Scotland At The Movies

18 March 2009, 18:19

Bill Forsyth (born 29 July 1946, Glasgow)

Born in Whiteinch, Glasgow, and like Alex Norton, the son of a plumber. Perhaps that's how his first film, That Sinking Feeling, came to be all about a bunch of kids nicking a load of stainless sinks.

At any event, many of the cast from that film, who came from a kids drama group called Glasgow Youth Theatre wnet on to startin Gregory's Girl which for some became and remains Bill's signature film. In fact it was written first after Bill had left school at 16 and entered the film industry by chance, answering an ad in a local Glasgow evening paper which no longer exists, the Evening Citizen. He became assistant to Stanley Russell of Thames and Clyde Film. As he tells the story, the crux of the interview came when the head of the company asked Forsyth if he would be physically strong enough to carry the equipment; when the demonstrated that he could in fact carry the studio's heaviest pieces of equipment, he was given the job. He later spent three months at the National Film and Television School before quitting to returhn to Scotland and set up a rpoiduction wtih Carlie Gormley who would later produce Heavenly Pursuits.

The BFI Production Board rejected Gregory's Girl three times. Forsyth later observed, "I remember one torment of a meeting when I tried to explain that Gregory's Girl was really astructuralist comedy... I suspect my script was too conventional although nobody actually told me as much."

In 1983 he wrote and directed the successful Local Hero, produced by David Puttnam, and featuring Burt Lancaster. It was rated in the top 100 films of the 1980s in a Premiere magazine recap of the decade. Forsyth's next film was the 1984 Comfort and Joy, about a Glasgow radio DJ caught between rival ice cream companies, which again featured Clare Grogan.
When Puttnam went to Hollywood, Forsyth followed, but had limited success. The 1987 Housekeeping was his first American film. Another movie, Being Human, was shelved by the studio for four years after Puttnam was ousted. Gregory's Two Girls from 2000 appeared as a sequel to Gregory's Girl, with John Gordon Sinclair playing the same character, but it received mixed reviews.
Biographical information:

Forsyth's reputation seemed to be secured by the success of his next venture, Local Hero (1983), a first collaboration with producer David Puttnam and a brilliantly funny satire on the effect of the north Sea oil boom, whcih was very real at the time, on parts of Scotland. Many images have passed into folklore.

The film has been compared to the great comedies of Ealing Studios. Apparently Forsyth is unhappy with this comparison, but the comparisons with cpomedies which also had their darker side are hard to avoid. There are moments of homage in Local Hero to even more unlikely films such as Brigadoon.

But as if to contradict everyone who labelled him "whimsical" Forsyth's next film, Comfort and Joy (1984) was indeed an altogether darker affair, still set in Scotland but this time in the distinctly meaner streets of Glasgow, following the detailing the trials and tribulations of a local radio DJ whose long-term partner leaves him and who becomes embroiled in the Glasgow "ice cream wars" between competing families of ice cream vendors, something that was mirrored in real-life where the ice-cream vans concealed drug dealers.

These success took him to Hollywood but it was an unhappy time. Films such as  Housekeeping (1987), Breaking In ( 1989) and Being Human (1993) led him to lose any clout he may have brought with him to Tinsel Town. Back in Britain, the producers of Gregory's Girl approached about a spin-off television series based around Gregory. it was never made but some of the material made it into a sequel called Gregory's Two Girls (1999). Only John Gordon Sinclair (Gregory) remained from the original, still single, still in Cumbernauld, and working as a teacher at his old school. Nevertheless, the film adeptly blends humour, drama, and close observation of character in a way which shows that Forsyth, despite his American experiences, has lost none of his earlier humanism or skill.

Bill is probably Scotland first internationally recognised filmmaker and helped to build from the ground up an infrastructure for film production within Scotland. Gregory's Two Girls received funding from many of the institutions he helped to create, including Scottish Sreen, the Glasgow Film Fund. While we all hope that Bill's filmmaking career has not come to an end, it must be said that were he never to produce a film again, he has put together a body of work rivalling those of India's Satyajit Ray and Cuba's Tomás Gutiérrez Alea for their achievements in making their homelands internationally visible both on the screen and in the international cinematic community.

Last updated: 20 March 2009, 17:08