England

England for the English…
By Rebecca Sykes.

As Warwick Arts Centre warms up for Tim Crouch’s England, in the aftermath of America’s much lauded ‘re-birth’ last week, ideas relating to a nation’s identity have become significant both politically and culturally. However, America, as a country whose national identity has been fiercely contested since its conception, has long appeared comfortable with attempting to project its personality on the big screen. A glance at Hollywood film titles reveals that what is ‘American’ is at the forefront of many film makers minds, even if they promote wildly varying characters: Psycho; Beauty; Gangster; Gigolo; Pie.

Now, this may offer a rather oblique notion of ‘Americanness’ but it is perhaps most important that a benchmark for cultural introspection exists. In contrast, it seems an especially English trait to label such behaviour as indulgent navel-gazing and dismiss it as isolationist jingoism. However, the willingness of American cinema to engage with its own national and cultural origins has resulted in genuinely insightful critical work as well as chest-beating Americanism. For instance, Citizen Kane, whose script bore the working title ‘American’, is perhaps the finest example of a film that attempts to deal with the hypocrisies entrenched in national culture.

However, the mentality of American exceptionalism, there’s us, and then there’s everyone else, also harks back to an age when the magnificent isolation of England was venerated by the English. By way of illustration, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a film which attempts to capture the spirit of an age when the ideals of English heroism and military might seized the imagination of the world. Set in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, the ship that takes centre stage in the film, the Surprise, is described as “this wooden world” and becomes an explicit image of England in Captain Aubrey's rallying speech before the final battle: “Though we be on the far side of the world, this ship is our home, this ship is England.” The film depicts a time when the people united under the banner of King and Country, (we few, we happy few, we band of brothers) certain of their ascendancy in the world. Indeed, as Captain Aubrey rouses his men with the cry, "Do you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly? Do you want your children to grow up singing the 'Marseillaise'?" The answer is simple enough; we did not.

However, times change, and the answers are no longer so palpable or candidly expressed. For one, the centrality of class in English culture is something that cannot be ignored; “it is the situation in our comedy and the costume in our drama” (Rafael Behr). However, a film that seeks to squarely address class and racial antagonisms, both explicit and implicit, in its exploration of English identity is Shane Meadows’ This Is England. As the resolute title suggests, the film brazenly confronts, and seeks to transpose, the diffidence that has characterised many attempts to define a recognisable ‘England’ since the latter half of the twentieth-century.

The film documents the style and substance of a uniquely English tribe: Skinheads. Set in the summer of 1983, in the shadow of the Falklands war and Margaret Thatcher, Meadows attempts to reclaim skinhead subculture from its neo-Nazi image. He depicts the susceptibility of the young protagonists in the film to the extremist political right, as a doleful syndrome of their fatherless culture. In fact, the film shares its title with an essay by the cultural critic Dick Hebdige; This Is England And They Don't Live Here, which was itself inspired by an infamous comment made by an East London skin: “Don't get me wrong - I've got a lot of coloured friends. And they're decent people. But they've got their own culture. The Pakistanis have a culture, it's thousands of years old. But where's our culture? Where's the British culture?”

It is this quest to find emotional truths that is vital to artistic endeavors. When a piece of creative work is able to render an authentic vision of people’s hopes and fears, it can engender a narrative that becomes embedded in a nation’s consciousness. For instance, Mel Gibson’s particular brand of reactionary Scottish nationalism (“Freedom!”) and its impact on the Scottish political climate should not be underestimated. Historical perversions aside, the film is credited as having played a significant role in cultivating Scottish nationalist sentiment in the mid to late 1990s. You would be hard pushed to find a film that has produced a similar impact on the English imagination for many years, if at all. Why is this?

It is possible to suggest that the English are just naturally less demonstrative than other nations; it’s just not English to feel the need for self-advertisement. But this seems to be something of a cop-out. Furthermore, we should be wary of allowing Hollywood financed films to do the necessary introspection for us. For a case in point, see Johnny English, where ‘England’ is depicted so as to be easily recognisable to audiences living in lucrative foreign markets, complete with tourist-cliché shots of London and a heavy-handed title that pre-empts the most exhaustively spoofed English franchise; 007.

Therefore, a spot a blinkered self-examination may not be a bad thing after all. The meaning of England, it seems, is still up for grabs.