Review

Culture

Digital

Film & TV

28 June 2023

5 min read

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

18 October 2024

5 min read

Jack White’s breaking the biggest rule in rock 'n' roll

What if the greatest cultural moments were the ones barely anyone saw?

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen and co-host of its Re-enchanting podcast.

A close-up of the black label of a blue vinyl record

If one of the most famous rockstars on the planet is playing the best shows of his life, and no one is there to witness it – is he really playing them?

I ask because Jack White, one of the most celebrated and iconic musicians of the 21st century, is playing the best shows of his career. The thing is, barely anyone knows that they’re happening. Not because they don’t care, but because he’s made it that way.

This is White’s ‘No Name’ tour: a critically celebrated string of shows that almost nobody is going to.

And therein lies the magic.

In the summer of this year, he released his ‘No Name’ album with no press, no marketing, and no apparent plans for a tour. Instead, Jack released this body of work into the world and simply told his fans to tell their friends about it – ah, word of mouth, the marketing strategy of old.

It must have worked, because the nameless album was incredibly well received by critics and fans alike. Apparently, the ever-enigmatic Jack White has still got it. And now finally – finally - some live shows are being announced.

Kind of.

Each show is being announced only days in advance, the marketing is non-existent, the venues are tiny, and the tickets are… affordable.

What is this? Some kind of cruel trick?

It’s all so odd, so seemingly illogical, that Jack has had to confirm that this is it. This is no trick, no gimmick. This is, in fact, the tour. Reassuring his fans via social media, he wrote

‘Lotta folk asking about when we are going to announce ‘tour dates’, well, we don’t know what to tell you but the tour already started at the Legion a couple of weeks ago… People keep saying that these are ‘Pop up shows’ we’ve been playing, well, you can call them whatever you want, but we are on tour right now.’

He added,

‘These are the ‘shows.’ We won’t really be announcing dates in advance so much, we will mostly be playing at small clubs, back yard fetes, and a few festivals here and there to help pay for expenses.’

And that’s exactly what he’s been doing. One such show recently took place in Islington Assembly Hall in London – and it’s been hailed as some kind of ‘off-the-cuff wizadry’. That’s quite the review, isn’t it? What’s more impressive: it’s pretty much the only kind of review he’s been getting. I’ve dug deep, and I’m yet to find someone who was in that hall who didn’t leave it completely bewildered by how dazzling of an experience it was. Jack is disobeying all the rules, and it seems to be working in his favour. While on stage in Islington, he told the crowd,

‘This is the kind of rock’n’roll you’re not gonna get at Wembley stadium for £400’

This is an obvious swipe at Oasis’ reunion tour, which will take place next year in stadiums across the country. The tickets to these shows caused somewhat of a storm, as fans were simply priced out of what will no-doubt be a momentous string of events. And this isn’t the reality for Oasis fans alone, ticket prices across the board rose 23 per cent in 2023, which sits on top of the 19 per cent rise in prices since the pandemic. And we in the UK and Europe still have it far cheaper than those in the US. While I was at Taylor Swift’s (not at all cheap) Era’s tour earlier this year, I met a girl who had flown from New York to Cardiff, she explained that doing so was cheaper than trying to watch the same show in New York.

It’s utter madness.

Live music shows are becoming bright and shiny sensory extravaganzas, and the amount it costs to witness them is reflecting that. And listen, I’m not bashing these mega-sized shows. I go to my fair share of them. I look forward to one day telling my grandchildren about that time I nearly got Oasis tickets.

But I can’t help but feel that the real magic is happening elsewhere. It’s happening in the tiny venues, witnessed by tiny audiences, who have paid (comparatively) tiny prices. And I think Jack White’s intimate ‘No Name’ tour might be proving me right.

In 1975, Bob Dylan similarly defied all the ‘rock-star’ rules and embarked upon the now-mythic ‘Rolling Thunder Revue’ tour. For eight months, Dylan drove a tour bus (yes, he actually drove his own tour bus) full of his friends into small towns with small venues. The marketing for each show consisted of paper flyers that were handed out mere days before the event, as if a travelling carnival was about to rock up. It was unusual, to say the least. These shows were notoriously messy, and long, and changeable, and odd.

In short, they were great. Truly great.

The modesty and mystique of it all meant that these shows have passed into legend – the live recordings of these performances are regarded as some of Dylan’s very best work. And so, surely, both Dylan’s and White’s defiant tours teach us something - they teach us that there’s a good kind of small. Indeed, there is a great kind of small. They suggest that ‘big’ doesn’t necessarily (and certainly doesn’t exclusively) equate to ‘success’.

What if rumours, reviews, and recordings of a show played to 2,000 people could have more impact than a show played to 100,000? What if the intimacy and connection formed in town halls and tiny clubs rippled into the decades to come? It’s an upside-down way to think of things, but what if the greatest cultural moments were the ones barely anyone saw? What if (and stay with me here, especially you swifties. I’m one of you) these mega-tours are actually quenching creative mastery? What if the smartest thing an artist could do was defy all the rules? What if humility is the source of all greatness?

We seem to have got to a place where we’re surprised that Islington Assembly Hall could be the backdrop to Jack White doing something truly special. And so, I wonder - it’s proper counter-cultural stuff, but do we need to learn to not despise the small things?

Are Jack and Bob the odd ones, for kidding themselves into thinking that small can still be successful? Or are we the odd ones, for ever assuming otherwise?