Projecting the Nation: Constructions of Scotland in Film Since 1979 Emily Torricelli PhD University of York Theatre, Film and Television January 2016 Abstract This thesis examines questions of the continued significance of national cinemas and identities, focussing on the case of Scottish cinema. As a small, devolved nation with relative autonomy from the United Kingdom, Scotland presents an interesting case for how films are labelled with a national identity, as Scottish films can also often be understood in a British, European, and even global context. Rather than attempting to construct a working model of Scottish cinema based on representation or production context, I ask how films have been constructed as Scottish. I approach the concepts of Scotland and Scottish film as sets of meanings that are subject to change over time and in different contexts. This facilitates a perspective which asks in what ways Scotland and Scottishness is constructed in film. I examine how multiple identities are balanced in the filmic construction of Scotland first by considering how Scottish films—both those made in and which are about Scotland—from the early 1980s to the present construct Scottish identities. I will consider the way these films explored ‘traditional’ Scottish identities in the 1980s, Scottish masculinity in the 1990s, and Scottish identities based on ethnicity and gender in the 2000s and 2010s. Second, I look at how these films are received as Scottish by examining reviews and other press materials to determine how the Scottishness of the films considered is discursively constructed for potential audiences. ii Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgements v Declaration vi Introduction 1 Chapter One: The Difficulty of a Scottish National Culture Introduction 12 Scotland: A Deformed Culture 16 Toward a More Productive View of Scotland: Theories of Nation 28 New Understandings of Scottish Culture 34 Conclusion 46 Chapter Two: From the Uncomfortably National to the Inescapably Transnational Introduction 48 Struggling with Representation 53 Toward the Redemption of Scottish Film 59 Devolution: The Emergence of a New Scottish Cinema 64 Looking Outward, Looking Inward: The Current State of Scottish Film Studies 68 Conclusion 76 Chapter Three: From Local Heroes to Highlanders: Fantasy Scotlands of the 1980s Introduction 80 Highlander: ‘…a mishmash of synthetic mythology’ 83 Local Hero: ‘…the dread cliché of the pawky Scot’ or an Alternative Scottish Representation? 96 Restless Natives: ‘The Scottish renaissance of whimsy’? 108 Conclusion 115 Chapter Four: Heroes, Hard Men, and Heroin: 1990s Cinematic Constructions of Scottish Masculinity Introduction 119 iii Men in Kilts: ‘Traditional’ Scottish Masculinity in the Hollywood Funded Films of the 1990s Braveheart and Rob Roy 123 Mad Macs and Robin McHood: Scotland v. Hollywood in the Critical Reception of Braveheart and Rob Roy 132 Trainspotting: New Masculinities for a New Scottish Cinema 147 Orphans: Rethinking the Scottish Hardman 161 Conclusion 170 Chapter Five: Of Mobsters and Masala: Ethnic Difference and Postcolonial Identities in Scottish Film of the 2000s Introduction 174 Keeping It in ‘The Family’: Global Identities in the Scots-Italian Gangster Films Strictly Sinatra and American Cousins 177 Imagining Scotland as a Space of Cultural Intersection in the Scottish-Asian Films Ae Fond Kiss and Nina’s Heavenly Delights 185 Reception: Toward the Understanding of Hybrid Scottish Identities 195 Conclusion 208 Chapter Six: Brave Girls and Strong Women: Feminine Scotlands in Twenty-first Century Film Introduction 213 Big Sister Is Watching You: Red Road, the Gaze and National Identity 215 Brave: Digital Places, Women’s Spaces 225 Planet Arthouse: Morvern Callar and Transnational Scottish Identity 235 Conclusion 244 Conclusion 247 Bibliography Books, Articles and Chapters 256 Reviews and Other Press Materials 271 Census Data 320 iv Acknowledgements I would like to thank Professor Duncan Petrie for his guidance and support, Professor Andrew Higson for his additional insight, and Dr Kristyn Gorton and Dr Sarah Neely for their rigorous examination of this thesis. Thanks must also be extended to the academic, administrative, and technical staff of the Department of Theatre, Film and Television and to my fellow TFTV PhD researchers for their advice, encouragement, and assistance. In the course of my research, I have been greatly aided by the staff of the J. B. Morrell Library, the National Library of Scotland, and the BFI Reuben Library, as well as my friend Cori Strickler at the Alexander Mack Library. Finally, I would not have been able to complete this thesis without the support of Dr Julianne Hewitson; my friends at York Student Television, the York Screenwriters’ Guild, and the University of York Douglas Adams Society; and, of course, my family— Mom and Dad, and especially my great-aunt Leone Johnson. May this thesis stand as a testament to her love and devotion to her family. v Declaration I hereby declare that the work in this thesis is my own, except where otherwise stated, and has not been submitted for examination at this or any other institution for another award. All sources are acknowledged as references. vi Introduction In this thesis, I am interested in examining questions of the continued significance of national cinemas and identities, focussing on the case of Scottish cinema. As a small nation with its own devolved political institutions and relative autonomy from the United Kingdom, Scotland presents an interesting case for how films are labelled with a national identity. Claiming the national identity of a film to be Scottish on the basis of representation is difficult because representations of Scotland appear in films made by Hollywood, Bollywood and many other cinemas. Basing the national identity of Scottish film on the production context and the provenance of funding is also problematic since while there are limited sources of Scottish film funding, even low budget feature films require investment from other non-Scottish sources such as the BFI, Channel Four, or BBC Films. A film defined as Scottish will almost always qualify equally as British, or in cases where there has been international co-production or transnational sources of funding and production partners involved, ‘Scottish’ films might equally be labelled European or even transnational. The situation is further muddled in that these categories are not necessarily mutually exclusive. As a regional cinema, the former includes films from a variety of European countries; the latter by its definition implies that films can be labelled with two or more national identities. Researchers such as John Caughie, Duncan Petrie, and Jonathan Murray have constructed various working models of Scottish national cinema. However, rather than attempting to continue in their vein, I will ask instead how films have been constructed as Scottish. There are a variety of approaches to the study of national cinemas, many of which have been collected by Valentina Vitali and Paul Willemen in Theorising National Cinema (2006) and by Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie in Cinema and Nation (2000). My concern is with both the national identity of films and with the ways in which filmic representations and the discourses they are informed by and contribute to construct ideas of identity, national and otherwise. I will therefore approach the concepts of Scotland, Scottish identity and Scottish film as sets of meanings that change over time and function differently in different contexts. This allows for a heterogeneous view of Scotland at the same time that it removes it from questions of positive and negative representation and the often politically-tinged debate over the nature of Scottish national cinema. Therefore, I will be asking not only in what ways the idea of Scottishness has been, and continues to be, constructed in film, but also, and more importantly, considering who is doing the constructing. What and who are included as Scottish? What and who are excluded? And what do these inclusions and exclusions signify? As Duncan Petrie has suggested in Screening Scotland, it is important to investigate whether different constructions of Scottishness found in film have been created by Scots or whether they have been constructed externally1. In the case of the latter, it is important to ask by whom, in which ways, and to what extent and for what reason might they have been appropriated? In this thesis I will ask also how Scottishness in film is constructed in relation to various sub- or extra-national groups. I will explore the ways pluralistic identities are balanced in the Scottishness of films by asking in what ways their constructions are inclusive or exclusive of these people. My methodological approach has two dimensions. First and foremost I will engage in the textual analysis of specific examples of films that can be defined as Scottish in terms of production and funding, the subject represented, or both. While I will take the production context of these films into consideration in labelling a film as ‘Scottish’, this type of approach already has been well-covered by other researchers like 1 Petrie highlights the importance of examining external and internal constructions of Scotland alongside one another: ‘The repertoire of images created by an emerging Scottish cinema represents both a challenge to and an extension of certain dominant cinematic projections of Scotland and the Scots dating back to the earliest days of the