Big Smoke, Big Screen

Talking London movies with writer/editor Tom Barnard

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” — Samuel Johnson

Happy Friday! Hope you enjoyed yesterday’s newsletter on the city symphony:

March Around the World: City Symphonies

Today’s newsletter for paid subscribers goes deeper on London and my selection for its city symphony, Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky.

I’m joined, as previously mentioned, by writer and editor Tom Barnard. Previously, Tom was the editor of London film site WeLoveCinema, a sort of Screen Slate-equivalent for those who love slipping in “ou”s to their spelling. That site spawned the book Big Smoke, Big Screen (available for stateside readers through Barnes & Noble) and features essays by Marshall and the Movies guests Hannah Strong, Savina Petkova, Leila Latif, and Rafaela Sales Ross.

That book is the starting point of our discussion but by no means is our limit. Read on to see where we go!

When I thought about what a true city symphony of London would be, I was stuck. Before reading the book, I was half-convinced that the most panoramic portrait of London was … Love Actually. There was some discussion of Richard Curtis’ Notting Hill, but nothing of the Christmas classic that reliably gins up controversy every year. Was that a conscious omission? What’s the standard Londoner take on it these days?

I think with any London-themed film book, there’s a danger of things getting very Richard Curtis-centric very quickly. For whatever reason, his movies tend to be what most people think of first when we talk about “London movies.” Of course, they’re fantasies, and taken as such, I’m not sure they’re as inherently evil as a lot of people make out. When I think about it, though, save for the exterior shots, there isn’t too much in the movie that is specifically evocative of London in any real way – many of the stories could be happening anywhere in England. Maybe that’s why it didn’t come up.

Love Actually, 2003. © Universal

As for its reputation nowadays: I think the film will always be a point of contention because it is maddeningly twee, but (at risk of losing any street cred) I am still partial to a dose of Love Actually each and every Christmas. I think generally, however, it remains a Marmite film for Londoners; you either love its utopian vision or hate how wrong it gets it, which in itself seems appropriate for a city of contrasts. I do understand for many people, the film seems to misrepresent London to an unforgivable degree, wrapping it in a pretty box with a bow on top; the real London is obviously a grittier place, but I suppose showing endless congestion and people getting their phones nicked doesn’t exactly scream “Christmas.”

Where I ended up ultimately settling on the closest thing London has to a city symphony is Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky. While it’s still self-contained in the way that Mike Leigh’s movies usually are, the character of Poppy seems to represent all the promise and possibility of being enriched rather than enervated by an urban setting. Do you think it’s a fair film to represent a wide swath of London experiences?

It’s interesting that you’ve picked that film – a movie I love, actually, and one I think is a great London movie in general – even though to me it doesn’t quite feel like it gets to the territory of a city symphony in the way that, say, a film like Woody Allen’s Manhattan seems to (or seems to be attempting).