David Martin-Jones

Scotland: Global Cinema ; Genres, Modes and Identities

What is your favourite fantasy Scotland? Perhaps you enjoyed Whisky Galore! or Brigadoon, or maybe The Wicker Man is to your taste, Local Hero or Highlander? Yet have you also considered Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Rob Roy, Dog Soldiers, Danny the Dog, Festival, The Water Horse, Carlas Song, Trainspotting and Red Road? Scotland: Global Cinema is the first book to focus exclusively on the unprecedented explosion of filmmaking in Scotland in the 1990s and 2000s. It explores the various cinematic fantasies of Scotland created by contemporary filmmakers from all over the world - including Scotland, England, France, the United States and India - who braved the weather to shoot in Scotland. Significantly broadening the scope of previous debates, Scotland: Global Cinema provides analysis of ten different genres and modes prevalent in the 1990s/2000s: the comedy, road movie, Bollywood extravaganza, (Loch Ness) monster movie, horror film, costume drama, gangster flick, social realist melodrama, female friendship/US indie movie, and art cinema. These various chapters suggest a wealth of different histories of cinema in Scotland, and uncover the numerous identities - national, transnational, diasporic, global/local, gendered, sexual, religious - created by these approaches. Cinema in Scotland is situated in a global context through analysis of the intersection of transversal flows of filmmaking, tourism, trade and transnational fantasy typical of globalization, as they meet and mingle against the world famous cinematic landscapes of Scotland.

Film tourism as heritage tourism: Scotland, diaspora and The Da Vinci Code (2006)

Using the case study of The Da Vinci Code (2006), especially the extensive promotional activities surrounding the film (organised by VisitScotland, Maison de la France, and VisitBritain), this paper argues that film tourism be understood as a facet of heritage tourism. Scotland is a nation with a long history as a destination for heritage tourism, including literary and art tourism, whose brand identity in this regard functions slightly differently to that of England. Scotland has a large international diaspora, the result of its specific national history, which conceives of itself as Scottish, and returns – from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and the USA – to events like Homecoming Scotland (2009) to reconnect with its roots in the manner of heritage tourism. The Da Vinci Code, like Braveheart before it and Brave since, appeals to this international audience through its depiction of Scotland. By analysing the films construction of history, and the scenes shot in Rosslyn Chapel near Edinburgh (Rosslyn has previously featured in paintings and photographs, and was the star of a famous diorama in the early nineteenth century), it becomes evident that a sense of return and belonging is evoked in this Scottish setting that can resonate with heritage tourists.

Archival landscapes and a non-anthropocentric ‘universe memory’ in Nostalgia de la luz/Nostalgia for the Light (2010)

This article analyses Patricio Guzmáns documentary, Nostalgia de la luz/Nostalgia for the Light (2010). It takes a Deleuzian approach to the films exploration of the past, both in terms of the history buried in the ground in Chiles Atacama Desert and the connected history of the universe found in the stars above. Nostalgia de la luz is considered a departure from Guzmáns former emphasis on the national-political in such seminal documentaries as La batalla de Chile/Battle of Chile (1975). By contrast, his latest film is a meditative exploration of history as a (non-human) memory stored within both the terrestrial and the celestial landscapes. The Deleuzian concepts of the ‘crystal of time’ and the ‘any-space-whatever’ (both influenced by Henri Bergsons work on the interconnectedness of matter and memory) are used to unlock the films non-anthropocentric consideration of the history of the universe.

No literal connection : images of mass commodification, US militarism, and the oil industry, in The Big Lebowski

This chapter examines the political subtext of The Big Lebowski. This subtext critiques the growth of car culture in twentieth century America, and the nation’s resultant involvement in overseas wars for oil. The chapter explores the various formal and narrative elements which are used to construct the subtext, piecing it together from its often oblique references to the changing face of postwar America, its urban geography, its economy, and its ideology. In particular it focuses on the way that US foreign policy is determined by Fordism, the automobile, and the need for oil, as it is represented in the film. Thus the film is examined as a work of national cinema that engages with the reasons behind the first Persian Gulf War. With the rapid developments that have taken place in the Persian Gulf since 9/11, this subtext has become much easier to spot than it was previously. This fact however, does not diminish the importance of understanding its construction.

KABHI INDIA KABHIE SCOTLAND: Recent Indian films shot on location in Scotland

This article examines the recent phenomenon of popular Indian films shot on location in Scotland. It explores what is to be gained by Scotland and India from this arrangement, both financially and culturally. In contrast to critics who maintain that Scotland is framed in films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000) as a fantasyland, I argue that it is rendered specifically as a tourist destination, in a manner that reflects the agendas of both nations. I then examine Pyaar Ishq aur Mohabbat (2001), a recent film shot almost entirely on location in Scotland, to see how it frames Scotland slightly differently. I focus on its depiction of Scotlands Non Resident Indian (NRI) community, exploring how it uses location to negotiate their identity. I demonstrate how, although it retains an emphasis on Scotlands recognisable tourist locations, it also deploys certain locations to depict NRI identity as part of the global Indian middle class.

Personal Museums of Memory The Recovery of Lost (National) Histories in the Uruguayan Documentaries Al pie del árbol blanco and El círculo

Two Uruguayan documentaries, Al pie del árbol blanco (2007) and El círculo (2008), engage with the process of uncovering or recovering the recent past under military rule in Uruguay (1973–1985). Rather than following the established documentary convention of deploying archival footage, both films use a variety of cinematographic techniques to depict present-day places in an effort to reconstruct links between the past and the present. Contextualized in relation to the recent construction of museums of memory in the public sphere in countries such as Uruguay and Argentina, these documentaries construct two very personal virtual (in the sense of cinematic rather than physical) “museums of memory.” In this way they illustrate how individual attempts to reconstruct the lost past can fill in the gaps in official recollections of history. Dos documentales uruguayos, Al pie del árbol blanco (2007) y El círculo (2008) abordan el proceso de descubrimiento y recuperación del pasado reciente bajo mando militar en el Uruguay (1973 -1985). En vez de seguir convenciones establecidas en el documental desplegando metraje de archivo, ambas películas usan una variedad de técnicas cinematográficas para representar lugares actuales en un esfuerzo para reconstruir vínculos entre el pasado y el presente. En el contexto relacionado con la construcción de museos de la memoria en el ámbito público en países como el Uruguay y la Argentina, estos documentales construyen dos muy personales “museos virtuales (en el sentido cinematográfico al opuesto del físico) de la memoria.” De modo de que ilustran cómo es que los esfuerzos individuales para reconstruir un pasado perdido llenan los vacíos en el recuerdo oficial de la historia.

Towards Another ‘–Image’: Deleuze, Narrative Time and Popular Indian Cinema

Popular Indian cinema provides a test case for examining the limitations of Gilles Deleuzes categories of movement-image and time-image. Due to the context-specific aesthetic and cultural traditions that inform popular Indian cinema, although it appears at times to be both movement- and time-image, it actually creates a different type of image. Analysis of Toofani Tarzan (1936) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995) demonstrates how, alternating between a movement of world typical of the time-image, and a sensory-motor movement of character typical of the movement-image, popular Indian cinema explores the potential fluxing of identities that emerge during moments of historical complexity.

Transnational allegory/transnational history: Se sei vivo spara/Django Kill … If You Live, Shoot!

ABSTRACT This article explores how films can offer diverse international audiences a transnational allegory that speaks to their shared experiences of a global historical situation, such as the Cold War. Giulio Questis bizarre western Se sei vivo spara/Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot! (1967) is taken as a case study. This film provides a suggestive example of how spaghetti westerns, which are renowned for circulating internationally during the Cold War, offered narratives that resonated with audiences experiencing political turmoil and violent conflict during this historical period. Drawing on Michael Hardt and Antonio Negris idea of ‘multitude’, Django Kill is seen to provide a transnational form of history for geographically dispersed people around the world (even if they do not share the common cultural affinities that characterise, say, a diaspora), whose lives are influenced by similar ideological and material conditions.

Kabhi India, Kabhie Scotland: Bollywood productions in post-devolutionary Scotland

This article examines the recent phenomenon of popular Indian films shot on location in Scotland. It explores what is to be gained by Scotland and India from this arrangement, both financially and culturally. In contrast to critics who maintain that Scotland is framed in films like Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Kandukondain Kandukondain (2000) as a fantasyland, I argue that it is rendered specifically as a tourist destination, in a manner that reflects the agendas of both nations. I then examine Pyaar Ishq aur Mohabbat (2001), a recent film shot almost entirely on location in Scotland, to see how it frames Scotland slightly differently. I focus on its depiction of Scotlands Non Resident Indian (NRI) community, exploring how it uses location to negotiate their identity. I demonstrate how, although it retains an emphasis on Scotlands recognisable tourist locations, it also deploys certain locations to depict NRI identity as part of the global Indian middle class.

Visual culture in the northern British archipelago: imagining islands

This edited collection, including contributors from the disciplines of art history, film studies, cultural geography and cultural anthropology, explores ways in which islands in the north of England and Scotland have provided space for a variety of visual-cultural practices and forms of creative expression which have informed our understanding of the world. Simultaneously the chapters reflect upon the importance of these islands as a space in which, and with which, to contemplate the pressures and the possibilities within contemporary society. This book makes a timely and original contribution to the developing field of island studies, and will be of interest to scholars studying issues of place, community and the peripheries.