"'Scotland's spectacular scenery has played a starring role in movies from Brigadoon to Braveheart.'" "But from 5,000 miles away, it's easy to think it's only a place of magic and myth." "Viewed from closer to home, things can seem a little different." "Doesn't it make you proud to be Scottish?" "It's shite being Scottish!" "I want to take a closer look at how Scotland's been perceived, from Hollywood's long lens view to home-grown filmmakers." "So I'm going to the locations of some landmark Scottish films to find out what image of the country movie makers project when they put Scotland On Screen." "Am I being upstaged by that view?" "'Having grown up in the countryside in Angus, I feel back at home now 'on the first stop of my movie location tour of Scotland.'" "Here in the Highlands, spectacular backdrops of Glencoe to Glenfinnan have featured in films from Bonnie Prince Charlie to Braveheart." "The combination of this great beauty, its defiant history and rebellious heroes has proved irresistible." "The real drama of the landscape never fails to thrill on film." "Just watch Richard Hannay escape down the slopes of Glencoe," "Harry Potter hurtle over the Glenfinnan viaduct to Hogwarts or Sean Connery row ashore at Loch Shiel in Highlander." "But when Hollywood comes to the Highlands, there's still some Brigadoon in the baggage." "Hollywood never depicts urban Scotland." "It's always rural and historical, in as much tartanry as possible." "The Hollywood shorthand for Scotland is the kilt." "Then it's dancing." "You could add the Highland games." "And men in kilts doing strange things with large poles." "But can we really hold Hollywood responsible for these stereotypes?" "I think the Scots mythologized their own country." "It's in our nature." "So we can't blame Hollywood for setting the rot." "# Roamin' in the gloamin'... #" "From the romantic novels of Walter Scott to the music hall kitsch of Harry Lauder, we've manufactured a few Highland myths ourselves and Hollywood sells us them back." "The filmmakers extract and distil the mythology even more." "Certain elements in a Scottish film have got to be there." "Misty climate." "A warrior theme and even better if associated with a lost cause." "From Bonnie Prince Charlie's doomed rebellion to Wallace's demise, the formula is still the same." "In recent years, Hollywood has reinvaded the Highlands and our history." "They may take our lives, but they will never take..." "Our freedom!" "Thanks, Mel." "In 1995, two blockbusters" " Braveheart and Rob Roy - crossed swords in a bid for box-office glory." "Both featured a Highland rebel fighting the dastardly English." "Let battle commence." "An 18th-century Highland Robin Hood," "Rob Roy is the story of Scotland's greatest folk hero who was badly wronged by a nasty English nobleman." "Rob Roy is like the good, but much less popular twin to Braveheart." "Rob Roy is really quite an achievement." "Fantastic use of Scottish landscape." "It's a brilliantly crafted film in many ways." "The makers took enormous care to try to bring a new authenticity." "You're a thief, a murderer... ..and a violator of women." "Ahhh..." "I had hoped you'd come to me long since on that score." "If I had known earlier, you would have been dead sooner." "History might be kinder to Rob Roy." "He had a far superior script with some respect for Scottish history but Braveheart gave an easier narrative to buy into." "'Braveheart is brash, you know,' and glittering and in your face." "Rob Roy is much more moody." "You've got to go with the characters and things take longer to happen." "Maybe Braveheart stirs the emotions more." "Rob Roy was more the thinking person's historical epic." "A Scottish writer, producer and director may have helped Rob Roy paint a more realistic picture, but the box-office battle was won by the film that played fast and loose with history with Mel Gibson directing and starring as 13th-century freedom fighter William Wallace." "'Braveheart was also shot mainly in Ireland, but Mel did film some key scenes in the Highlands 'and took tips on how to do battle from re-enactment experts Clan Wallace." "'I've come to the location of the Braveheart village in Glen Nevis to find out how they got involved.'" "Seoras, what was your role in it?" "As a historical consultant with regards to the family, then getting the clans to come in, from extras to second principals." "Wasn't there a battle just here?" "Where we're standing was the fort." "The village went over the back and down that slope." "The battle scene starts down there." "Didn't Mel Gibson stay with you to gen up on the whole...?" "Yeah, he stayed in a tenement on Albert Drive for a fortnight, grew his hair long, grew the beard, put the bunnet on." "Fantastic." "What did the neighbours say?" "Nobody walked in and said, "Are you Mel Gibson?"" "The battle scenes were the best." "It was the beginning of all those sandal films." "Mel Gibson made it because he liked Spartacus." "He wanted a Western." "So everything is reduced down to simple messages." "The scenes where young Wallace lays his father to rest were also filmed here in Glen Nevis." "I met up with Mhairi Calvey, who was his young sweetheart to be, to talk about a memorable moment." "You played the young Catherine McCormack." "They wanted a child to match her." "Yes." "You do look really like her." "Spooky!" "You're in some really iconic bits." "The bit where you give him the thistle, it's an amazing image." "Yeah." "It must be exciting to be part of cinema history." "It is." "I never expected that scene would be the scene that most people remember." "Had you done any acting before?" "No, I was still very young. 4 or 5." "How was that?" "It was fine." "I thought it was quite real." "I remember standing on set and seeing graves and thinking that his family had died." "I look over and bite my lip." "I thought it was completely real!" "Do you have thistles in your handbag at all times for boys if you like them?" "Wouldn't that be funny?" ""There's that Braveheart girl again." "She's trying to give me a thistle." It's not a subtle film, but you can't help but be stirred when they're all there facing up to the might of the English army with not much but lots of blue paint on their faces." "William Wallace?" "Can't be." "He's no' tall enough." "'Gibson came out of his trailer' and we were all stood." "It was the first time anyone saw the blue face." "He looked scary!" "And odd, basically." "It was like a hairdressers' convention." "He said, "What do you think?" "Let me see the other side."" "And we all stood. "Show us again."" "And over the years I've found it fascinating that that became the central image of the Scot, the blue face." "In fact, Braveheart's blue face and symbolic speeches were cheekily adopted by the SNP as they entered a contemporary battle with the English for a devolved Scottish parliament." "When Mel Gibson set out to make it, he couldn't have known that devolution would be on the agenda within 18 months." "An extraordinary moment of coincidence." "Would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they will never take our FREEDOM!" "The word "freedom" is used so often in the film that it's like this sort of battle cry." "Freedom...freedom..." "FREEDOM!" "Alex Salmond, I think, ended a general election party conference speech with just the word "freedom"." "Freedom!" "Freedom." "Even though it bore very little resemblance to Scottish history, politicians weren't going to let that get in the way." "Great propaganda for a sloganeering campaign." "It's the combination of the power and potency of the movie coming together with the rise of nationalism, the spirited commitment to devolution." "It hit the zeitgeist of the time, the spirit of the times." "Braveheart's unashamed appeal to national pride just may have swung the vote for devolution and made it the most successful film about Scotland ever made." "'Highland films may continue to borrow from Brigadoon mythology, 'but I could never tire of driving through this truly magical landscape." "'Time, though, for me to head to my next destination." "'The harbour town of Oban is the gateway to the Hebrides 'and no trip would be complete without a spot of rain.'" "'The assembly areas can be identified by a square green and white sign with an arrow 'pointing inwards towards...'" "At the last count, there were 95 inhabited islands in Scotland, but with a population of less than 100,000." "Characterised by unspoilt coastline, empty beaches, ancient monuments and the odd distillery, they've drawn filmmakers to tell stories of the isolation, community spirit and the weather issues of island life." "Come here." "Slainte Mhath!" "One thing they offer to filmmakers is the ability to create your own almost fantasy community, completely detached from urban realities." "Little communities of people clinging to the edge of a piece of land and surrounded by a wild ocean." "It helps to take the audience into another world, which they inhabit." "The portrayal is of innocence, but couthy innocence." "To some extent, some semi-cunning Hebrideans who can easily outflank the forces from outside because they're not as innocent or stupid as they might first appear." "Ealing comedy Whisky Galore is perhaps the best example of Hebrideans foiling the authorities." "But the tougher side of island life is depicted in The Edge of the World based on the evacuation of St Kilda." "Filmed on Foula, director Michael Powell was inspired by the rugged romance of the isles, he would return to make another film with his writing and producing partner Emeric Pressburger." "Mull was the setting for their 1945 film I Know Where I'm Going and that is where I'm going now." "It is your first visit to the isles?" "Yes, it is." "It is a sublime day." "Wendy Hiller plays the headstrong Joan who sets off from England for the island of Kiloran, determined to marry her rich fiance, but hampered by the weather she becomes stranded on Mull, where she meets the dashing Torquil MacNeil and her best-laid plans falter." "Good evening." "Good evening." "Bad luck." "No crossing today." "Isn't that the boat from Kiloran?" "No." "It's not today she'd get back." "It is magical, it is mysterious, it is mythical." "At the end of the day, a love story." "The classic story of coming to Scotland and finding a gentler, more authentic form of life that strips away a lot of that southern sophistication, so-called sophistication, for something more elemental." "Arriving in Mull, I feel like I've stepped back in time and much must be like how Powell found it, back in the 1940s." "Not too many people from the film are still alive but today we're very lucky to meet one, called Jimmy, and he's going to take me on a wee tour of some of the locations." "Jimmy, I presume?" "That's me, yes." "That's me." "Jimmy, I'm Alan." "Nice to see you." "How are you doing?" "All right." "So what did you do on the film?" "Well, I was asked to provide rabbits per day to the old colonel." "For his bird." "For the bird." "I've been training a golden eagle." "Hunting with it like a hawk?" "Ha-ha!" "That's shaken you!" "Where is it?" "Sorry, old boy." "I lost him four days ago." "You were craft services for the eagle." "Oh, yes." "So there you are." "All right, Jimmy, let's take a tour and show me the locations." "Yes." "You'll notice fairly early in the film you will see a car coming over the bridge." "That bridge on my right." "It would have been Wendy Hiller's first visit." "She was coming for the first time." "That's right." "This is where he said, "Will you do something for me?"" "Will you have the pipers play?" "It might be done." "And she said..." "I want you to kiss me." "Just here." "I can feel the sexual energy right now." "I can still feel the passionate power." "I think the location is absolutely vital." "You get that sense of going somewhere that is a different place where these myths and life-changing experiences can happen." "We're coming to the telephone kiosk." "Here it is!" "And the waterfall." "Wow!" "I thought this was a fake phone box in the film." "Not at all." "It's the real McCoy!" "It is!" "Blast the waterfall!" "Speak up!" "There's a good chap." "What?" "!" "Big bird, my foot!" "It's my eagle!" "I'm telling you!" "They're after it with shotguns." "Ignorant clods!" "This is a listed building now?" "Well, I'm told that, yes." "I don't know." "There'd be an outcry if they moved it." "It's amazing." "Stunning." "The elements of Scotland play an important part." "You've got great storms, the whirlpool..." "It's the fact that they're stranded and have to come to terms." "How long will the gale last?" "Oh, just as long as the wind blows, my lady." "It can last for a day or blow for a week." "It looks so near, in half an hour we could be there." "In less than a second, you could go from this world into the next." "Where are we now?" "Carsaig Pier where a lot of activity was filmed." "This is the bit where she was sitting on her suitcase." "Yes, she was sitting there and you can remember she opened her handbag and the letter..." "Her itinerary." "It landed in the water." "What do you think it is about the film that made you like it so much and why it's been so popular?" "Em, I think it was a bit of a fairy story, for a start." "You know?" "And..." "I suppose it was just right after the war and we wanted something to cheer us up." "I really like the way the film sort of uses the magical nature of the islands, but it doesn't make it too kitschy and cute." "There is that." "A wee bit, but not too much." "SPEAKS IN GAELIC" "Is that Gaelic you're talking?" "Yes, my lady." "What would it be but the Gaelic?" "What's that noise?" "The seals singing." "The empathy Michael Powell had for this location is such that he manages to join the studio sets with the exterior locations so beautifully that most people watching the film are unaware of the transitions." "It's quite a shock to go to Mull and discover those places are there!" "'Powell's clever combination of studio shots and Mull landmarks make such a strong sense of place.'" "One of the most spectacular locations is the Castle of Sorn, which is really Castle Duart." "And while the exterior was shot here on the island, the interior was meticulously recreated back in the studio." "Sir Lachlan." "Hello." "Welcome to Duart, Alan." "Nice place you've got." "Yes." "Not too shabby." "So this is the room they recreated." "Yeah." "In the studio." "That's..." "That should be there." "In the film, the fireplace is over on that wall." "Right." "But the alcove..." "I remember that. ..that's correct." "That looks familiar." "That's the spiral stairs and at some stage in the film they came down... they came down that staircase." "Can I have the afternoon off?" "Martin, that's too bad of you." "I think the message of the film, the things it says about the island are very positive and very accurate, I think." "I think it is a cult film." "I mean, we've had people here, particularly Americans, who have come here and who are... cult members, but I Know Where I'm Going features very strongly in their lives." "Absolutely." "And I think it's a good thing." "I think people enjoy seeing where these films were made." "Absolutely." "Is that you?" "Yes." "That's a lovely picture." "'Another Mull landmark recreated is the Western Isles Hotel, 'where Joan comes to stay while she waits for the weather to change." "We decided to put on 'a special screening of the film here to find out what locals think 'and if I Know Where I'm Going stands the test of time.'" "I saw that film in Liverpool when I was 17." "10 years later, I came to Braemar and because of this film it was all romantic up here and I met my husband!" "To me it's just...romance." "It is." "You were a pawn." "It's a good job I'm deaf!" "It's a love story and a beautiful film and it's fascinating to see he locations that are still very recognisable to us now." "The roads them look better than they do now!" "This is Wendy Hiller's autograph?" "When did you get that?" "When they did the film here." "Wow." "Amazing." "That was 1944." ""The canteen of Tobermory won't..." Oh, that was during the war." "A boyfriend from the Netherlands!" "After more than 60 years, the film is still held in great affection and Powell's passion for Scotland resulted in a romantic, but authentic story of island life." "If you show that film to anybody who you really care for and they're not moved, get rid of them!" "'I've loved my visit to Mull." "I can see why Joan was tempted to stay, 'but the sun's out and my boat has come in, so I have to move on." "'For my next stop, I'm heading back to the mainland and travelling south to Dumfries and Galloway." "'In Scotland's isolated villages, you can sometimes feel like the stranger in town, 'in a mysterious place where anything might happen." "'Filmmakers have played on our fear of the unknown 'and remote Scotland is a place where werewolves prowl, 'a devil girl from Mars lands, 'a monster lurks in a loch 'and legend, folklore and superstition thrive.'" "One of the strangest films ever made in Scotland was set on the mythical Summerisle, but shot largely in Dumfries and Galloway." "It's about the clash between paganism and Christianity." "The Wicker Man was slated on its release in 1973, but since then has become a cult classic." "Edward Woodward plays the uptight Inspector Howie, who comes to the island to investigate a missing girl, but is a pawn in a terrible plot instigated by the neo-pagan community and Lord Summerisle." "Everything under control?" "Aye, m'lord." "'The film plays' and updates the kind of classic cliches of the unwelcome person that you get from '50s Westerns." "You know, the stranger opening the doors of the saloon and the music stops." "The music stops for Howie as soon as that plane lands." "Can you send a dinghy, please?" "It can't be done, sir." "This is private property." "You can't land here without written permission!" "He's a rigid church man and he's Calvinist of the extreme." "'So when he gets over to the island and all these bizarre things happen, 'it's an enormous shock to him.'" "And he becomes involved in a story of sort of medieval proportions, really." "This was May Morrison's shop in the film, but today you're more likely to find a Peter Howson painting." "Hi, Maureen." "Hi, pleased to meet you." "So this is your gallery." "Do you get Wicker Man fans coming?" "We get a lot of young people, normally students, coming in." "We also got quite a few pagans from the USA coming in, who actually think the people here are all pagans." "Are there any?" "Not that I know of." "If you want to meet any, maybe they could get in touch with you." "You never know what goes on behind closed doors." "You don't know." "Our neighbour has things like skulls and corn dollies outside his door." "Look what you're telling me now!" "There was no pagans and now there's corn dollies and other weirdness!" "He just likes things like that." "Tell it to the judge, Maureen!" "Yes!" "'The Wicker Man is now a byword 'for anything that goes on outside cities that's troublesome." "'Say, "It's all a bit Wicker Man," and they know what you mean!" "'" "People with shoes with turned-up bits at the front." "They've hand-knitted their own wives." "One of the most troublesome things for Howie is the islanders' free love attitude to sex and, staying in a room next to Britt Ekland, temptation comes a-knocking." "What it did, of course, was to show the true, appalling thing in his mind because although he couldn't see her, he could see it in his mind." "He knew what was happening." "This was real paganism and she was really tempting this man." "Jane, you also had an involvement in the film." "What was that?" "I did the body double for Britt." "I thought you'd say that." "You have a startling resemblance." "That's what they said, had anybody told me that?" "I said no." "They asked, so I did it." "So were you doing the...?" "Yes." "That must have been fun!" "It was." "Do you ever have a bang on your wall for old time's sake?" "All the time!" "I'm the pagan that Maureen was talking about!" "I knew there were pagans in Kirkcudbright!" "Wicker Man's depiction of religion draws on twin Scottish traditions of Calvinistic repression and ancient Celtic mythology." "Not a very morally clear movie, which is perhaps why it has an enduring fascination because Edward Woodward's definitely got that hint of the Wee Free and it does contrast the more life-affirming aspects as the pagan culture is depicted." "Literally life-affirming in that it's largely about fertility rites." "One of the most evocative places in the film is the tiny village of Anwoth and here I meet director Robin Hardy to find out why he was drawn here." "Hi." "Nice to meet you." "You've come to see The Wicker Man locations." "This is one, isn't it?" "This is an important one, yes." "The action came from over there." "There was a maypole there just the other side of that wall." "Right." "The boys were going round the maypole." "The musicians were sitting on that wall." "# And on that bed there was a girl... #" "And there's the schoolhouse." "Yeah." "The girls with their teacher." "At this point, Howie the policeman was due to be very shocked by the whole scene." "# And of that feather was a bed... #" "A little later when he's spoken to the schoolteacher, he comes over here to see where she's buried, the girl he's looking for." "Rowan." "Shall we go into the church?" "Yes." ""Warning - dangerous building, keep clear." OK." "I think God will protect us." "Which one?" "Indeed." "In this scene, he passes a woman feeding her baby." "Is she holding an egg?" "Yes, she is." "It's a fertility ritual, so that she'll have another baby." "Holding the egg?" "The egg..." "Whilst milking?" "Yes, while feeding the child in the church." "We had also passed this "memento mori" thing with the skull and crossbones." "Oh, yeah." "I thought that was a prop for the movie." "No." "It's in this churchyard." "We saved money on props." "So you were lucky with this location." "It had everything." "It was one of those rare ones where you don't have to cheat." "No." "It's all there." "It's a really unusual film in that it portrays Scotland in a very different way to how people had portrayed it up till then." "We felt that there was a tremendous tradition of Celtic music and so forth." "And that if you had a pagan island, it would use all the beautiful and musical things that are in the Scottish culture." "But also contrast them to the more puritan aspect in Scottish culture." "We're a country of contradictions." "Do you think it was ahead of its time or was it of its time?" "I think it's still ahead of its time." "People don't expect you to mix genres." "They don't expect to have comedy in a horror film." "They don't expect to have rather charming sex or lovely songs in a horror film." "But all those things exist in life and if something becomes horrific, it's ten times as horrific if it comes out of normal life." "Exactly." "It's not a horror film in a conventional sense." "The scares just make you unsettled." "There's weird things like the toad in the mouth." "In he goes." "And they lift up the desk in the school and there's a beetle tied to a nail going round and round." "It's really odd." "There's a scene where there's dried-out intestines on a gravestone." "What is it?" "The poor wee lassie's navel string." "Things like that, cumulatively, the effect they have is to make you think this is really creepy." "I'm here at the Ellangowan Hotel in Creetown which was used as the interior for The Green Man Inn in The Wicker Man." "I'm gonna go inside and I wonder if any of the original cast of The Wicker Man might be inside?" "Ian Cutler was just 18 when he fiddled along to bawdy bar sing-along The Landlord's Daughter." "Here in this very bar." "# And when her name is mentioned" "# The parts of every gentleman do stand up" "# At attention... #" "It's quite raunchy." "It is." "Was it raunchy times making the film?" "It was for the older people." "It all passed me by." "You were going to bed with a good book?" "Oh, yes." "What do you think is the secret of the lingering success and love of The Wicker Man?" "I think a lot of the folklore in it is actually very accurate." "And a lot of films sort of overdo it and go a bit far, but they are all genuine folklore customs and the music was very different." "And we had a lot of fun up here doing it." "The Landlord's Daughter is a pretty good indication of how sort of venal and sexual they are." "You get the sense straight away that these people are kind of deviants, but deviants in a very kind of hairy, organic, free-range..." "They're free-range deviants." "'The scenes where Howie finally meets his fate at the hands of these free-range deviants 'were filmed here on the cliff tops at Burrow Head.'" "So this is where it was." "The procession came up from the cliff edge." "Mm-hm." "'With Howie being pushed forward.'" "Oh, God!" "It's down there when he went, "Oh, Jesus Christ!" Yes." "That's a good line." "Oh, Jesus Christ!" "They all said to me before, "Would you like to come along and see The Wicker Man?"" "I said, "I don't want to see it." I saw it as the audience see it." "And you get the same...amazement." "Was it a difficult scene to shoot?" "I mean, it looks quite complex." "It all sort of worked to clockwork, as it were, because the animals were put up in cherry pickers, then Edward was put up there in his little niche and I was up there with him." "The goats were urinating on him." "The cawing and crying was incredible." "SCREECHING Oh, God!" "I humbly entreat you for the soul of this, thy servant, Neil Howie." "'In 65 years of being an actor, I have never, ever known such terror,' although everybody assured me that it can't catch fire up here cos it's all been specially flame-proofed..." "You sit up in a head... 50 or 60 feet up or whatever it is, made of wicker, and start acting your socks off!" "SHOUTS AND SCREAMS" "The crowd were just on the periphery of it singing away..." ""Summer is a-comin' in, summer is a-comin' in, loudly sing 'cuckoo'."" "And suddenly, the man started to break and down he went." "And there where the sun is right now, perhaps a little lower..." "A little redder." "It just went straight down and the incredible thing was that it went first time down." "The head collapsed with the sun behind it " "I think one of the best shots I've ever seen in a movie." "The Wicker Man may depict a Scotland of superstition and religious extremes, but its cult status continues to grow and is celebrated here in Dumfries and Galloway with an annual Wicker Man Festival." "Before they start looking for the next sacrifice, I'll head for the city." "Scotland's capital is a city of Jekyll and Hyde contrasts." "From its chocolate-box castle and historic centre to its darker underbelly and less than salubrious suburbs," "Edinburgh on film shows that the creme de la creme can sometimes turn very sour." "From the middle-class milieu of Miss Jean Brodie and the sentimental whimsy of Greyfriars Bobby to Bill Douglas' portrayal of poverty in the mining village of Newcraighall and the darker reality of drug addiction in Trainspotting, the screen portrayals of Edinburgh show these different worlds are closer than you think." "You could walk from Miss Jean Brodie to Trainspotting." "It's not very far." "Walk through the Grassmarket or Greyfriars, the locations used in the middle-class, hoity-toity world of Miss Jean Brodie, then you go down to Waverley Station for the beginning of Trainspotting where Ewan McGregor is laughing into the face of a driver." "But they're both really showing you that it's not just historic buildings." "There's darkness afoot in Miss Jean Brodie." "Maggie Smith won an Oscar for her portrayal of the confident, but dangerously misguided teacher whose forthright opinions on love and the politics of Mussolini are certainly not on the curriculum at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls." "I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders and all my pupils are the creme de la creme." "Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life." "The film, made by Ronald Neame, just uses a few locations." "Much of it is done in the studio." "But they're extremely effective in evoking that sort of sense of this genteel, socially exclusive Edinburgh and, of course, it's identified with Morningside." "'So I invited the Morningside Parish Ladies Group to tea 'to find out if the film bears any resemblance to where they live.'" "So who would like a cake?" "No?" "I'll pass it round." "I want one." "Oh, really?" "May I have this chocolate one?" "You have the cake." "Thanks." "So you all watched The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie." "What did you think?" "All the teachers at the Marcia Blaine Academy seemed to be exactly like my old schoolteachers." "The thing is, there was a central figure there who was engineering all of this." "She was the one who was wicked and devious and..." "She very much manipulated these particular girls." "You girls are my vocation." "If I were to receive a proposal of marriage tomorrow from the Lord Lyon, King of Arms, I would decline it." "I am dedicated to you in my prime." "And my summer in Italy has convinced me that I am truly in my prime." "The strength of the thing was that Miss Brodie was very attractive." "I took from it the message that evil could be very attractive." "You're right." "There's many positive things about her, but ultimately you cannot..." "I mean, she is a fascist." "Of course." "Absolutely." "Observe the litter." "In Italy, Mussolini has put an end to litter in the streets." "Do you remember what the followers of Mussolini are called?" "Fascisti." "Yes." "What does it feel like to see a film that's set in your 'hood?" "When you moved up to Morningside, there was a lot of talk about Miss Jean Brodie." "When you speak to anyone who's being prim and proper, they put on the Jean Brodie voice." "I hadn't understood that until I watched the film." "It helped you grasp the mystery that is Morningside." "Soon you will graduate to the senior school." "I will no longer teach you, but you will always be Brodie girls." "Is that a Morningside trait then, that sort of control and...?" "No, I don't think so." "You want good manners." "You do want to speak well." "And we pay huge mortgages to live in Morningside." "I would say that I live in Morningside because I like its village atmosphere and eccentricity." "In some ways, it's Miss Brodie's eccentricity that I find attractive." "That is her most attractive part." "We all have things about ourselves that are attractive and things about ourselves that are unattractive." "If the balance tips in one way as it does with her..." "There, but for the grace of the gods..." "Say the word." "I can say it." "God, God, God, God!" "The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie was based on the book by Edinburgh author Muriel Spark." "30 years on, another native writer provided the raw material for a more up-to-date vision of the city" " Trainspotting." "Based on Irvine Welsh's novel about a group of friends addicted to heroin and alcohol, it probably wasn't the image that the Edinburgh Tourist Board wanted to promote." "MUSIC: "Lust For Life"" " Iggy Pop" "From the minute you start with those drum beats from Iggy Pop, that sent a message that this is a film that wants you to enjoy it." "You won't be lectured at here." "You're gonna go along for the ride to an extent and the ride can take you to some very dark, scary places." "# Just a perfect day" "# Drink sangria in the park" "# And then later... #" "Perhaps sir would like me to call for a taxi?" "Trainspotting was probably the hippest film worldwide in the '90s, I think." "I can't think of another film that managed to fuse literature, pop music and cinema." "MUSIC: "Atomic"" " Blondie" "The film's hip modernity was the vision of Scottish screenwriter John Hodge and producer Andrew Macdonald, along with director Danny Boyle." "The reason it was a hit was because it, for the most part, showed young people in Scotland having a good time, getting up to all sorts of mischief, pursuing their own gratification in a very anarchic way." "It felt like it was a very difficult subject, unpleasant junkies living on the edge of society, but that made us more determined to try and get it to communicate to people." "Everybody has tried some kind of drug, generally alcohol, but lots of other people have tried drugs." "They think they're going to enjoy it." "We thought you had to show that side of the story." "Most other films just show the seedy side." "Everybody knows that." "The tone of it is very clever, to make it glamorous and exciting and pop music, but at the same time, show how horrible it is to be hooked on drugs." "Stop looking at me!" "Stop!" "Trainspotting definitely gave the Scots a ton of confidence." "That was the first time when to have a Scots accent made you cool." "'I'm cleaning up and I'm moving on, going straight and choosing life." "'I'm looking forward to it already." "I'm gonna be just like you.'" "Being a Scot now as an actor is not a barrier." "It was for a long time." "I knew it would be a good film." "I never knew it would connect with an audience and become a sort of Zeitgeist thing that it did." "You just can't know that." "Released in 1996, Trainspotting surfed a wave of Cool Britannia and injected a new buzz into Scottish film." "But Trainspotting wouldn't have been possible without the explosion in indigenous film-making in the 1980s." "And to go back to the beginning of that story, I need to go to Glasgow." "The French film director Bertrand Tavernier said he found Edinburgh picturesque, but Glasgow dramatic." "The city was for a long time synonymous with Clydeside, hard men, hard drinking." "And to a certain extent, that image has prevailed in its on-screen persona." "A' right?" "You've only been in this place a few hours and you've started already." "Let me tell you, you're in a real prison now!" "Heard it." "'The people of this city have mined the coal,' built the ships and engines for the British Empire." "It's a working-class city." "So the cinematic product that has come out of our city generally reflects that - hard-working, hard-drinking... hard men." "You think you can assault a governor?" "From Hayman's role as Barlinnie inmate Jimmy Boyle to Liam Neeson's boxing Big Man, the Glasgow hard man is an enduring image." "But in the '80s, the city had to adapt to the post-industrial age." "A new wave of indigenous film-makers also began to create a new identity for the city." "The father figure of this brave new world was director Bill Forsyth." "And the new town of Cumbernauld just outside Glasgow was the setting for his breakthrough hit Gregory's Girl." "John Gordon Sinclair plays the love-struck teen besotted with his school football team's new star." "She's gorgeous." "She is absolutely gorgeous." "That's Dorothy." "The most important person in Scottish cinema is Bill Forsyth." "What he did enabled me and lots of other people to become film-makers." "Bill Forsyth is undoubtedly the most important figure in bringing an image of modern Scottishness to a wide audience." "'I was delighted to meet with Bill Forsyth back in Cumbernauld 'to find out how he kick-started a home-grown Scottish film industry.'" "Hello, Bill." "Hiya." "How are you doing?" "Good." "Here we are, Abronhill High School behind you." "What does it feel like to be back?" "It feels like work." "I'm getting a sore head." "It must be hard to shoot a football match." "When I make a film, there's always a perverse thing I do and in this it was that I've got no interest in football." "I didn't know one end of a pitch from another." "We had to choreograph Dee Hepburn who played Dorothy." "Did she play football before?" "No." "She trained with Partick Thistle." "We thought we'd get her the best!" "That's the sort of thing that gives football a bad name." "That is disgusting." "When she comes to try out for the football team, I love Jake D'Arcy's face." "Oh, yeah." "As the trainer." "As the school coach." "He's not having it." "No." "He was just a traditional blinkered guy." "Football is a man's thing." "What do you want, dear?" "I'm here for the trial." "This is a football trial." "Maybe Miss McAlpine's up to something with the hockey team, but this here is football." "For boys." "That's right." "Football trials, 11am." "I saw the notice." "You created something that everybody in Scotland..." "It's part of their heritage now." "Possibly just because it was the first." "There was no feature film industry in Scotland before then." "We were the first generation of film-makers who stayed here." "It was the first time that Scottish people were able to possess a film." "It had been made by people who lived here, so they embraced it in a different way." "It's not right." "It's unnatural." "It doesn't even look nice." "It's modern, Andy." "It's good." "Modern girls, modern boys." "It's tremendous." "Look!" "The reason I think Gregory's Girl was such a big hit was, for the first time, we were being shown a version of ourselves, unusually, a sympathetic and flattering version of ourselves with the concerns that we had, the insecurities we had, the desires that we had." "And our own patter as well, to some extent." "I'm in love." "Since when?" "About half an hour ago." "It's great." "I feel restless and I'm dizzy." "It's wonderful." "I bet I don't get any sleep tonight." "That sounds more like indigestion." "Gordy is hilarious." "He had a kind of native sense of timing and body language." "Have you got any plasters in here?" "There's none next door." "No." "Maybe." "I'll get some." "I love that he puts the deodorant on top of his shirt." "I know people who still do that." "You don't want tae do that!" "Are you not supposed to do that?" "The innate awkwardness of Gregory was something every... just about every young Scottish teenager could identify with." "There's a magnificent scene where he walks across the football pitch and there's two teachers looking out the window, laughing at how ridiculous his behaviour is." "And it relates to your own teen paranoia that people are looking down and laughing at you, just for walking across the road or the pitch." "Who is it?" "That daft boy in fourth year." "The one in your football team." "I heard they were awarded a corner last week and took a lap of honour." "Oh, him." "'To see if today's teenagers have the same concerns and what effect Gregory's Girl had on the school, 'we showed the film here at Abronhill High to some pupils and teachers past and present.'" "You'll wake the mater and pater." "APPLAUSE" "What did you think about the way the kids were portrayed in the film?" "It's hysterical." "See the way Gregory runs?" "That's how I run." "They all think I look like Gregory which is pretty insulting!" "It was a tremendous boost for the school and for Cumbernauld." "It was brilliant." "We used to walk up and down the corridors and you'd be 12 and it's like," ""Oh, God, they must be filming again today!" But we thought it was brilliant." "So, from a male perspective..." "He's got fantastic hair." "It's brilliant." "Do you miss the '80s cuts?" "Yeah." "I'd fit in." "Cumbernauld gets a lot of bad press and one of the good things to come out of Cumbernauld was the film." "MUSIC: "Rip It Up"" " Orange Juice" "Forsyth found the streets, shops and parks of the new town to be a perfect, ready-made set for his film." "Why did you decide to do it here in the first place?" "Well, I think..." "Well, I wanted a new town." "The main idea I had was that the town should be the same age as the teenagers, so that the whole place just expressed that gawkiness." "I used to say that I liked the idea that even the trees around here were like teenage trees." "They were wee saplings." "They're all big trees now." "I just liked that rawness of the place being the same as the kids." "It was just here for the taking really." "Cumbernauld." "Cumbernauld." "What's it called?" "BOTH:" "Cumbernauld!" "It was a film you could relate to on every level." "I could never imagine that anybody would put Cumbernauld on the screen and I would want to see it not just once, but again." "It was entertaining." "It didn't feel like a chore like so many British films did." "Bill, here we are back in the street where Gregory first meets Susan." "Hello, Gregory." "What are you up to?" "Did you think, when you were writing it, that the combination of football and young love would be such a dynamic combo?" "It was total exploitation." "We'd try and get the ingredients - a love story, football, Scotland, young love." "We thought everybody in Scotland is gonna want to see this film." "Naively." "They must have all by now, don't you think?" "Yeah." "'Forsyth had worked with John Gordon Sinclair before, 'but had to look long and hard for the girl to play Susan." "'Eventually, he discovered pop star to be Clare Grogan working as a waitress in a Glasgow restaurant.'" "Gordy and I went to meet her." "I sat them down on a park bench." "It was almost my chance to see them together and their chance to meet." "It was like a pairing off." "I felt like a match-maker." "Do you want to dance?" "It's really good." "You just lie flat down and dance." "I'll show you what I mean." "I'll start it off and you just join in when you feel confident enough." "OK?" "'When Gregory talks about how he's stuck to the planet with gravity,'" "I thought we could put more feeling into that with the shot tilting, that moment of first love when the whole world goes..." "I thought it would be an impossible process shot, too expensive, but you just turn the camera at 90 degrees and suddenly you've got the whole image going squiffy." "We are clinging to the surface of this planet while it spins through space at 1,000 miles an hour, held only by the mystery force called gravity." "Wow!" "A lot of people panic when you tell them that and they just fall off." "But I see you're not falling off." "That means you've got the hang of it." "That means that you have got..." "Natural ability." "Yeah." "Before Bill Forsyth came along," "I thought of Scottish film as being historical, something that used to happen." "The interesting thing with Bill Forsyth's arrival was he re-branded the possibility of us making Glasgow films." "This is my ex-wife." "Oh, Thelma!" "Put it away, Andrew." "You'll upset Lorna." "There's still heaps of room on the front!" "Post-Forsyth, directors like Gillies MacKinnon began to reflect their own lives on screen and bring a lighter touch to Glasgow films." "He's electrocuted." "Andrew..." "Andrew!" "I think Glasgow discovered through the '80s and the '90s its feminine side." "I think we found something else within ourselves to express and that came out in our creativity." "I like to think it's the soft and more creative side of this hard, macho city." "Bill Forsyth went on to make several more landmark Scottish films, including romantic highland comedy Local Hero." "You seem to like this place." "I like the scenery." "And Comfort And Joy, a love story set amidst Glasgow's infamous ice cream wars." "And Glasgow itself has remained the hub for contemporary Scottish film-making." "To my mind, the memorable ones are Ratcatcher and Peter Mullan's Orphans which I absolutely loved." "I thought it was mad, a completely mad film, but it really caught something about Glasgow " "Gary Lewis, "I'm here for you, Ma," carrying the coffin on his shoulders." "Would the pallbearers come forward?" "I'll take her." "You'll need some help, sir." "I said I'll take her." "On my own." "I'm sorry, sir." "I think you'll find she's too heavy." "She ain't heavy." "She's my mother." "They've gone grim again, Scottish movies, but brilliantly so, absolutely brilliantly so." "Young Adam, Red Road, Ratcatcher, these are absolutely terrific films." "Ratcatcher was absolutely applauded everywhere." "Young Adam is a really poetic film." "You know, there are moments of pure art in there." "The biggest change from Brigadoon to Young Adam is that Scotland has seized back Scotland." "The image of Scotland on screen has come a long way since the misty mountains and purple heather of Brigadoon." "Our writers, directors and producers have shown Scotland to be a diverse and contemporary nation in all its glory and grime." "We've got a long way to go cos we only really started making films in the last 40, 50 years of any great note." "And I think what we'll see over the next 40, 50 years is a much greater variety of the lives, loves and deaths of the Scots." "The thing I've learned most is that while people like to see their real lives portrayed on the big screen, they also enjoy a bit of Hollywood fantasy from time to time." "Heck, don't we all?" "Subtitles extracted by ARS"