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Jonathan Murray:
An unhelpful attitude about Forsyth involves the patronizing critical notion that his films, while they have delighted many, are constrained by their obvious and sympathetic interest in the quirks of human identity and activity. A Bill Forsyth film, the argument goes, struggles to wrench its creative energies away from the small-scale (albeit charming) actions of harmless Walter Mitty types. The compliments routinely offered Forsyth’s films are often double-edged for this reason. “Gentle,” “wry,” “quirky,” “quaint,” “whimsical”—this is the rhetoric of (undeserved) diminution. Forsyth, to quote Jonathan Rosenbaum, all too often ends up dismissed as “a lowercase filmmaker” within histories of late-twentieth-century cinema.
Forsyth has been aware of this dilemma since his career’s earliest stages. At the time of Local Hero’s release, he said, “I feel insistently misunderstood . . . All the films I’ve made, I’ve always had a much darker side than most people have perceived.” It’s easy to see how such a superficial misreading might play out in the case of Local Hero. Its comic ensemble could be neatly pigeonholed as baffled (Mac), barmy (Happer), and bucolic (the folk of Ferness). But when the central characters of Forsyth’s cinema are properly considered, a far more complex picture emerges. Local Hero’s entire plot, for example, arises from and is resolved by the aspirations and actions of a protagonist (Happer) who suspects, but fails to fully understand, the compromised nature of his mental health. A similar structural premise shapes the plots and themes of both Comfort and Joy and Housekeeping. ...
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6600-local-hero-our-man-in-ferness
the only forsyth films i haven't seen are, i think, housekeeping and that sinking feeling.
the others are all actively bad films to some extent or another
― Seany's too Dyche to mention (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 2 October 2019 20:49 (four years ago) link
two years pass...
After watching Local Hero and Comfort and Joy half a dozen times in the past year, procured myself a copy of the BFI Blu-ray of Housekeeping and watched it. Very satisfying.
― Jaime Pressly and America (f. hazel), Wednesday, 20 April 2022 02:10 (two years ago) link