tanker truck, a telltale narrative device indicating that it is not only the urban environment which poses future problems. This is a point mooted by Mark Kermode, who points out: Rarely has the West End, cleansed of human traffic, seemed so terrifyingly tranquil. When the action moves north of the Watford Gap, the film’s palette changes, balancing some ironically bright and expansive rural interludes with scenes of the kind of claustrophobic horror traditionally associated with post-Night of the Living Dead terror (2002: 60).

Boyle films the landscape using wide-angle shots to enhance its deserted quality. At one point on their journey, the camera frames the taxi as it rounds the corner of a motorway, where large wind turbines flank the road and reach up into a clear blue sky. The painted white lines on the tarmac surface mirror the crash barriers to create a serpentine effect. A montage sequence follows using the beating sounds of the turbines to accompany the progress of the vehicle, before an overhead shot of the empty motorway proposes that this is a view from the perspective of the wind machines. This image enables the spectator a panoramic view of the landscape, presented as a geometric arrangement through the mode in which the road intersects the countryside. In a similar style to Children of Men, the linear motif of the motorway creates a strong diagonal across the centre of the composition, and leads the eye into the distance. This combination, along with the provision of a distant horizon, promotes the notion of a utopia to be attained in the north. This is a concept reinforced as the taxi pulls onto a grassy area, interspersed with Gothic ruins in what appears to be the remains of an ancient ecclesiastical building or abbey, which provides a respite for the characters; this appears as a strange contrast to the wind turbines, whereby modernity meets Romantic iconography. At one point, as the group picnic on their looted provisions, Frank points out the spectacle of a group of horses galloping through the fields. Lyrical chanting provides a backdrop for his comment, which likens the animals to a family – an entity lacking in the film, and



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arguably a pointed reference to societal concerns. From this, the camera cuts to a shot of the interior of the abbey to the left of the frame, and the animals appear shrouded in mist. This landscape shot feeds the narrative in the supposition that not only do they offer hope, such as when Hannah enquires whether they are infected and Frank reassures her that they are ‘just fine’, but also through the cinematography and film language used at this point. Illuminated by light emanating through the mist, the white animals adopt a magical appearance, and, accompanied by the singing, this confers on the sequence divine and spiritual properties. At this point, three of the characters disperse, and Frank blows the horses a kiss as they disappear from sight. Surrounded by hills, the foreground consists of a horizontal stretch of water, as the mares and foals gallop along the flat plain. The camera lingers on them for some seconds, before it reverts back to ‘pure’ landscape as Selena and Jim are depicted, engaged in discussion. While promoting a bucolic idyll on the one hand, Boyle malevolently challenges any notion of utopia. Towards the end of the film, following Frank’s death, and the escape of the other three from the confines of what was purportedly a safe house, the narrative shifts to a quiet rural location. Selena is sewing a message which can be read from the sky, which might be the only safe place on the planet, and a point wrought from the numerous overhead shots. From an aerial perspective, the camera sweeps into a valley flanked on either side by hills. Cutting to an image of the blood-soaked bodies of zombies strewn on the roadside, the spectator is left under no illusion that the situation is resolved. From this, the camera cuts to a canted image of a white stone cottage surrounded by granite hills, with the black taxi cab parked outside. Hannah alerts Selena and Jim that an aircraft is coming, and the camera returns to the aerial shot of the landscape. As the plane gains height over a hill, so a vast plain is revealed stretching into the distance. Arguably, open landscape such as this projects hope, and the final shots consist of a classically composed image, with a lake separating the characters from the plane. Gentle hills rise to the rear, but the sky now accounts for two thirds of the composition and the frame is no longer canted. Various shots depict the giant ‘HELLO’ sign that Selena has made to attract attention; however, these overhead shots show a landscape

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suggestive of oppression and pessimism, with the protagonists as powerless and subjugated – for them there is ultimately no escape. Aesthetics indicating powerlessness in the face of imagined landscapes and future dystopias are concomitant with the Sublime, and Cuarón’s and Boyle’s iconography might be observed in the paintings of British-born artist John Timberlake. Societal disintegration and anxieties about infection and disease are replaced in Timberlake’s work by commentary on nuclear fallout, which he executes in a mixed-media combination of photography, painting and sculpture entitled Another Country. As one critic points out: On first encountering this body of work by John Timberlake it is the seductiveness of the images which strikes us. They have a faintly nostalgic, reassuring appeal to them…We are drawn into a world of imaginary beauty, sheltered from reality…We notice that the figures are not staring at heavenly skies, but at atomic mushroom clouds, that all is not as idyllic as it seems. Our preconceptions of beauty and the readings we bring to the images are challenged and we are left feeling slightly unsettled (Farrell 2002).

Constructed over a period of three years, Another Country consists of a series of such images. The photographs are of British tests in another country, hence the title. Figures (albeit models) their backs to the artist, are facing out onto various renderings of landscapes. Mountainous environments executed in subtle pastels form the backdrops of Timberlake’s compositions, and these are directly related to the landscapes of nineteenth-century Romantic artists such as Turner, Constable and Friedrich. Another Country xi (2001) consists of a sky that is a contrasting vivid blue. Three men face out across a lake which is surrounded by hills, reminiscent of an early twentieth-century handtinted photograph, and in the centre of the image an upright cloud of smoke mushrooms into the sky, serving ‘as an instrument of the sublime, smoke has always made obscure what otherwise would have seemed too clear’ (Farrell 2002). Another Country xi is part of a series of images that, in a similar way to Cuarón’s and Boyle’s films, malevolently challenges typically English landscapes through the visual interventions of destructive activity. Another Country ix (2000) is an earlier work of the series, and, as in the later example, three small figures are placed on a rock promontory in the centre foreground of the composition.



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One figure to the left is seated cross-legged on the outcrop, appearing to stare before him, although his expression is unclear as his face is not directly visible to the spectator. Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Clouds is the starting point for his Fable Agreed Upon series. However, in defiance of Friedrich’s notion of the lone figure in the landscape, in the Another Country series Timberlake inserts three men placed side by side. They are not situated in close proximity to one another, and appear disconnected; the spectator is unable to see their reaction to the nuclear clouds. Timberlake’s images are taken from original photographs at the Imperial War Museum, based on real footage of British nuclear tests conducted abroad, and layered onto the canvas. Just as the pinnacles and mist in Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Clouds appear to merge in places and to splinter in others, so Timberlake’s images amalgamate and fragment. Friedrich’s rocky outcrop in the forefront of his painting appears as a stage, boldly painted and unreal against the backdrop of the mountains, and operates almost in relief to the remainder of the image. This layering effect is replicated by Timberlake, who starts his process by painting oil canvases based on the nineteenth-century Romantics; he then photographs them, before superimposing his found images from the Imperial War Museum, and subsequently arranging a group of plastic models as diminutive onlookers. By positioning his figures in such a way, in front of the nuclear cloud, Timberlake questions the spectator’s gaze, which is negotiated via the Rückenfigurs in the landscape. These have greater knowledge of events than the viewer of the artwork, as they are in closer proximity to the danger, and therefore mediate this experience. The horror of the image thus lies in ‘our knowledge of the impending destruction, of inevitable consequences, that makes this scene of tranquillity a picture of apocalypse’ (Hutchinson 2002). Commenting on the dimensions of the onlookers in relation to the mushroom clouds, Burbridge affirms: Their presence here self-consciously evokes the traditional artistic motif of the lone figure dwarfed by extraordinary panoramas, and its historically-ascribed role as visual shorthand for a Kantian sublime – man faced with the fraught task of intellectually processing the incomprehensible and awe-inspiring majesty of the natural world which stands before him (2008: 48).

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Yet Timberlake distances his figures through his use of different media; just as there is a pause between the biological process of hearing and seeing, so Timberlake acknowledges this in his imagery, thus alluding to the later detrimental effects of the nuclear bomb. Timberlake’s figures are innocent bystanders involved in activities beyond their control, and they are unidentifiable. Timberlake produces his art for exhibition as photographs and always destroys the original in the process. Inherently concerned with obliteration, his work fuses nuclear devastation with the iconography of Constable, Cozens and Turner, amongst others. He obtained images by these artists through their popular circulation rather than from the originals. Describing his style as ‘post-millennium/ apocalyptical’, Timberlake denies political commitment. Instead he is more concerned with what he terms the ‘history as spectacle’ and ‘optical unconscious’ encounters between spectator and photographs. However, the titles imply otherwise: the onlookers in the photographs were in fact British servicemen who were not told about the effects of radiation. Their naivety is made more pronounced through their civilian clothing. Timberlake explains his choice of figure and pose as follows: Archetypally, where people are pictured, this involves the construction of an anonymous audience: either by way of shielding their eyes from the flash, by arms or goggles, or more typically standing with their backs to the camera whilst viewing the mushroom cloud, groups of men are shown in ways which make them anonymous yet conspicuously present. In place of the conventions of, say, nineteenth century images of Isambard Kingdom Brunel standing beside his projects, facing the camera, the emphasis within the nuclear test photograph is of the collective anonymous subject (2008: 19).

Timberlake used the H.G. Wells novel The Time Machine ‘as a starting point to thinking about the construction of audiences for twentieth century narratives of science fact and fantasy’ (2008: 11). While declaring that his photographs are not overtly political, there is no denying the criticism of the nuclear tests, deliberately exposing troops and civilians to the dangerous process, and the ongoing debates about the folly of governments. Timberlake does not deny the Sublime aspects of the experiments, and the reception of these at



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the time. He cites George Dyson’s memoirs of his nuclear-physicist father, Freeman Dyson, who worked on Project Orion, the nuclearpropelled spaceship: ‘Goggles came off after a few seconds. The fireball was still glowing like a setting sun over a clear horizon … I tried hard to shake off the feelings of exhilaration, and think about the deeper meanings of all this, without success. It was just plain thrilling’ (cited in Timberlake 2008: 19). Here, Timberlake’s selection of terminology points to his visual reproduction of such Sublime vocabulary in his work. Just as the contemporary perception of the tests, as evidenced in the original photographs, was perplexity and confusion, so Timberlake’s layering of imagery and use of mixed media to produce his final image creates mystification and uncertainty. As the artist points out: [The] oddly vague press releases and descriptions of weapon test details, [meant that] these photographs often obtained a more vivid reading within the popular imaginary not as records of actual events (which of course they were) but as signifiers of the most likely form of future apocalypse (2008: 22).

Rather than the threat of nuclear war, it is this fear of apocalypse caused by terrorism and biological warfare which fuels his Another Country series. Fear manifested by the threat of destruction is a theme recreated through a Romantic and Sublime sensibility in Children of Men and 28 Days Later, and is also a concept explored by artists such as Timberlake. This is explained by Burbridge as manifest of a period when the end of the Cold War and the events of 9/11 may have permanently altered our shared sense of impending disaster – the promise of imminent atomic apocalypse partially displaced by fear of a less definable terrorist threat – the image of the bomb continues to hover at the edge of the collective consciousness. Its contemporary currency altered by recent events and the passage of time, the bomb now exudes a peculiarly nostalgic appeal (2008: 44).

For Burbridge, the visual arts in general have not exposed the nuclear bomb as a peril, but ‘as the vehicle through which to explore the role of both photograph and archive as the flawed repositories of

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memory, incomplete purveyors of historical knowledge’ (2008: 46). Artists such as Timberlake use the original photographs to propose the ways in which the images within are open to question in terms of content and memory, and instead of humans pitted against the elements he presents them as pitted against nuclear explosion, using similar visual vocabulary. The objects that the artist uses also question the artistic process, revealing fragmentation and layering, a difficult task particularly as these strata are uneasily yoked together as an assemblage. When viewed now, images of nuclear explosions are more about contemporary anxieties concerning current events, particularly in relation to the invasion of Iraq, which presents ‘[y]et another futile effort to make sense of an unthinking reality’ (Burbridge 2008: 48): thus, the innocent bystander in Timberlake’s work is implicated in government policy. In The Last Great Wilderness, McKenzie’s narrative arrives at a measure of resolution. Charlie is rid of his demons, and heads back to England, free from his retributive mission. Theo dies in Children of Men, but Kee is rescued and, presumably single-handedly, is responsible for the creation of a new society. In 28 Days Later Hannah, Selena and Jim manage to attract the attention of the helicopter, thus ensuring their safety. There is no such resolution for Steve and Jenny in Eden Lake however: following Steve’s death, Jenny is presumably murdered by the fanatical family, who seek to shun incomers and retain their habitat for themselves. Nonetheless, although the narratives offer some favourable outcomes, in many cases the final landscape sequences do not. In The Last Great Wilderness, Charlie’s future is left unexplained. He appears happy and laughs to himself, facial expressions that might point to a change of mind; however, the spectator remains unsure whether or not he will abandon his journey to Skye. The final image of his vehicle, again slowly becoming overpowered by the surrounding terrain, suggests that this might not be the case. At the end of The Hide, entrapment remains a pertinent trope. Although Roy is killed at the end of the film, the landscape remains as desolate and impenetrable as before, and Dave’s sorrow is not fully alleviated. The brother that he has lost in Afghanistan will never be replaced, and as the war continues with more casualties, there is little resolution for



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the families of the victims. The futuristic films, Children of Men and 28 Days Later seem to offer resolution, but this is also questionable, and the sequel – 28 Weeks Later (Fresnadillo 2007) – confirms that the dangers are not over. Arguably, the landscape imagery presented in the above films manifests societal anxieties, a feature prevalent in horror cinema, and these emotions are aided through associations with other contemporary visual arts, in what Williams might term ‘the felt sense of the quality of life at a particular place and time’ (1975: 47). The landscapes described in these first two chapters are linked predominantly to the notion of romanticism’s and the Sublime’s dark side, a feature noted in four recent art exhibitions, ‘Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque’ (2005), ‘Dark’ (2006), ‘Day for Night’ (2006) and ‘Dark Monarchs’ (2010). The following two chapters demonstrate characteristics more compatible with a greater optimism, and an opportunity for cathartic renewal.

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Female Landscapes: No Prospects for The Queen, the Ladies in Lavender, The Magdalene Sisters or Miss Potter

The ‘craggy height’ of manly endeavour [is] thus closed off to women, represented as unsuitable, even unnatural, to their constitutions, what is left is a valley depicted here as soft and mild, but only for female inhabitants…The distinction is clearly gendered (Labbe 1998: xv).

Labbe is one of a number of writers reflecting on the gendered landscape, and her arguments are crucial to an examination of the films explored in this chapter. There is clearly a lack of British films which adopt a central female character, a point raised by Leggott who suggests that, ‘male-centred films far outnumber those told from a female perspective’ (2008: 100). This chapter examines the landscape in a number of recent British films which focus on female central protagonists. In all four films discussed, the landscape is foregrounded to evoke Romantic and Sublime vocabulary, but rarely are the protagonists allowed what Jacqueline Labbe (1998) terms the Romantic visuality of a ‘prospect view’. The notion of a prospect view is associated with painting and literature; and frequently – particularly in painting – the landscape affords a ‘prospect’ to provide aesthetic satisfaction, which in turn, as Appleton notes, might be attained through landscape features which favour biological needs, mainly survival. He proposes the ‘prospect’/‘refuge’ theory, postulating that the observer may derive aesthetic pleasure through seeing without being seen. This he defines as ‘[an] unimpeded opportunity to see we can call a prospect. Where he has an opportunity to hide, a refuge’ (1975: 73). In her seminal work on gender, romanticism and the literary landscape, Labbe associates the prospect view with the Romantic period, arguing that its early associations identified the prospect as a masculine trait aligned with an infinite vista, and feminine traits 120

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with the confined perspective. For Labbe, the prospect is a symbol of male empowerment and social standing, and is deployed in Romantic vocabulary ‘to indicate both heightened awareness and enlarged vision (i.e. depth and breadth)’ (1998: x). She argues that readings of eighteenth-century literature propose the deprivation of a female perspective, and the domination of a male authoritarian viewpoint. Invariably, the prospect theory involves a high-angled perspective, a position associated with the high-born, and thus with an enhanced social position. Labbe believes that in Romantic literature this was the dominant stance, and one associated with the male author; hence the notion of prospect is gendered. To survey all that one sees is a neglect of the particular, a concept associated with the ruling classes – who were essentially male. The female was barred from possession and tenure, and thus denied the prospect view. Labbe argues for a disenfranchised perspective, found only in an examination of the Romantic landscape. The notion of the prospect view is also relevant to visual aesthetics, and is a trope used in art history, and other cultural discourses as a process of examination. In a similar approach, aesthetically, the Sublime is considered a gendered set of principles based on its own distinction from Beauty. Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry locates the attributes of the Beautiful and the Sublime as feminine and masculine respectively. Qualities essential to Beauty include ‘smoothness’, ‘gradual variation’ and ‘delicacy’, among others, which he compares to the Sublime. As he proposes: For sublime objects are vast in their dimensions, beautiful ones comparatively small; beauty should be smooth, and polished; the great rugged and negligent; beauty should…not be obscure; the great ought to be dark and gloomy; beauty should be light and delicate; the great ought to be solid. They are indeed ideas of a very different nature, one being founded on pain, the other on pleasure (2008: 113–14).

Burke’s notion of Beauty became associated with the Picturesque, a perception which consists of nature as tamed landscape, its key features offering composure and consistency, all qualities associated with the attainable. In 1790, Immanuel Kant distinguished between aesthetic pleasures of the senses from a more nuanced and distanced approach which avoids desire. However, in his early work entitled ‘Observations

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on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime’ (1763), he concurred that ‘the narrow scope of the beautiful characterizes a woman’s sensibility, whereas a man should strive for the deeper understanding of the sublime’ (cited in Korsmeyer 2004: 47). After nearly two and a half centuries, romanticism is still ever-present in contemporary landscape imagery, and the concept of the prospect, along with the theoretical concerns of the Sublime and the Picturesque, form fitting characteristics by which to analyse gender in the landscape. In the light of the above arguments, this chapter offers an examination of gender, romanticism and landscape in contemporary visual arts. The films discussed here feature women as the central protagonists, and yet, arguably, the landscape is strongly gendered as Sublime through its patriarchal connotations. In landscape idiom, and in terms of the following examples, romanticism and the Sublime are associated with particular regions: the rugged Highlands of Scotland (The Queen), the inhospitable scenery around Dublin – albeit filmed in Scotland – (The Magdalene Sisters), the elemental forces off the coast of Cornwall (Ladies in Lavender), and the rugged Cumbrian moors (Miss Potter). As mentioned at the outset, The Queen concentrates on the period following Princess Diana’s death. The film sets up narrative parallels between the Queen in her Balmoral home, and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair (Michael Sheen), in London. Already, the city/country dichotomy is established as the camera cuts between significant sequences in the two locations. Recurrent telephone calls between the Queen and the Prime Minister emphasise their distance, both spatially and emotionally. Landscape images do not feature greatly in this film, yet those that do appear convey appropriate emotional significances to the spectator. The Magdalene Sisters – sponsored by the UK Film Council – is set in Dublin in 1964 and is based on the lives of three girl sent to an asylum for various allegedly nefarious deeds. Margaret (Anne Marie Duff ) is raped by her cousin and is considered tainted, hence her expulsion by her father – via the local priest – from the family home in a dawn raid. Rose (Dorothy Duffy) has an illegitimate child, and Bernadette (Nora Jane Noone) is an orphan, thus her plausible destination is the asylum. Unsurprisingly, all three are bound by their longing to escape,

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a yearning fuelled by the infrequent glimpses of the mountains and countryside beyond the confines of their punitive home. Like The War Zone, Ladies in Lavender is set on a rugged and inhospitable coastline, but this time the setting is Cornwall rather than Devon. Here, the women are trapped by their circumstances and environment, unlike the outsider, Andrea (Daniel Brühl), who is washed up on the beach. Peter Bradshaw attacks Chris Noonan’s 2006 film Miss Potter as ‘twee’ and ‘groanworthy’ (2007); his strictures are similar to those of the Sight and Sound critic David Jays, who found the film a ‘floundering biographical movie’ (2007: 65). However, his closing comments praise the final sequences: ‘She [Miss Potter] moves to Cumbria…and uses her new wealth to purchase land that might otherwise be swallowed for development’ (2007: 65). Ultimately, it is the director of photography, Andrew Dunn, who elevates the film above the merely whimsical, permitting the spectator an emotional engagement with the rugged fells of the Lake District, and offering an understanding of Miss Potter’s situation through his use of camera positions which eventually afford a prospect view. The Queen (Frears 2006) As noted above, pictorial moments are brief in The Queen, and at some junctures they are imported to reinforce a narrative feature. Following the telephone call to the Queen’s aide, Robin Janvrin (Roger Allam), concerning Princess Diana’s accident, the camera cuts to a shot of the exterior of Balmoral Castle, the Queen’s holiday retreat. It is night, and dark clouds cast ominous shadows across the building. This is the first shot of the landscape that the spectator encounters, and the Gothic castle, along with the time of day that the filming takes place, visually imparts a feeling of doom. Symbolically, the Victorian edifice evokes a sense of permanence, as does the Highland region of Scotland, and as Morgan James suggests, ‘much like the eighteenth-century tourists of the Romantic period they [tourists] sought the highland landscape that has little changed over the centuries’ (2006: 198). This association with permanence is translated into a belief in natural order, and thus the Queen is

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from the outset identified with the spirit of the Highlands, with its associations of endurance and stability. In terms of Lefebvre’s notion of impure landscape, a noteworthy landscape sequence occurs when the Queen decides to go deerstalking. Accompanied by Prince Charles (Alex Jennings), and seen in close-up, she drives purposefully through the landscape. Following a heated discussion concerning the Princess, the Queen changes her mind; halting the vehicle, she gets out, and decides to return to the castle on foot. An agitated Prince Charles moves into the driving seat and departs, and the Queen is left alone in the woodland. Compositionally, she is placed centre-frame, stooping over her three dogs, and the trees encompass the image, their uppermost branches diminishing her figure. At this point, the camera cuts to an aerial view of the landscape producing what Riegl might term ‘opticality’, which handles the ‘overall frame of mind, [the] general sensation, atmosphere or mood, instead of separate elements’ (Dalle Vacche 2003: 6). Granite rocks litter the grassy slopes and cascade into the valley, which enables a sense of awe and trepidation as the camera travels over the precipice towards a group of vehicles lined up as specks on the horizon. However, rather than dwelling on this image, it journeys on, passing over the ghillies to focus on the distant figure of a lone stag, standing erect, yet immobile. The presence and diminished dimensions of the animal enhances the monumental scale of the landscape, and the hill to the left of the frame forms a sharp diagonal from left to right, its acute angle mobilising a sense of unease. Rough terrain is a dominating feature in this lengthy sequence, leaving little space for seeing other elements, such as the sky; this has the effect of engulfing the viewer, offering little escape, just as, eventually, there is no avoidance of death for the animal. The verdant foreground of the hill is modified into violet hues in the distant, therefore inaccessible mountains. The steep vertical of the composition corresponds to Burke’s notion of suddenness, whereby a forceful transition takes place for the spectator and, as Morgan James concludes: ‘This ancient, powerful land can easily humble those who ignore the dangers. Highland landscape … is menacing and unpredictable’ (2006: 198). The vista generates both awe and power, gained through the overhead shot, affording the spectator a

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position not acquired by the Queen. In this fictive sphere, she is thus metaphorically disempowered. Lasting for some seconds, the aerial photography roams the landscape providing a landscaping gaze. The stag is literally overtaken, and disappears from view as the camera veers sharply to the right and passes over the hilltop. Comprising a series of parallel lines, the foreground initially rises in a series of knolls, before descending towards a valley situated horizontally across the frame. At the base lies a river; this leads the eye towards the mountain that forms a backdrop to the composition. Despite the fact that the Queen is no longer in view, she remains in the valley, which is a ‘confined space … the soft, womanly, sheltered valley actually functions to enclose the feminine into an unambitious, conventional, reassuringly docile sphere’ (Labbe 1998: xv). As the camera swerves to the right, a sound bridge occurs with the words, ‘Do you think you will ever be Queen?’, thus verbalising a threat to her own position – for the camera cuts to the face of Princess Diana, an image taken from her famous interview with Martin Bashir.1 This sequence continues for nearly a minute, and the vastness of the Scottish landscape is given emotional force by the accompaniment of rousing orchestral music. In all, the arrangement of the compositional elements renders the landscape impenetrable, and the Queen vulnerable. The use of an overhead shot to pursue the stag ensures that the landscape appears limitless and ‘generalised’, thus disenfranchising the Queen. As Hollander maintains, the Sublime in cinema is characterised by impenetrable continuities ‘because movement is implicit in it – a perpetual movement outward and onward towards something that will always be beyond present boundaries of vision or understanding’ (1989: 264). If the Highland images suggest impassability, they also infer subjugation – in this case the defeat of the Sovereign – and, as FlittermanLewis observes, the cinematographer is able to convey both a sense of the inspiring heady expansiveness of the Scottish countryside and the intimate pressure of the lush royal interiors…in the film it is this countryside and its traditions that provide Queen Elizabeth with an epiphany and mark a turning point in her reaction to Diana’s death (2007: 52).

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Deer-stalking is a common sport in the Highlands, and a significant ‘character’ in The Queen is the stag. The initial mention of the animal within the narrative is made half an hour into the film, when Prince Philip ( James Cromwell) comments that one of the ghillies has seen a 14-point stag. A conversation ensues with the Queen Mother as they watch the TV coverage of the return of the Princess’s body to Britain. This signals the Queen’s subsequent encounter with the beast and, narratively, alludes to the underlying feeling that existed between the monarchy and Diana, and links the death of the stag with Diana’s death. Narratively and visually, the most meaningful landscape sequence occurs when the Queen decides to venture out by herself to follow the hunting party. Her motivation for this action is never made clear, but the sequence becomes pivotal in the narrative, instigating a change in the Queen’s attitude. Embarrassing her ghillies, she appears unannounced at the estate office to enquire into the whereabouts of the stalkers. She is furnished with directions, and appears anxious at the mention of the river, thus signalling its potential dangers. This rhetoric concerning the landscape is later corroborated pictorially when the Queen becomes stranded in the water; the camera cuts from the interior of the ghillies’ office to a shot of her vehicle through the trees as, accompanied by fast-paced music, she speeds along the road. Seen in close-up, her anxious expression displays concern, presumably over current British opinion concerning the Royal Family. At this moment, the camera cuts to an overhead shot of her Land Rover as it winds its way down a track. Flanked on one side by the river bed, and on the other by moorland, the spectator is provided with a privileged view of the proceedings. The camera tilts upwards as the Queen continues her journey, and at this juncture, there is a spectacular vista of the mountains. Diminished in the foreground of the frame, the vehicle mediates the experience of the Scottish hills and aggrandises the surroundings. By using overhead shots, both in this and the preceding sequence, Frears precludes access to the image, thus rendering the Queen exposed and vulnerable – the spectator is barred from a level point of entry into the composition. A group of trees in various emerald shades form the foreground, and enable a vista along the curve of the river towards the distant hills; this is a viewpoint

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which might be described as a secondary prospect, whereby the bend in the river deflects the view. Sunlight reflected on the water’s surface creates a dazzling chiaroscuro effect, contrasting the illuminated area with the surrounding land. Steep-sided hills to the right of the frame form vertical boundaries, and further destabilise the viewer and provoke a sense of unease. Nowhere does the image conform to Burke’s notion of Beauty; instead, Frears presents a deflected vantage point, and the spectator must work to attain any form of perspective or comprehension of the situation. Arguably, this provides a certain aesthetic satisfaction and empowerment – the viewer is forced to confront the shapes, colours and features of the landscape as a means of ‘survival’, in the Sublime sense of the word. The camera alternates between a series of close-ups of the Queen’s face and long-shots of her vehicle, as she attempts to cross the water. Grinding to a halt, amidst worrying mechanical noises, an overhead shot reveals the hapless woman, angry with herself, peering underneath to assess the damage. At this point, the camera retreats to a distant shot of the landscape. Placed centre-frame, the Land Rover faces the bank, and the steep sides of the hills locate the Queen, yet again, in a vulnerable position. Her isolated figure generates fear and anticipation, this impact deriving from her scale and positioning within the landscape, and ‘the remoteness lies in the scene’s visible retreat from any claim to entire comprehension’ (Hollander 1989: 264), a concept that factors in the Sublime. At this point, there is no prospect view available to the monarch – although a leader, she is not allowed a field of vision that might indicate her social or financial status. A poignant and emotive event follows immediately after she has telephoned for aid. The camera frames her face in a side view as, wearing a troubled expression, she gazes downwards. The spectator is aware of her vulnerability, both as an unaccompanied and unpopular sovereign, and as a lone figure in inhospitable surroundings. Traditionally in cinema, the Scottish Highlands are presented as a space for male self-discovery and romance. As Sillars and MacDonald point out: ‘A refugee from the modern world finds there respite and a reconnection with the natural world, often brokered by a feminine spirit of place’ (2008: 185). The Queen becomes a refugee from the

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world in this brief moment. She removes her headscarf and her facial expression develops into a relaxed half-smile as she closes her eyes and breathes in the fresh air. She glances across to her left and, from a point-of-view shot, the camera cuts to a perspective of the fastflowing river. Large boulders of grey granite form the foreground of the composition, operating as hazards and thus forcing the spectator to look beyond, as the eye is drawn to the river-bank and in turn to the vast mountains in the distance. The only sounds that to be heard are from the fast-flowing water and the sound of birdsong. As if to emphasise the Queen’s vulnerability and to involve the spectator in her plight, the camera cuts to another overhead shot of the stranded woman. The water glistens, its luminosity almost obscuring her slight figure, which is rendered as such by the sharp incline of the surrounding hills. A subsequent edit reveals a halo effect occurring at the back of her head, as her hair is highlighted by the rays of the sun. At this point she sobs quietly. Here, emotions of helplessness and regret might be evoked, which Tan and Frijda assert are intertwined with Sublime affect. As they remark: [What] tears of joy and tears of grief have in common [is] that they occur in situations that are experienced as overwhelming, as situations that one feels unable to control, to deal with, or retain one’s distance from…Crying is a sign that one yields to the helplessness with regard to the emotional situation, or because one gives in to one’s felt ability, and perhaps willingly abandons to one’s lack of power (1999: 53).

Not only does the landscape render the Queen helpless, so does her powerlessness, in terms both of her present situation and of the behaviour of the public. Arguably, at this point, the spectator has little sympathy with the monarch; the narrative has encouraged the spectator to engage in identification with both Tony Blair and the Queen; undoubtedly, many viewers will remember the actual events and controversies following Princess Diana’s death, as reported in the media, and what the public perceived as the Queen’s lack of acknowledgement of their opinion. Unexpectedly, the Queen becomes aware of another presence, and she turns her head slowly. This resultant image becomes blurred in contrast to a refocus on the landscape, and a stag’s head appears as the

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animal enters from the right-hand side of the frame. Accompanied by soft music, the image sharpens and alternates between the stag and the Queen as the two monarchs face each other. She shakes her head in wonder, and the camera cuts to a slow motion shot of the deer as it begins to run, advancing towards her. The Queen, unable to restrain herself, seems overawed by the creature and utters ‘Oh, you beauty!’ as it stands to face her, the animal now also illuminated by the sun’s rays. The Queen’s apparently magical experience is made more plausible by her facial expressions; and a similar emotion is also mobilised for the spectator, as the graceful beast and its surroundings assume a spiritual quality. Comfortable in its environment, and clearly trusting its human counterpart, the stag grazes and the camera cuts to an extreme close-up of the Queen’s face as she silently observes the animal. The sound of gunfire alerts her, and with a startled movement she turns her head. Subsequently, and presumably in an attempt to protect the beast, she physically and verbally endeavours to frighten the animal by waving her arms and shouting. An edit to her point



A magical experience for the Queen and the spectator in The Queen (Frears 2006).

Fig.8

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of view depicts the stag situated centre-frame beneath the branches of a tree. The animal is being pursued, much like the Queen: both their positions are threatened, a situation reinforced through the surrounding landscape which forms a steep vertical to the rear of the composition, challenging any stability. Again, at the sound of barking dogs the Queen turns round, only to find that the animal has disappeared as magically as it arrived (Figure 8). The camera returns to a close-up of her smiling face, which expresses pleasure that the animal has escaped unharmed. An ensuing landscape shot is shown in greater detail, indicating that this is probably not taken from the Queen’s perspective, although it is the same vantage point: in other words, it is a spectator’s or landscaping gaze. A haze hangs mysteriously over the valley and the accompanying light-hearted music props up the mystical element, as though the encounter with the animal was merely an apparition. According to Scottish tradition, the journey of the male protagonist is made inhospitable because it is ruptured by female-related interferences, combining ‘natural and supernatural elements: mists, winds, tides, mermaids and monsters. The gendering of these mysterious and wayward elements as feminine is clear’ (Sillars and MacDonald 2008: 185). Here, then the femalecoded supernatural event occurs to enable the escape of the deer, and to prevent its death at this point in the film. Ultimately, Frears’s treatment is light-hearted – on its disappearance, the Queen laughs about the escapade. Although this sequence slips in and out of what Lefebvre terms pure and impure shots, the viewer is given an experience akin to Burke’s notion of the Sublime. The landscape, viewed from a variety of perspectives, appears unattainable and remote. Using soft focus and muted hues, the hazy images confirm phenomena beyond their surface presentation. This and the Scottish landscape communicate a sense of myth through subject matter and formal organisation, a quality which ‘bypass[es] rationality, to get at problems that are so subterranean and large and many-sided’ (Crouse 2008: 19). The Queen’s foray into the landscape becomes a spiritual experience [through] the singling out of the particular sensuous, aesthetic pleasures of form, contour, texture, and variation of light…This is essentially a sensuous experience (auditory and visual), and lacks the dimension

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of connoisseurship. The third stage, the spiritual, may be generated by submergence into the sensuous experience already described, from which arises a feeling for the numinous quality of that whole setting. In addition to being something, it begins to mean something … The meaning is hard to express in words (Andrews 1999: 10).

Thus, the sequence has enhanced the narrative on a number of counts. To interpret Andrews, it might seem that contemplating this particular landscape imagery has produced an unconscious reflex rather than a cognisant reaction – or what Lyons refers to as ‘an absolutely sensational experience, an optical or aural feeling that is primary, and not due to the repercussion backwards [to the physiological level] of other sensations elsewhere consecutively aroused’ (1997: 140). It has enabled a numinous encounter, and enlarged our understanding of character motivation and emotion. Similarly, it has mobilised additional pleasures through the encounter with select landscape features. As Toles points out: ‘Something inside the frame (and inside us), which resists definition, “urges us to fill the voids, the inviting space within its [the frame’s] boundaries that are true to the ones that torment us in life”’ (2001: 89). Toles attempts to position the spectator ‘dizzyingly in that final phase of enthrallment [sic] where we truly don’t feel capable of distinguishing the outer image from the inner actuality’ (2001: 89–90). Moreover, if the concept of the prospect view is deployed, it supports the notion that the Queen is rendered powerless through her entry into unsuitable terrain. At this juncture, the Queen should theoretically be able to survey all that she owns, and this privileged viewpoint connotes her eminence, or what Labbe terms ‘the highborn prospect view’ (1998: xi). This also has elitist connotations for the viewer, who is able to endorse those advantages enjoyed by the protagonist. However, this elevated stance is not perceived as such by the monarch, but by the spectator alone, thus privileging a transcendent stage in the narrative, and also producing ‘a masculine rite of passage in which … “the hero of consciousness” must move to some new level of awareness’ (Labbe 1998: 39). Frears pays careful attention to the final visual style of the film, and is particular, through his choice of film stock, to contrast the worlds of the Queen and Blair. As Sweeney and Hemphill point out:

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Frears felt strongly that in addition to using some actual news footage of the events of 1997, the film should use different visual textures for Blair and the Queen’s separate worlds; he wanted a gritty, provincial look for Blair’s sequences and a smooth elegance for the Queen’s…For Blair’s sequences, he shot Super 16mm with spare or stark lighting and few contrasting primary colors; when transferred to 35mm, this yielded evident grain and sharp tone. By contrast, he shot the Queen’s world in 35mm, incorporating a warmer lighting scheme and deeper, more solid colors (2007: 14).

The stag is represented as a graceful beast and its appearance pays homage to Victorian artist Sir Edwin Landseer’s painting Monarch of the Glen (1851). As a regular visitor to Balmoral, Landseer had close connections with Queen Victoria and had provided art tuition for both her and her consort, Prince Albert. Monarch of the Glen was originally painted for the refreshment room of the House of Lords, and subsequently became the most popular and most recognised picture of the mid-nineteenth century, reproduced in prints for greater accessibility and dissemination. The haughty authority of this great stag standing on the summit of a Highland mountain, and commanding all it sees below, dominates the composition. Duncan Petrie asserts that many historical interpretations of the Scottish landscape originate from myths surrounding the Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1745. Fictional constructions of the Highlander as an independent hero prepared to fight and die for his land are evident in nineteenth-century novels and Victorian paintings. He asserts: The action invariably takes place against a picturesque backdrop of untamed Highland wilderness reflecting the honour, nobility and defiance of those who have inhabited this land for centuries. Moreover, such a construction of the Highlands is placed in dialectical relation to a ‘cultivated’ Lowlands associated with acquiescence in the Union (Petrie 2000: 53).

Petrie cites Landseer’s painting as a forerunner of the cinematic convention of Scottish landscape representations, noting the derogatory label ‘tartanry’ as an outcome of this. Just as Landseer presents the setting in this painting as more than background, so Frears pictures the two monarchs in The Queen. Admittedly, the stag is introduced in a rather overstated way, yet it is not the animal that is

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significant to the creation of emotion within the shots. In many ways the stag is a narrative ruse, its presence a plausible device, but arguably it is the explicit Romantic vocabulary used to present the surrounding landscape as more than backdrop that facilitates spectator emotion. As Lefebvre argues: To make the landscape emerge means to relate the image to certain historical conventions of landscape painting that the spectator must know beforehand. In other words, it is precisely because I am sensitive to landscape art and because I know its conventions that I am inclined to grant to the space in question the value of landscape (2006: 30).

Although not suggesting that Frears consciously drew inspiration from Landseer, or indeed any other painting, the images in his film bear some of the traditional hallmarks of the work of various Scottish landscape artists, such as David Young Cameron (1865–1945), who drew on the notion of a relationship between the Highlands and Scottish identity. He painted Romantic landscapes which found visual expression in the depiction of awe-inspiring wildernesses, evoking the notion of a Burkean Sublime. Cameron’s Wilds of Assynt (1936) is a continuation of Romantic painting of a century earlier; its subject, a mountainous landscape, is neither trite nor clichéd. Two small figures to the foreground of the painting lead the eye to a ruined castle, an indirect prospect, and eventually to the purple mountains in the background. Although not a menacing landscape, the figures appear diminished, made vulnerable by the overpowering surroundings. Here, the figures are not in danger, but their human subjection is dramatised by the power of the landscape. An emotional impact is thus created through the use of figures and their positioning; their presence has the effect of accentuating the scale of the mountains and gives a disturbing impact to the composition. An earlier Romantic painting by Turner expresses similar qualities to Cameron’s work. Entitled Loch Coruisk, Skye (1831), the image codes the vocabulary of the Sublime through its dynamic lines, which form strong diagonals across the composition. Turner’s work holds a sense of danger, engulfing the spectator in its steep-sided mountains and dramatic whirls of paint. Seen from above, initially, the eye is drawn to the swirling shapes of the watercolour’s rock formations. Their grey mass forms an eddy, merging

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with the cloud formations and the water of the loch. Two diminutive figures are placed in the foreground, and again their presence mediates the spectator experience. They are not alone in the landscape: to the left of the painting, three other separate figures appear in various poses, either walking or climbing across the gigantic rock face. As mentioned at the outset, one narrative theme in The Queen is concerned with the suppression of emotion. A narrative reading of the relevant sequence might demonstrate the Queen’s lack and inability to express emotion; she struggles with loss of power, as indicated by public feeling, and her lack of popularity is made evident narratively. This is not clearly stated, although the inclusion of the stag sequence further enhances the story, inserting the notion of the two monarchs both hunted yet undertaking a time-honoured duty. Further parallels are made between Princess Diana and the stag, a point noted by Flitterman-Lewis, who observes: The parallels are obvious; Diana, the most hunted woman in the world, stalked as prey by image-hungry photographers and finally killed, is described as such by her brother…This is the pursuit from the stag’s point of view, recast in the vocabulary of modern media and the woman’s image (2007: 52).

The emphasis on a pictorial analysis rooted in Romantic and Sublime theory, allows the spectator another dimension to experience an emotion which bypasses rationalisation, yet still forms part of knowledge production. The Magdalene Sisters (Mullan 2002) In a similar way to the Queen’s desire to escape the press at Balmoral, the theme of entrapment is unremitting in The Magdalene Sisters. This is reinforced narratively through the restrictive practices in the setting of the Magdalene Asylum, whose regime is administered in an unjustly harsh manner by a group of nuns, and is visually manifested through the abundant shots of fences, walls and gates that perpetually restrain its inhabitants. Contemporary critical reviews of the film focus on the theme of repression, and the moralistic values of Catholicism. As Philip Kemp points out:

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The power of Mullan’s film…lies in the way he relates these incidents to the wider picture of a cramped, repressed society where sexual impulses are twisted by shame, ignorance, and a conspiracy of state, church and family can be sustained against women deemed ‘morally irresponsible’ without a voice raised in protest (2003: 52).

Arguably, in The Magdalene Sisters, liberty as a response to subjugation is expressed through formal presentations of the landscape. The suppression of the girls is a state enforced through a denial of the prospect view, and they are rendered passive and restricted – all Sublime responses to nature. As Labbe, citing Twitchell, points out: ‘Twitchell’s sublime involves “a struggle to get free, to get loose, to get to the threshold, to frame the visionary encounter [characterised as] the joy of moving out of self-consciousness into something beyond”’ (1998: 45). Unlike the abundance of rural settings in Ladies in Lavender (discussed below), bucolic imagery appears only sporadically during the two-hour duration of The Magdalene Sisters, and is situated strategically at lengthy intervals. The first encounter with the landscape occurs just after the fateful wedding which opens The Magdalene Sisters, but this does not appear again until nearly halfway through the film. Images of whispering family and guests at the ceremony are intercut with Margaret’s tearful face as the news of the unsavoury incident unfolds. Margaret has been raped by her cousin and, although not explicitly stated in the narrative, this elicits outrage in the Catholic community, and her incarceration inevitably follows. The last shots of her freedom occur as she is woken by her hostile father in the early hours of the following morning. Margaret shares a room with her sister and brother and, in the darkened space, she hurriedly dresses. Her brother’s concern is visible, as he watches her removal indicating that she is being forcibly taken from her home, although her destination is not indicated at this stage. Cutting from a close-up of Margaret’s unhappy expression as she searches for her clothes, the camera frames a vista of a deserted country lane. Lined on either side by foliage, and foregrounded by wild flowers, a blurred image of a car appears in the road. The flora are clearly defined, forming white sprays across the frame, as the hazy spectre of the vehicle gains sharper focus and approaches the camera. Sun throws the trees into shadow, and the landscape is set against a

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clear blue sky; it is a fine summer morning. The duration of the shot is lengthy, and it is initially viewed as space freed from eventhood, until the vehicle appears in close-up. On closer inspection of the landscape, the eye is led away from the car, to the now softer image of the flowers, and subsequently to a cottage on the horizon. Distant hills fade into the background, conjuring up the picturesque rural idyll, which is soon to be lost to Margaret; it is the last rustic representation that the characters will encounter until nearly the end of the film. This essentially static image reveals a carefully arranged view of nature, later superseded by a more Sublime aesthetic, indicating Margaret’s captivity and shame. As Andrews suggests, the Picturesque and the Sublime are visually fused – the Picturesque ‘emphasizes the “softening effects of distance” as well as a lowered point of view, so that the “spectator has much more the sense of being enveloped by the landscape”’ (cited in Labbe 1998: 55). As the sequence progresses, the noise of the car engine increases to a deafening roar, and the viewer is situated at a low angle and, subsequently in a vulnerable position in relation to the strong horizontal perspective of a dry stone wall, a feature which now occupies almost the entire frame. Walls become a recurring motif in the film, and operate to halt the spectator’s visual progress into the landscape. At this juncture its insertion becomes intimidating, and offers a mode of representation which closes off entry into the distance, hinting at a great, inaccessible expanse beyond, subsequently situating the spectator as captive. Placed low in the frame, the camera reveals the dark outline of the rocks, which obliterate the sky, accompanied by the intimidating sound of the engine as the car speeds on, although it is no longer visible in the frame. In painterly terms, the vehicle has operated as a repoussoir,2 to guide the eye to the world beyond. This world will become Margaret’s and her co-inhabitants’ prison for the next few years. Thus, the Picturesque has adopted the qualities of the Sublime and the Beautiful, creating a ‘kind of fused state…’. Sometimes the fusion is visual: ‘The Picturesque [tourist] delight[s] in the variety and contrasts of a blend of beauty and sublimity’ (Labbe 1998: 55). The focus on intimidation and female sorrow is emphasised through the engulfing effect of this opening sequence,

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and this emotion becomes more pronounced as an edit reveals an image of Margaret as her father slams the car door. Seen indistinctly through the rear window, she appears confused and distressed. In the emotionally charged ensuing shot, the face of Margaret’s mother (Deirdre Davis) gazes helplessly from the farmhouse window; her countenance is juxtaposed with Margaret’s, which is reflected through the glass. Visually and metaphorically the women are placed side-byside, presenting solidarity against the male tyranny of the two ‘fathers’. Whether or not a deliberate act, both through the mechanism of framing and the organisation of the composition, the director has mobilised a Sublime (masculine) rendering of the landscape, where women are not welcome. This is the last shot of the countryside until an hour into the film, although there are brief glimpses of the exterior world beyond the confines of the asylum when visitors arrive at the gates. However, all vistas are visually barred or restricted by vertical walls and buildings, connoting the physical imprisonment of the inmates. When the landscape is presented, it features distant perspectives indicating the unattainable, the mysterious and the spiritual. Narratively, the experience of incarceration is underpinned through the incessant workload of the inmates, the cruel and humiliating daily routines that they are subjected to, and their excessive exposure to religious observance. Partway through The Magdalene Sisters, the Romantic Irish landscape offers Margaret escape. She runs into the garden, where the verdant foliage of the shrubbery is shown against the imposing Gothic asylum looming significantly in the background. Viewed from the interior of a dilapidated potting shed, Margaret obtains some irritant plant leaves, and then sees a door, slightly ajar, in the garden wall. She is almost discovered by one of the Sisters but advances towards the opening, and glances nervously around. The shaded, enclosed garden seems gloomy and overwhelming, until she pushes the door open to reveal vast expanses of lush fields, initially sectioned off by a dry stone wall. At first, the eye is led, not to this solid foreground feature, but to the sweep of the hills as they form a series of horizontals across the composition, here functioning as respite from the confines of the asylum. The omission of any middle ground promotes a fragmented

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space, whereby the landscape seems arranged through an impeded view. Margaret’s head appears within the frame, but rather than obstructing the vista, she is marginalised, thus providing a foil for the landscape and drawing the spectator back to find ‘the commonplace (earth, grass and trees) estranged and unfamiliar’ (Koerner 2009: 139). According to John Barrell, the commonplace should not be ascribed the status of panorama, especially where it includes what he terms ‘accidents in nature’. These might include untypical natural phenomena: sometimes they are regarded as phenomena rare enough to be the result of a complex conjunction of natural causes: storms and rainbows are accidents. More generally, however, accidents are anything in the prospect of nature which suggests that the prospect is being observed at one particular moment rather than another, and which calls attention to that fact: when the light, for example, strikes objects in such a way as to suggest that it will strike them differently a second later; when the form of a tree is such that it seems to be ruffled by a blast of wind of such or such a particular force, blowing from such or such a direction. Anything, in short, is an accident, which suggests a view of nature as other than abstract, typical, a permanent phenomenon, but particularly untypical effects of light, or untypical forms of objects (1995: 83).

Thus, such ‘accidents’ of nature impede the view, and subsequently are less elevating, less powerful and therefore more humbling. They do not afford a prospect for either the character, or the spectator, relying more on ‘particularity, and that peculiarly feminized type of imagination, the fancy’ (Labbe 1998: xv). The incongruity between the Picturesque and the Sublime in The Magdalene Sisters therefore emphasises the distinction between freedom and incarceration.The Picturesque is attainable and present in the familiarity of the garden sequences, the Sublime is what lies beyond the walls of the asylum, and is unattainable. As Hollander explains: ‘The idea of being ceaselessly drawn by the always unattainable and the forever incomprehensible is what the sublime mode in art tried to convey’ (1989: 264). Margaret is not necessarily presented in a pose of ‘heroic action’, although her decision to break free is a courageous one. Her figure and the frame manipulate the fundamentals of the land to create a landscape, her presence physically mediating the

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composition for the spectator. Margaret ventures through the door and, from a point-of-view shot, the camera passes slowly from right to left across the rural imagery. Instead of the wild chervil shown in the earlier sequence, this time the common pink thistle completes the foreground, its barbed spikes rising cruelly from behind the stone wall. In spite of the pastoral vision presented yonder, a partition retains the separation between Margaret and freedom. For an instant, however, there is no barrier between Margaret/spectator and the landscape, although she is extraneous – not forming part of the composition, but remaining isolated and disaffected. The aspects of nature that she observes convey a spiritual significance through the measured pace of the cinematography and the idyllic content of the framed view. The only sound is of birdsong, and the rapturous moment is reinforced as the film edits back to Margaret’s ecstatic face. At this point the sound of a car engine alerts Margaret to the possibility of escape. In a sequence not dissimilar to her enforced exile, a car advances along the leafy lane under the overhang of tree branches which line the road. Margaret flags the vehicle to a standstill, but is unable to commit, and is left, head hanging, standing in the lane. The next shot narratively situates her on the outside of the wall, viewed through its gaping door, thus establishing her immediate future within the institution. Framed by the aperture, Margaret appears encased by the grey, drab walls of the asylum. The verdant countryside is just visible above the wall and beyond, the girl’s figure thus creating an interrupted view, and thereby enhancing its Romantic qualities. Ultimately, Margaret closes the door, reluctantly shutting out the bucolic idyll, whereupon one of the nuns, on noticing the opening, locks it. Thus, setting transiently becomes landscape before the spectator again engages with the narrative. The penultimate and final landscape sequences are both significant. Aiming at a particular appearance, director Peter Mullan explains that he ‘only storyboarded two scenes: the procession [where the girls are allowed out for an open-air ceremony]’, and describes his approach as a ‘Sunday-afternoon, Douglas Sirk-type drama’ (cited in James 2003: 17) evoking the artificial colours and hues of the Hollywood director’s melodramas. Taking the girls to be confirmed, the nuns are arranged in a symmetrical formation, appearing as a myriad of black and white

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shapes as they march along the road. They are being permitted to venture out into the community to participate in a select service for the Magdalene inhabitants only, and they hurriedly depart, as, significantly, Mullan retains an image of the countryside. Brief glimpses of distant hills punctuate the background, and these present a backdrop to the sumptuous rural setting, which is bathed in sunlight from the pale blue sky, the mauve, heather-covered mounds fading with the aerial perspective.3 From the hazy distance, the eye is led to the undulating forefront of the composition, which is comprised of a series of lush hummocks forming a valley. Flanked by a stone wall, a lane directs the gaze to all these features. Shadows form across the landscape as a group of marching policemen appear, followed by the girls, dressed in bright blue and white outfits, with the nuns and finally two more policemen bringing up the rear. Initially the vista is partially obscured by the figures which blemish the previously unspoilt view. Nevertheless, as the confirmation party continue on their journey, the impure landscape is again exposed. The perspective that the spectator identifies with after the procession has disappeared is from a lowered viewpoint, and the women are not permitted this prospect view. Towards the end of the film, the landscape narratively provides an escape route for the characters. Filmed through an elaborate metal gate topped with a cross, Rose and Bernadette are seen approaching the camera. They fumble for the keys they have taken from the nuns following a violent tussle. Initially, the girls are depicted from the opposite side of the huge iron gates. From this an edit reveals an arresting shot of a dead tree, its large, damaged appearance ascribed human suffering, in what art historian John Ruskin (1819–1900) might have termed an example of the ‘pathetic fallacy’.4 This materialises as though in angst, its branches elevated in arm-like fashion; asymbolically, it might represent an expression of grief at the horror that the girls have encountered during their imprisonment at the Magdalene Asylum. Its adoption of a sentinel presence conducts a mutual exchange between the rural and human emotions. Beyond this repoussoir feature, a dry stone wall stretches out into the landscape obscuring the view. Significantly, this shot remains on-screen for some seconds, and does not take place from the perspectives of the characters; it is therefore superfluous to narrative detail. The girls

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appear in the distance over the hill and approach the camera, and the tree’s twisted branches are now eliminated from view. They scramble over a gate, across a road and disappear into the fields. At this juncture, the top of a stone wall lies to the forefront of the frame. The girls have escaped the asylum, but visually, the landscape bestows an alternative ending. This is supported through the closing reports which explain that Margaret became an assistant head teacher but never married, Bernadette married three times and now lives alone, and Rose married and had two children, eventually tracing her son, 33 years after his adoption. Crispina died of anorexia at the age of 24. All these characters have struggled in later life, an outcome indicated in the final shots of the landscape. The images described above encourage spectator contribution through involvement. They are not Sublime in that they feature large edifices and overwhelming elements which encourage the spectator to stand back and stare in awe. More, their Sublimity lies in the ways in which they are filmed and framed by Mullan. To apply a narrative reading to many of these sequences might be challenging as, frequently, there is no oral explanation, or, as Toles suggests, it is difficult to ‘find a way of creating a verbal equivalent for those exact ways in which you’ve been buffeted and surprised and unstrung and undone by great movie moments and scenes’ (cited in Crouse 2008: 17). Throughout the film, the girls have been denied a prospect view, although this has been granted to the spectator. Even at the end of the film, despite the freedom that the protagonists experience, the viewer is given superiority and greater autonomy than the women are allowed through a more elevated vista. The landscape in The Magdalene Sisters alternates between the panorama and the obscured view. The former invokes the notion of a wider society, and the notion of the ability to grasp objects in the form of their relations to each other; among the meanings attached to the occluded view, from a low viewpoint, are seclusion… and privacy as something opposed to the social in its more extended sense, and also sensuality which [is] characterized by a tendency to see objects not in terms of their relations, or their common relation to a general, and representative term, but in and for themselves, as objects of consumption and possession (Barrell 1995: 85).

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Thus, the images of the landscape indicate tenure and custody, conditions that may be readily applied to the situations of the women. If ambiguity and discord are visual themes present in The Magdalene Sisters, this approach is also elicited in the contemporary visual arts, viewed particularly in the work of the American-born artist Justine Kurland (1969–). Kurland exhibits widely in Europe – neoromanticism is not confined to Britain – her images invoking a current trend for seeking out a refuge from the horrors of the age. Kurland’s photographs chime with the Romantic spirit present in the work of a number of contemporary artists who ‘want to leave the quotidian behind them’ (Hollein 2005: 17), producing disquieting images that fluctuate between desire, escapism and the surreal. Sexual and social transgressions are key themes which are painfully obvious in Mullan’s film, and these traits are also quoted in Kurland’s photographs. The artist uses Romantic motifs, but in a fragmentary vein so that they also appear painterly. In her large colour prints she positions innocent figures in the landscape, but dislocated from the world around them. If disorder is a theme in her work, then she addresses this through associating the landscape with enchantment. In some photographs, the girls number from two or three, and in others as many as 14. They appear at an age which intersects womanhood, yet they wear identical school uniforms, and consequently their juvenile costumes fail to make them seem comfortable in their environment, although in their demeanour they are calm and relaxed. The Eel Swamp (2001) is part of the New Zealand Series, and depicts two girls, their backs to the camera, wading through a pool of water. A film of sludge circles the surface, indicating that the water is stagnant and unclean. Placed centre-frame, one young girl aids the other by grasping her arm, as the second figure seems to be selecting an appropriate crossing. The title of the image is indicative of the murky depths of the pond, and this notion is reinforced through the dark brown edges of the water, situated deep in the shadows. Illumination appears through the trees to the right-hand side of the photograph, presenting a visual lure to the image. However, this fails to entice the girls who venture in the opposite direction, advancing towards the bank. To the forefront of the picture, a figure lies, face-up, suspended in the water. Dressed in the same attire as the two standing figures, she appears lifeless,

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one arm at the side of her body, floating on the surface, but it is impossible to discern whether she is dead or alive, with her ghostlywhite face upturned, and eyes staring. Kurland’s images seem to deny individuality and subjectivity through their uniform placement in the landscape, and the spectator is unable to gain any sense of identity from these groups of people, unlike the possible associations made available by the lone figure in the landscape. However, in spite of this, they seem to represent something broader: their expressions might indicate a yearning and desire beyond the space they occupy. West of the Water (2003, Figure 9) from the Golden Dawn Series consists of six naked female figures, facing out to sea in a stance, as noted earlier, which is a Romantic motif. They all kneel on large rocks, as though in prayer, their hands clasped together, palms facing each other. Every girl has long hair, some waist-length, which appears damp as though they have been cast away, and washed up on the beach, and the sense of longing, derived from their stance and impenetrable features, indicates a search for something out of reach. Water and sky merge in colour and effect, and this is complemented by the darker hues



Justine Kurland, West of the Water (2003).

Fig.9

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of the rocks. Kurland admits that she gained inspiration from the nineteenth-century English Picturesque for her images, as well as from the photographs of Julia Cameron (1815–79). These girls are immobile in a trance-like state, and seem impervious to weather, the cold or the elements around them. Kurland is interested in the power of women and ‘their uneasy feelings about themselves’ (2000), and the absence of anyone else in the image implies a desire for privacy and security. Her photographs express a female bid for freedom; she comments, ‘the iconography of travel and escape is everywhere in my photographs’ (2000). Kurland’s Girl Series connotes unification to the exclusion of men. They consist of a number of photographs of young girls dressed in school uniform either in pastoral landscape settings or looking out to sea. The figures seem at home in their environment, either wading into the water, as in Ghost Ship (2001), or engaging in playful activities in grassy fields, as in Sheep Wranglers (2001). As John Kelsey puts it: ‘We have no idea where these lost girls are going and they probably don’t know themselves, nor care’ (2005: 180). Cyclone (2001) is possibly the most evocative of Kurland’s Girl Series. In the forefront of the frame two young girls dressed in school uniforms are seated on a rock. They face west, expressionlessly looking out to sea. A number of other girls stand, wearing the same blank stare, as they gaze in a similar direction, creating a sense of uniformity and conformity. However, one girl is dressed differently, and another picks her way barefoot through the rocks towards the camera. Although the girls look towards the ocean, in this and the other images discussed, they are not allowed a prospect view. Instead, the camera frames them from a low viewpoint, implying seclusion and solitude, akin to the women in The Magdalene Sisters. Miss Potter (Noonan 2006) Apart from the few Balmoral sequences, The Queen is mainly set in London, yet the haunting rural imagery of the Scottish Highlands seems to dominate the film. Mullan highlights the rural as a desirable attribute in The Magdalene Sisters, which the girls must see as a means of escape, but this is sparsely inserted in his film. Christopher Noonan’s

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2006 film, Miss Potter, however, is set mainly in the Lake District, a tourist destination, and a place of high elevations and deep valleys, affording prospect views. The ‘painterliness’ is alluded to visually at the outset: as the credits roll over the screen the camera focuses on an artist’s brush in close-up as it delivers various shades of a blue/ green watercolour paint to a sheet of paper. This is a point noted by David Jays, who comments: ‘Images over the opening credits suggest Potter’s attention to her craft – painstakingly sharpening her pencil, reaching for a battered tin of watercolours’ (2007: 65). Dissolving to a wooded vista, the next shot links the art of painting to the countryside. The camera pans right to reveal a small stretch of water, a feature indicative of the Lake District, which is the setting for much of the film, before dissolving to a more dramatic perspective. Now dark clouds fill the sky and hover over a mountain expanse, which meets a larger lake than that previously figured. During this lengthy shot, soft violin music is played, before a further dissolve reveals a large gnarled tree to the right of the frame, and a figure to the left. This is Beatrix Potter (Renée Zellweger); clad in a brown costume, she blends easily with her environment. The artistic predilection of the landscape images is unmistakable, and a calculated decision on the part of the Australian director. He chose a British cinematographer with expertise in period films, ‘who is a bit of an artist in his own right’ (Thomson 2007: 28), and, although the spectator is not allowed further shots of the Lake District until 15 minutes into the film, these are separate from the London sequences. As Thomson states: ‘There was London vs. the Lake District, and Potter’s childhood vs. her adulthood. Given the importance of the Lake District to Potter’s life, the film-makers opted for a wide-screen format to take full advantage of the scenery’. In justification for this, following Beatrix’s departure to the Lakes sumptuous images of ‘vast tracts of land that today constitute the core of the Lake District National Park’ dominate (Thomson 2007: 28). Conveyed through flashback and voice-over, the landscape appears imposing as Beatrix describes how her mother (Barbara Flynn) persuaded her father (Bill Paterson) to visit this scenic place for the first time. Her dialogue is illustrated by a low-angle shot of an aqueduct, as a train speeds across it, and the spectator is thus forced to peer up at the series of

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consecutive arches that comprise the imposing structure. Bathed in light, the train cuts through the landscape as a young Beatrix explains with reference to their summer retreat: ‘Like an animal that has been caged, I fell under its spell’. This edifice is a repeated motif in the film, its insertion suggesting the gateway to the Lakes, and it reappears when Beatrix reaches adulthood and is set to marry Norman Warne (Ewan McGregor). Following the couple’s engagement, Beatrix’s parents persuade her to take a break with them to consider their feelings for one another. The three leave London and the camera cuts to a more distant shot of the aqueduct; a cottage is visible in the foreground, and this time the steam train is diminished in the frame. From this, an edit reveals a lake through a slow pan from right to left, mirroring the slow pace of life and the frustration that Beatrix experiences following the couple’s parting. Now the water occupies most of the image, and becomes an overwhelming sight with its vast, grey expanse, importing a sombre ambience in a feature which parallels Beatrix’s dissatisfaction at the enforced separation. Miss Potter tracks the life of the children’s author and illustrator, Beatrix Potter. Her family is wealthy, but she chooses a sickly, unconventional suitor from a literary background. Although the film focuses primarily on her life in London and her attempts to persuade her parents that her desire for a career as an artist is important to her, there are plentiful shots of the Lake District and Cumbria, the area most associated with the Beatrix Potter legend. As Beatrix states from the outset, ‘looking back, the city and I never much liked each other’, thus implying her preference for the countryside, and predisposing the spectator to join her in her pleasures. To underpin her love of nature, following her first publishing agreement in London she instructs her carriage driver to take her through the park on the way home, and opens the window to inhale the air. Breathing deeply, Beatrix leans out and orders her driver to speed up. From her point of view, the camera alternates between views of the lake, and low-angle shots of the trees, all features more associated with the Lake fells than London. Beatrix is the only female character in the film who sits comfortably in the landscape. Again, this is a deliberate attempt by the cinematographer to give her ‘a sense of freedom, space and

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energy…That is reflected in the framing: characters associated with the countryside are often shown enveloped by the landscape’ (Thomson 2007: 33). As noted, her costume is of the same earthy hues as the bracken and ferns, and her early experience suggests a compatibility with the land when, as a child, she plunges into the vegetable patch in an attempt to capture rabbits. In later life, she walks in the hills, sketching various aspects of nature, while demonstrating an empathy with flora and fauna. In fact, much of Beatrix Potter’s work focused on botany, although this dimension is not made explicit in the film. By contrast, Beatrix’s mother seems out of place in their rural retreat. On the family’s summer holiday, she sits on the terrace clad in elegant London finery. Seated on a piece of furniture from the house, she barely moves, only to instruct the governess on the care of her children. At one point, Helen Potter is seated side-on, facing away from the landscape. To her left lies the spectacular and pictorial lake, which extends out behind her, but in spite of its beauty, Helen seems oblivious to it – unlike Beatrix, who appears permanently transfixed by the wonders of the area. It is throughout Beatrix’s childhood, narratively indicated in flashback in the early part of the film, that the spectator first encounters the beauty of the Lakes. The fact that it was filmed partly in Scotland makes it clear that Noonan wants to produce formal strategies that adhere to vocabulary consonant with the Sublime. Frequently, the landscape is presented as a form of travelogue, incorporating picturepostcard scenes of areas of natural beauty. At one point, Beatrix displays her illustrations to the local farmer’s son, William Heelis ( Justin McDonald). As they approach the camera, an edit places them behind a large rock, and therefore they become all but invisible to the spectator. With only their heads on show, they are dwarfed by their surroundings, their figures flanked on either side by two trees, which disappear through the top half of the frame. The trees cast long shadows across the grass, and the entire image is illuminated by the sunlight from a pink, cloudy sky. Beatrix’s love of the area is expressed as, clutching her hat to her head, she tells her companion, ‘I’d love to paint every view in this valley’, thus again predisposing the viewer also to enjoy the landscape. The two engage in a conversation about the break-up of the farms into small plots and the ‘beauty … worth

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preserving’, possibly allusions to contemporary fears concerning the changing face of the landscape. Heelis departs through a farm gate and the camera remains static, framing him as he walks across the field, again to provide the spectator with a view. Here, it is what Lyons terms ‘aesthetic emotion’, based on the natural senses, which provides pleasure for the spectator: Aesthetic emotion, pure and simple, the pleasure given us by certain lines and masses, and combinations of colors and sounds, is an absolutely sensational experience, an optical or aural feeling that is primary, and not due to the repercussion backwards [to the physiological level] of other sensations elsewhere consecutively aroused. To this simple primary and immediate pleasure in certain pure sensations and harmonious combinations of them, there may, it is true, be added secondary pleasures (1997: 139).

Arguably, it is Noonan’s painterly approach which contributes to the sensations experienced by the spectator. Beatrix’s vulnerability is highlighted at regular intervals in Noonan’s landscape sequences. Following her temporary separation from Norman, she emerges on the edge of the lake, barely visible in her surroundings, while a voice-over describes her dissent. ‘The beauty of this place seems magnified somehow with you in my mind’, says Beatrix as she writes to Norman, and, standing alone in front of the lake, she reads his response. The landscape is narratively entwined with their relationship, and also with Beatrix’s emotions. A chance encounter with her former friend, William Heelis (now played by Lloyd Owen), leads to a decision to buy Hilltop Farm, following Norman’s untimely death. Beatrix has returned to the Lakes from London and subsequently signs for the property. Immediately prior to the transaction, the camera cuts from London to a highangle image of the untamed rolling hills of Cumbria. There is no argument5 in the landscape, merely rolling countryside. This shot is only available from a spectator perspective, and does not engage any of the characters; it is arranged for audience contemplation as a prospect view, the elevated position placing the viewer as superior, and almost eliminating Beatrix, even though she owns the land and therefore, narratively, is entitled to the prospect. It might appear that, subconsciously, Noonan has prioritised Heelis within the landscape

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until the end of the film, when Beatrix is enabled a prospect. As the cinematographer points out: ‘When we shot Heelis, her future husband, there’s a free and easy way of framing. It’s a natural way of doing it, because there’s more greenery and flowing shapes. The lines within the frame are softer and more lateral than the countryside’ (cited in Thomson 2007: 33). This suggests not only Heelis’s importance as a figure associated with the landscape, but also a feminisation in accordance with Burke’s notion of Beauty. Towards the end of the film, following Beatrix’s mental breakdown, she awakens in her new home. The sound of birds may be heard as she smiles, and the camera cuts to a back view of her figure as she walks towards the edge of the hill. She is shown in medium close-up against the blue/grey of the distant hills, illuminated by the sun, in a shot that mirrors the colours used in the opening sequence of the film. The spectator is made aware that she has recovered, and she tells her new visitor, Norman’s sister Millie Warne (Emily Watson), that she has resumed painting. The two walk arm-in-arm through the woods, the camera remaining on a level and directed towards the figures as they approach. Large tree trunks border the left-hand side of the frame, their branches forming an archway through which the women walk. The emphasis here is on the Picturesque, the figures perceived from a lower viewpoint, the walkway appearing as a sheltered garden, offering no prospect for its inhabitants. Following a discussion, and in a series of dissolves, the camera cuts from this pure landscape, a bucolic combination of image and sound as wind rustles through the trees, and a farm worker drives his horse and cart, to a spectacular view of the lake. This becomes impure landscape, although it represents an ellipsis of time. There is no evidence of human presence, apart from a small cottage placed at the foot of the mountains, and a calendar pictorialism, or commodification, is suggested through the deployment of familiar artistic conventions. At this juncture, various components of the landscape imagery become visual shorthand to arrive at a formulaic Picturesque composition, and whereas the Picturesque becomes landscape in the sense of the art world, ‘[t]he Sublime eludes the impulse to consume’ (Andrews 1999: 142). The mountains are surrounded by trees, tinged with autumn colours, yet the composition is domestic. This dissolves to a shot of less accessible

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scenery, ‘that which we cannot appropriate’ (Andrews 1999: 142). A series of dissolves represent the season changes, and Beatrix is now seated in the leafy summer landscape, clearly no longer in mourning. Picturesque and Sublime impure landscapes are transformed into comfortable settings, imbued narratively with a political agenda – Beatrix becomes involved in the purchase of land to prevent a ‘ruined landscape and no community’, as the dialogue informs us. The narrative is bonded to the landscape through Beatrix’s attempts to secure its future free from development. Following the local council meeting, where concern is expressed about the future of the land, in a nostalgic vein, Beatrix is shown at work from a distant perspective, surrounded by horse-driven machinery. Her motivation has altered, from wanting to see her books published to acquiring land to save the community from development. She purchases another neighbouring farm, guided by Heelis, and earns his respect because of her aim in doing so. He tells her of his own love of the landscape, describing the surroundings in terms of its lyrical and affective qualities. As she is taken to view the new purchase, the camera frames this property, initially from a low angle, which further reinforces the grandeur and magnificence of the scenery. ‘This place, this community is an inspiration. It should be conserved for future generations, it deserves protection’, Beatrix states, in a comment which chimes with current fears of overdevelopment in rural areas, and the despoiling of the countryside.6 As she and Heelis go to view a number of neighbouring farms, they are depicted walking away from the camera down a long lane, and the camera moves from a level position to an elevated stance in an attempt to provide a panoramic view of the landscape. Interestingly, Beatrix may be about to purchase the property, but she is not given access to this outlook, or prospect view. As Heelis and Beatrix leave the auction they walk through the landscape together, the implication being that there will be a union between the two, and a future for the countryside. From this shot, the camera cuts to a high-angle view of Hilltop, Beatrix’s home. Hilltop, as its name indicates, is in an elevated position, but the image operates to reverse that information, presenting the cottage as sheltered and protected. The visual aspects of Miss Potter form a circular motif; the camera returns to frame Beatrix at the end of the film, seated

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against the lake, writing a biography. It remains static for a number of seconds while the subsequent events of her life are revealed. This time, she does gain a prospect view, although she is marginalised to the left-hand side of the frame. The landscape, however, is not evidenced from her point of view, but from a spectator perspective. Ladies in Lavender (Dance 2004) Just as Beatrix is never quite granted the elite point of view associated with the prospect, so this situation also does not arise for Ursula ( Judi Dench) and Janet (Maggie Smith), in Charles Dance’s Ladies in Lavender. The pictorial strategies employed at the opening of the film are indicative of the methods that operate throughout: from a black screen, followed by a pan from left to right, the camera introduces an image of a close-up of a rocky outcrop. Clearly a shoreline, the sound of footsteps on sand may be heard as two figures appear from the right hand side of the frame. Filmed in slow motion, and visually overpowered by a huge rock, two women dressed in identical fabrics walk along the beach facing away from the camera. Comparable to the opening sequences of Miss Potter, the painterliness in Ladies in Lavender is stressed at the outset through Dance’s technique of freeze-framing. Gentle and unassuming music accompanies them, as the image becomes vaguely blurred, and then freezes, assuming an impressionistic style. From this, the sound of female chatter may be heard, as the camera cuts to an image of the sea. This consists of a central pathway of light which is almost obliterated by Ursula, as she dips her bare foot into the receding tide, and an ensuing overhead shot depicts the women as they frolic on the beach. Ursula throws seaweed and splashes her sister Janet, who is more restrained, and subsequently remains seated close to angular rocks and small pools; the cove provides shelter for the two women. Ursula and Janet are confined and restricted by this haven. It later transpires that they are both spinsters, and the film – set in the 1930s – focuses on the themes of romance and of Ursula’s unrequited love for a shipwreck victim. Historically this interwar period was important in that there were a large proportion of unmarried women, and it is later revealed that Janet was engaged to be married, but lost her

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fiancé during the conflict. This fact explains their living arrangements as well as their emotional response to a castaway, Andrea, who mysteriously appears on the beach. As with the other examples described above, the landscape in Ladies in Lavender slips between setting as milieu and part of the narrative, to the object of the spectator’s landscaping gaze (Figure 10). The sea implies entrapment for the sisters and, for a time, restricts Andrea also. In the first instance he is physically trapped, having been washed up on the shore by a terrifying storm, but this situation changes, as exemplified in the sequence when Andrea has recovered and becomes animated about becoming a professional musician. Following the boy’s request that they listen to the famous violinist Boris Daniloff on the radio, the camera cuts to the three characters, standing on a rocky promontory looking out to sea. An expression of anxiety appears on Ursula’s face as Andrea declares that they should look across the sea to America where there is ‘a new life for me’. He stands centre-frame, with his back to the camera, hands on hips. Janet too looks out to sea, but Ursula averts her gaze and, on his remarks, turns towards



Impure landscapes in Ladies in Lavender (Dance 2004).

Fig.10

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him, instructing that they return to the house. The elderly woman is denying herself the prospect gaze and, in turn, Andrea’s imminent departure: she turns away from the elements as though the sea and the rocks are unbefitting places for women. Although Ursula and Janet inhabit the inhospitable landscape, they are more comfortable on its beaches where, ‘the soft, womanly, sheltered valley actually functions to enclose the feminine into an unambitious, conventional, reassuringly docile sphere’ (Labbe 1998: xv). For Ursula, the house operates to incarcerate the boy, preventing his escape over the sea from whence he came. As the three leave the coast, they walk from left to right, in other words from west to east, a direction away from America and, by extension the push westward by the early pioneers. To reiterate their sense of permanence and unadventurous spirit, in a disparaging tone Janet relays a quote from her Aunt Elizabeth, which informs us that ‘America is made up of the sweepings of Europe’. The three then return home, but not before the camera retains its focus on the landscape and, at this point, setting becomes impure, furnishing the spectator with more than narrative information. Although the sea is calm it conveys a sense of the eternal, and the sun sets over the cliffs, a feature which might be representative of life and death. The spectator is encouraged to gaze out to sea, not unlike Kurland’s schoolgirls whose fixed stares represent, ‘hallucinating half-dreamed territories at the edge of an over-civilised world’ (Kelsey 2005: 180). If Ursula and Janet face an uncertain future, Andrea has a clearer vision of the opportunities that await him. Specific imagery implies that he is destined to explore the world, a venture indicated through his wistful assurance of a new beginning in America. Rarely does Dance take the spectator inland in Ladies in Lavender. Instead, throughout, he provides seascapes that impart transience and the momentary, indicative of Andrea’s stay with the women, and his future apart from them. This is not Ursula and Janet’s world; their existence is one of endurance and permanence. They represent the conservative values of a bygone age, and seem unable to progress beyond the confines of their own epoch. Just as Kurland’s girls are ‘reminiscent of nineteenthcentury “fairy paintings” that could only have happened in an industrial era…they are difficult to imagine in any other world but this one: the world of magazines, television, environmental catastrophe, and global

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insecurity’ (Kelsey 2005: 180), so Ursula and Janet remain fixed in the past, Ursula attempting to regain her youth along with adolescent romantic feelings towards Andrea. Conversely, Andrea appears regularly, perched on the same rock looking out to sea. Later in the film, he is presented as a solitary figure rather than, as previously, surrounded by the elderly women. Situated on the edge of the outcrop he plays the violin. The spectator becomes his doppelgänger, his twin image seeing him from behind and observing what Andrea observes through his eyes, an act enabling an emotion of dejection, and a process which, Koerner believes, concerns ‘[t]he sadness of seeing oneself seeing explains, perhaps, the melancholy colouring which a traveller gives to an empty landscape’ (2009: 192). The sky is ominously dark, and moonlight is reflected in the water, creating a cold, blue light which manifests an air of tranquillity and sadness. This is accompanied by a number of sounds, including the softly-spoken voice-over of Olga ‘writing’ to her brother Boris, the noise of the waves lapping the stony outcrop, and the sound of Andrea’s musical instrument. Andrea’s liminal position places him on the border between the domestic setting of the ‘homestead’ and the freedom of the unknown, two situations which become a repeated motif in the film. Following a confrontation with the women, who have attempted to prevent his escape, the camera cuts to Ursula, seated with her back to the camera, on the cliff edge. She is placed to the right-hand side of the frame, and the water beneath her is illuminated by bright sunlight in a narratively motivated shot, as Andrea enters the composition and occupies a position next to her. Metaphorically, Ursula releases Andrea to the sea when, later, after he has left to go to London, Ursula takes the lock of hair she has salvaged from Janet’s crude attempt at a haircut previously and, standing on a parapet in their garden, she lets it blow from her open palm into the ocean. Ursula and Janet are warned of stormy weather before the discovery of Andrea, when they are undertaking indoor tasks in their shared home and a radio weather forecast indicates imminent gales. Drawing on Sublime vocabulary to demonstrate the ferocity of the elements, the director frames a stormy sea at night, presented as a malevolent force. The water dashes violently against the rocks, and is

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bathed in a bright light. Barely visible, the rocky outcrops are covered in mist indicating the ferocity of the storm and, in painterly mode, anxiety is signified through the blurring of colour and light which obscures and confuses detail. Images of the sea alternate between calm, sunlit perspectives and powerful waves, and sometimes these are narratively motivated, forming part of Andrea’s dream. At intervals, throughout the film, the camera distances itself from the figures in the landscape to provide a panoramic view of events. Early in Ladies in Lavender, following the discovery of Andrea’s body on the beach, the boy is stretchered to the safety of the sisters’ home. This is nestled into the cliff face overlooking the small cove, and features throughout the film to contrast domesticity with the elements. As the film progresses, the two sisters remain mainly indoors, as though the retrieval of Andrea has confined them to their interior space of domestic chores. In Ladies in Lavender, the home provides the ordinary world from which the two sisters perceive the landscape. It is offered as a space occupied by the modest, in contrast to the large open expanses of the sea. The sisters are rarely filmed beyond the confines of their narrow and restrictive spinster lifestyle, and, significantly, their dwelling points east, away from the America which Andrea so desires to visit. Janet and Ursula’s visits to the sea become less frequent as the narrative progresses, almost as though they fear its function in first bestowing Andrea on them, and then taking him away. They send their helper, Dorcas (Miriam Margolyes), to obtain the fish from the daily catch, only venturing out to purchase clothes for Andrea. In Ladies in Lavender, one sun-filled day subsides into the next, alluding to the trio’s halcyon relationship. Following Andrea’s recovery, he appears more and more drawn to the sea. At one point, he dives into the water, watched from the shore by the women. Following warnings to be careful, he swims out to sea, overshadowed by a large, jagged rock that curves over his figure. Despite the soft accompanying music that provides a sense of tranquillity to the scene, the dark outcrop creates a chiaroscuro effect against the almost colourless water, implying a future malevolence. Their fear is evident when, in mockery of their anxiety, Andrea ducks under water and out of the sisters’ sight. They race towards the shoreline shouting his name and, from their point of

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view the camera cuts to an empty seascape, a vista that exposes their imminent loss. One landscape sequence marks a turning point in Ladies in Lavender; this occurs when Andrea decides to leave. He is perceived exchanging pleasantries with the fishermen in the bay and, at first glance the cliff face appears devoid of human presence. However, a shaft of light leads the eye from the huge expanse of lichen-covered rocks in the foreground to the sky above. This furnishes a spiritual quality to the scene as the figure of Olga Daniloff emerges, albeit marginalised in the right of the frame, and ultimately explains the invitation sent to Andrea to meet Boris Daniloff, which Janet and Ursula disposed of to prevent the boy from leaving. The landscape in Ladies in Lavender is powerful in its ability to create an emotional impact. Nowhere does this appear more commanding than towards the end of the film. Subsequent to Ursula and Janet’s discovery that Andrea and Olga have left, and boarded a train to London, the camera cuts from their distressed faces to a landscape vista. Comprising mainly horizontal lines, and depicted in soft hues, the image is of a seascape bathed in light from the setting sun, thus silhouetting a small tree in the foreground. The vista is granted to the spectator only, as Janet is confined to the house, and Ursula is restricted by the garden. This is the final actual optical shot in the film, although a series of dissolves from Ursula’s memories are interspersed in the end sequences as they watch Andrea playing the violin in concert. An edit to a lone gull which soars upwards into the sky conveys the flight of the young man who, in the eyes of his saviours, has abandoned them. This injects a moment of pathos before the image cuts to Janet observing Ursula from the domesticity of the house. Ladies in Lavender ends as it began, with the two women walking along the beach. Viewed from a distance, they disappear from sight. Dance does not attempt to track them. Instead, the image of the rocky beach remains in view for some seconds, before dissolving to the credits. The women are never granted the prospect that Andrea acquires, and are destined to remain disillusioned by life in their domestic, restrictive environment. Transitional spaces, along with momentary facets of life, are features that are complemented by British artist Kaye Donachie

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(1971–). Although there is no direct connection between Donachie’s art and the film examples discussed above, it is possible to discern in these works a contemporary expression of disillusionment through the present depiction of a past generation, although superficially the images do not appear discordant. Just as the spectator comprehends the dreams and aspirations of Janet and Ursula through aural and visual encounters with nature, so Donachie summarises the previous generation’s dreams and anxieties through her work. Epiphany (2001) is one of a series, and the title conveys an intuitive realisation as all the figures, arranged in a semicircle, stare out of the canvas. Whatever they are looking at is unseen, yet expressed through a bright light to the rear of the image, possibly suggesting a dream of utopia. Comprising green and yellow colours, the foliage blends with the figures, and Donachie barely distinguishes human form from the flora. The time frame is ambiguous: the juxtaposition between light and dark suggesting a transitory, disturbing world. Romantic sensibilities in Donachie’s work have not passed unnoticed, as Christofori points out: ‘The way in which the artist fuses her visual legends into an amalgam of rapture and romanticism, nostalgia and yearning, transfiguration and straying is as seductive as it is disturbing’ (2005b: 138). Donachie’s work operates as a quest to recreate the period of the 1960s, when an optimistic post-war generation indulged in rediscovery of the land and environment – but from the perspective of a safer, more stable society. In other words, Donachie has interpreted the values of the past in an attempt to recreate a better present. In her efforts to reenchant contemporary art, Donachie ‘returns to nature [which] asserts itself here as the only acceptable exit route from the murky mire of suburban living…The Spartan pastoral setting is underpinned with something unpleasant, bitter and inept, a crude interruption of an otherwise elegiac state’ (Suchin 2004). In a recent exhibition, Donachie explores the notion of being positioned on the top of a mountain as a mystical and numinous experience. The collection is entitled Monté Verita (‘Hill of Truth’), and the Swiss mountain that forms the base for the series has, over a number of years, operated as a site for a variety of idealistic artistic activities. Signifying a search for utopia, her images are possessed with dark nuances, indicative of a more disturbing story of the search

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for self and a better life. Wandervogel (2005, Figure 11) is an oil-oncanvas depicting a group of people walking towards the spectator. Carrying a guitar, the central figure has a mask-like appearance – her smiling face is a ghostly white – whilst the other five members of the group walk alongside or follow. As one critic remarks, the Monté Verita series is inspired by ‘a miscellany of “anarchists, Theosophists, vegetarians, Dadaist poets and bohemians” [who] settled on the heights of Switzerland’s Monté Verita, seeking truth, free love and, it would appear, the indistinct benefits of this mountain’s remarkable earth magnetism’ (R.F. 2006: 122). Apart from the half-smiling woman in the centre of the photograph, the others do not display emotion. They seem accidental travellers in an exotic landscape, and emerge through a haze of lurid browns and golden yellows, colours and a miasma which seem to allude to an apocalyptic experience. Subversively titled, Wandervogel refers to German nationalist youth groups which emerged in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and later paved the way for a German hippy movement. Donachie’s paintings are based on found images, and a photograph forms the basis for Wandervogel. Weinhart comments:



Kaye Donachie, Wandervogel (2005).

Fig.11

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Kaye Donachie’s painting also seems to return to the dream or to memory, and yet it too is based on found images. In her case, they are visual evidence of various groups of people, communes and countercultures that she takes from documentaries and Super-8 films. This initial material is manifested not only in the motifs, but also aesthetically. By being tied to a particular time, it lends her painting an aspect of the past, transitory, and ephemeral (2005: 39).

Donachie has painted over the photograph, but by juxtaposing light and dark paint, she alters the landscape to create a more awe-inspiring and evocative subject. Just as the purpose of the Wandervogel was a return to nature, so the artist literally recreates the original as an ideal world, but as a wistful and disappointed response to the present. Donachie implies that the figures are also in accord with their environment, hence furnishing the image with a Romantic undercurrent. Analogous to the films discussed in this chapter, Donachie’s work also hints at inequality. She represents women as passive, and nowhere is this more apparent than in another image from the series entitled We Wait for One Last Adventure (2005). In this work, the artist paints a female figure, illuminated by the bright light from the moon, which has the effect of draining her body of colour. She is situated to the extreme right-hand side of the painting in a slumped position, and thus, through her transparency and position, appears marginalised and intimidated. This proposes that she is insignificant and subordinate, a point further reinforced through a large mass, possibly the rock, concealing a cave entrance, which visually overshadows her. Patterns of pale pinks and mauves lead the eye through these multicoloured rocks, eventually reaching the dazzling clear light of the moon. Hand on hip, the naked woman seems to look away in shame, as a group of men observe her. Just as shame and the gender divide are themes in The Magdalene Sisters, so Donachie introduces these ideas subversively into her images. In We Wait for One Last Adventure ‘there is more of a tangible sense of a gender divide within this supposed equality, since here it is a naked woman illuminated by moonlight, gazed upon by a group of men’ (R.F. 2006: 122). While many of Donachie’s images reveal a sense of community, their meaning is oblique and never fully explained. This opacity is a possible reference to disillusionment, and exposes society’s contradictions.

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If global paradoxes and concerns can be measured through contemporary visual culture, then the continuity of romanticism, in whatever pretext, points to an interrogation of gender in the landscape, and probes the implication of the spectator in this process. That on the whole women are weak, and not free to enjoy the landscape, is a point mooted here. This is sometimes alluded to allegorically and metaphorically in the films considered, although the art works offer a more dissenting viewpoint. If all the films discussed feature romanticism and Sublime landscapes, then the position of the female is rarely granted complete access to the rural environment. The Queen is not permitted such a view, though ironically it is hers by right. The Magdalene Sisters never enjoy the freedom they deserve, a point reinforced through the repeated motif of the impeded view. Beatrix is eventually allowed a vista, but only at the end of the film when she has become the landowner, acquiring all she surveys. Ursula and Janet always enjoy the more domesticated and sheltered environment, although they are allowed another perspective when Andrea joins their household. Admittedly, none of the films are female directed, but all have central female protagonists. The notion of the prospect view is only one means by which to analyse the correlation between film and painting, but an examination of these media proposes that both feature Romantic and Sublime vocabulary functioning to exclude or marginalise the female character. There does, however, remain in place a situation whereby the commonplace is replaced by the magical, such as the sequence noted in The Queen, through the provision of an enchanting world. This not only chimes with the current leaning towards a concern for a new individual sensibility, but also implies optimism and a means of communicating emotional expression through art. Chapter Four observes a greater optimism, and sense of renewal derived from the landscape in accented cinema. Rural Britain becomes a metaphor for the exiled director’s homeland, deployed through a painterly handling of the landscape.



4

The Dream of Home: Hopes, Holidays and Happenings in the Accented Film

Because they are deterritorialized, these films are deeply concerned with territory and territoriality. Their preoccupation with place is expressed in their open and closed space-time (chronotopical) representations. That of the homeland tends to emphasize boundlessness and timelessness, and it is cathected by means of fetishization and nostalgic longing to the homeland’s natural landscape, mountains, monuments, and souvenirs (Naficy 2001: 5).

The group of films discussed in this chapter share the category of, what Hamid Naficy terms, ‘accented cinema’. Here, I identify a propensity towards romanticism, expressed through the representation of the landscape in some contemporary British films directed by filmmakers with non-British roots. Some of the characteristics are seen as a response to a search for homeland, which is the predisposition of exilic, diasporic or postcolonial directors. Just as in linguistics an accent identifies a person’s social status and geographical origins, so in cinema accent defines national difference. Naficy argues that cinemas which mark a departure from the classical Hollywood style may be described as accented, but they may also be distinguished by their artisanal and collective mode of production. He claims that the accented film-maker operates independently of the studio system and ‘the very existence of the tensions and differences helps prevent accented filmmakers from becoming a homogenous group or a film movement’ (Naficy 2001: 10). All the films selected for discussion in this chapter are products of exilic, diasporic or ‘ethnic’ film-makers, either first- or second-generation, or postcolonial immigrants. Although some of the examples centre on issues of race, this is not the focal point here. The four films discussed include images of landscape which, arguably, highlight the emotions of nostalgia and yearning for 161



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homeland, and focus on themes of escape, which necessarily includes border crossings. Naficy argues that the ethnic director, who now has an identity within Britain, is keen to display to the host country his/ her own cultural experience. Frequently, the accented film is fragmented and self-reflexive, and the narrative is often communicated through written formats such as letters and diaries, or by verbal communication such as via the telephone. As noted in the introduction, Naficy’s concept of accented cinema highlights the importance of the visual and aural aspects of homeland and the past through its use of landscape, costume and figure behaviour, as well as through music and songs. Naficy argues that the films of the exile demonstrate liminality, a physical and figurative positioning on the brink of a new consciousness, which is an expression of desire either to return to, or to evoke memories of, the homeland. Exilic, diasporic and ethnic populations strive to retain their identity, although the exile’s status ‘is dominated by its focus on there and then in the homeland, diasporic cinema by the exigencies of life here and now in the country in which the filmmakers reside’ (Naficy 2001: 15). Accented cinematic narratives contend with a sense of forlorn poignancy and hostility – ‘sad, lonely, and alienated people are favourite characters’ (Naficy 2001: 27). Stylistically, the accented film leans towards a tactile and sensuous aesthetic, derived in part from images of the landscape, which eventually offer reparation and settlement. For Naficy, the exilic film is both palpable and ideological in that it relies on both opticality and structure of feeling. Since accented cinema features transitional places where homeland is represented as a form of utopia, these films often reference the landscape in an exceptionally lyrical and fantastical manner, a factor which presents a useful point of entry for an aesthetic approach. This is an argument mounted by Naficy, who observes the prominence of nature in accented cinema, and in particular the ‘agricultural idyll’ arguing that this appeals to the unity of an ancient complex and a folkloric time, which is expressed in the special relationship that space and time have within the idyll…Traditionally, people have considered nature and wilderness to be the sacred space-time of uncontaminated spirituality, contrasting it with the profane space-time of culture and civilization (2001: 155–6).



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Based on the Bakhtinian definition of ‘idyll chronotopes’, labelled as love, family and agriculture, Naficy derives the chief tenets of accented cinema from this, breaking them down further into nature, mountain, homeland and house. Frequently, displacement occurs as a result of territorial disputes which provoke instability and volatility, and therefore the concept of landscape as immovable space represents specific desirable qualities, such as endurance, fortitude and survival. These models are inherently ideological, but also visual within the formal systems at play in representations of the rural. If images of nature conjure up these qualities through the presentation of the mountains and the sea, they may also summon up a site of exploration and voyage. Other features that belong to the reactionary process of exile are monuments. As Naficy points out: ‘Mountain films historically have been linked to spirituality; indeed, they are sites of religious sight and insight…Mountains and monuments, like nature, are chronotopes not only of an external geographic landscape but also of inner psychological and spiritual landscapes’ (2001: 161); in other words, they symbolise the emotional expression of the accented artist. The significance of territory is inextricably linked to the concept of home and house, both operating as a familial and feminine space. This is in contrast to traditional notions of classic Hollywood cinema, where feminine space is represented as home/interior, as in melodrama, and masculine space is associated with the great outdoors, as in the Western genre. For Naficy, accented cinema is feminine because 1

the outside, public spaces of the homeland’s nature and landscape are largely represented as feminine and maternal. The inside, enclosed spaces – particularly those in the domestic sphere – are also predominantly coded as feminine. In that sense, all accented films, regardless of their director or protagonists, are feminine texts (2001: 154).

Gender bias aside, emotion in the accented film is to be deduced from the extremes presented by landscape, or what Naficy terms the ‘open, closed, and border chronotopes that express and encode the (melo)drama of (dis)placement, liminal subjectivity, and hybridised identity’ (2001: 155). Sometimes there is a touch of the biographical injected into the accented film, which may involve the film-maker as voyager, drawing

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visually upon his/her own memories and experiences. The narratives frequently involve a journey, either metaphorically or actually involving travel to return home. In Nina’s Heavenly Delights, Nina (Shelley Conn), a Scottish-born girl of Indian origins, journeys home from London to her life in Scotland, in an attempt to rebuild the family’s restaurant business following her father’s death. Her journey has become one of identity, of returning to her own Indian culture in an alien environment, and also a ‘coming out’ rite of passage in terms of her own sexuality. Two Pawlikowski films are discussed here, and both involve a journey. The Russian protagonist, Tanya (Dina Korzun) in The Last Resort must find her fiancé and benefactor Mark, to enable her to remain in Britain. He makes no appearance in the film, and she later learns by telephone that he no longer intends to honour their agreement, and wants no contact with her, thus leaving her stranded. Having undertaken an arduous journey to Britain with her son, Tanya finally makes the expedition to London, either in search of permanence or to return home – in this, the narrative remains unclear. Pawlikowski confesses that the story is very similar to his own, following his arrival in Britain from Poland with his mother, and his struggle with the language and culture. As Jessica Winter points out: ‘Pawlikowski is an outsider by birth and, perhaps more significantly, by temperament’ (2008: 64), and this is evident in both the visual style of The Last Resort, and in his later film discussed here, My Summer of Love. Although set in the 1980s at the time of the miners’ strike, political matters are never made apparent or referred to in the narrative of My Summer of Love. As Pawlikowski contends, the book on which the film is based ‘has all kinds of social textures that I stripped away. I wanted to escape the tawdry glitter of contemporary reality too…We tried to create a timeless, self-contained world’ (cited in Gilbey 2004: 38). This self-contained world is a rural landscape presented visually and narratively as a distraction for its two main protagonists, Mona (Nathalie Press) and Tamsin (Emily Blunt), and contains an abundance of sumptuous landscape images, presented as a backdrop to the relationship between the two girls. However, the pastoral imagery is also introduced as a theme that offers an escape route (images of homeland) for Mona from her obsessive brother’s



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religious piety, and for Tamsin from her boredom following her expulsion from school. In My Summer of Love, the girls, Tamsin and Mona, embark on a lesbian relationship as part of their journey, which also involves a passage to adulthood and an exploration of identity. The final film discussed in this chapter is Andrew Kötting’s loose adaptation of Émile Zola’s La Terre. Entitled This Filthy Earth, this aesthetically innovative, yet narratively demanding film deals with an incestuous and thus problematic rural community, a group of people who inhabit the margins of society. Nina’s Heavenly Delights (Parmar 2006) Pratibha Parmar’s film is largely autobiographical, based on her own experiences as a lesbian growing up in an Indian community. As Naficy points out, exilic directors frequently produce films based on their own lives, and the result becomes a cathartic process. Parmar’s parents left India for Kenya during the time of the British Empire. Parmar was born in Kenya, and remained there for 12 years; in 1967 her family moved to Britain, thus enabling her to qualify as one of Naficy’s accented filmmakers. Her early career was as a documentary film-maker where she explored the issues surrounding displacement, race and colonisation. Throughout Nina’s Heavenly Delights, Parmar seizes the opportunity to interrupt the narrative at regular intervals with a variety of song and dance routines derived from popular Indian cinema, although, unlike Bollywood cinema, these are diegetically inserted. In the film’s opening and closing scenes, the spectator is presented with a typical tourist’s-eye view of Scotland. Nina (Shelley Conn) is estranged from her parents. On learning of her father’s death, she returns to Scotland from London where she meets up with her old friend, Bobbi (Ronnie Jhutti). As they embrace at the airport, they walk past a poster of the Scottish landscape, across which is written ‘Welcome to Scotland’. The typography looms large across the image of a tranquil loch, the shapes of the surrounding hills mirrored in its serene water. This remains on screen for some seconds before the camera zooms in, and a dissolve changes the scene to a luridly painted van, inscribed ‘Bollywood Bowl’. Images

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such as these highlight the film’s themes of interaction between the Scottish environment and the Asian diaspora. The loch reappears at the end of Nina’s Heavenly Delights in a postmodern tactic, as the camera cuts to a shot of a clapperboard, with a voice, offscreen, announcing the name of a film being made within the film, appropriately entitled Love in a Wet Climate. The director’s name appears as Hamish Khan, a hybrid Scottish/Indian name alluding to mixed cultural interest. An edit reveals a typical, rugged Scottish landscape; branches of a tree appear to the left-hand side of the frame, and to the rear, a mountain looms large. Centrally placed, the loch is illuminated by the sun and its surface ripples gently in the wind. This leads the eye to the distant mountains, whose pale colour could suggest a distant (home)land. Again, remaining onscreen for a number of seconds to enable a pictorial affect, this landscape is symmetrical and mirrors the sequence shown at the outset of the film, thus processing a setting into landscape. Its similarity to painting is further established because it is, in fact, a back-projection, a deliberate mediation between film-maker and viewer. In addition, the pictorial aspects of the spectacle are reinforced by the implied viewpoint of the spectator, the duration of the image and the level placement of the camera. When Bobbi’s dance troupe makes an appearance onscreen, the back-projection is further supplemented by snow-capped mountain peaks, but the dancers have now become the argument. At this point Parmar inserts a variety of images that all epitomise Scottish heritage, including disused Gothic castles, small crofts situated prettily on the edge of a loch, and wilderness landscapes. Here, Nina’s Heavenly Delights incorporates images of the homeland (which is desired but remains unattainable) in the Bollywood dance routines combined with the landscapes of home (Scotland and the attainable); yet the Scottish landscape becomes absorbed in the notion of homeland fantasy. As Naficy points out: In accented films, certain aspects of nature and culture, such as mountains, ancient monuments, and ruins, are used as such powerfully cathected collective chronotopes that they condense the idea of nation…the mountain stands not as a barrier but as a bridge that consolidates the national idea and heals the ruptures in exile (2001: 160).



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Thus, Parmar uses the mountains of Scotland as a substitute for the notion of her own nationhood. They operate pictorially as a catalyst for the relationship between the two women in the film, and also as imaginative landscapes, cross-referencing Bollywood films, which, as noted by David Martin-Jones, usually ‘incorporate foreign locations into their song and dance routines [which] are used as unreal backdrops, fantasy lands to which characters are temporarily transported for the duration of the song’ (2009: 72). The surreal presentation of the Scottish landscape here enables it to operate not as a barrier, but as a bridge, transporting the spectator into the imaginary yet sanguine and cheerful space of homeland. Set in Glasgow, the narrative of Nina’s Heavenly Delights is centred on her family’s Indian restaurant, which is named ‘The New Taj’. This figuratively places India in Glasgow through using the name of India’s most famous national monument. The film constantly mixes Indian culture with brief glimpses of the mountainous terrain beyond or behind the city. As Nina talks to her brother on the street outside the restaurant, an alleyway reveals the mountains beyond. This operates as setting, but later these rural vistas offer respite for Nina, and a place for her to develop her relationship with her new-found lover, Lisa (Laura Fraser). After the funeral of Nina’s father there is a discussion of his gambling debts, following which an edit reveals that it is the next morning and an accented voice-over, accompanied by Indian music, makes announcements as Parmar introduces a spectacular, misty dawn sky. For a second time, the mountains beyond Glasgow are just visible on the horizon, as the sun struggles to emerge, and a montage of shots reveals a city barely awake. As Naficy argues, a montage sequence aids tactility and aesthetics, all features of accented cinema. The camera tilts downwards to reveal more of the city, and this process, and the juxtaposition of the two landscapes, articulates a sensation of confinement – an antonym to the huge atmospheric expanse of the dawn sky. This conforms to Naficy’s discussion of utopia and dystopia, which correlates with open and closed cinematic images. The open spatial aspect presents a sense of euphoria and possibility,

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represented in a mise-en-scène that favors external locations and open settings and landscapes, bright natural lighting, and mobile and wandering diegetic characters. In terms of filming, openness is suggested by long shots, mobile framing, and long takes that situate the characters within their open settings, preserving their spatiotemporal integrity (2001: 153).

Thus, Naficy’s definition of open infers a pictorial, liberated panoramic approach. An ensuing shot is symmetrically framed by buildings positioned either side of the River Clyde, illuminated by a blue light: the glow associated with early dawn, and in traditional Romantic idiom, with new beginnings. The montage sequence continues, bringing the images of buildings to the foreground, thus further revealing the mountains in the background, accompanied by the radio voice, which continues to explain that flights from Mumbai have been delayed. Images of Glasgow and the distant mountains, set against an evocative sky are repeated throughout the film, accentuating the dichotomies of home and homeland, as well as inferring the open and closed spaces. The narrative in Nina’s Heavenly Delights centres on the necessity to win ‘The Best of the West Curry’ competition. Nina, who was taught to cook by her father, decides to enter on her father’s behalf. Family arguments follow, which are frequently based on cultural difference. One such issue is Nina’s failure to marry her arranged suitor, Sanjay (Raji James); the second is her revelation to her family that she is a lesbian, with the resultant relationship with Lisa who, it transpires, owns half the restaurant, as a consequence of Nina’s father’s gambling exploits. Thus, borders need to be traversed both physically in terms of Nina’s return to the north, and metaphorically in terms of her sexuality. Images of whisky drinking are interspersed with ‘loving, softly lit, fetishistic shots of simmering sauces [which] look as if they have been lifted from some upmarket cookery programme’ (Macnab 2006: 74). Indeed, texture is part of this recognisable, yet still exilic, schemata, and this is further defined and underpinned through the forays of Nina and Lisa into the landscape. In one sequence, following Nina’s decision to enter the competition, she and Lisa travel by motor scooter out of Glasgow, into the countryside. The camera cuts to a shot of the



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lush green landscape, where the figures of the girls appear as distant specks on the horizon. A montage of characteristically Scottish landscape images ensues, including a tracking shot of a picturesque loch surrounded by mountains, followed by an alternative perspective of the water, as the girls pass in front of the camera. In this instance, the shot is static and the girls disappear from sight, extending the period of time that the vista remains visible onscreen. There follow a number of landscape spectacle shots, devoid of action. The first consists of a close-up of the loch, which is bathed in sunlight, thus fetishising the spectacular scenery; a seagull flies above, leading the eye to the rear of the image and the distant hills beyond. The deliberate romanticisation of the scene is reinforced through the expertise of the director of photography, Simon Dennis, who was chosen by Parmar to create this lush look but at the same time understand that this was an ensemble piece with many big set pieces…He understands how to light for digital film and from this show reel I could see that he had an eye for the poetic – both in terms of framing and movement of camera (Parmar 2006: 4).

Finally, the camera cuts to the girls as they run along the water’s edge, before the loch is again visible, but this time fronted by a barrier (Figure 12). As Lefebvre might suggest, it is



Nina’s Heavenly Delights (Parmar 2006).

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[our] capacity to see real landscapes in situ, but also in our capacity to bring a ‘landscaping gaze’ to bear on images that do not immediately derive from the genre (e.g. obviously, filmic images). In these cases, it is the cultural context that makes it possible to direct the ‘landscape gaze’ onto the narrative spaces of fiction films, despite the absence of strategies or intentions to make them autonomous. It rests on the spectator to assure the movement from setting to landscape and, when possible, to make the space autonomous by interrupting for a moment its connection to the narrative (2006: 48).

For Lefebvre, this may be dependent on the style of filming, such as the length/duration of shots, or a type of scenery which might promote a specific sensibility, but this is not always necessarily the situation. Thus the temps morts, the frozen moment, is reminiscent of a landscape painting, and this might encourage the spectator to respond in a certain way to the filmic landscape – to ‘work in the spectacular mode when they could just as well remain in the narrative mode’ (Lefebvre 2006: 50). Hence, Lefebvre is implying that film is a mixed medium involving different as well as interdisciplinary modes of analysis. This particular sequence in Nina’s Heavenly Delights is significant in that it is the spectator’s gaze which presents the landscape autonomously to the narrative, and through its elegiac use of light the image mobilises the emotions of nostalgia and desire, consonant with Naficy’s ideas of homeland. From this, a sense of stability is implied, communicating something beyond the horizon, a transcendent, utopian freedom; the distant mountains connote an optimistic state of permanence, a situation which might be considered desirable for the accented filmmaker. The hovering clouds, and the uneven and choppy water are, by their nature, transitional, and therefore significant in Nina and Lisa’s relationship, marking the development of the women’s friendship. This perspective operates in a two-fold approach: not only is it reminiscent of homeland, it also seems to offer a more settled existence for Nina in Scotland. Indeed, throughout Nina’s Heavenly Delights the landscapes alternate between home and homeland. Home is signified by the closed spaces of the city, in particular the richly coloured New Taj restaurant interiors, whereas the images of the Highlands and lochs



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of Scotland have a dual purpose: in one respect the mountains signal Scottish spiritual and national identity, but in another sense they refer to the natural, rural and spiritual in more generic terms, possible symbolic of homeland values outside of Scotland. Robert Rosenblum contends that beliefs and images that correspond both spiritually and visually to the Romantic landscapes of the nineteenth century flourish in contemporary society, both in film and painting, and if optimism and utopia are themes in Parmar’s film, then these are reiterated through the recent photographs of British-born artist Richard Billingham. Billingham is neither exilic nor diasporic, and therefore it might appear that the incorporation of his work is stretching boundaries beyond those of this chapter. However, in many ways his most recent images form part of a deliberate ploy to explore his home from an outsider’s perspective. Billingham is most renowned for a series of frank and blunt photographs of his family, taken in their flat in his childhood home of Cradley Heath, in the West Midlands. Entitled Ray’s a Laugh (1996), the images were originally commenced as studies for portraits, but this never reached fruition, instead culminating in what became ‘comparisons with “Kitchen Sink” directors such as Ken Loach and Mike Leigh. Billingham was pigeonholed as a working-class social realist faster than he could take breath from his new-found success’ (Gardner 2009: 55). This exploration of his family consists of photographs of his alcoholic father, endlessly watching the fish swim around a tank, and his mother assembling jigsaws in, what Outi Remes describes as an encouragement for ‘the spectator to consider one’s relation to class and poverty’ (2007: 17). Billingham’s proximity to his subjects is both familial and physical. The photographs are taken in the confines of the small council flat, and, rather than appearing as traditionally posed family subjects, such as those that represent celebratory occasions or holidays, they depict the mundane and the everyday. In contrast, having travelled extensively abroad with his work, and eventually moving away from the West Midlands, Billingham returned home in 2003 and continued with a series of photographs of the landscape around his birthplace, entitled Black Country. Originally begun in 1997, he completed the series in 2003, and it is

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the later work which demonstrates a marked contrast with its earlier counterparts. The first series was shot in daylight while Billingham was still living at his Cradley Heath address, and these express the disappointment of his impoverished upbringing. They are carried out covertly as simple photographs, taken in unspecified urban and semirural areas near his home. As with the landscape tradition in painting, neither these images nor his later series contain people, unless they are working the land – a point Billingham explains thus: I was becoming more aware of things as an artist but I did not want to move out of Cradley Heath and let go of the emotional security and reassurance that my hometown afforded me. To me, the daytime pictures embody that longing and sense of immanent loss rather than try to communicate some kind of human presence. As for the people and traffic, they are everywhere except within the frames of the pictures since I would position myself on a street corner or whatever in a spot that I considered to be the best summary of what I wanted to capture (cited in Gardner 2009: 56).

Here, Billingham exposes his emotional ties to his birthplace, and positions himself as an outsider, with a desire to revisit his homeland and consider it anew. Billingham’s later views of the area were taken following his eventual departure from the West Midlands, and they are imbued with a greater sense of buoyancy and hope. The original series, all untitled, were shot in daylight which, as noted above, Billingham argues ‘embody that longing and sense of immanent loss …The night-time pictures are more settled maybe. There is no sense of loss like in the earlier work but more a sense of discovery’ (cited in Sultan 2008: 14). Billingham’s accented view of his home terrain is sustained by his modified relationship with his origins. Untitled #1 (2003) shows a more expansive outlook than his earlier series. Although still an urban environment, tree-lined avenues lead the spectator into a vista illuminated by a darkening sunset. The artist admits to greater concern for detail in these works, making them less of the casual snapshot and more of a carefully constructed pictorial image. Using larger sizes and lengthy exposures ensures a more specific and particular affect, and these exilic nuances are derived from ‘consolidating and constructing memories as he passes’ (Gardner 2009: 59), and are reinterpreted into positive illusions. It is not the



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content of Billingham’s images that provide similarities with Parmar’s work, but the notion of the familiar and the foreign, and the sense of being an outsider and belonging. Both artist and film-maker find visual means of expressing these emotions, captured through their landscape imagery. Parmar, through her position as a cultural outsider, and Billingham, revisiting his home town with a fresh approach, have undertaken journeys in a physical and metaphoric sense. The Last Resort (Pawlikowski 2000) Tensions between dislocation and relocation are expressed visually through the landscape sequences of Pawlikowski’s The Last Resort. Pawlikowski, an accented film-maker, in Naficy’s sense of the term, spent his formative years in Poland, before moving to Germany and Italy, and then to Britain. The director’s acknowledgement of his own past is frequently alluded to, as in a recent interview, he claims: ‘In landscape as well as actors … I’m always looking for something contradictory that reminds me both of my past and of literature’ (cited in Bardan 2008: 50). Set in the fictitious town of Stonehaven (Margate), The Last Resort follows the relationship between Tanya, a Muscovite seeking asylum, and Alfie (Paddy Considine), an employee of the local amusement arcade. Internet pornography rackets and bureaucratic problems bedevil Tanya’s life, and Alfie’s role of lover, helper and confidant makes her existence more bearable. Home (closed) scenes of interiors are interspersed with homeland exterior (open) shots of the landscape. This dialectic is expressed at the outset as Tanya and her son Artiom (Artiom Strelnikov) wait at the airport, having been apprehended by immigration officials. They are incarcerated within a Heathrow airport waiting room which, as is usual in this situation, has no official exterior access. The glass partitions of this space intersect the image with the two characters positioned to one side, and the expanse of the runway and green fields beyond to the other. As Naficy points out, the mise-en-scène of the accented film ‘involves transitional and transnational sites, such as borders, airports, and train stations, and transportation vehicles, such as buses, ships and trains’ (2001: 154). The Last Resort is no exception,

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and the juxtaposition of the open landscape, and the enclosed airport holding-bay creates transitional aesthetics. Following Tanya’s interrogation, she is transported to a detention centre at Stonehaven, while she awaits her papers and contact with her British sponsor. Tanya and Artiom’s journey begins here, as, accompanied by police escort, the two travel by car to their new home, represented in a shot which makes them appear insignificant compared with the giant chimneys of a rural power station. Three massive edifices pervade the composition, and permit the spectator a point of entry at their base, thus reinforcing the sensation of disempowerment. Bathed in the pink glow of morning, the huge stacks refuse framing, as the road curves out of sight concealing the origin of the journey. The image captures the Sublimity of industry, and scale is a dominant feature of the composition, the massive chimneys rendered more awe-inspiring through the colours of the sky. The shot indicates a journey of homelessness, with its associative signifiers of displacement and rootless travelling. Shutters, corridors, and confined spaces are juxtaposed with shots of the seafront in The Last Resort, signifying home and homeland. The authorities allocate Tanya and Artiom a flat at the top of a dilapidated high-rise tower block. Although its interior is bleak and its furnishings frugal, it commands arresting views of the pier and the sea beyond. Subsequently, Tanya decides to telephone her British fiancé, Mark, from a corridor in the apartment block. This is an airless, windowless space in strong contrast to the next shot, which is a splendid vista from the apartment window. Viewed from an overhead perspective, the bay is shown in the shape of a large, sweeping arc, which culminates in the sea. There is illumination from a barely distinguishable sun, whose rays attempt to filter through the grey and cloudy sky. The town of Stonehaven is placed peripherally to the right of the pier, and hence the shore. On the end of the pier, a lighthouse stands, visible as a perpendicular liminal object looking out to sea, where a group of small boats are gathered in the lee of the harbour. The sea and land form only one third of the composition – the sky dominates the image. Visually, this window perspective does not permit the spectator easy access to the sea; instead, from this bird’s-eye view, it exiles the spectator and appropriates the ‘good



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view’ as restricted space (Figure 13). A cut reveals that the panorama shot might be taken from Artiom’s perspective, and the reception of the landscape alters from the spectator’s viewpoint to that of the boy’s own psychological projection. However, it is unclear whether Artiom has witnessed the view of the bay or not, as this vista is not shown from the apartment again. From an extreme close-up of the boy’s face, the camera cuts to a shot of the fairground below with the ironic sign, ‘Dreamland Welcomes You’, attached to the side of a building. It transpires that, after all, Artion is more attracted to the fairground. Here, Pawlikowski takes incongruous subjects and imbues them with a Romantic sensibility. Regularly, he films the fairground from an overhead shot, usually from the direction of the apartment windows whereby the Big Dipper appears as a tangle of metal, with its ironic sign. Clearly, the existence that Tanya and Artiom experience is far removed from fantasy, and ‘Dreamland Welcomes You’ is a cruel reminder of this. Alice Bardan maintains that Pawlikowski finds subliminal methods of expression: In the film, the emphasis does not fall on what may shock us, or on giving us the impression that we may understand what it must be like to be a refugee in ‘Fortress Europe’. The director works primarily in an allegorical mode, suggesting rather than showing things (2008: 57).



Dreams of home in The Last Resort (Pawlikowski 2000).

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The notions of liminality and border-crossing are replayed later in the film, when Tanya and Artiom are planning to escape. Observed by a high-security operation, an edit reveals the two running along an alleyway carrying their luggage. Tanya is seeking political asylum and her constant quest is to move to London to make contact with her fiancé. A recurrent ploy of Pawlikowski’s is to depict her behind bars, or in a visually closed environment. Her escape attempt begins in the local railway station, where the uniformed official informs her that the station is closed until further notice. As he speaks, the camera cuts to a close-up of her face behind the bright blue grille of the station barrier. Later, she is forcibly taken by the police to a detention centre where she is given vouchers for toiletries. Again she is shown in close-up through the barred glass of the counter. Pawlikowski intuitively, yet arguably unintentionally, accents the film in this way, presenting the closed spaces of Tanya’s ‘home’ through the interior of the flat, the public places that Tanya must visit, and the places of transition, in contrast to the open spaces of the landscape, which are infused with fantasy and Romantic vocabulary. As noted, the apartment plays an important role in the film. It is a place of detention aligned with the notion of home where the exile must remain until repatriation can take place, and subsequently, this represents confinement. As Iain Sinclair notes: Pawlikowski takes the seafront’s only tower block, a spectacularly rippled monster that stands immediately alongside Dreamland, as the fixed point in his psychogeographic exploration. Not so much a Ballardian High Rise as a vertical slum, stacked hutches with stunning prospects. Pictorial values for those who don’t need them (2001: 18).

Seen at night, the tower block stands like a dark sentinel against the blue/black sky. At one point, Pawlikowski adopts an approach to the building’s representation that draws on a more sinister, Gothic tradition – it is shown in the distance, yet, notwithstanding the perspective, it still towers above the small buildings that comprise the town of Stonehaven. Pawlikowski’s aesthetic decisions are noted by his critical reviewers, one of whom aptly describes it as ‘a concrete townscape which cinematographer Ryszard Lenczewski renders as abstract shapes, giving physical form to the bureaucratic maze that



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Tanya must navigate in her dealings with the immigration service’ (Francke 2001: 53). In the same image, clouds gather ominously over the building, but the sunlight strikes a dramatic shaft of illumination, creating two bright diagonals which form a cross shape against the gloomy sky. This implies a spiritual manifestation, and the light promises an optimistic future. The sea functions physically and visually as a border which Tanya has to cross to return home, and she and Artiom are regularly filmed on the promenade or the beach. At one point, Tanya, Alfie and Artiom are playing at the water’s edge, their figures presented from a distance. Using Romantic vocabulary, Pawlikowski creates a monochromatic expanse of sky and sea where both elements appear to merge. The sky represents the infinite, and the figures liminality, and a yearning for something beyond. The three characters climb aboard a moored yacht, and the camera cuts to a close-up of the waves so that the figures are no longer visible. While discussing the correlation between the work of F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu and artist Caspar David Friedrich, Dalle Vacche argues that: ‘As soon as the director drops the human figure from the image, an invisible barrier between a perceiving subject and its desired object becomes all the more palpable’ (1996: 175). The longing for homeland is thus expressed, and this nostalgia is not only presented through composition but reinforced through the dialogue. Although off-screen, Alfie’s voice may be heard asking Tanya where she would like to go. Laughing, she does not answer, and he replies on her behalf: ‘I know – you want to go home’, where ‘home’ here means ‘homeland’ (i.e. Russia). At this juncture, the implied distance is indicated through an edit to a shot of the waves, this time with no beach visible. In the background a Gothic building is perched on a promontory protruding into the sea, and the entire composition is bathed in a blue light. Now, sky and sea appear to merge through form and colour. Denying that Pawlikowski romanticises the town of Stonehaven, Bardan asserts that it is represented as contradictory, for example: ‘When Alfie, Tanya, and Artyom [sic] go out for a walk on the beach, the same landscape with hovering seagulls that previously conveyed a menacing effect is allowed to acquire an eerie beauty’ (2008: 58). Whilst these observations allude to the lack of utopian images of homeland in Pawlikowski’s film, and to the similarity

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between the neglected concrete tower-blocks and Eastern European architecture, arguably the poetic interludes, interspersed throughout, speak of the imagined homeland. The Romantic aspirations of The Last Resort were not lost on some of the critical reviews at the time of the film’s release: using lyrical vocabulary to describe the film, one commentator suggests that The Last Resort contains ‘a lovely weave of natural effects, more articulate than any of the characters. The crackle of fire on the beach. The click of metal coat-hangers when Tanya tries to sell her unwanted fur’ (Sinclair 2001: 18). The sea has a function in the narrative: ultimately it offers a crossing of borders for Tanya and Artiom, an act attainable through a moored boat that the three steal. They wait silently until night when they can leave safely and, as the tide rises, the camera cuts to a shot from the boat’s interior to the high-rise tower block. Framed by the boat’s window, it appears blurred and portentous, again the symbol of home as closed and confined space, reinforced by the frame of the boat. Owing to surveillance in the town, the sea provides the only course of escape; Tanya and Artiom acknowledge the significance of this as, lips parted, they breathe in the fresh air, and subsequently cheer and shout for joy. Filmed in slow motion, their reactions flagrantly display their mood. Following their successful escape, Tanya, Artiom and Alfie sleep beside a fire on the beach until dawn breaks. An edit reveals an empty beach, with the bay beyond and on the horizon the three enormous chimneys which featured at the outset. A shingle beach fills the frame and, at this moment, the chimneys become subordinate to their surroundings. Subsequently, the characters appear in middle distance, reaching their destination by traversing the beach from left to right. Despite their successful breakout, the ending remains unclear, though Bardan maintains that ‘What is evident, however, is that her [Tanya’s] desire to return does not stem from a yearning for an idyllic return to a mythic place, as is the case with many films portraying exilic or diasporic experiences’ (2008: 61). As noted, accented cinema is inherently Romantic and Sublime in its representation of the landscape, and it emphasises nature as a reaction to deterritorialisation, and attaches the basis of human



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existence to a familiar, safe place ‘long lost to wars, modernity, urban sprawl, environmental degradation, and exile’ (Naficy 2001: 156). The Last Resort is no exception in the ways in which it prioritises the landscape. My Summer of Love (Pawlikowski 2004) Hamid Naficy defines the key components of accented cinema as that which is propelled by words and emotion rather than action. Nowhere is this more succinctly stated than in Pawlikowski’s later film, My Summer of Love. Described as ‘an English Catcher in the Rye’ (Gilbey 2004: 31), the opening sequences begin as the camera cuts from an interior of a bedroom to an overhead shot of a gravel road intersecting the landscape, from which Mona appears on her motorbike. The film follows the relationship between two girls from opposite ends of the class spectrum, although Pawlikowski makes no attempt to pigeonhole them, a trait noted by one contemporary critic, who finds that the ‘[u]nstereotypical female protagonists and lack of special pleading are…the most compelling components of My Summer of Love’ (Porton 2005: 37). Following Mona’s first encounter with Tamsin, the two engage in conversation and set off companionably, to travel together. This journey is one of many that the girls undertake, and demonstrates what Naficy deems to be a preoccupation with territory as a prompt for an aestheticisation of nature. In a distant shot, the two ride together, one on horseback and the other on her motorbike, which has no engine. Here, the rolling landscape is presented as a panorama, consisting of an open vista comprising a group of fields which lead to the sea. Although the eye is guided to the distant horizon, the view is interrupted by the abundance of vertical telegraph poles that nearly obliterate, and in turn divide, the otherwise unspoilt perspective. The entire film has a timeless quality, with landscape shots of lengthy duration, rarely punctuated by action, which Pawlikowski admits is an attempt ‘to keep the whole film in a strange in-between land’ (Winter 2008: 70). This metaphoric wilderness expresses the director’s nod to homeland as a kind of utopia, thus deploying a view of nature as bound up with ancient traditions and harmonies.

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At one point in the film, following the development of a relationship between the two girls, Tamsin buys an engine for Mona’s motorbike, and they drive recklessly through the lanes, until the camera cuts to a view of a small copse. Rather than an overview of the landscape, the sequence is shot lyrically and poetically from the interior of the woods. Close-ups of trees fill the frame, as the camera moves to the right to include the two figures of the girls as they climb over fallen trunks. The sounds of birds singing and of running water accompany them as they traverse large boulders, and clamber down steep, rocky embankments. Mona is the most comfortable in her surroundings, displaying her favourite rock to Tamsin, and using a stick to steady her progress. Incongruously carrying a green handbag, Tamsin slips repeatedly, whereas Mona is the more stable of the two. As the girls sit on a rock in the middle of a stream, the camera cuts to a close-up of the water as it winds its way through the stony outcrop. It is unclear whether this is from either of their perspectives, but the water glistens against the green algae on the rock surfaces, illuminated by the sun. Its properties seem magical, and a further edit enhances this fantasy, but this time from Tamsin’s perspective, as from her point of view, the camera frames the fern glade of the surrounding woodland. Lit from above, Tamsin’s face is upturned, her eyes lifted. She appears in a state of ecstasy, as she stares in wonderment and awe. The sounds of animals and bird-life are prioritised, and, with the tactility of the accented film-maker the spectator is implicated in the girl’s rapturous experience. Here, aural imaginings are accompanied by the sumptuous visual imagery of the landscape to create a quasi-religious atmosphere. As if to reinforce this notion, Tamsin verbally correlates the canopied tree area with a strange cathedral, thus alluding to its divine quality. The camera pans to the left to reveal Mona seated in the same position, her pose identical to that of her friend. Similarly illuminated, she too raises her face upwards to the canopy, as though the trees are invested with divine significance; the landscape is here associated with optimism and hope, as well as providing a link between the two girls. This tranquil moment is punctuated by the girls’ playful behaviour in the water prefacing their first kiss. As noted above, this is what Tan and Frijda term ‘the awe-inspiration’ theme. Naficy asserts that the



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accented film-maker emphasises nature as a place that is familiar, yet isolated and unconnected to the rest of the world, in what he terms ‘a unity of place’. This is intentional on Pawlikowski’s part, the director achieving this Romantic quality in the Yorkshire Dales, where My Summer of Love was filmed. Commenting on his own filming style, he explains: When it comes to directing I also try to keep things simple. I try to stay close to my characters. The perspective tends to be limited. Of course, big wide landscape shots, with interesting light and framing, that’s a different matter. You need them to create the universe (2006: 185).

Inadvertently, Pawlikowski alludes to Naficy’s descriptions of homeland, and accomplishes this universality in a number of landscape sequences throughout the film, sometimes attributing the imagery dream-like characteristics. After the girls have taken magic mushrooms found in a cupboard at Tamsin’s house, they travel by motor bike through the trees. A shrill whistling non-diegetic tune accompanies them, indicating their euphoric, drug-induced experience, and the trees form a canopy over their heads. Following a night-time declaration of love, the camera cuts to a daylight shot of the sun struggling to appear through gloomy, ominous clouds. This contrasts sharply with the events of the preceding evening, whereby Tamsin and Mona light a fire and the entire sequence appears in silhouette, their black outlines defined against the light of the flames. As in The Last Resort, Pawlikowski also sets up oppositions in My Summer of Love, in terms of the Bakhtinian chronotopes of home and homeland. Mona’s life in the pub where she lives with her brother is claustrophobic, and literally becomes a place of entrapment. Phil, Mona’s brother, (Paddy Considine) has become a devout Christian during his stretch in prison, and the spectator’s first encounter with the man occurs as he piously pours alcohol down the drain at the dilapidated, and now closed-down, public house. Phil is an outsider from the mainstream and his character is the invention of the director rather than adapted from Cross’s novel. He proclaims his breakthrough from the devil and holds religious meetings, watched by his followers and a sceptical Mona. Towards the end

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of the film, Phil incarcerates Mona in her bedroom and begs the Lord not to desert him as he does so. Mona draws an image of Tamsin on her wall and kisses it. This is the drawing seen in the opening sequences, from which point the events are presumably shown in flashback, a narrative device termed epistolary by Naficy, operating as a means of the exile explaining their story, and a frequent occurrence in the accented film. At this point, the camera cuts to a low-angle shot of the cross on the hill which Phil has previously erected. This is seen though the archway of the railway bridge, the train constituting a symbol of a journey, and, according to Naficy, ‘a vehicle of displacement’ (2001: 257). The curve of the bridge meets a horizontal wall of the house and, rising above this, the crucifix appears in a hazy light, yet dominated by the archway. It is not made clear whether this is an image shown from Mona’s perspective, but it is never developed as a point-of-view shot. The Swan pub features as enclosed space throughout, and it not only comments on the different social backgrounds of the girls, but also provides a contrast to the rich landscapes. According to Naficy, ‘[t]he house as ruin … [bears] the mark and the stigma of exilic longing’ (2001: 175). When Tamsin plans a surprise expedition for Mona, they leave the pub by taxi and the camera cuts to a view of the landscape – a series of wind turbines on the horizon. Upbeat ethnic music accompanies their journey, a row of telegraph poles rising upwards, as an aerial perspective presents the spectator with the purplish hue of the hills set against the sunny blue skyline, thus linking the science of electricity with the landscape. The choice of venue is important for Pawlikowski on two counts: its juxtaposition of objects of industry set in a rural milieu, and the light and resultant hues reflected by the colours of the land. As he maintains: I really like this ambiguous landscape you get in that part of Yorkshire, where nature and post-industrial decay overlap. But I wanted to shoot this very English landscape in a new way. Because of the light you get in this country, most films tend to capture the landscape in greens, browns and greys. I wanted strong saturated colour, no half-tones. I wanted the landscape to be strong, elemental, more in keeping with the story and characters (2006: 187).



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If Pawlikowski’s comments indicate his innovative mode of thinking about the English landscape, they might also represent his attempt to translate this into a foreign sensibility. Although the film does not focus on national displacement, the relationship between the two girls consists of metaphoric borders, based on a rite of passage, and a search for healing and family. Border aesthetics consist of journeys, both physical and metaphoric, as well as journeys of identity, yet this notion does not always provide self-discovery. Mona is frequently beckoned into Tamsin’s family home and world via jaunts through the landscape, and Tamsin is introduced to Mona’s paradise in the woods. Throughout the film, the landscape functions initially to bring the girls together, and ultimately to divide them. The borders to be crossed are exemplified in the disparity in the girls’ lives, demonstrated through the display of town and country, and heightened by the views from Tamsin’s house and garden. Tamsin has been expelled from school, but leads a privileged existence in the countryside (although her father blights this idyll through purportedly conducting an affair with his secretary). At one point, following a discussion about their pasts, the girls go outside. They discuss Nietzsche, although Mona’s uneducated background is apparent, and their class differences exposed, rendered more so by Tamsin’s imposing house, standing above the fine valley views. These privileged and spectacular views contrast with Mona’s unattractive home, which faces an old industrial building on the edge of a Yorkshire mill town. As the girls drink copious quantities of wine, they move to a seat overlooking the town where the pub is situated. The two are placed centre-frame, but at a distance from the camera, where an apple tree arches over them, providing a further framing device within the composition. In the background a series of horizontals lead the eye from the valley town, towards the surrounding slopes. Although not made explicit in the narrative, Mona longs for a different life-style. When Tamsin brings her breakfast in bed and asks what her plans are for the day she replies, ‘manicure, pedicure, full body wax, clean the car, walk the dog’, all elements that she aspires to, in order to create parity between the two girls’ disparate existences. As one commentator claims: ‘Stripped of its luscious cinematography,

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tinkling Goldfrapp soundtrack and modish lesbian couplings, this sun-dappled dalliance in the Yorkshire Dales would be just another predictable tale of first love in which a working-class protagonist is vamped by posh, manipulative totty’ (KS 2005: 89). Displacement is sometimes verbally alluded to. Immediately following the ‘magical’ experience that occurred in the woods, mentioned above, the camera cuts to a shot of the hillside illuminated by the sun. The day is hazy and tranquil, and there is no one in sight. Mona’s voice provides a bridge between this and the next shot as she declares: ‘I don’t feel like I’m in my own town’, indicating a lack of belonging. As Naficy states: ‘In accented cinema, therefore, every story is both a private story of an individual and a social and public story of exile and diaspora’ (2001: 31). Mona’s comment is made as the camera cuts to a shot used earlier, but this time of the two girls together, facing both the church and the rows of houses, thus giving the spectator a similar view to Tamsin and Mona’s, but not from their perspective. The girls blend in with the pink heather that surrounds them, which subsequently merges with the muted colours of the stone buildings of the valley mill town. For Mona, the town adopts a different perspective from this aerial view, and she associates this with her friendship with Tamsin declaring that ‘I quite like it from here’, before pausing to add, ‘with you’. At this juncture, the girls light cigarettes and lie down in the heather. For the spectator, the remaining image consists of an extreme close-up of wild flowers on the hill, as it slopes downwards to yield to the soft-focus image of the mill town and its chimneys. Far from seeming, as its roots might signify, a site of fading industrial connections, it materialises as a magical sunlit vista. The only sign of human presence is the cigarette smoke that emanates from the dense vegetation. Both Pawlikowski and the cinematographer, Lenczewski, have documentary roots, and the director discusses his interest in the English landscape, arguing that it is both ‘postmodern…and spiritual … and the fact that the meaningful aesthetics of family and religion have fallen by the wayside allows you to reinvent them’ (Gilbey 2004: 38). His landscape shots perpetuate the mystical facets of this account. Later in My Summer of Love, following a lovemaking scene between the two girls, the camera cuts to another overview of the town. These



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shots are interspersed throughout, not specifically to set the scene but to situate the characters on the periphery. As noted, transitions between open and closed spaces are interspersed throughout the film, the former designated as external, utopian and brightly lit, and include the wandering diegetic character. A significant scene occurs when Phil climbs to the top of the hill to raise the crucifix that he has been working on for some time. The day reveals a blue sky with some dark clouds scudding across. A group of followers accompany him, as the camera pans to the left following the progress of the procession, before cutting to an overhead shot of the landscape. Phil has ultimately achieved his ambition to erect a giant cross on the hillside above his town as a symbol of his beliefs. This event is the culmination of all his efforts, and is an act celebrated by a number of his religious followers. A visual contrast occurs between the giant metal cross as it is carried though the valley and the surrounding land. Comprised of a solid red mass, the crucifix is carried by a group of people. Voices may be heard singing hymns, and one assumes that these belong to the throng. However, the sound is the non-diegetic voices of a children’s choir, inserted as an enhancement of the moment. Again, the camera lingers for some seconds before cutting to Tamsin and Mona as they arrive by motorbike. The entire sequence is constructed of sumptuous vistas of the countryside, but these are counteracted by the incongruous human presence of Phil and his religious throng of followers. In a composition reminiscent of an ancient biblical depiction, the followers appear hunched under the weight of the cross as they climb the hill, the top end of the steel construction physically overpowering them. The valley seems to recede into the background, although the chimney of the woollen mill stands proud, and acts as a repoussoir to lead the eye through the verdant landscape. Ancient rituals such as those associated with the landscape act as abbreviations for the idea of nation, an aspect that interests Pawlikowski. Shown in close-up, brightly coloured prayer flags flutter in the breeze as a pony traverses across the frame. At one point, the camera cuts to a medium shot of the characters, now singing and dancing and waving their coloured standards, and the sun illuminates the landscape as if in blessing.

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As the cross is erected, the camera cuts away to a medium shot of the figures raising the Christian symbol into the air. Set against the skyline, and filmed from a low angle and, amidst loud cheers, the clouds begin to turn an ominous grey. This area of Britain has a history of evangelism and witchcraft,2 and the camera moves to a low-angle shot to reveal the cross, perched against the skyline. To the right of the frame, and seen in close-up, the factory chimney materialises as a menacing entity, its billowing smoke situating the figures in cloud. The remainder of the landscape is exposed, creating a strong forefront to the distant proceedings. Pawlikowski was particularly interested in this area, and drove around searching for appropriate vistas; the region’s association with witchcraft fascinated him, and this notion seems to be injected into the final representation of the landscape, the Romantic associations not lost on the director. As he declares: ‘I spent a bit of time in that area and the landscape stayed with me – abandoned weirs and strange mines and hills worked over by man over a long period of time’ (cited in Porton 2005: 40). The crucifix becomes a dark focal point, but the rural imagery is no less peripheral. In combination, they engulf the spectator, adopting the appearance of an apocalyptical manifestation of the numinous, whereby the countryside becomes expressive of an inner conflict, a narrative detail suggested by Mona, Ricky and Tamsin’s own personal tensions. The ambiguous, open ending is a feature of the accented film, and My Summer of Love duly conforms. When Mona eventually discovers Tamsin’s deceit she retreats to the glade where their relationship began. She has discovered that Sadie (Kathryn Sumner), Tamsin’s sister, is not dead as she was led to believe, and secondly, that Tamsin is ending their relationship and returning to school, and therefore to her previous life without Mona. The title of My Summer of Love references the transience of time, and sets the tone for the termination of the girls’ relationship, which ends as the couple speak for the last time before Tamsin’s departure. The camera cuts to a close-up of the glade, before being repositioned at a distance to embrace Mona, now seated alone on the rocks. Subsequently, she is joined by Tamsin and the two enter the water fully clothed. They embrace, and Mona attempts to strangle her friend before walking away down the road,



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accompanied by the non-diegetic sounds of Edith Piaf ’s La Foule. Mona’s departure is not depicted from Tamsin’s perspective, and she progressively moves away from the camera, until she becomes a speck in the distance. The trees, now unadorned with leaves, reveal the changing seasons and the screen fades to black. If remedial and spiritual homecomings are important to the exilic film-maker, along with a quest for totality rather than a divided identity, then My Summer of Love goes some way towards achieving this end. Phil is ‘cured’ of his Christian obsessions and no longer adopts the moral high ground; Tamsin’s deceit is cancelled out by Mona who walks away free as the film closes. As with the end of The Last Resort, there is little closure. Just as Tanya and Artiom’s future is unclear, hope of resolve for Mona is unpromising. As Winter suggests: ‘The heroines of Last Resort and My Summer of Love are aliens in a bizarre milieu, sleeping beauties who at last rouse themselves and stride purposefully away from a stagnant now into an uncertain future’ (2008: 71). However, arguably Mona’s future is indicated through these closing landscape sequences. As Pawlikowski tells us: ‘What will happen to Mona is hard to say. She’s definitely the stronger character at the end’ (2006: 186), a point indicated through her optimistic exit as, unaccompanied, she walks confidently away from the camera into the open landscape. In terms of the film’s style, Pawlikowski deliberately mobilises an artistic aesthetic, leaving little to chance: as he contends: ‘It’s a bit like sculpting: you find the image – there’s always a perfect camera angle – and then you arrange the bodies in space and prompt the actors… When you’ve got the coincidence of good light and good dialogue, you have magic on screen’ (cited in Gilbey 2004: 38). Pawlikowski’s magic is wrought from Romantic and Sublime affect. An overall lack of compositional uniformity and symmetry, and the brightly illuminated hillsides punctuated only by chimneys and power lines, operate as shorthand for Sublime vocabulary. This embellishes the attitudes of order and disorder prevalent in the narrative. Accented art works are not only a cinematic phenomenon, they also form part of a painterly repertoire, and many of the features of accented cinema are embodied in Romantic painting. Sultan’s notion of romanticism as ‘damaged’ or redemptive in the visual arts might

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be deemed appropriate, and is a facet analogous to accented cinema which is based on self scrutiny and peripheral existences. Images that attempt to redress the emotions of sadness, loneliness and alienation, chime with the personal and social experiences of the accented film-maker. Sultan notes how, at the turn of the century, notions of optimism and sanguinity transformed painting and photography, themes exemplified in the way that artists demonstrated how redemptive action could arise from the ashes of disappointment… Although disappointment remained a significant theme into the twentyfirst century, it became increasingly clear that other forces were in play, including historical influences as diverse as the baroque, neoclassicism, and especially romanticism. Out of this altered aesthetic landscape was born Damaged Romanticism, which focuses on how initial disappointment can be mitigated, so that rather than descending into disillusionment, hopelessness, or despair, what begins as morbidity can be transformed into optimism, laughter, or even creative resurrection (2008: 8)

If the notion of ‘Damaged Romanticism’ is ascribed to the above films, its focus would lie in the emotions of confidence and hope in the face of adversity, both recurrent themes in the accented film, and borne witness to in the exilic’s and diasporic’s multi-faceted artistic explorations of the landscape. The images are often fragmentary in style or construction, or feature lost or seemingly displaced characters. However, recompense is frequently available through the reconstruction of images of an imagined homeland. British artist, Peter Doig (1959–) (discussed in Chapter One) was born in Edinburgh of Scottish ancestry, but grew up in Canada and Trinidad, before returning to Britain to study. Undoubtedly his nationality is not straightforward because, as Barry Schwabsky points out, in a deeper sense he seems to me to be a very un-British artist. Really, he is more a creature of the transatlantic triangle that connects Britain, North America and the Caribbean, and perhaps of the postcolonial construct that is the Commonwealth of nations, than of Britain itself (2008: 169).

Doig’s paintings ‘prompt a sense of dislocation in the viewer, which may owe something to his rootlessness’ (Hollein 2005). The artist’s opus consists of not painting where he resides, but drawing on past



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experiences in a fragmentary way, through the use of photographs, magazines, and film stills: in other words, memory. As Naficy argues, ‘memory of and nostalgia for childhood and homeland often drive the plot’ (2001: 290), and this forms part of the accented artist’s oeuvre. Thus, while not narrative-driven (although there is often some narrative proposed in his paintings), his images are composite pieces reflecting on his previous environments, all facets which capture the complex nature of romanticism. Described as ‘transitionary’, Hollein argues that his work ‘creates a vocabulary of yearning rooted in the historical Romantic movement. Loneliness as an essential Romantic outlook … is mainly dealt with in the form of sceneries charged with symbolic qualities’ (2005). Doig’s art comprises fictionalised representations of his own personal memories, and, in a typical Romantic vein, he is an active participant in outdoor life and frequently experiences his art first hand. Doig’s Canadian images are substantial landscapes which merge with his figures, with ‘the figure becoming part of the landscape and the landscape becoming part of the figure’ (Hollein: 2005). White Creep (1995–96) consists of mountains covered in snow, and is painted from a low vantage point, albeit at high altitude. The contours of the terrain lead the eye to a group of skiers, but these are marginalised towards the left-hand border of the painting. Indeterminate, and precariously placed at the foot of the lowest incline, they become almost obliterated from the image. The whitecapped mountains appear boundless and illimitable, a spectacle which leaves the viewer uneasily placed, thus rendering the image unstable. These vast peaks refuse to be enclosed by the frame, and disappear from its boundaries, bringing a feeling of uncertainty. Apart from the bright colours of the skiers, the remainder of the work is rendered in varying shades of white and grey, which Trond Lundemo argues ‘falls outside the realm of the haptic, as it no longer invites an investigation of the boundaries among fields in the image, for the simple reason that they are absent’ (2006: 97). Doig’s Canadian images hint at solitude and change and, as the artist himself admits: ‘Everything in Canada is on the edge of a wilderness’ (cited in Shiff 2008: 26). White Creep articulates a sense of loneliness and alienation through the artist’s presentation of

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such colossal space. His image is without frontiers and imparts a sense of infinity, a world beyond. In many ways, Doig interrogates the characteristics inherent in painting, his interest falling into the period ‘before photography’s invention or the advent of cinema, when paintings often held an aura of dramatic, suspended narrative’ (Iles and Vergne 2006: 224). His work expresses a tension between location and dislocation, concepts demonstrated in this image, which disallows any sense of placement or belonging. More recently, Doig has produced isolated figures as disconnected wanderers in the landscape. Gasthof (2004) consists of two men dressed ceremoniously in ancient costumes reminiscent of European military garb. They model for the artist in a formal manner, evocative of traditional nineteenth-century photography postures. The German title intimates a European location, and the view beyond depicts a German reservoir in the Vogtland region of Bavaria. Executed in rich blues peppered with blobs of white paint to represent a starry night, the painting is timeless, and the figures seem displaced in an otherwise beautiful rural environment. Comparable with accented cinematic representation, there is something of Doig’s autobiographical detail intrinsic to the work. The artist is also a wanderer, living abroad in the Caribbean yet painting European imagery. The activity that the two figures are engaged in is also based on one of the artist’s own experiences, recalling an incident when he and a friend worked at the London Coliseum, and dressed up in theatrical costume. Doig is interested in memory, and of mixing the familiar with the unfamiliar, a trait of accented cinema. Rather than placing the figures with backs turned to the spectator, as in some of his earlier paintings, Doig places them side by side in a comic, posed attitude, as though posturing for a photograph. Likening these accented figures to his earlier work, Lunker, Weinhart alludes to Doig’s de-individualized drifters. Surrounded by infinite space and forlornness, the fisherman becomes the epitome of a person left to his own devices… Here is the individual as so often surrounded by the night, in a moment of stillness. You can almost hear the silence of these images. There is little movement in them – time has stopped in an extra-temporal, dreamlike atmosphere (2005: 125).



Peter Doig, Girl in White with Trees (2001–2).

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Nowhere is this fantastical yet vulnerable state more apparent than in Girl in White with Trees (2001/02, Figure 14). In this large oil painting numerous tree branches are placed vertically within the frame; however, where they begin and end remains unclear. Forming thick sinewy lines at their base, and painted in green and white brushstrokes, the trees become thinner and more tangled as they exit the top of the frame. Set against a dark, blue background, which represents a night sky, they appear menacing and animate. The theme of alienation is made more apparent by a human presence perched amongst the proliferation of branches. Although the trees present a maze of labyrinthine tendrils, the person seems to have escaped ensnarement, emerging unscathed into an open space. As the title of the painting implies, the figure is female, yet this is not entirely clear from Doig’s detail. Nonetheless, dressed conspicuously in a pair of white trousers and a white shirt, she is placed in the centre of the image, and smiles at the viewer, seemingly unaware of her intimidating environment. Doig ascribes the same attributes to the detail of the sky as he does in Gasthof. Peppered with small white dots, it is clearly night-time, and the girl is illuminated as though by moonlight. It is impossible to decipher any real meaning from the image, which is a recurring feature of Doig’s work. In Figure in Mountain Landscape (discussed in Chapter One), White Creep, Gasthof and Girl in White with Trees, the artist presents a mystery; as one contemporary critic suggests, the artist is essentially a Romantic who ‘shares those typically Romantic interests: the passion for the equivocal, the indeterminate, the obscure, and the remote’ (Weinhart 2005: 125). If Doig presents the spectator with themes of alienation, he also offers some humour and optimism in his work. The unsophisticated stance of the girl, her enigmatic smile, and her illumination in an otherwise dark situation, suggests a substitute reading of hope and a secure future. As Weinhart maintains, she is ‘naive, amid this maze of branches in the night. Or does the small girl know more than we do? And the little, blonde shape, as tender as it is pale, is perhaps not as harmless as she seems’ (2005: 125).



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This Filthy Earth (Kötting 2001) The final film to be discussed in this chapter is Andrew Kötting’s loose adaptation of Zola’s novel La Terre. As the title implies, the film centres on grime, dirt and immorality. This Filthy Earth’s narrative focuses on two sisters, Francine (Rebecca Palmer) and Kath (Demelza Randall); both farm the land that once belonged to their parents, who are now dead. Kath has an illegitimate daughter by her cousin, Buto (Shane Attwooll), who has eventually decided to marry her to gain access to her land. This Filthy Earth tells the story of a hostile, tight-knit community, and rejected, alienated outsiders. Kötting is a third-generation immigrant of German origin, and This Filthy Earth presents a disturbing view of British life from an outsider’s perspective. Although an adaptation of Zola’s novel, the film is set in the North of England – although the actual location is vague – but there are no visual markers to indicate period. The film contains key features of the accented style of film-making, including wandering, rootless figures, isolation, a quest for ownership and territory, timelessness and the dislocation of time, and a belief in the inexplicable and mystical aspects of nature. Landscape images in This Filthy Earth range from poetic, pastoral scenes of peasant life, to disturbing apocalyptic scenarios. Partway through the film Buto, Francine, Kath, and a group of farmers and workmen go out into the fields to harvest the crop. The sequence opens with a bucolic image of a horse and cart walking over the brow of the hill towards the camera; it is a clear, sunny day and the sky is blue. What should represent a pastoral idyll as the assemblage approach instead focuses on the plight of the outcasts: Megan (Eva Steele) and her blind brother, Joey (Ryan Kelly). The conversation centres on pay, and, accompanied by portentous music, references are made to the ominous weather which will play an important role later in the narrative, when spells are cast. From this, the camera cuts to Megan leading her brother through a field of wheat. In a shot not unlike James’s dream world imaged in Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher, Megan and Joey walk waist-high through the crop. Clad in muted browns, their clothes blend with their surroundings, and they merge with the cornfield; their attire and appearance seems impoverished,

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dirty and unkempt. The camera is placed at a low angle, tilting upwards to include the figures and the horizon, which is slanted. In a voice-over (an epistolary device associated with the accented film), Francine explains the procedure for the harvest, the necessity for the correct weather conditions, and the chasing away of rabbits to protect the crop. Her voice is lyrical and commensurate with the pastoral idyll of the rhythms of nature. In this sequence, Kötting encapsulates a number of features associated with the accented film. Francine’s voice-over is not a narration, or told in flashback, but acts as a means of communication which sometimes conflicts with the visual image. Alienated through his blindness, Joey, an itinerant worker and an outsider exploited by the community, represents the displaced. The landscape is invested with nostalgia, and appears timeless and unchanging: all features associated with the memory, hope and possibilities of accented cinema. If Kötting’s evocative images of the land in This Filthy Earth superficially appear elegiac, there is also, as he points out, ‘something ominous, forever present and, of course, the message of the old versus the new’ (2006: 146) in the film. Kötting communicates his outsider’s perspective through his inclusion of the foreign labourer, Lek (Xavier Tchili), who is employed by the neighbouring farm, and referred to in explicitly racist terms as ‘the darkie’ by Buto and his family. In the same way that Kötting describes his own identity as not ‘belong[ing] anywhere in particular, and it can make you feel very inadequate, if you’re put in a particular arena to be judged’ (2004: 127), so Lek does not fit in. In the original French novel, the nomadic farm worker is a French carpenter named Jean MacQuart, therefore not a foreigner, but more of an interloper. Instead, Kötting’s British version has substantially changed the story and the characters to encompass a group of misfits and outcasts. Lek’s language is Eastern European, (although his homeland is never explicitly named), yet compositionally he has more of an affinity with the land than the locals. At the commencement of the harvest scene, it transpires that Buto has deliberately broken Lek’s tractor, out of spite: Lek’s boss will produce a harvest through mechanisation, whereas Buto’s team will undertake the task by scythe. The camera cuts from a discussion



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to show Buto’s act of destruction, revealing Lek’s stationary tractor. Metal from the tractor forms strong correspondences with the ears of wheat, both presented as intimidating features. A series of quick edits exposes, in flashback, Buto’s devastating act on Lek’s tractor, in which metal bars fill the frame. During the harvest, the camera is placed low, observing the figures scything the field, and specifically focusing on the hard-working Francine, her body set against a clear blue sky. However, the image is slightly out of focus and she is pushed to the edge of the frame, visually marginalised by the huge ears of corn. A montage of shots of the men working the crop is accompanied by a strange, non-diegetic chanting sound, creating an uneasy ominous atmosphere, before the camera cuts to an extreme close-up of Etta (Etta Kötting), Kath and Buto’s daughter, and then a shot of Joey. The child peers at the camera and, although harmless throughout the narrative, appears knowing. As if to reinforce this notion that the child is somehow supernatural, Joey tears something in his hands and blood appears from a cut on his thumb. As Lek manages to start his tractor, blurred images of machinery and the men working with scythes are intercut to create a feeling of displacement and disorientation, and the notion of a primitive society is conveyed through this deficit of modern technology. At one point, the camera faces the sun and, in an abstract composition, the deep circular motif, comprised of concentrated red and yellow hues, obliterates all else in its intensity, followed by a dissolve to an extreme close-up of the petals of a poppy as the sun filters through, intimating mortality and ruin. Such portents reach fruition when Megan dies, and the rain arrives, subsequently destroying the crops. Megan drops to the floor, and the sun illuminates her figure in silhouette against an intense sky. Kötting’s choice of grainy film stock provides Sublime vocabulary as, viewed in extreme close-up, the dying woman clutches her chest and a blur of images reinforce the intensity of the scenario. The noise of the machinery increases, and she falls dead to the ground. At this point, the blind Joey is shown sightlessly gazing around him in the knowledge that something terrible has occurred, although he clearly has not visually witnessed his sister’s pitiful death, except in an intuitive way. This sequence successfully translates the Sublime experience, described by

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the nineteenth-century philosophers as the ‘terror Sublime’. This is summed up by Bill Beckley when he acknowledges that: Recent disaster films, with their hurricanes and emptying volcanoes, aspire to what Burke and Kant defined as ‘terror sublime’…It is not a coincidence that a panoramic shot of a vast sky, so often and traditionally a symbol of the sublime, is the last thing you see before the film cuts to black. It may be that these film makers have studied the sublime in a formal way, or perhaps, like Burke and Kant, have simply unlocked a reasonable course of events through the reality of human emotion (cited in Gilbert-Rolfe 1999: xi).

To an extent, images such as these are references to a homeland, through the depiction of idyllic pastures and an ancient rural existence, yet in This Filthy Earth they also possess a certain hybridism through the interspersion of sequences that illustrate the spiritual and the supernatural. These serve to indicate the oscillations between different psychological states, all mindsets associated with exilic existence. This is the situation from the outset of the film, whereby mysticism and the notion of unseen forces are present, associated with the land. The film opens with an extreme close-up of muddy clods of soil, before the camera recedes to include Francine and Etta digging the ground. Shot in a variety of different formats, the images have a haunting quality presenting strange and disturbing characteristics which serve to dislocate the spectator. There follows a graphic presentation of the mating of Francine’s pet cow, Ivy, with the neighbouring bull, before the camera cuts to a shot of Francine reclining in a field. Uneasily positioned, she lies with her head towards the camera in a situation which visually distorts her body, setting it uneasily in the landscape. The setting consists of a pile of rocks to the right-hand side of the foreground of the image, which leads the eye to the resting girl in the middle ground, and onto a construction of stones set on the horizon. Evocative of pagan rituals, these ancient monuments connect the land with primordial ceremonies. In Francine’s world, the land is poor and unyielding, a point intimated by its sallow colouring, and the sky is comprised of grey scudding clouds against a background of blue. Links with alienation and exile are created in this way, and also through Francine’s voice-over informing the viewer that it is spring, and that she and her sister had that day ‘met a stranger’. The allusion



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to Lek tells us of his recent arrival in the area, and the announcement is made as she lies under the ancient monument, thus making a connection between the foreign and strange, and the primordial sites redolent of timelessness. Here the familiar is juxtaposed with the unfamiliar: the idyll that is Francine’s home is alluded to as she lies in the field, yet could just as easily mean the homeland: that which is yearned for and desired and represented as open space. An edit reveals Francine seated on a wall of a house, presented in a dislocated space which leaves the spectator disorientated, a situation enhanced through her change of tense in the voice-over. This indicates that the film is now in the present, and Kötting uses a more rapid speed of motion, although Francine’s dialogue remains at the same speed. She explains that she and her sister are ‘up here on our own’, registering their own displacement and, subsequently she describes the harshness of the landscape and the elements. Megan and Joey are also aliens in this intimidating world. This is signified early in the film through the dichotomy of interior and exterior space. At one point, they are seated on the ground outside the local pub (which is no more than a tumble-down shack, unrecognisable as a pub), peering through a grimy window. This is in itself ironic, in that Joey has no eyes to see. As if to emphasise his lack of sight, using avant-garde techniques, the camera cuts to a surreal shot of a vivid, exuberantly coloured land, thus adding tactility to the sequence. Comprised of vibrant hues of blue and crimson, the image consists of a brilliant sky which silhouettes the landscape. There is no narrative explanation to this, or the next shot (produced from a handheld camera), as the voice-over of Francine explains that we ‘are all right by ourselves away from the village’, thus positioning herself too as an outsider. These individual shots of impure landscape frequently occur before or after interior scenes. Papa (Dudley Sutton), Buto’s father, and his wife Armandine (Ina Clough) visit Francine and Kath, and the family group is filmed using extreme close-ups, thus reinforcing the notion of containment, as opposed to the wide-angle exterior landscape sequences interspersed throughout. From this unhealthy gathering, the camera cuts to another colourful and tactile shot of the land, but this time the clouds are depicted in softer hues against a black, cloudy sky.

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Exterior shots of the landscape are interspersed with interior scenes of the deprivation and degradation of dysfunctional family life. Papa is first depicted outside his hovel, his leg raised, with his wife, Armandine, extracting pus from an infected foot. As she lances the inflamed area, he shouts obscenities in an incoherent way. Entrapment for this couple is explained by the fact that they gave land away to their sons, and now, presumably, dwell in poverty. To reinforce this aspect of their life, the camera cuts to a shot of a caged crow, as it paces its confined space. Headbutting competitions, fist fights and bizarre, antiquated circus acts form the entertainment for the community, and these all occur in confined spaces, with Kötting using close-up cinematography to reinforce this incestuous society. The most disturbing and Neo-Romantic sequences occur at the end of the film. Following Megan’s death, the camera cuts to a shot of the small church that stands alone in the landscape. The spectator has already encountered this structure earlier in the film, both when Armandine defecates disrespectfully in the churchyard, and at Kath and Buto’s wedding. Before the ceremony, the camera frames a cross in close-up, beyond which lies a bleak, remote landscape. The religious symbol is set within the framework of the window, overshadowing the rocky terrain that lies beyond. Mournful, non diegetic choral singing accompanies the vividly coloured image, suggesting the arrival of portentous phenomena. Doors close unexpectedly, and during the wedding ceremony the statue of the Virgin Mary swivels around unprompted. Similarly, as the two make their vows before the priest, lights flash on and off behind his back, illuminating him, so that he is invoked as a divine messenger; the landscape and church are intertwined and, to create affect, Kötting uses Surrealism and fantasy. A frequent salient feature of the accented film is in the casting, where the film-maker draws on family members: Kötting is both writer and director, and his daughter, Etta, plays Kath’s daughter. Other attributes are the artisanal approach, a low budget and the director’s experimental style. Kötting aims for a textural approach, which he achieves in the landscape shots by using an assortment of media such as digital video and Super-8. As he acknowledges: ‘It is as much about texture and feel as it is about being cost-effective. I



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also use DV throughout in a symbolic way, it is meant to represent the eyes of the landscape as seen through the eyeless character of Joey (Ryan Kelly), the feral vagabond’ (in Wood 2006: 148). This is illustrated in the sequence following Buto’s dismissal of Lek from Francine’s farm. Following this the camera cuts to a disturbing vision of the landscape, where Kötting does not synchronise sound and image; instead he uses the imagery as a means of time ellipsis, with the sound remaining in real time. The resultant appearance is of a landscape saturated in colour; using time-lapse photography, clouds scud rapidly across the sky to the synchronous sound of wind and thunder. Kötting refers to his own artistic practices in commenting: ‘The film “industry” likes you to gather all the right ingredients … and go and bake a very predictable cake. I choose to do things differently, and apply my “fine-art techniques” to film-making’ (2004: 125). Following Megan’s death, the church is now featured in darkness, until a thunderstorm illuminates it, showing the structure surrounded by a low stone wall. On a flash of lightning, an edit to a medium handheld shot reveals a cross on top of the building which tilts uneasily and unnaturally upwards and downwards. A light is visible through a Gothic window, but the camera focuses on the howling figure of Joey seated on the ground in the rain and wind. Placed on a handmade stretcher, and covered in a white sheet, his sister is situated at right angles to him. Joey rocks backwards and forwards in sorrow and, at this point, using a mobile camera, Kötting frames Megan situated against a deep blue backdrop amidst electric lines of forked lightning. Strange, distorted sounds from Armandine can be heard shouting above the noise of the storm as she blames ‘the darkie’ for the weather and their bad luck. At this point, surreal orange flames appear in the sky. This marks a juncture in the film. Precipitous weather conditions, described by Francine in her voice-over, now dominate, as she informs the viewer that, following this incident, ‘the harvest failed, the river burst its banks, and it hasn’t stopped raining since Megan died’. Kötting displays this from this point on in his technical handling of the landscape. As he says, ‘in the wake of Joey’s sister’s death the film goes into a berserk and apocalyptic freefall where madness is almost kept at bay’ (Kötting 2006: 148). Various scenes of

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the characters battling the elements follow. These include Francine collecting wood, Buto harnessing his horse in the driving rain, and Kath desperately mopping the flooded floor of their cottage. In all, a darkness descends visually and narratively on the characters. At this point, Kötting interjects the colour film stock with black and white imagery, as though the rain has washed the colour from the landscape. This sequence begins as the camera frames a window from an interior perspective, with the exterior filmed in black and white stock, creating a bleak and uncompromising image. In a fastmoving yet uneven sequence of shots, a tree crashes into the window and the camera cuts to the raging storm and a swollen river, sweeping away trees in its wake. The sound effects are loud and terrifying, as close-ups of huge branches are transported away by the weight of the water. In the final sequence, following Lek’s brutal and sadistic treatment by Armandine, he is forced to leave the village. The storm has abated, and the weather is now calm, as he and Joey, the homeless blind man, traverse from left to right, and the camera withdraws to frame more of the bleak and uncompromising landscape. Lek leads his donkey and Joey holds on to its saddle for guidance, their humble procession observed by a tearful Francine. Filmed in slow motion, she has tears in her eyes. The figures become specks on the horizon of the open countryside, and one presumes that they are returning to a homeland, a journey exemplified through the depiction of the wide sweeping vistas. Kötting’s accenting is never more present: Lek, the outsider, along with Joey, is forced to leave in a search for a new home following their maltreatment. The notion of family under pressure is an accented feature, and this is evident given the events that have occurred. Francine refuses Lek’s offer to go with them, thus also depriving herself of family and a future. Kötting achieves this through the presentation of the landscape, as Lek and Joey move forwards into the exposed vista. Described as ‘a vision of the differently sighted’ (Evans 2001: 6), Kötting’s strange film concentrates, in an experimental way, on the relationship between sound and image. The visual style of the film conjures up the work of an accented director, with its uneven pacing, open landscapes and claustrophobic interiors. Kötting



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uses non-classical methods to evoke the passing of time, and a self-reflexive film-making style. Francine operates as a means of communication between film and spectator, and memory and nostalgia for homeland drive the plot, whereby the landscape is expressed both lyrically as a nostalgic pastiche, and disturbingly in what Evans terms ‘a dyspastoral bloodletting’ (2001: 7). Events that cause departure are key themes, dealt with through the use of landscape, both in terms of Lek’s search for stability and a more peaceful existence, and of Joey’s quest for healing and a new family. In a similar vein to the characters’ journeys, so Kötting sees his own work as a journey, and this also finds expression in his installations. As both artist and film-maker, Kötting develops a self-reflexive style which he introduces into his art projects. Having described his film-making style as ‘a sculptural process; contingent, never set in stone, and always an approximation of what you set out to do’ (2006: 147), Kötting applies this to his later art work, namely In the Wake of a Deaddad (2007). This follows a journey around the world that he undertook in memory of his father. Described as a ‘dadaist pilgrimage’ (Charity 2007: 7) Kötting made giant, white-backed, inflatable, laughing images of his father and grandfather, dressed in suits and ties. He then carried them to key, often rural sites. Standing at three times their natural height, they appear in venues as far flung as the Pyrenees and London’s Charlton Athletic Football Club. The work takes the form of 65 separate films, running simultaneously in the gallery; these represent each year of Ronald Kötting’s life, and many of them are set in remote locations. A performance piece based on his own life, the short films are narratively motivated, and imply Kötting’s feelings of alienation, a point noted by one critical reviewer, who declared: Kötting’s work cuts across all disciplines but is underpinned by autobiography and personal experience. He draws upon the themes of the outsider and kinship, ‘normality’ and ‘abnormality’, the ‘abled’ and the ‘disabled’, the ‘elegiac’ and the ‘abject’, the ‘correct’ and the ‘incorrect’. To this end In the Wake of a Deadad [sic] attempts to consolidate ideas triggered by the death of his father and presents them using an assortment of media (Anon. 2007).

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Kötting’s choice of places tends to focus on the rural. One short film shows the beach where he learned to surf, and another, Wuppertal in Germany, where his father was born. The inflatable figure appears out of place, as an outsider in the landscape, which, as noted, is a relevant theme in This Filthy Earth. If fragmentation and memory form part of the accented tradition, then artist, Sophie Dahlgren’s (1978–) art follows this trajectory. Born in Sweden and educated at the Slade School of Art, Dahlgren’s work expresses environmental issues through mystical images of the landscape. Winter Light (2005) consists of a forest scene which ‘harks back to imaginary literary landscapes, like the one C.S. Lewis imagined beyond the portal of a wardrobe’ (Elwes and Ball 2008: 6). The four-minute video is bound up with the use of light, in this case the cold light of winter, and Dahlgren is particularly interested in the notion of landscape as an illustration of an attitude or frame of mind. Her work owes a debt to various historical Swedish influences, including two landscape painters, Prince Eugen (1840– 1910) and August Strindberg (1849–1912). The latter perceived landscape as a metaphor for his psychological frame of mind, a factor which he demonstrated through Sublime imagery. As Dahlgren points out: ‘My video work references symbolic landscape paintings of the 19th and 20th century, in relation to an exploration of imagination, dreams and the timelessness of landscapes’ (2008a: 28). In Winter Light, Dahlgren equates the landscape’s changing light with the process of the twilight world of dreaming. The trees act to entrap the spectator, as closed space, yet the light offers a world beyond as a site of exploration. Their upright, bare trunks are unrestricted by the frame, and the vista remains inhospitable and opaque. While Dahlgren is not an exile, her work is presented as a process of memory of her Swedish upbringing; this is in itself a component of the accented style, and her landscapes are edited to perform ‘not only … a metaphor for a psychological state of mind but also as a means to experience an imaginary place’ (Dahlgren 2008a: 28). Forest Clearing (2005) is a similar image, but includes some human presence, referred to through a small red house that lies beyond a clearing in the woods. Again, infused with a sense of mysticism through her use of light, the image offers a crossing of



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borders. The house beckons the spectator, yet the trees restrict the vista, instead forming a voyeuristic hiding place. Consisting of both interior and exterior space, the composition is representative of the former, which is less inviting, the latter of a substitute for homeland. Although Dahlgren’s ideas are expressed through video loops, and therefore are images of motion, there is limited if any movement, and therefore they are more reminiscent of landscape painting than film. Sunset by the Sea (2005) is inspired by Strindberg, and Dahlgren confesses to being ‘interested in the idea of an erased horizon line, which you cannot go beyond, to evoke a feeling of isolation and solitude that appears when the sea and the sky are perceived as one’ (Dahlgren 2008b). Imaginary borders are presented in this work, created not only through a lurid sunset casting light onto the still water, but also through a process of illumination which is evocative of something beyond. If yearning for homeland is a feature of accented cinema, it might also coincide with a desire for safety and familiarity in an increasingly war-torn world. This is not to suggest that contemporary film-makers and artists are necessarily making a conscious effort to address this in their work, rather it is implicitly stated as a structure of feeling through the presentation of the landscape. Through their formal compositions and autobiographical input, the rural images enable emotions of nostalgia, memory and a combination of both pessimism and optimism. Acknowledgement of difference and other psychological states are expressed through a greater emphasis on tactility, and through specific landscapes which evoke displacement as well as sites of transition or journeys. Mainly, the vocabulary is Romantic and Sublime and chimes with a current vogue for representing counter-worlds to embody the relationship between human and nature.

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What Lefebvre terms impure landscape corresponds to Romantic and Sublime topoi, associated with evocations of Western landscape art. The central tenet of the approach proposed here is that correlations may be found in the visual arts by adopting thought processes which operate outside the parameters, in what Crouse disparagingly describes as: a system of academic Fordism…manufacturing conveyor-belt sycophants who, with little or no interrogation, continue to echo the assumptions of the theory machines in vogue a quarter-century ago by the avant-garde turned Old Guard…The result of jettisoning passion and a personal connection to cinema has resulted in a triumph of invertebrate scholarship. This is a stupefying development because for Bazin, as for millions of people since its genesis, motion pictures have served as one of the last refuges of the sublime (2008: 7).

To exclude the ‘theory machines’ of the 1980s and 1990s in favour of an affective (albeit here theorised) response, in other words as one might encounter a painting or an art work, relies more on the visual senses, and hence might present a means of re-enchanting cinema. Although a call for politicisation, this was an argument first mounted by Suzi Gablik, who appealed for more consequential art surrounded by a concern for environmental issues. Gablik’s work seems to be a portent for events of the twenty-first century, and she calls for greater ‘participating consciousness rather than an observing one’ (1998: 177) in an aesthetic, rather than a thematic address of societal concerns and environmental issues. While Gablik advocates a return to the soul and a need for spiritual nourishment, conditions applicable to the rhetoric of romanticism, her intuition also demonstrates a prophetic concern for issues which are now very 204

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pertinent. These ideas coincide with much contemporary cultural exploration, and are distinctly evident, post-millennium, in the visual arts. Discernible in various categories, the common thread is tied to romanticism and the Sublime, and this may be further subdivided and compartmentalised. As Terri Sultan observes: Cultural explorations into the continuing influence of romanticism on contemporary art over the past decade or so can be roughly divided into two categories: on the one hand, exhibitions that consider the emergence of worldviews as a counterpoint to the multiple economic, political and social challenges of our age…or, on the other, projects focused on harsh visions of reality that foreground the most disturbing aspects of existence (2008: 9).

In support of her observations, Sultan cites a number of recent exhibitions which focus on harsh visions of reality: ‘Disparities and Deformations: Our Grotesque’ (2005), ‘Dark’ (2006) and ‘Day for Night’ (2006) centre on adverse and hostile sensibilities. More recently, Tate St Ives hosted the ‘Dark Monarchs: Magic and Modernity in British Art’ exhibition (2010), which demonstrates the continuing appeal of Romantic imagery.1 If this is apparent in the social realist film, and also the horror genre, then artists such as David Tress reveal a concern for the landscape through the Sublime treatment of interspersing nineteenth-century interpretations with twenty-firstcentury industrial development. His bold versions of Turner and Girtin express similar traits to those artists, yet over 200 years divides them – suggesting that romanticism prevails at certain points in history as a reaction to the present. Clare Woods, for example, creates huge, sinister enamel-on-oil compositions as comment on ‘the long British tradition of pastoral landscape painting, somehow managing to conjure two contradictory moments of the English countryside – a mythical, verdant Gothic, romantic past and the mutant overgrowth of post-industrial abandon’ (Anon 2008). If the work of Woods and Tress acknowledges the destruction of the land, then Angus Fairhurst’s (1966–2008) anarchic paintings and sculptures explore Dadaism in conjunction with the Romantic English pastoral tradition. Borrowed from his earlier Underdone/ Overdone Paintings, his image Unseen (2004) appeared in his ‘Dysuniversal’ exhibition in 2004, and, according to James Cahill,

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is ‘at odds with the works’ Romantic pastoral subject matter’ (in Craddock and Cahill 2009: 12). Fairhurst also exhibited in the ‘Dark’ exhibition, and commenting on this, Rein Wolfs believes that: As an exhibition ‘Dark’ is a clear sign of our times, and in that sense an attempt to create a forum for a new, contemporary form of authenticity. ‘Dark is a striving for authenticity. It is precisely this quality that distinguishes ‘Dark’ from any other assemblage of Neo-Romantic artists (2006: 67).

As Fairhurst’s images chime with Wolf ’s understanding of ‘dark’, so Doig’s paintings draw on Friedrich’s images of the Rückenfigur to express the momentary aspects of life. Just as Loach and Williams use configurations of figure and landscape, so Doig introduces the enigmatic individual, seen from behind, to imply an existence beyond. The 2006 Whitney Biennial, entitled ‘Day for Night’, mainly featured the work of American artists, although Doig, amongst other Europeans, also exhibited. As noted above, Weinberg and Brown make comments on the current political situation as contributing to the surfacing of Neo-Romantic art post-9/11. Nowhere is this more evident than in Simon Periton’s work. If romanticism seeks escape, Il Cornuto (2009) offers none. Exhibited at the ‘Dark Monarchs’, it combines industrial waste with fairytale-like structures to present a vision of a utopian landscape which cannot be resolved. The artist Christian Ward (1977–) produces fantasy compositions which combine the labyrinthine corridors of caves, with mystifying pathways and mountain ranges. Surreal and strange, his images offer escape through distant light sources, but not before the spectator has traversed the natural obstacles that block the route. Describing Untitled (Pink Mist) (2003), Katharina Dohm believes that: These caverns and their mysterious origins contradict our physical laws and topographical phenomena, and we could believe that an alien or a unicorn might await us behind the rocks, or that the walls of the cave might suddenly rearrange themselves (2005: 275-6).

Ward produces dreamlike landscapes which offer an escape route, whereas Clare Woods and Angus Fairhurst present only deterioration and decay as twenty-first-century interpretations, the former deriving her ideas and iconography from her Neo-Romantic counterpart, Paul Nash.

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If the sinister side of romanticism offers a response of disappointment to events of the new century, then, as Sultan observes, ‘redemptive action could arise from the ashes of disappointment’ (2008: 8). The presentation of landscape in films with central female protagonists may not offer the women a prospect view, but the rural offers redemption and liberation to the spectator. Although the Queen is rendered helpless, her situation is redeemed and she enjoys both the freedom of her surroundings, and a spiritual encounter, and subsequently plays a part in the temporary freedom of the stag. The landscape in The Magdalene Sisters offers liberation to the inhabitants, but this is presented as a spectator prospect, rather than something attainable by the girls. Restriction and imprisonment are themes reinforced through the presentation of the Irish countryside, which emphasises the difference between freedom and incarceration. In The Magdalene Sisters, Miss Potter and Ladies in Lavender the settings give priority to the spectator over its characters, thus thwarting their personal desires. If Sublime landscapes are deployed to humble the protagonists by signifying the latter’s otherness, admonition and subservience, then they can also be redemptive and liberating. The characters are ‘damaged romantics’, emotionally injured individuals, yet the landscape offers emancipation and optimism. This denial of individuality and subjectivity forms the core of contemporary artist Justine Kurland’s work. Kurland chooses to demonstrate romanticism in the contemporary art world by producing photographs of young girls, struggling in their environment. Comparable to the positioning of the female figure in the filmic landscape, so Kurland curtails any assurance for her figures. As Söntgen argues: Robbed of their ability to center, the figures in the landscape exhibit a mise-en-scène that includes the authority of the viewer. The viewers in this conception are not recipients of mercy behind the figures’ backs, who hope in vain to participate in the fusing of subject and landscape. They are instead witnesses to an availability not of nature or landscape, but of images and the ways they are mediated (2005: 83).

Despite this, all the images discussed in Chapter Three, whether in painting or film, are designed and structured to romanticise the landscape for the spectator’s gaze, and regardless of the outcome of

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the films, the rural does redress the narrative, offering some kind of emancipated future. This is a feature of ‘damaged’ romanticism. As Söntgen points out: There is a promise made by the figures in Kurland’s images. Their position on the threshold to adolescence evokes – right through the highly coded, fractured images – a becoming, something that is not yet entirely formed or occupied, an openness equivalent to the Romantic desire for a broadened horizon, without the evident transcendental desire of something ineffable in the Romantic sense, but in the hope of salvaging something not yet said (2005: 83).

This compensatory aspect of romanticism surfaced in the exhibitions ‘Ideal Worlds: New Romanticism in Contemporary Art’ (2005) and ‘Damaged Romanticism: A Mirror of Modern Emotion’ (2008), both exhibiting works which express redemption and optimism, illustrating, as already noted, ‘an “aftermath aesthetic”, determined by the feelings and actions engaged in after the deluge, heartbreak, or devastation of life’ (Sultan 2008: 8–9). This is the embodiment of what Sultan terms ‘a survivor’s sensibility’, and alludes to the use of landscape as a therapeutic and liberating space. Recent accented films introduce landscapes as part of this ‘aftermath aesthetic’, alternating between home and homeland. Pawlikowski explores Britain from an outsider’s perspective, and his landscapes hover between the squalor of home and the lure of homeland. Themes such as liminality, border aesthetics and outsider status are emphasised through the landscape sequences in Parmar’s Nina’s Heavenly Delights and Kötting’s This Filthy Earth. These are themes also relevant to the work of artists such as Richard Billingham and Sophie Dahlgren, particularly the former, whose marginal presence in his home town is made more apparent through the photographs taken after his return. Pawlikowski’s elegiac rural imagery invokes idyllic reminiscences of homeland, albeit the English landscape. Throughout this book only brief mention has been made of the use of sound. Nevertheless, in many of the films sound functions as an aural aesthetic to enhance the Romantic and Sublime facets of the landscape, and as Lyons (1997) has remarked, the combination of colour, form and sound accounts for the complete sensation of the

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experience. As noted above, in London to Brighton and The War Zone the sounds of the sea augment the experience for the spectator. In The Hide and Children of Men, non-diegetic music mobilises a feeling of danger, and the birdsong in The Magdalene Sisters and My Summer of Love invokes the attributes of freedom and the pastoral. For Kötting and Hopkins, experimental sounds, both diegetic and non-diegetic, form part of their vocabulary. This Filthy Earth deploys mysterious chanting and the non-synthesis of sound and image, as well as strident accompaniments to the elements, as Sublime vocabulary. Similarly, Hopkins’s Better Things is predominantly painterly, but this is a quality augmented by his prioritisation of sound. There is a deficiency of the examination of sound within the context of national cinemas, and while sound is an important facet of aesthetics, it is unfortunately beyond the scope of this study to encompass this aspect, leaving room for further investigations in this area. If the incentive of combining an aesthetic analysis with a narrative reading is motivated by the requirement to add additional meanings and pleasures to an art work, it also provokes the consideration of a particular time period, in this case the first decade of the twentyfirst century. Clearly, an aesthetic analysis alone will not permit a full picture of the cultural, social, political and economic climate, and it has not been the aim of this study to attempt such an undertaking. Nevertheless, to comprehend ‘the felt sense of the quality of life at a particular place and time’ (Williams 1975: 47), it is crucial to embrace as wide a perspective as possible. The offer of an interdisciplinary approach between the visual arts facilitates an acknowledgement of wider cultural and social issues, and in addition some recognition of contemporary anxieties. The emphasis on the pictorialisation of the landscape in contemporary British cinema might be perceived as a deliberate strategy by the film-makers discussed here, in an attempt to raise public consciousness. However, this is doubtful. More likely, the predominance of prolonged rural shots, often visually enhanced through a widescreen format, is subliminally and intuitively invoked, in correspondence with ‘the felt sense’ of the period. Several of the films discussed here are from young or first-time directors such as Marek Losey, David Mackenzie and Duane Hopkins. Similarly, a number of young artists are producing new and exploratory imagery,

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and this is articulated as contemporary concerns and anxieties, exemplified in the current wave of Neo-Romantic art exhibitions. With changes in EEC regulations, the twenty-first century has witnessed concern over immigration from Europe,2 and increasingly over global climate change; and both through funded schemes and individually, a number of artists have responded. In 2001, David Buckland set up a project, entitled ‘Cape Farewell’, which invited scientists, writers and artists to produce work as a reaction to climate change. Numerous exhibitions ensued, displaying work by prominent figures such as Anthony Gormley (1950–) and Rachel Whiteread (1963–), who take action to demonstrate the impact of global warming on the environment; this scheme continues. In 2009 Peter Gilbert directed Burning Ice, an 80-minute feature film commissioned by Sundance Television, documenting the Cape Farewell exhibition to the Arctic. Similarly, SHIFT was an eightday musical and cultural extravaganza held at London’s South Bank Centre in response to climate change. More recently, ‘Earth: Art of a Changing World’ (2009) was held at the Royal Academy; this showed reactions to global anxiety through a diverse range of media – such as sculpture, painting, photography and installations. Internationally, contemporary cinema has witnessed a similar resurgence of interest in the planet, with the release of documentary films such as An Inconvenient Truth (Guggenheim 2006), and Age of Stupid (Armstrong 2009), which is a retrospective view of the present, and fiction films such as The Day After Tomorrow (Emmerich 2004). Whilst the above are obvious, and sometimes organised and funded responses to environmental issues, arguably the visual arts have also witnessed an unintentionally subversive rejoinder to such concerns. Anxieties about war, and terrorism post-9/11, might be responsible for fuelling disquiet concerning imminent catastrophe, resulting in corresponding visual imagery. Artists such as Rashid Arshed produce Islamic art in response to events in Iraq, Afghanistan and post-9/11. Discussing his motivation, the artist maintains: Recent global situation, particularly War in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rise of terrorism, have changed my perspective. Having observed and experienced the violence caused by terrorism and the consequential human sufferings, I feel compelled to use art to highlight acts of

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terrorism and neo-colonialism in all its forms and manifestation. The paintings shown here reflect my sentiments against war waged for political and economic gains; to dominate the world, to suppress freedom struggle and to cause unnecessary bloodshed and sufferings of the weak. Ironically, these war crimes have long purported in the name of democracy, freedom and human rights (2010).

However, it would be presumptuous to propose that all the films and artworks discussed here are deliberate responses to contemporary events. Rather, they instinctively point to an increased awareness of global issues, both in terms of politics and the environment. What is clear is that, as Rosenblum intuitively perceived, romanticism has never died out: it is simply more prominently on display at some times rather than others. For whatever reason, the twenty-first century has seen an abundance of cultural responses to the current political, social and economic climate, and the visual arts have favoured romanticism, in whatever guise, as an appropriate reactionary response.

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Notes Introduction 1 Meisel (1983). 2 In the chapter entitled ‘Thinking about Movie Sentiment: Toward a Reading of Random Harvest’ (2001), Toles discusses the quandary of sentiment within a sentimental narrative. He posits that the reactionary film is difficult to analyse because it already places the spectator in a vulnerable position, as the narrative has been specifically devised to elicit a certain type of response. 3 Although Cathy Caruth (1996) has discussed the concepts of trauma and emotion in some depth using Freud and Lacan. 4 Lyons bases much of his research on the work of William James (1890) The Principles of Psychology (2) New York, Dover. 5 Arguably, there might be justification to suggest that the documentary format and avant-garde cinema lends itself to this. 6 See Harper and Rayner (eds) 2010 who suggest that ‘those born in the emerging digital age may have a different response to cinematic landscapes, founded on the coherence of the image and sound, perhaps, rather than the correspondence of the film to a sense of preexisting form, or verisimilitude connected with experience’ (Harper and Rayner in Harper and Rayner (eds) 2010a: 17). 7 Rudolph Arnheim (reprinted 1993) noted the correspondences between visual form and perception, in other words, the ability of art compositions to create awareness. Also, in a similar vein, Soviet filmmaker, Sergei Eisenstein, also drew parallels between film and painting. His work based on pathos and ekstasis chimes with Wölfflin’s division between linear and painterly as well as presenting a pointer to the concept that specific compositions, through their formal arrangement, possess the ability to stimulate emotion. 8 This appears in What is Cinema? Reprinted 1971. 9 See Hockenhull (2008). However, in the case of Powell and Pressburger, there were very direct links between their films and the Neo-Romantic painters thanks to the work of the Ministry of Information and other cultural agencies. The links between artists 213



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and film-makers working in Britain post 2000 are looser and less direct, but can, nevertheless be distinguished. 10 Although the work of a small number of international artists is used, as contemporary art operates on a global scale the notion of structure of feeling can no longer be contained on a national level. 11 See Hockenhull 2008. 12 For a lengthier discussion see Harper and Porter (2003) and Harper in Harper and Rayner (eds) 2010.

Chapter One 1 See Hallam and Marshment (2000) and Lay (2002) for further reading on social realism. 2 This began in late 1974 and was resolved, but, due to misunderstandings over the agreement, an unofficial strike ensued. By March 1975, the army was enlisted to help clear the 7000 tons of rubbish that had accumulated, and the increase in the rat population became a cause for concern. 3 This section was first published in Hockenhull (2010). Chapter Two 1 Others include Wild Country (Strachan 2006), and Dog Soldiers (Marshall 2002). 2 Another British example which bears strong similarities to Eden Lake is Straightheads (Watkins 2007). Chapter Three 1 BBC1 Panorama interview with the Princess of Wales, broadcast in November 1995. 2 An object in the foreground of the frame which directs the spectator into the composition. 3 Sometimes called atmospheric perspective, this is a technique used in painting to suggest distance whereby the colour diminishes and frequently adopts a light blue hue. 4 See Ruskin, J. (1856) Modern Painters. 5 An ‘argument’ here is a principal thematic motif which subordinates the landscape setting (See Andrews 1999). 6 Various laws have emerged since the millennium, in particular the Right to Roam, which has caused controversy amongst farmers and landowners. For further reading see: www.naturalengland.org.uk/ ourwork/enjoying/countrysidecode/default.aspx



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Chapter Four 1 See Bakhtin (1981). 2 Pawlikowski had made a documentary film for the BBC in the 1980s on Christianity. His research took him to this area where he read about an obsessive Lancashire priest who tried to erect a cross on the top of Pendle Hill, an area renowned for witchcraft. His request was refused. Conclusion 1 This is also evident in computer games, thus extending the notion into popular and cult cultures. 2 See at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8473869.stm, accessed 19 July 2010.

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229

Index 28 Days Later… 30, 81, 111,

American painters 45

9/11 attacks 111, 117, 206, 210

Arcadian 26, 39, 80, 96

117–19

Another Life 29

Arnheim, Rudolph 2, 213n

abstract expressionism 19–20,

Arshed, Rashid 210 art-house 36

60

Abstract Sublime 45

artialisation 14

abyss 61–2, 71, 73, 98, 110

Awe-Inspiration Theme 84, 180 Ayrton, Michael 106–7

accented cinema 31, 160–3, 167,

178–9, 184, 187–8, 190, 194, 203

Bakhtin, Mikhail 31, 163, 215n

10–11, 14–18, 24, 27–8, 30–3,

beauty, beautiful 18, 121–2, 127,

aesthetic, aestheticisation 1–6, 8,

Bazin, André 3, 5, 16, 204 136, 149

36, 46, 54, 56–7, 72, 79, 80,

85, 97, 120–1, 127, 130, 136,

Better Things 30, 35–6, 72–3, 75,

176, 179, 183–4, 187–8, 204,

Billingham, Richard 171–3, 208

209

148, 159, 162, 165, 167, 174,

Blyton, Enid 55

208–9

affect, affective 2–7, 9–10, 14, 16,

Bollywood 165–7

24–8, 31, 53, 60, 80, 82, 86, 90,

British film industry 32 British New Wave 26

92, 100, 128, 150, 166, 172, 187, 198, 204

Buckland, David 210

Burke, Sir Edmund 3, 18, 46, 56,

Age of Stupid 210

alienation 75, 188–9, 192, 196,

59, 61, 80, 82–3, 91, 95, 121,

201

124, 127, 130, 133, 149, 196 231



232

A e s t h e t ic s a n d N e o - R o m a n t ici s m i n F il m

Cameron, David Young 133

Eden Lake 30, 80, 92–5, 99, 118,

Chariots of Fire 27

Edge of the World, The 24

Children of Men 30, 81, 104–12,

European art house 57

Cameron, Julia 144

chiaroscuro 24, 57, 59, 127, 155 117–19, 209

Christian, Christianity 44, 181, 186, 187, 215n

chronotopes 31, 163, 166, 181 Church, Frederick 108

climate change 28, 210 Cold War 117

Comin’ Through the Rye 24

Constable, John 19, 22, 74, 114, 116

Cozens, John Robert 19, 22, 116 Craxton, John 96

da Messina, Antonello 66

Dadaism, Dadaist 158, 201, 205

Dahlgren, Sophie 23, 202–3, 208 Day After Tomorrow, The 210 Deliverance 92

deterritorialisation 178

214n

ethnic 31, 161–2, 182 Evil Aliens 30

exile, exilic 31, 104, 139, 160–3,

165–6, 168, 171–2, 174, 176, 178–9, 182, 184, 187–8, 196, 202

Fairhurst, Angus 205–6

fantasy, fantastical 21, 63, 116, 162, 166–7, 175–6, 180, 192, 198, 206

feminist theory 6, 31 folklore 80

Forster, E.M. 27

Friedrich, Caspar David 15, 19–20, 43–6, 52, 62, 108, 114–15, 177, 206

frozen moment 9, 10–11, 14, 37, 105, 170

diaspora, diasporic 31, 161–2, 166,

Gablik, Suzi 204

documentary 26, 35–6, 48, 63, 72,

Girtin, Thomas 19, 22, 93, 205

171, 178, 184, 188

165, 184, 210, 213n, 215n

Doig, Peter 21, 52–3, 188–92, 206 Donachie, Kaye 156–9 Dvořák, Max 15 dyspastoral 201

Gilbert, Peter 210

global warming 33, 210

von Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 19 Goldsworthy, Andy 23, 74–5 Gombrich, Ernst 12

Gormley, Anthony 210

i n d e x

Gothic 85, 106, 112, 123, 137, 166, 176–7, 199, 205

Greene, Graham 25

haptic/optic 15, 189 Hepworth, Cecil 24

Hide, The 30, 81, 99, 101, 103–4, 118, 209

Hildebrand, Adolphe 15

homeland 32, 160–4, 166–8,

170–4, 177–9, 181, 188–9,

194, 196–7, 200–1, 203, 208

horror 30, 78–83, 85–6, 88, 91–2, 94, 101, 104, 106, 112, 115, 119, 140, 205

Hot Fuzz 25

Howards End 27

Hume, David 16 Imperial War Museum 115

‘impure’/‘pure’ landscape 12–13, 39, 57, 70, 86, 100, 113, 124, 130, 140, 148–50, 152–3, 197, 204

Inconvenient Truth, An 210 Italian Renaissance 66

Kant, Immanuel, Kantian 3, 115, 121, 196

Kieslowski, Krzysztof 54 Kuchler, Alwin 67, 70

Kurland, Justine 142–4, 153, 207–8

La Terre 32, 165, 193

Ladies in Lavender 31, 120, 122–3, 135, 151–3, 155–6, 207

Land Art 16, 22, 73

Landseer, Sir Edwin 132–3

Last Great Wilderness, The 31, 80–2, 86, 88, 92, 99–100, 118

Last Resort, The 31, 164, 173–5, 178–9, 181, 187

Laxdale Hall 26

Lenczewski, Ryszard 176, 184 Lewis, C.S. 202

liminal/liminality 30–2, 43, 54, 67, 69, 154, 162–3, 174, 176–7, 208

Local Hero 25

London to Brighton 9, 29–30, 35–6, 47–8, 51–2, 54, 57, 209

Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, The 26

Long, Richard 23, 73–5 Magdalene Sisters, The 31, 120, 122, 134–5, 137–8, 141–2, 144, 159–60, 207, 209

Maria, Walter de 20 Maurice 27

McGarvey, Seamus 54–5, 58–9 Meisel, Martin 3, 213n

melodrama/melodramatic 26, 31, 37, 139, 163

Merchant Ivory 27

233



234

A e s t h e t ic s a n d N e o - R o m a n t ici s m i n F il m

millennium/post-millennium 21,

Orr, Christopher 21, 61–2

Ministry of Information 25,

pagan 80, 83, 87–8, 106, 196

29, 116, 205, 214n 213n

mise-en-scène 4, 10, 16, 40, 111, 168, 173, 207

Miss Potter 31, 120, 122–3, 144–6, 150–1, 207

Murnau, F.W. 177

My Summer of Love 31, 164–5, 179, 181, 184, 186–7, 209

Nash, Paul 70–1, 101, 206

National Film and Television

painterliness/painterly 1–2, 15,

25, 33, 37, 39, 57, 70, 72, 136, 142, 145, 148, 151, 155, 160, 187, 209, 213n

Palmer, Samuel 60, 96

panorama, panoramic 14, 50, 60, 94, 111–12, 138, 141, 150, 155, 168, 175, 179

pastoral, pastoralism 24, 27, 41, 80,

96, 99, 104, 139, 144, 157, 164, 193–4, 205–6, 209

School 64

pathetic fallacy 140

167, 185

Periton, Simon 96–9, 206

nation/nationhood 27, 29, 166, Neo-Romantic/neo-romanticism 18, 21–3, 25, 52–3, 60, 70,

96, 106, 142, 198, 206, 210,

patriotic/patriotism 25, 27–8 Petrycki, Jacek 54

picturesque 18, 57, 121–2, 136, 138, 144, 149–50

213n

Pierrepoint 29

objectivity) 21

Pollock, Jackson 19

Neue Sachlichkeit (new Newman, Barnett 19

Night of the Living Dead 112 Nina’s Heavenly Delights 31, 164–70, 208

Northern European art 15 Nosferatu 177

numinous 61, 74, 77, 83, 107, 131, 157, 186

Pipes of Pan 24

postcolonial 161

postmodern 27, 166, 184

Powell, Michael 24–5, 213n Pressburger, Emeric 24–5, 213n

primordial 99, 196, 197 Prince Eugen 202

Princess Diana 1, 122–3, 125–6, 128, 134

i n d e x

prospect/refuge 31, 42, 49, 106, 120–3, 127, 131, 133, 135,

138, 140–1, 144–5, 148–51, 153, 156, 160, 207

Psycho 85

Romantic, romanticism continued 120–3, 133–4, 137, 139,

142–3, 157, 159–61, 168–9,

171, 175–8, 181, 186–9, 192, 203–8, 211

psychological thriller 30, 78, 81,

Room at the Top 26

‘pure’/‘impure’ landscape 12–13,

Rothko, Mark 19, 20, 45

86, 100

39, 57, 70, 86, 100, 113, 124,

130, 140, 149–50, 152–3, 197, 204

Queen, the/Queen, The 1, 11, 28, 31, 120, 122–32, 134, 144, 160, 207

Railway Children, The 55

Room with a View 27

Rückenfigur 35, 42–3, 45, 51–2, 57, 67, 76, 115, 206

Ruskin, John 140, 214n Sandby, Paul 22

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning 26

seascape 41, 48, 50, 55, 58, 71, 153, 156

Ratcatcher 30, 36, 62–3, 65–6, 71,

Sense and Sensibility 27

realism 26, 35, 57, 71, 214n

slasher film 30

193

realist 29–30, 35, 37, 47–8, 63, 78, 171, 205

Remains of the Day 27

repoussoir 136, 140, 185

Riegl, Alöis 15–6, 93, 124 Rohmer, Eric 2

Romantic, romanticism 2, 6,

15–23, 25, 28, 30–3, 36–7, 40, 42–5, 48, 51, 53–4, 56, 58, 60–1, 67, 70, 72–4, 76–8,

80–1, 89, 91–2, 96, 100, 106, 110, 112, 114–15, 117, 119,

Slade School of Art 20, 202 Smithson, Robert 20

Sociable Plover, The 102

space freed from eventhood 11, 51, 87, 136

spiritual, spirituality, spiritualism

5, 10, 15, 18–19, 28, 33, 41, 43,

45, 49, 52, 60, 74–5, 86–7, 106, 113, 129–31, 137, 139, 156, 162–3, 171, 177, 184, 187, 196, 204, 207

Still, Clyfford James 20

Strindberg, August 202–3

235



236

A e s t h e t ic s a n d N e o - R o m a n t ici s m i n F il m

structure of feeling 2, 7, 10, 21, 28,

Vaughan, Keith 60

sublime 2, 16–18, 20–3, 25, 28,

vista 23, 39, 42–3, 45, 49, 56,

32, 53, 103, 162, 203, 213n 30–2, 36, 38, 45–6, 48, 54,

56–7, 59–60, 76, 78–85, 88–91, 95, 98, 101–2, 114–17, 119–22, 125, 127–8, 130, 133–8, 141, 147, 149–50, 154, 160, 178, 187, 195–6, 202–5, 207–9

Sundance Television 210

Surrealism 21, 63, 70, 198

Sweet Sixteen 29–30, 35–8, 40, 42, 44–6, 52, 54, 57, 62

Tansy 24

Taste of Honey 26

Tate St Ives 97, 101, 205 temps morts 10–11, 170

This Filthy Earth 32, 165, 193–4, 196, 202, 208–9

This Sporting Life 26

Thorpe, David 21, 107–9, 110 Timberlake, John 22, 114–18 Tress, David 22, 89–93, 205

Turner, Joseph Mallord William 19–20, 22, 45, 74–5, 89–91, 114, 116, 133, 205

Turrell, James 20

UK Film Council 122

Vera Drake 29

60, 67–9, 77–8, 83, 93–5, 103, 111, 120, 124, 126,

135, 137–8, 140–1, 145, 156, 160, 167, 169, 172,

174–5, 179, 184–6, 200, 202–3

War Zone, The 30, 36, 54–8, 60–2, 123, 209

Ward, Christian 206 Ward, James 20

Wells, H.G. 116

Went the Day Well? 25 Whisky Galore 25

Whiteread, Rachel 210

Whitney Biennial 97, 206

Wicker Man, The 83, 92, 104

Williams, Raymond 2, 7, 21, 28, 32–3, 50, 119

Wölfflin, Heinrich 15–16, 213n Woods, Clare 101, 103–4, 205–6

World War II 14, 18, 25, 57, 60, 70, 76, 96

Zola, Émile 32, 165, 193 zombie 30, 111, 113