by Allan Fish
(UK 2009 306m) DVD1/2
Aka. 1974, 1980 & 1983
Twinkle, twinkle, little star…
p Wendy Brazington, Anita Overland d Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, Anand Tucker w Tony Grisoni novels David Peace ph Rob Hardy m Adrian Johnston, Barrington Pheloung art Christina Casali
Andrew Garfield (Eddie Dunford), Warren Clarke (Bill Molloy), David Morrissey (Maurice Jobson), Sean Bean (John Dawson), Paddy Considine (Peter Hunter), Eddie Marsan (Jack Whitehead), Rebecca Hall (Paula Garland), Maxine Peake (Helen Marshall), Sean Harris (Bob Craven), Mark Addy (John Piggott), Peter Mullan (Martin Laws), Jim Carter (Harold Angus), Robert Sheehan (BJ), Anthony Flanagan (Barry Gannon), Saskia Reeves (Mandy Wymer), Lesley Sharp (Joan Hunter), Cathryn Bradshaw (Marjorie Dawson), Daniel Mays (Michael Myshkin), Joseph Mawle (Peter Sutcliffe),
Settling down on the 5th March 2009 to watch the first instalment on Channel 4 one was immediately struck by the look of Red Riding. It’s bathed in a distinct golden veneer. No nostalgic glow this, more like yesterday’s stale beer, or dried up piss. Appropriate really, for this is a horrible place, West Yorkshire (Riding as it was back in the days) in the seventies and eighties, a county terrorised by two evils, a child kidnapper and killer with a passion for turning the children into posthumous angels by attaching swan’s wings to their backs and, infamously, the Yorkshire Ripper.
If we’re being brutally honest, the middle instalment doesn’t quite hang together as well as the surrounding chapters; perhaps because removing the preceding novel (1977 wasn’t dramatised) removed some of the foundation, more obviously because the first and third parts now trace the search for the same killer. The central theme running between the three remains constant, however, of a dark, bleak, hell on earth, in which there is no hope at all. The law has become the equivalent of the anti-law, making it up as they go along, protecting their own nefarious interests, sending innocent men to prison, torturing, abusing and battering suspects, killing whoever gets in the way, and generally making a mockery of the very word Police. Each drama has its crusading hero. The first sees young reporter Eddie Dunford fall into an affair with the mother of a kidnapped child, only to come unstuck as he gets in over his head. The second sees an outsider sent from Manchester to oversee the Ripper hunt, only to have his hands tied in every direction and, as soon as he gets close to the corruption at hand, he, too, pays for it. By 1983, some of the guilty parties are dead and others are nearing retirement. And while a solicitor becomes involved in trying to get a harmless innocent released from prison for crimes he didn’t commit one guilty officer has reached breaking point and lets that extinct commodity in the West Yorkshire Police creep in; namely, a conscience.
Superbly directed and scripted, as television drama it doesn’t get any better than this. David Thomson called it “better than The Godfather”; it’s certainly at least its equal. The widescreen shooting betrays the fact that it will be shown cinematically outside of the UK, and it merits no less, but they must be seen in quick succession. The cast is in itself probably the greatest gathered in recent memory, so let it be noted that Garfield (in the John Simm-type role), Bean, Carter, Clarke, Considine, Peake, Addy, Hall, Mullan, Harris, Sheehan and Marsan deserve every plaudit laid at them, with special mention to Mawle who, in one simple scene, is utterly chilling as Sutcliffe, and to Mays (a million miles from Funland), who’s heartbreaking as the innocent simple soul framed for murder. If one had to pick a man of the match, however, I’d go for Morrissey, whose eyes betoken more than words can from behind his spectacles, his spark of conscience growing ever bigger until he reaches the point of no return, and the ending we thought we’d never have, a silver lining, like a quite literal ray of sunlight into the gloom of a killer’s death chamber. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, all good children go to heaven…if they’re lucky, for this is the North, where they do what they like.
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Ah, this had to come. It’s been recommended to me by a number of bloggers out there. Will check it out.
Here’s a multi part analysis of the film (which I’ve not read) by my friend Roy Stafford, a lecturer on film in the North of England:
http://itpworld.wordpress.com/tag/red-riding/
Whoa – can’t wait for the DVD release of this! The trailers looked amazing…and you just sold me on it even more!
This is an unexpected but appreciated pick. It didn’t have a long run here in Los Angeles, but I was able to catch the first two. I thought they were fantastic, especially 1974. I don’t necessarily agree that 1980 was weak. It worked for me quite well. I still need to see 1983 though for a better assessment. If you haven’t, check out the books. I started reading them not long after seeing the movies and they are quite different. 1974 is much more complicated in the book than the movie so characters were compressed and story lines were eliminated. That would normally bug me in an adaptation of a book, but I think this may be one of those rare occasions when the movie works better than the book.
When I was guessing films that I thought could come up in the next day or three, I should have (and did in my mind) reserved at least one spot for a British television production. I’ve read good things about these, and the relative ease at which they are available I will be seeing them soon. Gritty, police procedural, serial killer, realism, thriller? Count me in.
Wow. Completely surprising, and I can’t possibly rank this trilogy this high. And yet… I agree wholeheartedly about the films’ unexpected power. Definitely one of the best mood pieces of the decade.
My own review:
http://gatewaycinephiles.com/2010/04/17/a-world-stinking-on-the-bone-and-pecked-by-sparrows/
Yes, but remember, Andrew, David Thomson is British and so am I, it resonates a lot more, a helluva lot more, because we lived it.
To an outsider, it’s just another police corruption/serial killer drama.
Allan:
To true. Where you come from counts for a *lot* in determining how art resonates you. I think one of the reasons There Will Be Blood probably ranks higher on my own 2000s list is that I’m American. 🙂
That said, one of Red Riding’s achievements is how thoroughly the film transports you, even if you’ve never set foot in the UK, let alone Yorkshire, let alone Yorkshire in the 1970s and 80s. That describes me, but by the end of the film, I had a crystal-clear sense for the infernal malaise of the time and place, for the sights, sounds, textures, smells. If it can do that to *me*, I can only imagine what it can do to a Brit, especially a Brit who lived through this period.
The novels, which I’ve started, are just as excellent, by the way. I’ve finished 1974, and it was just as evocative and enveloping as the film.
Hands on the table, indeed.
Allan, I’ve been eager to see this since reading your original post a while back. It’s due to be released on DVD in the US soon and will be available from Netflix in August. I can’t wait.
BTW Allan, I entered your last three entries separately into the ‘I write like’ website, and your Red Riding Trilogy entry said you write like Dan Brown author of The Da Vinci Code. Whereas the two previous to this one spit out that you write like David Foster Wallace.
Granted this isn’t a hard science by any means, and the database of authors is limited, but I thought you’d find it sort of fun.
view here: http://iwl.me/
Jamie– I visited the website you mention and put my piece on Arvo Part to see who I would be compared too. The site also said I write like David Foster Wallace!!! How many authors are in the database……2-3…..
Only 50 I think. hence why I said it was rather limited, they claim since it’s becoming a hit that they will expand it and improve its detection clues.
Allan, I watched the trilogy over the long weekend, and while I took issue with some details and some of the execution, overall I agree there is much to admire and cumulatively they pack a wallop.
It spurred me to rattle off my own diatribe over at ‘the Spin:
http://theschleicherspin.com/2010/09/07/the-red-riding-trilogy/
I found all three DVDs of Red Riding at my local library and watched them throughout the past week. Similar to the first time I viewed this trilogy, I still find 1974 to be a great deal better than the subsequent two films. In many ways I think it can stand alone as a very moving mood piece that provides no answers to its mysteries. I wonder if its available on DVD as a stand alone disc?
I completely agree that 1974 is the best installment.
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