FEATURE: Filth on Film

Today's feature is a guest post from Marginal Philosophy writer Alex Campbell. Just a quick warning, this post contains both strong language and spoilers.

Filth Trailer: Treat yourself to the image of James McAvoy riding a pig to the tunes of the Scissor Sisters.

It’s been 17 years (yes really) since Danny Boyle first injected himself into the mainstream of British cinema with his gloriously squalid depiction of Irvine Welsh’s novel of the ‘chemical generation’ Trainspotting (novel 1994, film 1996). While subsequent attempts to transfer Welsh’s texts to screen have been relatively unsuccessful (The Acid House 1998 and Ecstasy 2011), Jon S. Baird has managed to adapt the depraved manic energy of Welsh’s third novel Filth into a triumphant cinematic experience. A cartoon aesthetic and hyperbolic-caricature is a feature of Baird’s adaptation, successfully distancing Filth from the haunting iconoclastic realism of Danny Boyle’s landmark film.

It has been well publicised that Filth struggled to find funding. As you can well imagine, pitching a film based on a novel whose protagonist’s inner most thoughts are narrated by an inebriated and destructive tapeworm would have raised more than a few eyebrows - luckily thanks to no less than 9 production companies, they raised the cash as well. In its opening weekend initial figures have Filth raking in around £250k at the Scottish Box office - cue an abundance of witty articles entitled ‘Filth cleans up at the box office’. And a bloody good job too. The film is a nihilistic riot, brutally funny and indulgently obscene.

Baird digs deep into the surreal and darkly comical underbelly of Welsh’s writing; embracing the wickedly weird elements of the novel and adapting them for the screen. Welsh’s novels are noted for their particular attention to deeply disturbed white, Scottish, male characters and Filth is a prime example. Alcoholic, sexist, and itchy-bollocked - misanthrope Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson (James McAvoy) is about to be promoted. He’s fucking sure of it; in fact he’ll stop at nothing to get it. Champion of the people on the outside, and vindictive machiavellian on the inside, a good-cop/bad-cop rolled into one decaying body, Bruce Robertson is a man out for himself.

McAvoy’s performance is heroic in its commitment: any mentions from the audience of prior adoration or lust for our bearded thespian, were quickly switched into grimaces and muffled expressions of shock and confusion. It’s called Filth for a reason. Chips, chicks, and cocaine are on the menu every night and nothing helps a hangover like professional sabotage. McAvoy is wholly dedicated to the role and his comedic timing and cheeky smile manages to bring the audience onto his side - even if that side happens to be bigoted, sexist, and slovenly. Pantomime-esque cracks in the fourth wall allow the audience in on the various sinister schemes that our conniving copper has planned for his rivals. We are tipped the wink, and feel a certain amount of collusion with Bruce while we laugh at his gullible peers as much as he does. The joke is always on them. His malignant and magnificent plots to undermine his colleagues to ensure his own promotion are nothing short of comedic genius. Welsh’s writing is translated wonderfully, the audience collapses into laughing shrieks of vague horror at Bruce’s manipulative skills as he slowly but surely pulls the rug out from under his rivals; questioning their sexual orientation, sleeping with their wives, and setting them against one another. 

One of the most successful elements of the film is the blend of different eras; this is a film set in 2013, based on a novel written in 1998, and uses a soundtrack comprised mostly of 1960s/1970s classics set against a score by Clint Mansell. This seems to be a deliberate move by Baird; the swinging soundtrack serves to historicise the contemporary setting of the film, making you realise that these supposedly ‘outdated’ issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia are not simply contained to the dark ages but are still disturbingly relevant issues that stain the social fabric of modern day Britain. Baird however has been quick to stress that the film is not a commentary on the boys-in-blue. It’s true that there doesn’t seem to be any overt political or national agenda fuelling the fire (unlike the infamous “Scotland is shite” scene from Trainspotting) - references to Scotland are minimal, and outside of the name Bruce Robertson (a play on Robert the Bruce) and introductory scenes poking fun at the stereotypes of bagpipes and redheads, the film shies away from any focused commentary on life in modern Scotland.

While the fluorescent promotional posters (the gaudy yellow and blue a nod towards today’s uniformed officers) boast a strong and intriguing cast, the weight of the film ultimately falls to McAvoy and his oblivious side-kick Clifford “Bladesy” Blades (Eddie Marsan). Much of the film’s comedy vigour comes from this unlikely pairing as Bladesy blindly follows Bruce down alleys into unintentional drug-fuelled nights with prostitutes and gay bars. The film taps into the rich comedic vein that is prevalent in Welsh’s writing; but more importantly it also delves into the more sordid and psychologically disturbed elements of his oeuvre. Baird, carefully emulating elements of the novel, strategically signposts deeper disturbances in Bruce’s psyche. We see flashes of a young boy covered in coal dust, and the intimate scenes with Bruce’s notably absent wife Carole (Shauna Macdonald) who narrates elements of their personal history in perfect make-up and decadent lingerie, jarr with the grungy and depraved actions of her mythically romanticised hubby. We slowly but surely get the idea that beyond Bruce’s obvious flaws, misogynist bigot that he is, there is something much deeper and darker going on.

In the closing death throes of the film, the dark humour rapidly deteriorates, along with the body and mental state of our fair hero. Previously comical relationships which had provided elements of lite relief now take on a disturbingly violent and threatening edge. The initially amusing relationship between Bruce and Chrissie (Kate Dickie) suddenly shifts as she violently forces herself upon a severely unstable and sick Bruce. The passage in the novel is one of the most bleak and unashamedly descriptive: ‘she’s pushing her c**t on to it against my will and thrusting on to me and the friction’s hurting me and she’s choking me harder and I can’t breathe or speak as the grip tightens’. In hindsight, their once previously amusing acts of erotic asphyxiation become a tool of ominous foreshadowing. This moment of sexual assault is one of McAvoy's shortest and yet most potent scenes. His depiction of an utterly disempowered being is heartbreaking, desolately lying on the floor with tears leaking out of his eyes softly whispering ‘I’m not well’. Bruce is met with a dismissive ‘you’re no fun anymore’ from Chrissie who luxuriously sucks on the end of a cigarette as she lounges content in her afterglow.

Welsh’s works have been acclaimed for their critique on what Berthold Schoene calls ‘the institutionalised politics of fucking’ which ultimately reveals the patriarchal systems of society which ‘irrespective of their biological sex [renders characters] into active “men” and passive “women”’- the victim and the victor. Filth should be championed in its undermining of traditionally sexist categorisations of women AND men. The exploration of issues such as cross-dressing and sexual orientation are insightful and challenging but ultimately it is this scene in which a previously powerless female character sexually assaults the male protagonist that resonates the most. Baird (through Welsh) exposes how the system is against men as much as it is against women, where Bruce represents the crippling necessity of conforming to an idealised myth of the interminable ‘hard man’. 

While Bruce obviously holds little respect for the women around him and leaves little space for their infringement into his personal sphere (apart from the idealised Carole of course), the female cast does well with their time on screen. Most notably Bunty Blades (Shirley Henderson) whose long-lashed wide-eyed infatuation of D.S. Robertson coupled with incredibly bouffant hair and a penchant for leopard print, steals every scene. The one non-sexual relationship between Bruce and a female character is unfortunately where I feel the film falls flat. One of the less successful scenes regarding the destabilisation of gender roles is in Bruce’s confrontation with colleague Amanda Drummond (Imogen Poots). The relationship between Drummond and Bruce in the novel is consistently high-strung; Drummond proves to be the level-headed politically correct antithesis to Bruce’s increasingly abhorrent behaviour. The confrontation between Drummond and Robertson in the film is a tumultuous and draining emotional ride and has moments of pure pathos. The script, however, lets down the animosity of the scene and the majority of Poots’ performance becomes likened to playground jibes and goading insinuations, though this is through no fault of the cast; Baird simply stays true to Welsh’s text.

After this encounter, Bruce is left a psychological mess. The audience is cast into the surreal and hallucinatory bowels of Dr. Rossi’s office (Jim Broadbent) where grotesque animal faces and more overt hints at a deep childhood trauma clutter the screen. The delusional office space of Rossi is perhaps the most unsuccessful text-to-screen adaptation of the whole film. Welsh’s novels characteristically disturb standard textual practice, using various fonts and typographic play to create a chaotic and unsettled edge and Filth is no different. The pages bulge with a visual representation of Bruce’s inner narrator, his friendly neighbourhood tapeworm, at times becoming so large it covers the narrative; bubbling across the page with an incessant drive to consume. The desolation and existential crisis exhibited by Bruce in the later stages of the film smacks of a typically Beckettian ‘protagonist’ struggling with a fractured memory of seemingly past events and a terrifying and incomprehensible present (indeed the idea of the Tapeworm perhaps an allusion to Beckett’s protagonist ‘Worm’ in The Unnameable). The substitution of the typographic worm for the doctor’s hedonistic office loses some of the more nuanced elements of Welsh’s writing, allowing the film to fall down a delusional rabbit hole that doesn’t necessarily enrich the already bizarre content. Baird’s adaptation, whilst putrid, violent, and exciting, did not portray the total physical wretchedness that encapsulates the character of Bruce Robertson. 

The fantastical and absurd elements draw the audience away from the overwhelmingly fetid decay of the central character which ultimately gives one the impression of leaving Filth feeling a bit too clean.

- Alex

You can read more of Alex's work over on Marginal Philosophy or follow her on Twitter: @ACamp_Bell


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TV REVIEW: Southcliffe - Light Falls

After the slow-moving yet intense opening episode, Southcliffe continued with another tension- wrought instalment as we're introduced to the wider community of the small coastal town. Opening with a moment from the shooting itself, a brutal and shocking first scene, the episode once again moves back in time to focus on the events leading up to it. 

The focus of the first episode, the shooter Stephen Morton (Sean Harris), has less screen time here, but it works much more effectively; he becomes an almost spectral presence in his absence and a dark prophetic omen whenever he does appear. It leant a new layer to the proceedings as the aforementioned opening scene sees him get his revenge on Chris (Joe Dempsie), the returning soldier who tormented him, by shooting his young wife in bed next to him. His motivation is established quickly for the rest of the episode; he'll punish those who he felt treated him badly by targeting those people around them.

The resultant sense of dread creeps into every scene and makes seemingly innocuous moments all the more significant. Lines that should be throwaway, like a daughter commenting on her father nicking himself whilst shaving, carry much greater weight, simply through the association of blood. Once again, the sound was also used to startlingly good effect to maintain the discomfort caused by the visual scenes unfolding. Whether it is the oppressive silences that characterised much of the first episode or long, droning sounds that force their way into the scenes, it's consistently intrusive. 

Curiously, the expansion of Southcliffe to include two more families, as well as spending more time with Rory Kinnear's journalist David, doesn't make the show seem any larger. In fact, it is quite the opposite as the inner workings of these close-knit families feel claustrophobic and oppressive. With the episode moving confidently between the time periods, it also has a rather unsettling effect as you try to piece together where in the story you are and which characters are currently the ones in danger. 

The episode also works to establish a stark contrast between the residents of Southcliffe (both present and former) and those coming in from the inside. A particularly harsh moment was the gleeful journalist revelling in Stephen's entrapment whilst shots fire in the distance. It's a fairly damning comment on the way in which these unfolding events are covered by the press as everything becomes sensationalised whilst the residents are left to deal with the after-effects.

Southcliffe is a masterful exercise in control on Durkin's part; every aspect of the episode feels carefully constructed with every scene counting, every sound effect deliberately placed. In a year that has seen some outstanding British drama, Southcliffe is up there with the very best.

- Becky

You can read Becky's review of first episode The Hollow Shore here.

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TV REVIEW: Southcliffe - The Hollow Shore

As an audience, we're spoilt for choice with excellent crime dramas at the moment and Southcliffe, should the series continue in the same vein as the first episode, will be no exception. Directed by Sean Durkin (of Martha Marcy May Marlene - also well worth a look), Southcliffe tells the story of a tragic shooting in a sleepy coastal town through the build-up, the event itself and the subsequent fallout. It's bleak subject matter, but is handled sensitively by Tony Grisoni, the man also behind Channel 4's excellent drama Red Riding. The first episode focuses in the shooter himself, the mentally unstable Stephen (Sean Harris) and the returning soldier Chris (Joe Dempsie).

Opening in suitably shocking fashion with gunshots ripping through the quiet coastal air, Southcliffe then takes a step back to before the shootings take place. From there on in, the pace slows right down in order to continue the creeping sense of dread that permeates those opening scenes. Moody and atmospheric, Durkin allows shots to linger whether they are close-ups of his actors or simply of the gorgeous Kent scenery with its mists and gloom. It's both beautiful and threatening, a location that seems idyllic one minute and terrifyingly remote the next. The opening scenes demonstrate this stark contrast brilliantly; a woman gardening is interrupted by a gunshot that wounds her before a succession of shots of the quiet villages, punctuated by gunfire and the ominous approach of sirens. In these moments, the shooter is unclear, concealed within the mist.

This theme of concealment runs throughout the episode; Durkin isn't afraid to hide action behind door frames, just out of shot and creates the sense that this isn't just a puzzle for the characters, but for the audience, piecing together the events leading up to the shooting. Many things remain hidden in Southcliffe; Stephen and Chris are both reluctant to confess the truth about their respective circumstances to those around him. Whilst Chris manages to keep whatever he is hiding from his girlfriend under wraps, Stephen becomes exposed quickly by Chris and a relative, resulting in a deeply uncomfortable scene that leads directly into the shooting itself.

The sound, or rather the lack of it, is used to particularly great effect. There is no score, only music used for a specific purpose in certain scenes such as the party for the returning soldiers or the outdoor gig later in the episode. Even then, the music feels jarring and intrusive, out of step with the nearly silent world that these characters inhabit. This is demonstrated most in the fast-paced folk music after the ritual humiliation of Stephen in the woods. The silence that punctuates the other scenes proves to be just as unsettling, building into the mounting sense of dread.

Grisoni's script has not attempted justify Stephen's actions, serving more to offer an explanation as to why he attacks the residents of the community. Since The Killing, crime dramas have become less focused on the crime itself and more upon the ripples that run through the community in which it occurs, most recently seen in Broadchurch and Top of the Lake. With Southcliffe, there are an intriguing array of characters we are yet to see. Some are glimpsed in this episode, Shirley Henderson in particular, and we spend a fair amount of time with Rory Kinnear's journalist, who will shortly find himself pulled back to his home town to provide a unique perspective on the coverage.

An impressive opening for Southcliffe; bleak yes, but underscored by an emotional current that, should it continue, will make for a very interesting series indeed. The next episode airs tonight at 9pm on Channel 4.

- Becky

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