British Crime Film: Liberation vs. Conservatism

Get Carter, 1971 is the most significant example of British Crime Film and worries about deviance

 Liberation from norms, law and social institutions is one of the driving factors that makes British gangster films appealing. Some examples of the gangster-characters as Carter (Get Carter, 1971), Ray (Face, 1997), Croker (The Italian Job, 1969), Chas (Performance, 1970), Harold (The Long Good Friday, 1980) show they all come as being men following their will without being bothered by the social rules or the law. Some of these gangsters e.g. Croker, XXXX (Layer Cake, 2004) or Turkish (Snatch, 2000) do crime without engaging violence. Croker is a robber who’s a talented organiser, XXXX is involved in illegal drugs yet operates as a professional white-collar and Turkish is a boxing promoter who gathers fighters for illegal boxing, by using his connections. 

Jason Statham as Turkish (left), a boxing promoter

They are cunning, intelligent personalities who look down on law abiding citizens as those who obey the law are either fools or cowards. In the beginning of the film, we see these smart gangsters with know-how type of knowledge earning, profiting from their illegal occupations and through the film, they slowly grow into foolish, hopeless losers. E.g. Croker first comes as a wise, charming professional robber with capability of organizing big heists who has many connections to various criminals, however in the end the bus full of stolen gold gets being about to fall from an edge of a cliff, thus all of Croker’s smart efforts go down the drain. A very similar ending is valid for Turkish, who gets himself into big trouble between dangerous criminals and ending up with nothing worthy of the risk he took in the beginning. They don’t end up mostly in violent ways (might XXXX is an exception) because such an ending would disturb the audience due to these characters being non-violent and sympathetic, however they always get outsmarted by fortune.

 The violent type of criminal characters on the other hand, mostly end up with violent ways in such films. Harold from The Long Good Friday (1980) is an example. 

Bob Hoskins as Harold (The man in dark-blue suit)

He starts as a major gang boss, who tries to legalise his profit and step into business world as an entrepreneur. We see Harold enjoying rich life with his wife and those who work for him. In his speech, Harold tells about future, opportunities and benefits of free market, as being a powerful man faithful to the benefits of liberal economy and capital (See Harold's speech scene below).

Harold builds his fortune with criminal activities before his ‘legal business’ step, so this creates an unjust situation before the eyes of audience and the film starts punishing Harold first with his business getting bombed, friends getting killed and the person closest to him, as a brother and a protégé desiring Harold’s wife, scheming behind Harold and ending up being killed by Harold. Harold answers to negative happenings always with violence and the film ends with Harold’s probable death in the hands of IRA. In Get Carter (1971), Carter is a reputed gangster who is working for mob bosses from London, who are enjoying pornography, drugs, alcohol and dirty language in the beginning of the film. Carter, seems quite disturbed about this lifestyle, however he has an affair with the girlfriend of his boss. With similar examples, film shows these gangsters and how degenerate their lifestyles are. During when the gangsters enjoy pornographic pictures on projector, one gangster states the porn actor has socks on and the other replies ‘they do it like that up North.’ This single line demonstrates how London’s rich and perverted gangster jokes about Northern England, which parts contain many working-class people. Carter also follows the same degeneration, e.g. seduces the lady rents him a room (‘What Would Jesus Say’ hanging above them contradictorily, which underlines the immoral behaviour and the religious warning above it) then she wants Carter to get away because of his criminal lifestyle and the threat of his enemies.

Carter (right) with the lady he seduced while Carter's enemies break into
(What Would Jesus Say picture above Carter and the renter lady) 

Then we see Carter, who doesn’t question this degenerate attitude of his fellows, ending up being a victim of the same depravity, as his niece gets forced to take part in pornographic films. Carter then uses extreme violence to avenge both his brother’s death and his abused niece, in the end he dies in the same violent ways. Another significant character from the film is Glenda (Geraldine Moffat) a femme-fatale-like female character driving fast cars, having sex with various men and enjoying a dangerous lifestyle. 

Glenda from Get Carter, 1971

In the end she also dies in an unpleasant way thus her end clearly punishes an independent woman who doesn't follow society's morality. Get Carter tells the stories of immoral, over-liberal people paying heavy price for their degeneration. In both Get Carter and The Long Good Friday, the characters get punished after their ‘liberation’ from the society’s norms and morals, yet both films don’t show these gangsters getting more conservative. A closest example could be Face 1997. In this film, Ray is a robber and a gangster who leads a small gang. Unlike the other examples, in Face Ray is never so rich, powerful or violent as Carter or Harold Shand as he doesn’t enjoy such a degenerate life either. What do we see in Face is an-ex protestor Ray, loyal to his family and friends, whose mother is being another protestor or activist. In Face troubles start when money is involved in.

Money plays a perverter role in Face, 1997

 After the robbery things get messed up, friends betray one another, innocent people gets murdered brutally. However in the end, we see Ray, instead of getting killed (as Carter or Chas from Performance 1970) or being probably killed (as Harold) but surviving with the innocent profiled naive character Stevie finally getting away from a violent shootout and police hunting. Even though Ray pays heavy price for his over-liberal criminal lifestyle but it’s not that heavy at all. The heaviest price on the other hand is paid by Dave (Ray Winstone) and Julian (Phillip Davis) who were the violent characters of the film, who didn't hesitate killing police or innocent people and use violence towards anyone. Dave allowed his daughter to have a boyfriend and go out with him freely, thus showed a non-conservative behaviour and in the end punished accordingly by fortune. Julian was concerned about money more than anything, thus his greed for money (money as a liberal value) turned him as crazy as to be able to fight against a police station full of armed police officers.

 In conclusion of the examples issued, after pursuing for goals such as being rich, powerful and desirable, the criminals of British Gangster Film pay for their deeds in various ways. This moral cycle of British Gangster Film explained in the work of Elliott (2014), which reveals public morality as an area that is inevitably traced by the crime film. His work uses Stuart Hall's views that claim popular culture can be viewed as a site of struggle between containment and resistance and between official ideology and counter-discourse. Such struggles are obvious in British Gangster films, where the criminals actualise immoral acts that British men desire, however, British men are not permitted pursuing due to the dominant social order. The films satisfy such pleasures and in the end the same films ensure their audiences be shown how the criminals they admire for the most of the films end up badly, thereby maintaining the absoluteness of social morality once again. Elliot (2014) underlines the promise given of political and social liberation and how often the same films fall back on a consoling conservatism where the dominance of the social order prevails and deviancy is punished.

 The post-war working class culture and its conservatism evolving into Swinging London, a marginal, liberal culture free of the old cultural boundaries and traditions

 Historical context is another important viewpoint to understand the British Crime film's containment-resistance circle. After the devastating and depressing effects of the Second World War on Britain, the emerging of 'Swinging London' with the 1960s brought vital change within the social structure of the country. Permissiveness, the idea of sexual freedom, individuality as a value replacing social coherence; are some of the essential examples to comprehend the changes that British society experienced. Consequently, these changes influenced British Crime film. Charismatic, free spirited gangsters independent of social norms had highly reflected bohemian, individualist, liberal minds of the 1960s-era. Both those fictional criminals and real-life free spirits pursued 'guilty pleasures' as it is defined by the social norms and both symbolized the revolt against the same tradition. The social movements took place in the U.S. had been supportive for the similar trends started in the U.K. like the Sexual Revolution, the civil rights movements and the emerging hippie lifestyle of the 1960s. In a similar manner to British Crime film, these social changes carried out by the U.S. youth mostly abused and exploited by criminals as Charles Manson, who found convenient backdrop in such communities for their illegal activities such as dealing drugs or absconding from justice. Altamont Free Concert of 1969 is a capital representative for the subversive orientation those movements moved towards, where killings, injuries, car thefts and similar violent acts took place during the concert attended by mostly the 1960s' youth. In return, in the cinemas of the U.S. and the U.K., such movements are mostly related to criminal life and being derailed and the solution showed had become a comeback to tradition and social order. 

 Consumerism, free market and enterprise had been motifs arose with the 1960s then gained strength and developed in the following 1970s and 1980s. Therefore, money became an essential tool for British cinema as the main achievement aimed by the criminals of British Crime film. The best example is the Italian Job (1969) where money is being the chief reason for the characters of the film to come together. 

Mini Coopers and money as a main motivation are major themes of the Italian Job, 1969

The Long Good Friday (1981) also tells a story concerned about money and enterprise as the film's base line. The work of Elliott (2014) emphasizes this interaction, tells how we see a literal rendering of the dangers of Thatcherite socio-economic politics in the character of Harold Shand (The Long Good Friday, 1981), who Elliott says, symbolically evokes the wrath of the 'old enemy' the IRA. Again, as it was in the 1960s' films, the films of the following era are not free to break the chain of containment-resistance circle and endings praising moral by punishing immoral.  

 The 1990s being the era of the masculinity crisis in the U.K., where the influence of women within British society improved. Once again, violence reflected as being the last ammunition British men had against the emerging strength of British women. Herein the films like Face (1997) or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) came up as being the last strike of dying British masculinity against the change within the society and the failure brought by the former eras. These films portrayed powerful, independent, law-breaking gangsters with self-confidence and self-worth, where British masculinity regained its strength. Permissiveness or sexual freedom are not strongly argued in the 1990s British Crime film as they had been in the 1960s. Similarly, the examples from the 1990s also differ from British Crime films of the 70s and the 80s in terms of the 1990s gangsters not being so rich or powerful but instead being more of wannabe-gangsters and small-time criminals who seek more money, respect and opportunity, which paints the picture how the socio-economic politics of the former eras (the 1970s-80s) had failed and left British men unemployed, weakened an feel incompetent. However the films of the 1990s still had punished those who go against the social order, by this inferior criminals ending up either losing the money they earned illegally or getting killed. 

Dave (Ray Winstone) as a violent and corrupted character
in Face, 1997, who ends up violently

The ending of Face (1997) is a very typical example, where the main character Ray pays for his criminal life by losing two friends, getting betrayed for money and facing death. Then Ray gets saved by his girlfriend who is a woman making a living with honestly earned money, who collects Ray with her car when Ray is about to be caught by police. Therefore Face (1997) shows the strength of British women and portrays them as saviors to British men and once again, punishes those men pursue criminal life.

Connie (Lena Headey) is a female savior character in Face, 1997

 As a conclusion, even though there are changes in the motifs of British Crime films according to the different eras, the struggle between liberation and conservatism has been the main context issued in British Crime film. Liberation comes to represent the 1960s free spirited atmosphere; to tell about the economic freedom, free market and enterprise in the 70s and the 80s or to save British men from the pressure they had been under in the 1990s. But no matter what is the reason behind the liberation from social norms, returning to traditional values remains inevitable in British Crime film.

REFERENCE

Elliott, P., 2014. Studying the British Crime Film. Leighton Buzzard: Auteur.

Deniz Taylan Sağır

June 10, 2016