Local Hero’s 40-year-old lesson about relationships

As social media divides us and generates simulated experiences and friendships, it's a gorgeous and glorious antidote.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

Two business men in suits hold coats and briefcases, stand in the sea with their trousers rolled-up above their ankles

Local Hero's iconic cinema poster.

Warner Bros.

This year marks four decades since the release of Bill Forsyth’s masterpiece, and it is a real joy to have the excuse to revisit it. Local Hero is a glorious warm-mug-of-tea of a film: charming, gentle, sweet, gorgeous, and funny in the kindest and most uplifting way. What’s more, its theme and message are as pertinent as they were forty years ago… more so, actually.

Local Hero follows Peter Riegert’s Mac, a faux-Scotsman who is displaced from his busy life as an oil executive in Houston to the small Highland village of Ferness. There he is expected to oversee the sale of the village and beach so it can be developed into an oil refinery. The eccentric and astronomy obsessed owner of the oil-company Felix Happer, played by Burt Lancaster, thinks that Mac is just the right man for the job on account of his name sounding Scottish.

Watch the Local Hero trailer

Upon arriving in Scotland Mac meets Danny Oldsen (Peter Capaldi) who will be his assistant from the Scottish branch of the company, and the two set off on the journey to Ferness – meeting Jenny Seagrove’s love interest and an ultimately unfortunate rabbit. When in Ferness Mac must contend with Denis Lawson’s hotelier-barman-accountant Gordon Urquhart, an affable but shrewd negotiator who is determined to get as much money as possible for the people of Ferness. During his stay Mac is baffled, bemused, and slowly bewitched by the colourful locals, from Urquhart’s wife Stella to Soviet fisherman Victor to shabby beachcomber Ben.

I dare not say much more about the plot so as not to rob you, dear potential viewer, of the delightful experience of allowing Forsyth’s perfect writing and delicate directing envelop and clam you, take you by the hand and lead you through the story with grace and wit. The performances are lovely, Mark Knopfler’s haunting soundtrack (a balancing of folk, soft-rock, jazz, and electronica) complements the scenery, and the BAFTA nominated cinematography by Chris Menges captures that wild and rugged coastal landscape in all its glory. The Scottish landscape is really the unspoken lead of the film, and more often than not transports the viewer into the transcendent realms of the sublime!

I chose my words carefully: the theme of the film is very much about the power of natural beauty to change the values and perspective of the individual. Mac begins the story as a high-powered and cynical corporate man – willing to lie about his name and preferring to do deals over Telex than have real human interaction with clients. Oldsen is young and ambitious, fascinated by the glamorous lifestyle of the US, and keen to do well in his chosen profession. Yet over the days and weeks that they spend in Ferness, their outlook begins to change.

What is wonderful about Bill Forsyth’s subtle storytelling is that we know all this not because of any grand speeches, but with little visual cues.

The sheer beauty and simplicity of the coast takes hold of the businessmen and overwhelms their ambition and materialism with the power of the sublime. What is wonderful about Bill Forsyth’s subtle storytelling is that we know all this not because of any grand speeches, but with little visual cues. Slowly the dress of the two men devolves to mirror their thoughts and feelings: from the full corporate dress, to the removing of a tie, to by the end of the film dressing like a local in a proper cable-knit sweater. Mac comes to see that emptiness and vacuity of his life in Texas and yearns for the simple life by the sea surrounded by the majestic Scottish cliffs. Even as the locals become more and more excited by the prospect of their newly promised wealth, Mac and Oldsen come to regret their involvement in a scheme that will destroy the glory of the landscape.

There is a message beneath the message: the sublimity of the natural world can only be truly experienced in the context of human relationships.

This in itself would be enough for the film to have maintained its relevance for forty years – it's impossible to study current affairs today without encountering worries about climate change, pollution, over-industrialisation, and the loss of the natural world. The film’s clear conservationist message is as fresh as ever, but it isn’t the most powerful, for there is a message beneath the message: the sublimity of the natural world can only be truly experienced in the context of human relationships.

As I watched the film again, I noticed that the power of the scenery in the background is complimented and elevated by the human connections in the foreground. Mac forges a real friendship with Urquhart and develops a real fondness for the local people, so although he loves the landscape it is the relationships it inspires that really move his heart. Oldsen may be wowed by the sea, but this is elevated by the love he feels for the mysterious, web-towed marine biologist Marina swimming in it.

The great irony of the story is that Mac and Oldsen – isolated corporate men – come to want to protect the integrity of the landscape, while Urquhart and villagers are motivated to sell and abandon it as the local economy stalls. They have grown up with the scenery, they have been formed by it, it is in their bones, and they have been blessed by the cast-iron community bonds that such sublime surroundings inspire; it is on account of their total lack of individualism or atomisation that they have the confidence to leave the community behind.

In the end, it is a fledgling relationship that saves the village. Happer, isolated and lonely at the top of the corporate ladder (so much so that he pays for his quack-psychiatrist to insult and berate him in the hopes of some emotional breakthrough – laugh-out-loud interludes in the storytelling), travels to Ferness himself to close the deal. Negotiations have stalled when Ben the beachcomber refuses to sell his stake in the village, quite an important stake…the beach itself.

Star obsessed Happer arrives convinced that he can talk Ben round, but rather than a negotiation the interaction becomes a meeting of minds in which Ben convinces Happer that the beauty of the stars is a far better investment than oil. Ferness WILL BE SOLD, but so as to be an unspoiled spot where an astronomy observatory can be built. The unlikely relationship that blossoms between and billionare oil-baron and a bumbling beachcomber saves the landscape and the relationships which Mac has come to love so dearly.

In a world where technology and social media continue to atomise and divide us, while at the same time giving us simulated experiences and the simulacra of friendship, Local Hero is a gorgeous and glorious antidote. It reminds us of the vital importance and power of human relationships, the pinnacle of our experiences which even mediate the sublime power of Scottish coastal scenery. An important message, and if I may, a comfortably Christian message: for relationship is at the core of who God is as Trinity, relationship is at the core of what God wants as he creates the world to be in communion with him, and relationship is at the core of how God brings about our salvation as he comes to us in the person of Jesus Christ who calls us his brothers and sisters and friends.

Whoever you are and wherever you are, you should watch Local Hero immediately and be reminded of the beautiful and the sublime power of the natural world, and most importantly of all, the beautiful and the sublime power of human relationships.

Article

Culture

Music

Wildness

17 December 2024

6 min read

Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion

How popular music conjures sacred space.

Jonathan Evens

Jonathan is Team Rector for Wickford and Runwell. He is co-author of The Secret Chord, and writes on the arts.

Rapper Stormzy raises a hand to heaven as he sings with a gospel choir on the Glastonbury stage.

Blinded by Your Grace, Stormzy, Glastonbury 2019.

BBC.

In Faith, Hope and Carnage, his book of conversations with Seán O’Hagan, Nick Cave said: “Music plays into the yearning many of us instinctively have—you know, the God-shaped hole. It is the art form that can most effectively fill that hole, because it makes us feel less alone, existentially. It makes us feel spiritually connected. Some music can even lead us to a place where a fundamental spiritual shift of consciousness can happen. At best, it can conjure a sacred space.”

That’s because, as Elvis Presley stated during his ‘68 Comeback Special, "Rock and roll is basically just gospel music, or gospel music mixed with rhythm and blues". Following in the wake of key precursors such as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Rock ‘n’ roll merged Blues (with its spiritual strand) and Country music (tapping its white gospel) while Soul music adapted much of its sound and content from Black gospel. For both, their gestures and movements, and sometimes the songs too, were adopted wholesale from Pentecostalism. Some, such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Sam Cooke, felt guilt at secularising Gospel while others, like Johnny Cash, arrived at a hard-earned integration of faith and music.

All experienced opposition from a Church angry at its songs and influence being appropriated for secular ends. This opposition fed a narrative that, on both sides, equated rock and pop with hedonism and rebellion. The born-again Cliff Richard was often perceived (both positively and negatively) as the only alternative. Within this context the biblical language and imagery of Bob Dylan and Van Morrison was largely overlooked, although Dylan, in particular, spoke eloquently about the influence of scripture within the tradition of American music on which he drew.

However, this changed in two ways. First, the Church began to appropriate rock and pop to speak about Christian faith. David Wells has explained that: “The American branch of the Jesus movement effectively started in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, but there was also a parallel development in the UK that slowly evolved from beat groups performing in church coffee-bars. By 1971, leading British Christian rock band Out Of Darkness were appearing at notorious countercultural gathering Phun City, while Glastonbury introduced a “Jesus tent” that offered Christian revellers mass and holy communion twice a day.”

This development led eventually to the emergence of a new genre, Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) and a consequent oscillating movement between CCM and the mainstream. Mainstream artists such as Philip Bailey, David Grant, Al Green, Larry Norman and Candi Staton developed CCM careers while artists originally within CCM such as Delirious? Martyn Joseph, Julie Miller, Leslie (Sam) Phillips, Sixpence None The Richer, Switchfoot, and Steve Taylor achieved varying levels of mainstream exposure and success.

Second, the Hippie movement expanded the spirituality already inherent in rock music through the visionary aspect of drug culture and a wider engagement with religion which included significant connections with Eastern religions but also, in part through the Jesus Movement, with Christianity. This was the period of songs such as 'Presence of the Lord' by Blind Faith, 'My Sweet Lord' by George Harrison, 'Fire and Rain' by James Taylor, 'Sweet Cherry Wine' and 'Crystal Blue Persuasion' by Tommy James and the Shondells, 'Let it Be' by The Beatles, 'That's the Way God Planned It' by Billy Preston, 'Hymn' by Barclay James Harvest, 'Jesus is A Soul Man' by Laurence Reynolds, 'Are You Ready?' by Pacific Gas & Electric, 'Spirit in the Sky' by Norman Greenbaum, 'Put Your Hand in the Hand' by Ocean, 'Jesus Is Just Alright' by the Doobie Brothers, ‘God Gave Rock and Roll to You’ by Argent, and both ‘My Life Is Right’ and ‘Try Again’ by Big Star.

This was also the period of musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar, Godspell and, from the Jesus Movement, Lonesome Stone and Yesterday, Today, Forever. Among the most interesting, but then relatively obscure, examples of albums connecting faith and music were Electric Prunes’ Mass in F Minor (written by David Axelrod), C.O.B.’s Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart and Bill Fay’s Time of the Last Persecution. Gram Parsons drew heavily on the Gospel music tradition in Country Music, also taking The Byrds in the same direction, while many of the songs of Judee Sill dealt specifically with Christian spirituality.

It was that spirit that was transposed into the feel and flow of rock and soul and it is this that gives rock and soul its affective nature.

With the majority of Soul stars having begun singing in church, many of the most effective integrations of faith and music were also found there, with Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On and the Gospel-folk of the Staple Singers, such as Be What You Are, being among the best and most socially committed examples. Gospel featured directly with Preston, Edwin Hawkins Singers, Aretha Franklin’s gospel albums, and Green's albums from the Belle Album onwards.

The biblical language and imagery of stars like Cave, Leonard Cohen, Dylan, Morrison and Bruce Springsteen began to be understood and appreciated. This was helped to varying degrees by explicitly ‘Christian’ periods in the work of Dylan, Van the Man and, more latterly, Cave. Dylan’s conversion came about through the Vineyard Church movement which also impacted musicians such as T Bone Burnett, Bryan MacLean, David Mansfield, Maria McKee, and Stephen Soles.

Musicians such as After The Fire, The Alarm, The Alpha Band, Burnett, The Call, Peter Case, Bruce Cockburn, Deacon Blue, Extreme, Galactic Cowboys, Inner City, Innocence Mission, Kings X, Lone Justice, McKee, Buddy & Julie Miller, Moby, Over The Rhine, Phillips, Ricky Ross, 16 Horsepower, Mavis Staples, U2, Violent Femmes, Gillian Welch, Jim White, and Victoria Williams rather than singing about the light (of Christ) as CCM artists tended to do, instead sang about the world which they saw through the light (of Christ).

As rock and pop fragmented into a myriad of genres, this latter approach to the expression of faith (which was first articulated by Burnett) continues in the music of Belle and Sebastian, Eric Bibb, Blessid Union of Souls, Creed, Fay, Brandon Flowers, Good Charlotte, Ben Harper, Held By Trees, The Killers, Michael Kiwanuka, Ed Kowalczyk, Lifehouse, Live, Low, Neal Morse, Mumford and Sons, Joy Oladokun, Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, SAULT, Scott Stapp, Sufjan Stevens, Stormzy, The Welcome Wagon, and Woven Hand.

With his latest album Wild God, Cave is using rock music to conjure sacred space. ‘Joy’ begins, “I woke up this morning with the blues all around my head” but its key moment of transition comes when he falls to his knees calling out “have mercy on me please” and “a voice came low and hollow” saying “we’ve all had too much sorrow, now is the time for joy”. In ‘Wild God’, the antidote to “feeling lonely” and “feeling blue” is to “Bring your spirit down” so that He moves “through your body like a prehistoric bird”.

In his examination of the roots of rock and roll, James Cosby notes that the entire purpose of Pentecostalism was to play music that most let its adherents feel the Holy Spirit in their bodies. It was that spirit that was transposed into the feel and flow of rock and soul and it is this that gives rock and soul its affective nature. This is where “the heart, joy and sheer exhilaration of rock 'n' roll comes from” and it may also be “one of the best examples of America’s ability to draw from both the sacred and the secular”.

Many of the artists mentioned above feature on the author's Closer to the Light playlist on Spotify.

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