Cineformation: Romance

Event was held at 7pm Thursday 26th Feb 2009 at The Watershed Media Centre

Romance was in the air at February’s Cineformation event at the Watershed. And as always, it produced love, laughter and just a little strife.

First, Kathrina Glitre, lecturer in Film Studies at UWE, tackled some of the knotty issues surrounding the depictions of romance, women, and romantic women in modern movies. In discussion with Oliver Purches, Glitre spelled out some of the problems she has with the typical modern rom-com. “I enjoy the films for sure,” she stressed. “But as a feminist I get a bit concerned at the idealised notion of a Mr Right, and the sexual politics involved.”

To illustrate the point, she showed a clip from Never Been Kissed, Raja Gosnell’s 1999 film in which Drew Barrymore’s romance-starved journalist enrolls back in her old high school and finds her hormones stirring. “In the clip, Drew describes true love in the modern Hollywood style,” said Glitre. “The point is emphasized with all the modern devices Hollywood habitually brings to bear. The music rises on cue, the camera moves slowly in, and eventually sunlight actually halos her hair. It’s a syrupy, magical moment, using movie techniques to conjure up a romantic ideal. Like most modern rom-coms, the film is an idealised Prince Charming story.”

Glitre believes that Hollywood’s embrace of this ideal can be traced back to a particular point in time. “It all went wrong in the 1980s,” she said. “That’s the decade that became dominated by Aids, and saw women’s empowerment being rolled back as a reaction to the feminism and liberation of the 1970s. Ever since, Hollywood has been more interested in the theoretical magic of romance, and not at all interested in the confrontational style of the old 1940s screwball classics.”

The irony now, according to Glitre, is that while women in the real world are finally overcoming these limitations, on-screen romantic narratives have continued to become softer and softer.

She also highlighted that the majority of romantic movies are made by male directors. “There are precious few female directors in any genre, but certainly most chick-flicks are directed by men and often written by a man/woman team. And those female directors that do work in rom-coms, like Nancy Meyers and Nora Ephron, came along in that troublesome 1980s period. It’s no coincidence that their films end up featuring some kind of idealised perfect man. I don’t think that this is natural, or ideal. On the contrary, I’d say it amounts to a breakdown in communication between the sexes. This ideal is dangerous for women – and men.”

Asked about her own favourite romantic movies, Glitre gave short shrift to the US-focused output of Richard Curtis and chose to look further back in time. “My personal favourites are films like The Awful Truth and The Apartment. And Harold and Maude too, a film with a very non-standard couple. Outside the mainstream, films have more freedom to show romantic couples who don’t fit the standard model, and that’s a positive thing.”

A distinctly non-standard relationship is at the heart of the next film to be discussed. Robopartners is written by Veronique Martin and Oliver Purches, who summarised the plot in a nutshell: “It’s guy loses girl to a perfect robot," said Purches.

“The characters in the film are not in the first blush of love,” explained Martin. “They are a couple who have been together for three and a half years – it’s the 3.5-year itch these days! That makes the story much more mature and realistic than having characters in the early days of a relationship.”

The third corner of the film’s triangle is a male household robot, a blank slate onto which the two human characters project their own worries. “The story follows the couple working through their difficulties, with the robot as the manifestation of the man’s insecurities and the woman’s desires,” said Purches.

The writers workshopped the script with the actors for a long time, with the performers asking questions about what their characters would do, and bringing their own ideas and life to the script.

On one level the film examines the very real question of what will happen when domestic robots enter the household. “We’re going for a broad audience,” said Purches. “There’s the robot for the guys, and romance for the girls. We’re aiming for the feel of a classic movie romance, when witty repartee was an erogenous zone of its own.”

But despite the element of fantasy, both writers stressed that the heart of the film is a realistic look at romantic difficulties between adults. “The film says that yes, falling in love is a risk,” said Martin. “But without risk, life is incomplete.”

The third and final film discussed was Shank, in which the risky romance between Bristol teenager Cal and French student Olivier comes under threat from the intolerance of Cal’s homophobic friends and fellow gang members. The film aims to take an unflinching view of its subject, with director Simon Pearce and writers Christian Martin and Darren Flaxstone explaining that they had needed to consider carefully which clips could be shown to the mixed Cineformation audience. None the less, the extracts included sequences of violence and male nudity, and the film led to some spirited debate.

“It’s about worlds colliding,” said Pearce. “And yes, as a straight director making a film with two straight actors, it was a challenge. I needed to be confident about the strength of the material. Having two months of rehearsals helped. So did having the two lead actors share a house and build their own friendship. That way I could focus on bringing their life experience and chemistry to the film. And all the characters are explored and humanized, even the thuggish ones. The bad guys are not pantomimed at all.”

Martin agreed that Shank was intended to focus on the human elements in its story, and was diametrically opposed to a rom-com concept. “I hasten to add that I am a romantic,” he said. “But it’s boring to deal with films that romanticise the act of coming out. It’s still a brutal world out there for people going through it, and it can be very painful.”

As a specialist distributor, Martin made it clear that Shank was designed to be hard-hitting. “I’m a distributor serving a number of niches, including the gay market, and I know that many gay films make chick-flicks look positively edgy,” said Martin. “Shank is much stronger than that. It’s polished and challenging, and is intended to push the envelope. And if any critic says its just a long episode of Skins, well… I’ll kill them…” he joked.

Whether Shank could actually be called romantic was strongly called into question by an audience member, who felt that the film lacked any kind of romantic feeling. But the creative team answered that the film should not be judged by a pair of short excerpts. “I think the full length piece is romantic, taken as a whole,” said Martin.

The film has been positively received by several festivals, and according to Martin will receive a UK release on one print prior to a DVD release in October 2009, so a wider audience will soon get the chance to judge for themselves.

Tim Hayes – 1/3/09

And here’s a summary of the event from Veronique Martin’s perspective.

Bristol, City of Romance…

This month’s Cineformation swept us off our feet with guests who took us through the highs and lows of romance, the Bristol way.

The host was Oliver Purches.

The evening started with an informal exposé on the romantic comedy genre by Dr Kathrina Glitre, lecturer in Film Studies at UWE and author of Hollywood Romantic Comedy: States of the Union 1934-1965 (available from Amazon UK).

Dr Glitre dealt mainly with the dichotomy she perceives between the current “chick lit” inspired romantic comedies, that have been predominant on the big screen since the 1980s, and the improved status of women in Western society. Harking back to a past when women were helplessly and obsessively waiting for Mr Right, these comedies, however popular, can sit uncomfortably with modern women’s sense of independence and self esteem.

To illustrate her point, Dr Glitre showed us a clip from the Hollywood film “Never been kissed”, starring Drew Barrymore, in which an idealistic young woman is dreamily waiting for the Earth to move when she meets her Mr Right. Her Mr Right, when she does meet him, is a rather dull teacher (she’s his student), and the mechanics of their relationship plays to a very old fashioned view of men and women’s places in society and in love. The film’s story also emphasizes a magical view of romance, in sharp contrast with the confrontational, sparkling relationships between strong men and even stronger women, as depicted in the screwball comedies of the 1930s and 1940s. These screwball comedies, which explored how a man and a woman can learn to communicate with each other, used to appeal to both genders. In contrast, the current romantic comedies, with their magical depiction of love, appeal more to women, while sex comedies (like “American Pie”) appeal more to men. This gender divide illustrates a real breakdown in communication between men and women, which hopefully the next generation of romantic comedies will try to address. Kathrina Glitre concluded her presentation by saying that the current romantic comedies, portraying a woman’s happiness as only possible if she meets a man, are escapist movies; and that, however enjoyable they can be, they create a tension in modern women between indulgent pleasure and intellectual guilt.

Following this thought-provoking exposé, Véronique Martin was the second guest of the evening. She talked of romance through a romantic comedy she has co-written with Bristol director and Cineformation presenter, Oliver Purches. Véronique is French but has lived in the West Country for many years. She has a PhD in comparative literature, writes in both English and French (both fiction and theatre), and her script with Oliver Purches is her first screenplay.

Véronique talked of the challenge she and Oliver experienced presenting a non magical view of romance in their script “Robopartners” (a romantic comedy with robots). The main characters, Martin and Karla, appear at the beginning of the story in a period of relationship crisis. They have been together for three and half years (according to recent research, the new “seven year itch”). The initial magic has gone from their relationship and, although they still love each other, they wonder if it is enough for the next stage of their life together. It’s “make or break” time for them. Add to this, that Martin, an artist, has a painter’s block and that, after being chosen as the face of a new and revolutionary emotionally intelligent robot, he goes off on an ego-fuelled promotional tour, leaving Karla embittered and fed up. The nail in their relationship’s coffin comes when a robot bearing Martin’s face (but not his flaws) is delivered to Karla’s door and proceeds to win her over. Crunch time occurs for Martin when he returns from tour, and Karla has to choose between perfect robot and imperfect man.

Asked what the robot stands for, Véronique explained that it was like a blank screen onto which the main characters project their deepest desires and fears: Karla her buried wishes for a perfect partner and Martin his secret insecurities as a man and as Karla’s boyfriend. Véronique also mentioned the growing relevance of exploring the idea of relationships with robots, as its reality is looming on a not too distant horizon. (Indeed a lot of research and breakthroughs are happening in robotics at the moment, in the US, Japan and in our very own Bristol).

Both Oliver and Véronique went on to describe the way they have devised and written the script together, with much valued help from their two lead actors, Cathy McKinnon and Nik Howden. They stressed the importance of good relationships within a writing team and insisted on their commitment to a European outlook on romantic comedy and on a Bristol way of doing things.

Véronique’s conclusion on romance was that one has to learn to know and accept oneself before one can find love with another.
After the break, the second part of the evening took us away from the lighter side of romance into darker and more hard-hitting territory with the Bristol film “Shank”. The film is the gripping story of a love between two young men, one a tough Bristol gang leader called Cal and the other a refined and sensitive French man called Olivier. Cal is trapped in a dead-end life when he meets Olivier who represents for him an alternative and a way-out, but at a cost. As the young lovers grapple with their inner conflicts (Cal comes from a homophobic, macho background and does not give in easily to his love for Olivier), the hostile world around them brutally closes in on them. In contrast to the many saccharine gay romantic films that are produced, Shank is a tragic Romeo and Juliet, star-crossed lovers, story for today.

The writing team, Christian Martin and Darren Flaxstone, worked closely with the director, Simon Pearce, the composer (a Bristol drum and bass musician) and the actors. They paid close attention to detail to give their story a sense of truth (for instance they used a French speaking Belgian actor, Marc Laurent, to play Olivier).

Although the film is aimed at the gay market (it is scheduled to appear at numerous gay film festivals across the world), there is a definite resolve from the writers, director and cast to appeal to a wider audience. With an ensemble cast of twenty five, fourteen locations in and around Bristol and sixteen days of shooting, the film took nine months from conception to completion. Simon Pearce, the director, concluded our evening by also stressing the importance of accepting and loving oneself in order to be able to really love another. Could this be a possible new direction for the next generation of romantic comedies?

So stay tuned and watch this space to see for yourself what great romance comes out of our good old, collaborative, creative and vibrant Bristol!

Véronique Martin, veronique.martin@gmail.com, www.myspace.com/cubicstone

Author: menekse at 13:47 on 05.03.09 5273 Comments | Leave a comment

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