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Why I love . . . director Shane Meadows

Shane Meadows, director of This Is England
  • Posted at 2:40pm
  • 20 November 2008
  • by AndrewCollins-RT
  • 2 comments

The burning question is this: am I becoming a Shane Meadows bore? I realise I bang on about Britain's most talented young film-maker rather a lot. I can hear myself doing it. But what am I to do? I really do genuinely think he is a national treasure, on a par with Ken Loach and Mike Leigh.

I am not alone. This Is England (Monday 24 November Channel 4), his hymn to life as a teen skinhead in post-Falklands-conflict Britain, finally saw him collect a Bafta after 12 years of making semi-autobiographical films in his home county of Nottinghamshire. I was cheering from my sofa.

Having beaten more glamorous contenders Atonement, Eastern Promises and The Bourne Ultimatum to best British film, a clearly chuffed Meadows, dressed in a comfortable off-the-peg Marks & Spencer suit, mounted the stage with producer Mark Herbert and accepted the hallowed mask, surreally, from Sylvester Stallone.

In his speech, typically self-effacing and sincere, he revealed that he had decided against getting into shape for the ceremony, in case it jinxed him.

"This year," he said, "I thought, I'm gonna go with the man-boobs . . . and it's turned my luck around, which is fantastic." I felt like a parent whose child had won a prize at school.

After years of singing his praises – ever since his first, lo-fi mid-1990s films shot with mates on a camcorder – I couldn't have been happier for him. I did wonder though if my devotion was healthy. I've been previously obsessed by Ingmar Bergman and Francis Coppola, devouring their back catalogues, but in neither case had I been there from the start, so felt no spurious sense of ownership.

This was different. It was like discovering a band before they've put out their first single. You go to their early gigs and hang out in the hope of basking in their reflected glory.

I never actually hung around backstage for Shane, but when I did first meet him, at the Empire Awards in 1999, I admit I was a little star-struck, as if perhaps I was sharing nibbles with, say, Scorsese (to whom he has been compared). Although I am careful to maintain a dignified professionalism at all times, I do sometimes feel the fan within taking over from the critic without. Shane was as charming and funny as I'd hoped.

I've interviewed him on numerous occasions since, including at the Edinburgh film festival before the premiere of his blatant bid for commercial success after years in the critical ghetto, Once upon a Time in the Midlands, with star names like Robert Carlyle, Ricky Tomlinson and Kathy Burke.

It failed to find an audience and I had to admit that it was his first less-than-stunning film. This hurt. Perhaps you can love a film-maker too much.

Sorry, have I been banging on about Shane Meadows again?

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Comments

  • Posted on 24 November 2008
  • at 2:37pm
  • by Clair Schwarz

I'm half way through a PhD thesis on Meadows, so I suppose you ould say I'm a fan. His contribution to British film is considerable, especially his connection to a very marginalized region - the East Midlands, which is not the mythical 'north' of the screen, which seems to collapse specific places into generalized spaces. If sanyone has any material on Meadows, I would be very interested in including it in my research.

  • Posted on 21 November 2008
  • at 8:47am
  • by MazY

I don't really know of him as such. In fact when I read your piece, I asked 'who?'. However, then when you mentioned 'This is England' it all fell into place. If that is any sort of mark of his usual film quality then he deserves all the recognition he gets. That is an outstanding movie and I can't wait to see it again. It's packed full of gritty 'street realism' that is so lacking in modern movies. The wee lad, Thomas Turgoose, is supremely talented from start to finish too.

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