The British have traditionally not been very good at making great films. We leave that to Hollywood, whilst instead we make and export great music.
It seems that great British movies come along every 25 to 30 years or so. 1981 gave us Chariots of Fire. 2008 gave us Slumdog Millionaire, which won eight Oscars, the most by a British movie since The English Patient in 1997.
Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson gives us his own humourous views on Slumdog director Danny Boyle...
Top dog ... Slumdog director Danny Boyle
Storyteller Danny doesn’t do drizzle
28 Feb 2009
The Sun
Jeremy Clarkson
BACK in 1982, Colin Welland, the Z Cars actor and champagne socialist, won an Oscar for writing Chariots Of Fire.
Plainly overcome with the emotion of it all, he bounced on to the stage and announced proudly: “The British are coming.”
Oh, how the Americans laughed at the silly little fat man from the north of England.
One minor gong and now he thinks the SAS are going to storm the White House.
But this week he was proved right.
The British scooped all the golden dolls and showed Johnny Yank that a small film about millionaire dogs can beat Bruce Willis crashing his car into a helicopter any day of the week.
The big question I have, however, is this. Why the 30-year gap?
Rubbish
Well, the answer is simple. Because when it comes to making films we British are usually very rubbish.
We’re even worse than the French.
At least with French cinema the girls eventually get their kit off and end up doing lesbionics.
Usually after the lead character has spent an hour wondering, in black and white, if the ham is happy.
Whereas in most British films, nothing happens at all.
It’s all grimy and wet and miserable and then, mercifully, the credits roll.
Sometimes this is because to get funding for a British film you have to go to a Government body made up of vegetarians and Communists who will insist the movie is about underprivileged glue sniffers on a sink estate in Manchester.
So, the cinema-going audience is faced with a choice. Shall we go and watch Will Smith throwing whales into the sea tonight? Or shall we go and see something about drizzle?
Often, though, British film directors yearn to get a film off the ground not because they want to make money but because they want to make a (left-wing) point.
Thatcher was a bastard. The Queen should be sacked. Screw the rich. That sort of thing. It’s all so bloody depressing. Lots of people looking through raindrops rolling down a window before reaching for the Evo-Stik.
And instead of the hero coming along in a helicopter gunship, we get some social worker who “really cares” and has a lot of meetings.
Brilliant
That’s why Danny Boyle is so brilliant.
He understands the need for a story.
Trainspotting could have been about deprivation. But instead it was a feelgood movie about a man’s escape from drugs.
Then there was 28 Days Later. Same thing. It had a plot. It had a point.
And now there’s Slumdog Millionaire.
This is what we need to understand if Britain is to make waves at the Oscars more than once every 30 years.
That films should be directed by people who want to entertain the world, not change it.
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IF I wanted some advice on interior decoration, I’d go and see Peter Mandelspoon.
But when it comes to the business of salvaging Britain’s economy, I’m really not sure he’s the man for the job.
Turning down the request for help from LDV, the van maker, because it would set a precedent is one thing.
Not turning up at the meeting because you’re mates with the Russian owner of the company is rather worrying.
thesun.co.uk
