So, obligatory “I spent a Summer studying FILM in London.” It was an incredible experience, watching these films and going to the locations that still look so incredibly similar. I love British film. This class really instilled a deep appreciation for how London has been depicted in film and TV over the decades.
This is the final term paper that I wrote for the class.
London In Film: A Study
2012
There is a dichotomy when it comes to depicting the East and West End London in films. Films depicting London have often relied on class stereotypes to tell their stories. There is also a focus, or preoccupation, some would say, on class divisions in British cinema. These themes have passed through the years, and across different genres. In this paper we will discuss this dichotomy between film representations of East and West London in films such as Piccadilly (E.W. Dupont, 1929), We Are the Lambeth Boys (Karel Reisz, 1958), Bermondsey (Claude Whatham, 1972), and Sweeney Todd (Tim Burton, 2007).
We will discuss these films in terms of personal relationships along class-divides, visual differences in the hard city of London, actual buildings, and differences in the soft city, or, what we can glean from the representation of social life in these films. Through this exploration, we can hope to find what these common themes say about the city itself, and we can understand the ways in which London is used as both character and setting. London as a setting is completely unique, as there are few cities with such distinct and historically significant landmarks. This film exploration will follow these films chronologically.
Piccadilly, a film from 1929, set in a swinging London, begins in an upper class club, filled with white waiters and patrons. The film opens up displaying the intense affection between the club owner, Valentine, and his star dancer, Mabel. Soon, however, Valentine falls in lust with an enigmatic Chinese dancer from Limehouse named Shosho. He makes her his new star attraction and raises her into the echelons of the upper class, though she is never truly accepted as anything more than a novelty. The rest of the film plays out this love triangle with the appropriate amount of misfortune befalling Shosho for her presumption to try to enter upper-class British society.
In terms of the relationship between Shosho and those of the East end with those of the West end, there are some key differences, and key failures on the part of the filmmakers to adequately adapt the manner of speech communication to the different classes. Valentine does not speak to Shosho like she is of a lower class, and conversely, Shosho does not speak as if she is a member of a lower social class. Jon Burrows[1] mentions in his article “A Vague Chinese Quarter Elsewhere,” that the story was written by Arnold Bennett, a British writer who spent much of his life in France, and not enough time in London to adequately understand the differing types of language and accent which occur amongst different classes. The relationship between Shosho and Valentine is exceedingly equal-- he treats her like he treats his British lover. However, he joins her more often in Limehouse than she joins him in high society, showing that while she has succeeded as a novelty, she will never be truly recognized by higher society.
In terms of the hard city, the consensus is that London is not represented accurately. Burrows[2], once again, asserts that Dupont created a London with a lack of British culture. Dupont presents critical reviews which call the environment too continental. The sets and the buildings, representations of the hard city, do not necessarily present the uniqueness of London. Besides the thick fog in Limehouse, the film could have been filmed in any city.
The soft city representation is also criticized by Burrows as being too continental, and inaccurately representing the social life of London in the 20’s. The upper class seems frivolous and carefree, and the lower class seems lazy and dishonest. Valentine is portrayed as a womanizer with business troubles, but he is morally ambiguous; whereas, Shosho and the other Chinese residents of Limehouse are seen as cheats, liars, and in the end, murderers. They revel at living in squalor and do not work hard for their money. A key scene of this in the movie is when Valentine buys Shosho a costume. The shop owner refuses to sell the costume for less than an exorbitant amount, and Shosho holds Valentine hostage, refusing to dance for him unless he purchases the costume. The whole scene feels like a conspiracy between the Chinese characters to take Valentine’s money. There is a racial connotation of Shosho and the Chinese being novelties, and their actual presence within the culture of London as an intrusion. The Oriental decoration and dancing is alright when it is in abstract, an idea for amusement, but when the people invade with their physical being is when immigration and integration of the Chinese into upper-class British society becomes an area of contention in this and other films of the time.
A different type of film which has consistently focused on the class divide, North vs. South, and East vs. West, is documentary. We have just discussed a silent film of the 1920’s, and our next film is “We are the Lambeth Boys,” a late 1950’s documentary depicting the lives of working-class youth in the Lambeth area. This documentary film begins with a look at these youth in their club, then moves on to talk about where they work and their daily lives. In the end, the film focuses on holidays or field-trips in which the males get to play cricket and have afternoon tea at an upper-class club-- a once-a-year event.
It is this tea and cricket game which is most interesting. The event affects the boys’ behavior in a negative way, as they lean out of a truck, shouting and screaming at people on the street. The West end’s citizens in the street appeared scandalized on many occasions by this lower-class disturbance to their everyday lives. The relationship between the boys and the upper-class males during the cricket game is telling, because the “main” game takes place on the prime area, in white uniforms, situated right by the upper-class women and men having their afternoon tea, whereas the boys from Lambeth were playing their louder, rougher cricket game on the end of the field farther away. The film gives the sense that the boys are shoved out of the way, and that their purpose and presence at the club is charity, especially as the narrative tells the audience what a treat it is for these boys to get to visit the upper-class club for afternoon tea.
Besides the appearance that the relationship between the Lambeth boys and the club members is one of pity, and that their presence in the club is a novelty, it seems that class and socioeconomic level is split by the Hard city itself. The moment the boys cross into Lambeth over Westminster Bridge, they immediately become calm and pacified. The documentary gives the class divide a physical divide at the river. The focus on the hard city of London is generally south of the river, except in that last scene, where we drive by many London landmarks, including Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. There is a distinct sense of London as a city which transcends time. In the background, there is the history of the second World War, which can be reflected in the relative boredom of these youth found in the soft city in this film.
Boredom was prevalent for these youth, who lived in the years following World War II. Peter Ackroyd[3] discusses how Boys Clubs (such as the Lambeth Boys’ Club) and youth clubs were emerging and “flourishing” in great numbers, and how this was probably due to an “air of mild oppression, like a hangover after the excitement of war.” He addresses issues of class by stating “the chummy egalitarianism of enforced contact between the classes, were phenomena strictly of the past.” This is an interesting assertion, which can be utilized to analyze the oddness of an upper-class establishment allowing working-class men into their club once a year. It seems a charitable thing, as well as, perhaps, a way to maintain some of the camaraderie which emerged almost a decade before during the war.
The fashion in this documentary is reflective of the soft city as well. All the boys are dressed well when they go to their clubs. They wear suits and ties to go dancing at the youth clubs, while wearing more traditional garb on many of their laboring jobs. Ackroyd[4] discusses how they used this garb to distinguish themselves from youth in other working class areas and from the upper-classes. This feeling of neighborhood spirit is reflected in their language, the way they speak, and the song they sing in the trucks while driving through Westminster-- announcing to people that they are the Lambeth Boys.
The baby boomer generation of the 1950’s, when there was a large youth culture emerging, eventually blossomed into the middle-aged 1970’s, which is when our next movie, Bermondsey, takes place. This movie is about a lower-middle-class homosexual man, Bob, and his upper-class lover, Pip. It contains a substantial amount of dialogue between Pip and Bob’s wife Iris, about why Pip spends his holidays “slumming” with their family, and not in his mother’s “castle.” Pip takes offense to this assertion. Instead, he says that he prefers being with them, because they have real love and real relationships, whereas his mother and he have a cold, unfeeling relationship.
Both Pip and Iris have skewed visions of what it is like to be from another class. Iris imagines that the Christmases are more glamourous with the finery and high-born guests, whereas the idea of a quiet family Christmas with Iris, Bob, and their children is much more appealing to Pip. He feels their house is more homey and more welcoming than his mother’s. This is a case of people desiring what they do not have, and thinking that the things they have are not good enough, or not as good as another option. The reality of Pip’s life is never shown in this film in terms of the Hard city, as the film’s setting is a two rooms of Bob and Iris’s home. The setting appears rather cosy and comfortable, filled with personal artifacts, and Christmas decorations, with people coming and going constantly. The film’s visual aspects and the mis-en-scene match Pip’s vision of Iris and Bob’s life, though, as we know, reality is never what one sees on the outside. Rarely does emotional and relational reality match the visual scene.
As for the visual scene, or the Hard city of London-- there is none of the actual city of London in this film. It was shot entirely in a studio, inside. The story takes place in their connecting kitchen and sitting rooms. The room itself is very British; it is a basement living space, the decor is very 70’s, and the sound effects of drinking and camaraderie waft down the stairs from the pub under which they live.
The drinking sounds and the merely the concept of the English pub is indicative of the Soft city. This Soft city element is one which has endured throughout much of British history, though the pubs of the 70’s were different because they reflected the social life and culture of 70‘s London. The idea of class problems is also a reflective of British society throughout the ages since the enlightenment and John Locke brought about ideas of social reform and human rights. This film is unique because it discussed the envy not only of the poor to be rich, but also of the rich envying the poor their freedom.
The last film we will discuss is Sweeney Todd, a modern film about Victorian London, which was also shot almost entirely in a studio. The film opens with a dark, establishing shot of the London skyline, including the Tower of London. By using the Tower as his establishing shot, even re-colored and darkened in his auteur fashion, Tim Burton can be criticized to have chosen the most expedient and convenient, according to Ian Sinclair[5], of London landmarks. Sinclair gives the impression of the Tower as a tired, overused landmark which has lost much of its meaning and individuality except as a cinematic symbol of London.
Everything in Burton’s drama is dark, and the representation of the hard city is extremely affected in Tim Burton’s visual style. All the gothic elements of the buildings are exaggerated to a level beyond which they appeared in real buildings of London. The hard city is comprised of sets, and re-imaginings of what London would have looked like in Victorian days. It is also reflective of the social feelings of the soft city. Which is evidenced in the opening song’s lyrics which Todd, played by Johnny Depp, sings:
There's a hole in the world like a great black pit,
and the vermin of the world inhabit it,
and its morals aren't worth what a pig could spit,
and it goes by the name of London.
At the top of the hole sit the privileged few
Making mock of the vermin in the lonely zoo
turning beauty to filth and greed...
I too have sailed the world and seen its wonders,
for the cruelty of men is as wondrous as Peru
but there's no place like London!
Todd’s words speak not only of the Hard city, London, as a place which is dark, dirty and damp, but also of the Soft city, the culture as one of cruel and greedy men in all class levels who corrupt the good of the city until there is nothing left. The line in which he talks about the “privileged few” is foreshadowing of the story, as Todd has already suffered great hardship on the part of Judge Turpin, who, out of greed, ruined Todd’s life and took everything he loved from him. It is important to note that Todd, at this point in the story, is well-traveled, and is finally returning home to a London he has grown to despise, his only hope of happiness being that somehow, in some way, his family has managed to survive under the oppressive immorality of the city.
Burton paints a perfect reflection of the Soft city in the way he builds the set of the Hard city of London. The relationships between the characters is also representative of the Soft city, as they all fall into their social roles and play them out in the way, and with the same motivations that Todd has prescribed them in the opening song. Judge Turpin continues to be greedy and steps on the lower classes in his drive to get what he wants-- going to Todd for a shave to impress his ward-- who happens to be Todd’s daughter. The characters interact in the movie through personal motivation. Mrs. Lovett, who appears to love Todd, is revealed in the end to have forced their relationship by making Todd believe that his wife had committed suicide.
Victorian London is presented by Burton in a different way than many directors have presented it in the past, with the East End being completely industrialized. Burton, on the other hand, has created an East End of London which is lacking in industrial fog, and simply appears dark, dirty, and full of people and shops. There is no Jack-the-Ripper sense of danger when people are on the streets; the danger lies within the walls of Todd’s Fleet Street Barbershop. In this way, Sweeney Todd is a genre-breaking Victorian-era film.
A genre-breaking film which presents the East vs. West class struggles on a much more personal scale than we have discussed before. Where Bermondsey discusses class as an abstract thought, there is no oppression which goes along with being a member of the lower classes. In Sweeney Todd, the main character is personally oppressed by the power that Judge Turpin has in his upper-class position. Shosho, by contrast is not oppressed, but rather is a taint on upper-class society as a Chinese woman, and the boys in We are the Lambeth Boys are not oppressed by the upper-classes, but are rather living in tandem with them, albeit with a different type of life.
Comparing the class system and the East/West divide in London films is quite easy as these are such common themes throughout the years in British cinema. Racism and class go hand-in-hand, and class and oppression as well.
Bibliography:
Ackroyd, P. Fortune not design. In:
P. Ackroyd, London: a biography.
London: Chatto & Windus, 2000, pp. 753-768.
Burrows, J. (2009) A Vague Chinese Quarter Elsewhere: Limehouse in the Cinema 1914-39. In Journal of British cinema and television 6 (2) pp. 282-301. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Sinclair, I. Cinema Purgaturio. In:
I. Sinclair, Lights out for the territory: 9 excursions in the secret history of London.
London: Penguin, 2003, pp. 271-321
Filmography:
Bermonsey. Dir. Claude Whatham. Perf. Sharon Duce, Edward Fox, Dinsdale Landen, Rosemary Leach. BBC, 1972. Thirty-Minute Theatre.
Piccadilly. Dir. E.A. Dupont. Perf. Gilda Gray, Anna May Wong, Jameson Thomas. British International Pictures, 1929. Film.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Dir. Tim Burton. Perf. Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman. Dreamworks, 2007. Film.
We Are the Lambeth Boys. Dir. Karl Reisz. Perf. Jon Rollason, Tony Benson, Adrian Harding, Brian Mott. Graphic Films, 1958. Documentary
[1] Burrows, J. A Vague Chinese Quarter Elsewhere (Edinburgh University Press: Edinburgh) pp. 295
[2] Burrow, J. pp. 296
[3] Ackroyd, P. Fortune not design. (London: Chatto & Windus, 2000) pp. 753
[4] Ackroyd, P. pp. 754
[5] Sinclair, I. Cinema Purgaturio. (London: Penguin, 2003) pp. 304