Scum

Right, so this is the movie Alan Clarke is most known for. This was part of the BBC series “Play for Today”, but after BBC saw what Clarke had made, they refused to show it. Which led to Clarke making a cinema version two years later, which might be his only not-for-TV movie or something?

BBC didn’t show it until 1991.

Clarke (and writer Minton) was doing a little series about institutions, I guess? Their previous BBC movie was about a mental institution, and now it’s about kids in prison…

I’m not sure the dialogue here is very convincing…

See what I mean?

Ah yes, the 70s.

No respect for personal space!

The Wikipedia page said the make sure to ground everything in research, and… it does seem will researched. I mean, broadly. But … the scenes themselves don’t seem convincing? Especially the dialogue, which is very… articulate.

But I mean — it’s pretty entertaining.

I dunno… it feels like it could do with… more? This seems oddly abbreviated without anything resolved, which may indeed be the point.

But it’s pretty good.

Scum. Alan Clarke. 1977. ⚃

Funny Farm

I thought this was going to be Scum — which is probably Alan Clarke’s most famous movie? But it’s Funny Farm instead.

So… this is like a series of tragic fates — people who’ve ended up in an asylum, one way or another.

I like it, but it’s a bit… er… you know. It feels like it’s going to teach us something. Yuck! We hate that, don’t we, lad?

That’s what I want my living room to look like!

OK, now I’m over it.

Yeah:

The working day of nurse Alan Welbeck at a psychiatric ward. Points out the conditions in UK mental hospitals – understaffing, overwork, bad pay, old inadequate buildings and unsatisfactory patient treatment and cure.

It seems more designed to state a position than to make a proper TV theatre.

Uh-oh.

This was broadcast the same year as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was released, so there was something in the air…

It’s very didactic.

One major difference between this and the Forman film is that everybody here is basically well-meaning. There’ no Nurse Ratched. It’s just an underfunded, understaffed hospital.

That’s all the condiments you need: Salt and brown sauce.

At the start of this movie, I was into it. And then it got really heavy handed — basically a PSA for “Psychiatric Institutions Should Be Better Funded”. But then at the end, I was quite moved by all these quiet stories being told.

Nothing actually “happens” in this thing — it’s just a peek into the lives of some pretty sympathetic people in a difficult situation. It couldn’t be more low key if it tried, and I respect that.

Funny Farm. Alan Clarke. 1975. ⚃

Horace

The previous long-form Alan Clarke thing was kinda untypical for him — i.e., “spiritual” and stuff.

This looks like more of the real thing.

I don’t really find this guy’s performance very convincing, and he’s the eponymous Horace. He’s supposed to be developmentally challenged, but it’s kinda eeeeh…

I betcha there’s gonna be a tragedy.

Pretty convincingly dirty, but they’ve spent too much time on the hair — you can see all the work that’s gone into making it look uneven and jagged.

This is quite strange, even as social realist BBC TV movies from the 70s go. I mean, just the way Clarke has filmed it makes it very tense… Where is it going!? It feels like it’s going towards a tragedy, but what is the tragedy going to be? There’s so many possibilities.