Nil By Mouth

[butchersapron]

Characters in what setting? How many people, earned their money like them two scumbags?

 

[Stoat Boy]

Characters in what setting? How many people, earned their money like them two scumbags?

Well I aint got figures but I knew enough of them, trust me.


One of the scenes that has stayed with me to this day is right at the beginning of the film when they are having a drink in a social club ( it was the Hatchem club which is still there but has closed down ). Watching as the round was ordered and then carried back to the table and the reaction as somebody accidentally bumps into them, well it was just so so real and something I had witnessed happen on many occassion. Just that look of sneering agression and so on.

Now my own family background was nothing like the one portrayed but even so there were elements to it that made me think about people I am related to and the whole premise around which the film was titled, well I have known of some hateful cunts for whom that was very true.

Its not a film that I choose to sit down and watch again but its one that I remember and is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful bits of British film making ever.

 

[butchersapron]

I don't trust you though. Nor the film.

The mastery of realism of certain scenes is undeniable - bit what does that mean to the film as whole? That the characters are typical? A typical?

 

[Stoat Boy]

I don't trust you though. Nor the film.

The mastery of realism of certain scenes is undeniable - bit what does that mean to the film as whole? That the characters are typical? A typical?

Thats fair enough. It was a bit daft of me to ask for your trust.

I dont think the film sets out to protray anything or anybody as 'typical' but merely as a representation of a slice of working class life that the director experienced. And its one that I can recognise myself and felt was extremely well done.

As to what it means to the film, well I think that its a case of being able to see just how much these types of people are entrenched in their attitudes. Everything is violence be it the threat or the implementation. Its almost as if they get themselves addicted to this sort of way of life whereby everything has to be a crisis. They cannot function in any sort of level way. Yes they are all victims in one way or the other but they need that in their lives for it to have any meaning.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

That the characters are typical? A typical?

I dunno...
As I said earlier one of my neighbours behaves like the Ray Winstone character and I personally witnessed similar incidents to those portrayed in the film (and worse), whether or not that is typical I couldn't say. I've never met anyone else as extreme as him around here since, but then I keep myself to myself a bit more these days...

 

[panpete]

Judging by your posts Impludo, and what you've just written, I don't think it's a film for you.

That's meant in the nicest way BTW.

taken in the intended way, nah, shame really cos these things can inspire craeativity. These films are creative works in themselves, well the series I saw was, and this film sounds so.

 

[panpete]

I couldn't resist watching a few clips on utube.
Ray winstone is a good actor, so is cathy burke.

Thing is, domestic violence also happens from women to men, and the degredation an humiliation, can be equally as disturbing. OK the men are usually physicaly stronger, but a well done scene from an abusive jealous woman on a man can be as disturbing I would guess in a psychological way. There would still the ugliness of obsesive jealousy gone amok.

I won't watch the whole film though, sterlling performance on the bits I saw.

 

[Grandma Death]

How many people, earned their money like them two scumbags?

I'm not from that neck of the woods but I know plenty of people like that from my original hometown.