Carlyle slams British Film Industry

The iconic, cool black and white stills of Renton, Sick Boy and Begbie that adorned the posters of student bedrooms up and down the United Kingdom in 1996 seemed to signal the beginnings of a new era for British cinema. Highly-stylized, slick, vibrant, vital, Danny Boyle’s adaptation of Irving Welsh’s Trainspotting, a tome chronicling the lives of heroin addicted young Scotsmen, proved a critical and commercial smash. Moving away from the stereotyped imagery of British film as the domain of costume dramas and kitchen sink realism, Trainspotting was an exciting, bold feature; single handedly the film made Britain seem thriving, cool even. Surely a new wave of rousing, pulsating films were soon to follow, riding on the coat tails of this production?

Fast forward to 2009 and it appears rather than opening any floodgates, Trainspotting was simply the crest of the movement that never came and in fact not a single decent film has come from Britain since. This, at least, is the opinion of Begbie himself a.k.a. Robert Carlyle. In a damning indictment of the country’s film industry the Scottish actor stated: “There is nothing that has been really great since Trainspotting.”

Speaking out at the Scottish BAFTAs, where he was collecting an award for Best Male Acting Performance in Television for his role in Samantha Norton’s The Unloved, Carlyle let rip on the United Kingdom’s film industry going so far as to state he would be unlikely to work there again due to the problematic nature of getting films made and distributed. “There are projects close to my heart,” said Carlyle “but it’s getting harder to get finance to make films.” Referring specifically to the last British film he made, I Know You Know, Carlyle showed frustration at failing to secure a distribution deal for the feature announcing: “It is a beautiful little film but now its three years old. That is no good.”

Much of the current state of British cinema can be attributed to governmental policy that can be at best described as benign neglect. Without a consistent implemented policy instituted towards funding and sustaining a film industry, the country’s cinematic output can be described as uneven at best. Attempts to address this decline have often been made through misguided funding to lambasted projects such as Sex Lives Of The Potato Men or, more successfully, in exporting acting and directing talent abroad, specifically to America, and through allowing foreign productions to utilize the country’s facilities. Whilst exceptional indie films are created relatively regularly, the works of Andrea Arnold and Ken Loach chief amongst them, it seems unlikely that a British picture will grab the popular culture zeitgeist like Trainspotting did any time soon.

SOURCE: Daily Record