Wha's Like Us

The Scots... Well, who's like us?

Over the last hundred years,

film has played a central role

in creating a global image of the Scots.

So, what stories have these films told the world about us?

And what can these characters teach us about ourselves?

And which of our on-screen traits have a whiff of truth?

And which deserve to be pure boiled up in a sheep's stomach

and fed to the Loch Ness Monster?

Go!

Doesn't it make you proud to be Scottish?

-It's sh....

-..great being Scottish -

the most contented, cheerful,

generous, gregarious,

sober, assertive group

ever begat into civilisation.

Some people like the English.

Well, so do I.

But the Scots, well, who's like us?

Tonight, I'm inviting you to quit your cringing Jock

and join me, friends,

as we take a look at how the Scottish soul

has been projected to the world.

# Brochan tana, tana, tana, brochan lom na sughain... #

-The good...

-There's no stopping me now.

..the bad,

and the glorious of Scottish stereotypes.

# If you want my body and you think I'm sexy... #

Because, as the old toast kind of goes, wha's like us?

Damn few indeed, and they're all fictional -

which is probably just as well.

Scotland has been doing a lot of national soul-searching recently,

trying to figure out who we really are.

This isn't some part of the country,

this is Scotland, by Christ!

Luckily, movies have been giving us sweet and salty answers for years.

MUSIC: Matinee by Franz Ferdinand

So, if you only knew the Scots from how we'd been shown on screen,

what would be your first impressions?

BAGPIPES AND ROARING

So, you want some words?

What's this area famous for?

Some really dark, dark humour.

Drunks.

Muggers.

Multiple social deprivation.

Drunken, brawling...

Ah, bastard!

Loud, drunken, ginger...

# I'm so drunk I can barely see... #

Unintelligible...

I'm as good as you are,

bad as I am.

..by painting us really well.

Us miserable sinners.

Douce and very repressed.

There'll be no church for you in Snorvaig today.

Surly, aggressive...

-Behave yourself.

-Tight.

Cannae beat a fish supper.

Get off!

Parochial sort of tartanry.

Could you tell us where we can find the local inn?

-Lots of swearing.

-Shite.

-Bugger off.

-Get tae...

Dour, mean and hard.

That is the stuff I am made of.

What a bonnie nation.

But should we even care about how we're portrayed in film?

I mean, they are just movies, aren't they?

'Amongst the islands of the Scottish Hebrides

'lies the tiny isle of Begg,

'an isolated community

'without any of the advantages of modern civilisation.'

Ehh!

Without even television.

Everybody wants their culture and their country

portrayed in a certain way

that is something you're proud of

or something that makes you laugh or that's recognisable,

because it's a calling card for the world.

And stereotypes can be dangerous if misused,

as illustrated in this terrifying Monty Python sketch.

BAGPIPES BLARE

Read all about it! Read all about it!

Man turns into Scotsman!

He'd always watched Doctor Finlay on the television.

You see, Scottishness starts with little things like that

and works up.

You see, people don't just turn into a Scotsman for no reason at all.

No further questions.

BAGPIPES BLARE

If the past is a foreign country,

it seems that, for many people,

that country is Scotland.

Many early depictions of "Scotchland: The Movie"

feature Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Kilts, tartan and Highland mountains

all looked glorious in Technicolor.

Fellow Scotsmen,

here is my sword.

God defend Scotland!

THEY CHEER

The Highlands are on the march!

Unfortunately, audiences in 1948

proved less willing to march to cinemas

to see David Niven's attempts in the role...

God and St Andrew!

..but Hollywood still loved its Scottish heroes,

especially when you had Robert Louis Stevenson

providing the source material.

Bonnie Prince Charlie, the Stuart heir,

has landed on the shores of his homeland.

The Master Of Ballantrae features a swashbuckling Errol Flynn.

Look at him swashing his buckles.

Although, you suspect, he didn't quite fight as hard

in his attempts to master the Scottish accent.

I'm afraid Mr Bally doesn't care much for talk.

He believes in action.

That's a Scottish trait, isn't it, Mr Bally?

Yes. There have been some who wished it otherwise, though.

King George, for instance.

Yeah, King George.

Ha-ha-ha-ha!

Yeah.

The same year, Rob Roy: The Highland Rogue

is full of the type of Scoticisms

which were fast becoming almost compulsory.

HE ROARS

Highland coos - check.

Berserker pipers - check.

Swashbuckling hunks of masculinity.

One stereotype which is obviously completely true.

Aye, as superhero costumes go,

the kilt is pretty tidy, like.

Albeit, a superpower often seems to be

losing in the most glorious way possible.

BAGPIPES PLAY

The men are coming home.

Aye, but some are not.

We do tend to get a wee bit sentimental in Scotland,

over our history in particular.

When I was a kid and saw films,

like Bonnie Prince Charlie and Rob Roy,

we were all out in the playground

fighting the dastardly English.

And if I could be anybody else,

I'd love to be this character -

Alan Breck from Kidnapped.

Why am I not a bonnie fighter?

The truth is, it wasn't quite the way that history is in the movies

but, hey, as Mark Twain said,

"Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story."

So I'll go with that. I'll go with the movie history.

It's my opinion that the choice of the field, for us, is suicidal.

The first thing my men will find,

when they do awake,

is the enemy on them,

cutting their throats.

In 1964, a ground-breaking television film, Culloden,

questioned these national myths,

showing just how un-glorious

the reality had been.

HORSE WHINNIES

Damn the wee fool.

Scatter...into the mist, find your own way home.

But the appeal of rugged men showing off their knobbly knees

never went away.

In the mid '90s,

Liam Neeson cut a dash as Rob Roy.

There they are!

The honest Highlander fighting for his rights

against corrupt aristocrats.

Well, who wouldn't want the Scots to win?

Especially when all the English characters look like Captain Hook

and act like dastardly pirates while they're at it.

Oh, well.

The great McGregor come to hand at last.

You can think of these films as basically Scottish Westerns,

which, of course, would make the Scots the Indians.

Now, as a McKohli, that makes a lot of sense to me.

BAGPIPE MUSIC BLARES

Slosh.

Here are Scotland's terms.

Lower your flags

and march straight back to England,

stopping at every home you pass by

to beg forgiveness for 100 years of theft, rape and murder.

These films have come to represent Scotland the brand

as much as Scotland the brave...

and few of them loom larger than the biopic of old blue face,

with its mix of stirring speeches,

bloodthirsty battles

and dodgy history.

Go!

There's something about an uprising that fails.

A noble cause that, you know,

failed at the last hurdle.

A failed rebellion becomes romantic.

'They fought like Scotsmen...

'..and won their freedom.'

All of that mythology accrues around Scotland

and I think that's why people get so attached to the Highlander myth.

The prisoner wishes to say a word.

For many, this was indeed Scotland forever!

And ever

-and ever...

-Freedom!

-..and ever...

and ever.

ROARING

GRUNTING

HE ROARS

HE ROARS AGAIN

We're now arriving at Blackness Castle,

the fortress of Black Jack Randall,

where Jamie comes to rescue Claire.

The international appeal of these historical epics

means that film and TV tourism

draws thousands of people to Scotland every year.

Oh, look, there's some there.

Hiya!

Looks great.

HE CLEARS THROAT Tourist.

BAGPIPES PLAY

Hello, everyone, I am Sanjeev McKohli of the clan McKohli.

Welcome to the seat of the clan McKohli.

Can I just ask you all - what youse doing here?

We're here for the Outlander tour.

Ah.

What's an out...lander?

-Jamie.

-Jamie.

-Jamie!

I'll thank you to take your hands off my wife.

Outlander is, of course,

the biggest drama in production in Scotland today.

The series tells a story of Claire,

who falls through a vortex in time to 1743

and, very handily,

takes us back to the most romantic,

scenic and bloody time of Scottish history.

Full of rousing battles...

..arousing love scenes...

and shinty.

BAGPIPE MUSIC PLAYS

Some of us even moved here.

-For Outlander?

-For Outlander.

-And the love of Scotland.

-And the love of Scotland.

Wow.

It's something about that knee porn.

Something catch your eye there, lass?

What about Jamie?

Outlander author, Diana Gabaldon,

wrote the first book before she ever set foot in Scotland,

having been inspired by an episode of Doctor Who,

also starring a hero called Jamie. Hmm.

Try to murder a McCrimmon, would you?

Well, I'll show you!

Creag an tuire!

THEY SCREAM

My heart's in the Highlands!

My heart is not here!

My heart's in the Highlands,

chasing the deer!

In the film Mrs Brown,

Billy Connolly plays a Highlander...

Lift your foot, woman.

..offering his own unique brand of bereavement counselling

to Judi Dench's Queen Victoria.

He really was playing on Queen Victoria's

ludicrous sense of romanticising the Highlands,

because he's just lording it over the rest of the servants.

I'm Her Majesty's Highland servant!

Indoors and out.

There's no stopping me now.

Yet even when taking orders,

we still manage to show our rebellious streak.

Charlie doesn't take cream in his coffee.

That's very sophisticated, isn't it?

Alec Guinness did his best

to be both a rebel and a bully in Tunes Of Glory.

Is that no sophisticated?

Not especially, I shouldn't have thought.

-MIMICKING:

-Not especially, I shouldn't have thought.

Actually, point of fact. You know what I mean, old boy.

THE GREAT ESCAPE THEME PLAYS

In The Great Escape,

Ives uses his time locked up in the cooler with Steve McQueen

to dispense girl advice.

They were the days.

Some of these Saturday nights

in towns like Musselburgh and Hamilton.

HE CHUCKLES

You'd to fight off the birds.

You know, birds.

Girls, man, girls.

You no' have them in the States?

The first time I identified a Scottish person in film

was Ives in The Great Escape.

He kept, kind of, making life hard

for the Nazis and trying to escape.

At the end, after the Nazis discover the first tunnel,

it's as if all hope is gone.

He just cracks up...

..and he goes towards the fence and gets shot to bits.

And Steve McQueen tries to save him,

but it's too late.

D'oh!

Who's running this army, you or me?

Right, now get to work

and don't let me see a speck when I get back!

Leather post.

The first Scot I saw

was probably James Finlayson

and he was a foil for Laurel and Hardy.

BAGPIPES BLARE, HE WHISTLES

He was a master of the double take

and he was this frustrated, angry Scot.

James Finlayson would inspire Homer Simpson's famous...

D'oh!

..catchphrase,

but he's not the only Scottish presence in The Simpsons.

In a possibly fictional poll,

Americans were asked which Scottish character

they most identified with Scottish traits.

The winner - Groundskeeper Willie.

It seems too often our passion is mistaken for aggression.

I mean, maybe Willie just really...likes gardening!

Grow!

Bonjour,

you cheese-eating surrender monkeys!

You offset him against the sort of prim, proper Principal Skinner,

it becomes this brilliant double act between the both of them.

Brothers and sisters are natural enemies,

like Englishmen and Scots!

Or Welshmen and Scots.

Or Japanese and Scots.

Or Scots and other Scots.

Damn Scots!

They ruined Scotland!

You Scots sure are a contentious people.

You just made an enemy for life!

Not so fast, boy-o.

If it was up to me, I'd let you go,

but the lads have a temper

and they've been drinking all day!

Ow! Ow!

'Some Scottish stereotypes are irresistible,

'and the angry Scotsman - pure gold!'

What are you doing in my swamp?!

Some of the most famous Scottish on-screen characters

tend to lose their heid in pretty spectacular fashion.

Jamie!

Ah, the crossest man in Scotland.

'How do you make Malcolm Tucker even more scary

'to the English civil servants he works with?'

This is Toby.

'Give him a sidekick who's equally angry

'and equally Scottish.'

Very pleased to meet you. Please, sit down.

Now, right, that's enough of all the Oxbridge pleasantries.

I was just... What's Oxbridge about saying hello?

Shut it, Love Actually!

Do you want me to hole punch your face?!

COW GROANS

In The Last King Of Scotland,

James McAvoy's impatience...

..leads to a potentially ugly confrontation

with Forrest Whitaker's Idi Amin.

You are British.

Well, I'm Scottish.

I'm Scottish.

-Scottish?

-Yeah.

Why didn't you say so?

I fought with the Scots against the Mau Mau.

Great soldiers.

Would you let me have this T-shirt?

Just as well as he'd packed his Scotland top, eh?

Taps aff.

Thank you.

Scots on-screen were often depicted

as living simple lives

in far-flung corners,

often battling against the intrusions of modern society

as well as the elements.

MIDGE BUZZES But never the midges for some reason.

Year by year, the population's shrinking.

Look what happened to Mingulay and St Kilda.

Islands barren now that once were full of people.

It's every man for himself.

One of the great early Scottish films, which I really like,

is Michael Powell's The Edge Of The World,

which is set on a supposed St Kilda

and it's about the clearance of St Kilda in the 1930s

and the decisions they make to go.

And it's a brilliant naturalistic portrait of Scotland.

Don't worry about me, I know where I'm going!

# I know where I'm going

# And I know who's going with me

# I know who I love

# But the dear know who I'll marry. #

The Powell and Pressburger film

I Know Where I'm Going

stars Wendy Hiller on her way to the Hebrides

to marry a rich industrialist.

But quelle surprise...

How long will the gale last?

Just as long as the wind blows, my lady.

..bad weather interrupts her travel plans...

BAGPIPES BLARE

..as do the charming locals on the Isle of Mull,

forcing her to have second thoughts.

Do you think you could dance the Scottish?

-I think so.

-Good.

-I suppose we ought to go back now.

-Oh, no hurry.

# Macaphee turn the cattle roon Loch Avornin

# Macaphee turn the cattle roon Loch Avornin

# Macaphee turn the cattle round Loch Avornin

# Here and there and everywhere the cows are in the corn

# Waitin at the sheilin Vhari Van mochree

# Waitin at the sheilin Far awa tae sea

# Home will come the bonny boats, Vhari Van mochree

# And home will come the bonny boys, Vhari Van mochree. #

There is no whisky.

TENSE MUSIC PLAYS

Perhaps the most famous portrayal of wily islanders is Whisky Galore.

Whisky.

Uisge-beatha.

In Gaelic, they call it the water of life

and to a true islander,

life without it is not worth living.

The film drew on real life events

and tells of how the islanders of Todday

are saved from a disastrous whisky drought

when a Government supply ship is washed onto the rocks,

laden with the mother lode.

50,000 cases of whisky.

The film portrays the canny islanders

outwitting the English officers supposedly in charge.

It remains one of the most loved Scottish films of all time

and has just been re-made.

Quite a lot of the elements

of early 20th century Scottish stereotype

are present and correct.

Now who'd be saying a thing like that?

The slightly drunk, slightly unruly local.

The figures who are magically cut adrift

or don't seem to respect, at all,

the conventions of how we live in the modern world...

I don't understand what you're saying.

It's a pity I haven't the Gaelic.

..but I think, as viewers,

we're also very aware that they know

that they're playing a stereotype.

They're not the joke,

they're in on the joke

and the joke's being played on someone else.

HE SINGS

# Brochan tana, tana, tana, brochan lom na sughain

# Brochan tana, tana, tana, brochan lom na sughain

# Brochan tana, tana, tana, brochan lom na sughain

# Brochan lom 's e tana lom 's e brochan lom na sughain

# Brochan tana, tana, tana, brochan lom na sughain

# Brochan tana, tana, tana, brochan lom na sughain

# Brochan tana, tana, tana, brochan lom na sughain

# Brochan lom 's e tana lom 's e brochan lom na sughain. #

In America, the film Whisky Galore

was released as Tight Little Island.

Bit racist.

But in France, it was called Whisky A Go Go.

Proves that everything sounds cool in French, even the Scottish!

Not that Orson Welles' laird in Trouble In The Glen

would have agreed.

This is Glen Easan.

We're high in the Highlands, or Heelands,

in an area infested with tribes of hostile savages,

known as Scotsmen,

and situated a good many degrees north of civilisation.

The Scots are often portrayed as a parochial lot,

fighting against the big bad world.

Kailyard might sound like an overpriced hipster cafe,

but it's become shorthand for how Scotland was represented

to the rest of the world for many years.

Your young people have got no entertainment,

not a cinema for miles.

What sort of life is that, my friends,

to be living in the present century?

Oh-ho!

It's a terrible picture he's painting.

I'm afraid that, in your present mode of life,

you're not an asset to Great Britain, you're a liability.

THEY EXCLAIM

Kailyard referred to images of Scotland

that portrayed it as parochial.

Now, don't forget to wear your Black Watch kilt.

No, Mum.

-And don't leave off your underwear until it's really hot.

-No, Mum.

Cut off from the modern world, small town.

I've never left home before.

I've never been further than Perth.

And I didn't like Perth.

Hapless lads, winsome lassies.

You know, you've got to go to the mainland

to find out what's happening to us here on these islands.

Well, you know, I've been living in Begg all my life.

I canny recollect anything happening here whatever.

They certainly weren't something

which you could recognise yourself in.

She must know about cows, chickens and children.

Yes.

No English, Irish or Welsh girls...

and no widows.

BAGPIPER PLAYS "HIGHLAND CATHEDRAL"

One film, above all,

has become shorthand for images of a bonnie Scotland

stuck in the past.

Blimey.

What's that, Simon Callow?

It's Brigadoon!

It's bloody Brigadoon!

# Brigadoon

# Brigadoon... #

Ha-ha! Now, there was a Scottish cliche from Hollywood, wasn't it?

That was...

But I remember just loving it.

And not...

Cos I was a kid, you know, so I didn't feel, "Don't patronise me."

You know? That's it.

Because it was a beautiful musical.

# Salted meat I'm sellin' there at the square, laddie! #

Brigadoon tells the story of a Highland village

magically sent into collective slumber

and awoken 200 years later

with the arrival of two American tourists.

-Look at that.

-What do you know, it looks like a village!

I don't think I've ever, in my life, seen Brigadoon.

I think I was beginning to see it at one point in a hotel

and it just made me feel slightly ill

# Go home with Bonnie Jean

# Go home, go home, go home with Bonnie Jean... #

I will not have a word against it.

It's the most perfect musical ever.

# Go home with Bonnie Jean! #

What is Local Hero if it isn't Brigadoon?

It's the same thing, it's giving up the modern world

to step back into this beautiful idea of a romantic Scotland...

which I think is still there somewhere.

1983's Local Hero

shows American oil executives

meeting wiley Scottish locals

and becoming slowly enlightened by their wisdom.

..wanted to talk to you.

Would you give me a pound note

for every grain of sand I hold in my hand?

Now, you can have the beach for that.

Saved you a pound or two there.

When you had Fulton Mackay with the grains of sand,

there was some kind of sense

that maybe crazy old blokes...

..who were Scottish might know something.

Quiet, please, everyone.

Murdo wants to say a short prayer.

-Lord...

-It's the Yank and the other one!

They're coming across to the church!

Quiet, please, everyone.

Murdo, can you deal with it?

-Oh, God.

-Just head them on.

That film absolutely came out

from those early '40s, '50s movies,

but gave it a contemporary spin.

What was it Gordon Urquhart offered you?

£1.5 million in cash,

plus 2% of relocation fund,

and a share in the oil field revenue.

Strange times, strange times.

CEILIDH MUSIC PLAYS

THEY CHEER

Ah, uisge-beatha,

the water of life.

You'll take a wee sensation before you go, Father.

Aye.

# There stands the glass... #

Right away.

# That will ease all my pain... #

I can die content...

# It's my first one...

..when I finish this whisky.

# There stands the glass... #

Whisky for the gentlemen that like it -

and for the gentlemen that don't like it,

whisky.

You'll take a dram. It's from my own still.

-What is it?

-Whisky, you strayed lamb.

How does it taste?

Mother's milk.

# You're in my eyes

# You're in my dreams

# You're Celtic, united

# And, baby, I've decided

# You're the best thing that's happened to me. #

# Some of them had boots an' stockings

# Some of them had nane ava... #

# There stands the glass

HE GROANS # Fill it up to the brim. #

Quite often it seems that a wee dram

is employed to sharpen the wits,

despite all evidence to the contrary.

Breaking down boundaries,

allowing us to access innate truths.

I'm as good as you are,

bad as I am.

You could almost forget that binge-drinking has its downsides.

Oh, that's boggin'!

Some of the most memorable scenes

featuring Scottish characters,

young and old,

have inevitably involved a bevvy.

Or seven.

When I think of Scotland, I think Buckfast,

I think...

out clubbing,

people strewn across the streets

unable to walk home

cos they're completely incapacitated.

Casual sex.

There probably is some...

..basis for the drunken Scots.

HE EXCLAIMS

We love a party...

and sometimes that party gets a little bit out of control.

There's a movie called The Illusionist

and the lord has put on this show for everyone....

HE GROANS

But he's really positive.

HE EXCLAIMS AND LAUGHS

And the minute he picks a drink up, he goes... "Oi!"

He starts smiling, as if,

"I've got another drink and I'm off."

GLASS SMASHES

It's all right. I'm all right.

Does any man here desire to be consumed by drunkenness?

If you're referring to me, Minister,

I'd rather consume the drink.

I'll step down from the pulpit and run you out of the house of God!

You hulking man of sin.

This is Scotland. You can't have a good time without consequences.

For every party, there's a hangover -

or, as it's called in Scotland...

Calvinism.

The most straight-laced side of our national personality

means that we're often shown as a slightly...

dour bunch.

Singing, dancing, drinking,

and all the violent, evil uses of the flesh!

And few Scottish actors nail that particular character trait

quite like John Laurie.

The wicked shall be destroyed!

This daughter of a rich man and her devilry

defy the most sacred laws of God and man!

She dresses in purple and fine linen,

but her heart is black,

black with sin!

"Vengeance is mine," said the Lord,

"and the retribution will be just!"

Whether in Dad's Army...

We're doomed.

Doomed.

..or The 39 Steps.

I ought not to say that.

What ought you not to say?

You've got a very well-spoken,

soft-eyed English lady

doing a very bizarre accent,

pretending to be Scottish,

but her husband, who's genuinely Scottish

because he's nasty,

is Bible-thumping, mean.

Sanctify these bounteous mercies to us miserable sinners.

Religion and repressed feelings in rural Scotland

also feature in The Brothers.

Telling the story of two families the McFarishes and the Macraes,

who failed to share much brotherly love.

I think there's a feeling that,

even if you have a sunny day,

you will pay for it later.

Let you be accursed

and finally drowned in the stinking cesspool

of your own degeneracy.

But it has managed to create a strength of character in Scots,

I think, that's probably taken us

around the world and done some amazing things.

Be you accursed before me

from your first-born until your last-born.

We can't competently diss it.

There's merit in being dour sometimes.

THEY EXCLAIM

I tell you, she is evil and evil breeds evil in those who meet it.

If there's one man who could out-dour John Laurie,

it has to be...

Duncan Macrae.

You see Duncan Macrae in something like Whisky Galore

where he is wonderfully funny.

HE HICCUPS

And then see a film like The Kidnappers...

Don't eat it, Grandad.

Please don't eat it.

In The Kidnappers,

he's this, sort of, dour Scot.

Harry and me want a dog.

What do you want a dog for?

A dog is no use.

You can't eat a dog.

This stereotype of as being, frankly, a bunch of mean bastards,

I mean, where does that even come from?

You can take my freedom

but you can't take my teacake!

Seriously, don't you even think of unwrapping that.

If you're done with that bit of porridge,

I could just take a sup of it myself.

I don't understand the mean Scottish thing, or not.

I really don't because Scottish people are the most generous.

What are you taking off your boots for, Grandaddy?

For thrift.

It's come from thriftiness, obviously.

You know, of having to be thrifty.

Good night to you, Davey.

Will you leave me your candle?

Did nobody ever tell you that a candle costs money?

Working-class Scottish people are ludicrously generous

but we've had that

stereotype imposed on us.

I don't know why.

It's as if we all come from Aberdeen.

All I want is someone to guide me to the mainland.

Well, that will cost you two shillings.

Altogether, it'll cost you five shillings.

You said two shillings.

Oh, well, find your own way then.

When they're not being all dour and repressed,

Scots like to mix it up

by indulging in a bit of the old pagan celebration

and ritual sacrifice.

By the pricking of my thumbs,

something wicked this way comes.

THEY LAUGH

As usual, we can partly blame an Englishman for this stereotype.

Shakespeare's Macbeth portrayed Scotland

as a placed stalked by witches,

urging on murderous acts.

Tell me, thou unknown power...

The story has been filmed by Roman Polanski...

Macbeth... Macbeth...

..and most recently in a visually stunning version

starring Michael Fassbender.

Is this a dagger which I see before me?

THEY CHANT: Hail Macbeth! Hail Macbeth!

Hail Macbeth!

Hail Macbeth!

In the 1970s classic The Wicker Man,

a policeman is sent to investigate a community

on a remote Hebridean island...

..only to find a strange free-loving cult led by Christopher Lee.

The policeman's strict moral code

is put to the test by Britt Ekland

doing an erotic voodoo dance.

It is time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man.

You are about to commit murder.

No!

I'm pretty sure this never happened to Taggart.

Jesus!

According to this image of the Scots,

we're all living on the dark side of the toon.

Have you never fought?

You goddamned evil misty Jocks.

But when it comes to a metaphor for the darkness

that all of us Scots have lurking in the deep,

well, it's hard to beat, perhaps,

the most famous Scot of them all.

Boys! Boys!

I've seen it.

This is Secret of the Loch.

The first film based on the Nessie story,

featuring steampunk technology

and a, frankly, bored looking monster...

..played by an iguana.

Right, haud the bus.

Surely, these stereotypes contradict each other.

I mean, how can we be pagan and presbyterian?

Glorious fighters who always seem to get beaten.

It seems like we're a harmony of opposites, but without the harmony.

And who are you, anyway?

I'm your Scottish, disgusted subconscious.

Obviously, a bit too high of a concept for your programme,

but please carry on.

Thanks.

At least we're consistent in our inconsistency.

In Sunset Song,

Chris Guthrie struggles with her own split personality,

torn between love of the land

and her ambitions to become a teacher.

Two Chrises there were...

that fought for her heart.

The story recently got a big-screen remake

having previously been adapted as a television series.

She represents Scotland insofar as there are two Chris Guthries,

the English Chris and the Scottish Chris,

and there's always a certain amount of...

..struggle between the two.

Long after all our little vexings are dead and gone,

the wind'll come sailing over the Grampians

and the land will still be here.

One famous east coast icon

did fulfil her ambitions to become a teacher -

and in some style.

Created by Muriel Sparke

and brought to life onscreen by Maggie Smith...

Well, it's hard to think of Edinburgh

without thinking of Miss Jean Brodie.

You girls are my vocation.

If I am to receive a proposal of marriage tomorrow

from the Lord Lionel, King of Arms,

I would decline it.

I'm dedicated to you in my prime.

Such a strong, strong character

that includes a lot of elements of Scottishness.

Dour with a twinkle in the eye,

very brisk and very in control, and no-nonsense.

That would not be education

but intrusion

from the root prefix "in" meaning in

and the stem "trudo", I thrust -

ergo, to thrust a lot of information into a pupil's head.

She was a force to be reckoned with

and there is many women like that,

in Scotland, who would terrify you and terrify men,

and terrify anyone.

You little girls must be on the alert

to recognise your prime at whatever time it may occur,

and live it to the full.

Another stock stereotype of the Scots

is our status as a nation of engineers -

which, to be fair, is warranted as we did, after all,

invent the entire modern world.

Including that wee magic box you're watching, by the way.

GLASS CLINKS Set engines to opt.

Doing just fine.

The most important Scottish person on screen

was Scotty from Star Trek.

There is none more important, frankly,

in history and never will be.

You told me you could have the ship operational in two weeks,

I gave you three, what happened?

I think you gave me too much time, captain.

Very well, Mr Scott, carry on.

How many times do I have to tell you the right tools for the right job?

It was this strange thing, which was other people's idea of us.

Scotland was the land of engineers

and, frankly, it was set in the future

and maybe that will be a Scottish accent.

I mean...

Are you from the future?

Yeah. Here and now.

Well, that's brilliant. Do they still have sandwiches there?

As well as sending a Scot into space,

films have also given us the chance

to extend our famously warm hospitality

to extraterrestrials visitors.

-Come on, professor.

-I'll go, too, my dear.

You best stay here.

1954's Devil Girl From Mars

tells the story of an intimidating alien

who arrived in Inverness-shire to bring back men to her planet...

..because, obviously,

if you are looking for prime physical specimens

to replenish your population,

there's no better place to look than Scotland.

You fools!

Do you think you can hurt me with this?

Even your limited intelligence

should convince you by now that you cannot harm me.

We're just simple folk up against...a strange power.

The 2013 film Under The Skin

starred Scarlet Johansson on a similar mission,

except her spaceship is cannily disguised

as a Transit van driving around Govan

as she tries to entice random Glaswegian men

who, you suspect, couldn't quite believe their luck.

Do you think I'm pretty?

Aye, you're gorgeous.

-Do you?

-Aye, definitely.

Scarlett Johannson's alien

is without any sort of empathy at all.

It is simply a predator.

Until that starts to change

and you like to think it's her encounters

with the people in Scotland she's met

that have changed that.

Lost.

-What are you looking for?

-I'm looking for the M8.

Up to the roundabout...

Just go through the tunnel, it's the other side.

How hard is it?

Numpty.

It wasn't just spaceships

that the Scots were experts at building, of course.

In films of the 1950s,

Glasgow was portrayed as a modern, industrial city -

the engine room of the British Empire.

Or Sodom and Gomorrah, depending on your perspective.

The boy's folk have worked this farm honestly for 200 years

and now you're at him to leave it?

For what?

A Sodom and Gomorrah?

A lot of noise and temptation.

There's a couple of smashers, eh?

Where?

In Flood Tide, Gordon Jackson's character leaves the farm

and heads off to the city to make it as a shipbuilder.

Fancy your chances with that lot?

If you like.

Through hard work, he quickly rises up the ranks

and even snags the boss's daughter.

But a dalliance with an old flame,

bad girl Judy,

threatens to ruin it all.

-Mary.

-David, you must come down to the yard at once.

-Who says so?

-Quiet. What is it, Mary?

-Your ship's in danger...

-Who in hell do you think you are?

-Judy!

-Blasted stuck-up snob!

I'll mark your dial for you.

Calvinism klaxon. KLAXON BLARES

See what happens when you have fun, Davie?

Bad things happen.

By the 1970s,

the pictures of urban life

were changing with the times.

Becoming much less sentimental

and often brutally realistic.

That's Duncan McCafferty.

All right, then. Back the way we came.

You don't go back.

We started to see another character beginning to re-occur on screen.

The Glasgow hard man.

Yer maw.

McCafferty...

..you tea's out.

Come ahead, McQuillan.

March with the right!

Quick march!

FLUTE MUSIC PLAYS

The pictures of Scots on-screen

began to change when we started to tell our own stories.

Writer Peter McDougall told the world

about a working-class Glasgow

that had never been seen before.

Just Another Saturday

takes a hard look at sectarianism and violence,

and was shocking for its time.

There was a breakthrough with these films, like Just Another Saturday,

and being able to see life

as it was lived for most Scots in the cities.

I've been looking for you, kid.

-Oh, aye?

-My brother was arrested

and got a hell of a hammering aff your pals this afternoon.

Now I'm going to have you.

Oh, bugger off!

You couldn't have your wife if she was sedated.

Haud on, you too.

Forget it, pal. Us three's Catholics, the same as yourself.

John's just daft boy and he's bevvied.

He didn't have anything to do with your brother.

I'm not joking, son.

I'm going to damage you!

The Big Man, based on the book by William McIlvanney,

tells the story of a former miner

lured into the world of illegal bare-knuckle boxing.

INDISTINCT YELLING

Having experienced perhaps the most degrading humiliation possible

for any Scottish man,

having your wife stolen...

by Hugh Grant.

In my own career, I've found, over the years,

that I kept getting offered a lot of...

Well, shall we say,

hard men?

Come on! Come on! Finish it up.

Get your own.

And finish your drink, I'm not going to tell you again.

'And I really enjoyed playing hard men, to be honest with you,

'because it also gave me a bit of a buzz

'knowing that I was making a damn good living'

out of all the guys who were, like, thugs and bullies

and made my life a bloody misery when I was a boy.

I was channelling them

and using them.

Thank you very much. Kerching!

Are you going to give me trouble?

You bastard!

NOW! Finish your drinks, please!

That's time!

But few of these hard men were as intimidating

as Emma Thompson's character

in The Legend Of Barney Thompson.

Seeing as you're here, you can give me a lift to the Barras.

It's my bingo night.

Naw, I'm sorry, Mum. I can't.

I'm actually quite busy.

You maybe didn't hear me.

It's my bingo night at the Barras!

She was grotesque.

Absolutely fabulous.

Fantastic.

And, in a sense, you know,

there's the sort of cliched Glasgow woman,

in a way,

but...

when you play her to the hilt,

like that, it was just hysterical.

Get up!

Look at you! Big bubbly bairn.

You make me sick.

Be a man for once, will you?

"Oh! Mummy!"

"Oh, Mummy! We want pudding!"

-"Mummy!"

-Shut up!

-SHE MOCKINGLY SOBS

-"What about me?"

-Stop!

-"Me want cuddles, Mummy!"

# Heaven

# I'm in Heaven... #

It's not always easy being a Weegie in the movies,

especially when you're a kid.

Small Faces tells the story of Lex and his brothers...

..as they try to negotiate being teenagers

in the Glasgow ganglands of the 1960s.

-How old are you, son?

-13.

-You?

-16.

You're awful wee for 16, Gorbals.

I smoke a lot.

Lynne Ramsay's film Ratcatcher

also painted a harsh, but beautiful,

depiction of a Glasgow childhood.

Ratcatcher...

That was, for me, a really major film.

You just saw emerging a lot more

really confident film-makers

telling their stories.

I suppose it's personal for me because of my background.

My family came from Parkhead

and moved to Easterhouse

and the journey the wee guys goes, on the bus, out to the new scheme.

When he looks out the window and he sees the field...

It's sad. It's so beautiful.

So, have these hard-bitten, kitchen sink dramas

become a new sort of Scottish stereotype?

HORN BLARES, SHE WHIMPERS

I hear more people complaining about Scotland being depicted as rundown,

another gritty drama from Scotland,

and I find that sad.

You all right?

Just because things are real life

doesn't necessarily make them bleak and depressing, and grim.

Well, that's tough because that's the way a lot of people live.

THEY CHEER

The energy of Glasgow and its people

has drawn director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty

to make five films set in the area.

-Sacrilege, man.

-What?

A Brazil strip?

They were born to play in the strip.

Sacrilege.

The most successful Scottish films, for me,

are when they get the balance right

between the grittiness and the reality,

and the fun and the energy

of being working class.

I am a Glaswegian,

Pakistani,

teenager, woman...

woman of Muslim descent...

who supports...

..Glasgow Rangers in a Catholic school!

Cos I'm a dazzling mixture

and I'm proud of it.

TRAIN HORN BLARES

In 1996,

one film would harness that working class energy

and turn it into one of the most iconic Scottish films ever made.

Imagined as an extreme version of an American teen movie,

it nailed a needle-shaped stake

through the perceptions of Scots

being a bunch of tartan-wearing shortbread munchers.

Doesn't it make you proud to be Scottish?

It's shite being Scottish!

We're the lowest of the low.

The most wretched, miserable,

servile, pathetic trash

that was ever shat into civilisation.

Some people hate the English.

I don't. They're just wankers.

We, on the other hand, are colonised by wankers.

Can't even find a decent culture to be colonised by.

I can't really overestimate

the impact of Trainspotting on my generation

and what was strange about that was it came a year after Braveheart,

which was also massive.

Alba gu brath!

One was, sort of, stately

and the other was this punk stoating about.

And the language was ours.

People get all hung up on details - like, which school did I go to?

How many O-grades did I get?

Could be six, could be none.

It's not important.

What is important is that I am,

yes?

The story of urban heroin addicts

seems as far away as possible

from whisky-soused country folk...

..or is it?

There's a lot of substance abuse

in Scottish cinema.

By Trainspotting,

the whole country seems to have graduated onto heroin

as very much an escape from reality.

# Nightclubbing

# We're nightclubbing. #

I think there's definitely an argument that can be made

to say that Trainspotting is Kailyard with club beats.

Whisky Galore becomes heroin galore.

And, again, we see incredibly unscrupulous,

wild, wily,

unruly locals

who refuse to respect the rules

by which the game of modern life is played.

THEY SING

A comparison that didn't go unnoticed

by the writers of The Fast Show

in their "heroin galore" sketch.

BAGPIPES PLAY

So, how have the Scots been depicted on screen when it comes to romance?

Full of quirky humour,

Gregory's Girl is a teenage coming-of-age story

that portrays the girls as being vastly wiser than the hapless boys.

-Well, I feel like a human being again.

-Aargh!

Look, I've got to go home. I really enjoyed the walk.

You go that way, right? And I'll go this way. See you.

It was like, "Oh, I could know these people.

"These people could live on my street."

Don't be stupid. Come on, you're worse than my dad and he's old.

At least he's got an excuse for being a prick!

Do you know that, when you sneeze,

it comes out of your nose at 100 miles an hour?

It's a well-known fact.

100 miles an hour.

HE MIMICS SNEEZING

Just like that.

I don't think there has been a single week in my

life that has gone by

without somebody quoting me a line

from Gregory's Girl,

talking to me about it.

Bella! Bella!

And I didn't actually see the film in its entirety

till last year and I understood why people loved it.

I loved it.

I'll start it off, you just join in when you feel confident enough.

OK?

I think it's a universal story

of what it's like to be young

and not quite know what the rules are.

When it comes to on-screen romance,

it's clear that Scottish women

often don't have it easy.

Another Time, Another Place tells the story of a young woman

on the Black Isle in the 1940s.

She falls in love with an Italian prisoner of war

who makes her farmer husband look very...

well, Scottish, in comparison.

What sort of time of night is this to be coming back anyway?

I'm sorry, Dougall.

I'm sorry.

Och!

Scottish men do kind of get a bit of a rap

as not being as in touch with their feelings,

as opposed to Italian men, French men, Spanish men -

they've got this language of love

that some Scottish men seem to not have.

Bella!

There was one role model who suggested

that this was...

AS SEAN CONNERY: "..surely some kind of mistake.

"Single sausage supper.

"Sorry, Sean."

I must be dreaming.

-Sean.

-I'm delighted to be here.

To discover, as well, that his real name was Tam.

What's your name?

James.

What a hero he became

and everybody started to do that accent, but...

which then Irvine then picked up on

and really used strongly for Sick Boy,

thinking in a Sean Connery accent.

-AS SEAN CONNERY:

-Do you see the beast?

Have you got it in your sights?

Greetings!

I am Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez.

Some people talk about Connery's Bond -

and that doesn't mean very much to me, to be quite honest -

but Connery in Highlander, cool as, man.

Cool as. There can be only one.

Let yourself feel the stag.

Its heart...

beating.

HEART BEATS

It's blood coursing, feel?

Feel?

Come on, then! MacLeod, come on!

And as for the Scots not being emotional,

ladies and gentlemen,

I give you a Scottish man crying.

I'm all right.

I'm no crying like a bairn, I'm bawling like a hero!

HE SOBS

# My heart was broken

# My heart was broken

# Sorrow

# Sorrow

# Sorrow

# Sorrow... #

I cannae take this.

-I'm no' going to do it!

-For Christ's sake, shut up!

THEY SCREAM WITH LAUGHTER

There's one thing that cannot be denied.

When it comes to humour with an edge,

nobody does it better than us.

There is an extreme darkness

to the Scottish sense of humour.

Heid! Paper! Now!

Move that melon yours and get the paper, if you can.

Hauling that gargantuan cranium about.

I'm not kidding, that boy's head's like Sputnik.

It's not bleak. As long as you're making fun, it's not an insult.

That was offside, wasn't it?

He'll be crying himself to sleep tonight,

on his huge pillow!

What can you say about Orphans?

I think you'll find she's too heavy.

She ain't heavy, she's my mother.

When we were filming,

it wasn't funny -

but when I saw it, Jesus Christ!

It so darkly hilarious.

PEOPLE GASP

Of course, there is one Scottish film stereotype

that is guaranteed to get us doing a song and a dance.

Orders, please!

Ah, yes. The ceilidh.

There always has to be a ceilidh.

Other forms of dance are available.

I'm quite partial to the slosh, myself.

According to film, well,

us Scots like nothing more than a bit of swinging.

Come on, lassie, wee and sober.

Come on!

CHEERING

It has this ability

to completely destroy any inhibitions that you have.

If a man doesn't wear a kilt, I don't call it dancing.

Give us hard men and ceilidhs, that's what I say.

-Are you dancing?

-Aye! I'm dancing all right. Come on.

That is the stereotype of us

but it's the one that we should be most proud of.

THEY SHOUT

New Year really does personify everything that's great about us.

I have no doubt, Duncan,

you have composed a suitable verse

in honour of this great occasion.

Och, no.

Come on, Duncan-boy, let them have it.

-Here, Duncan.

-Ah, man, man.

A nation can only survive as an idea through culture.

All of these films that we've been talking about

and the sum of that is Scotland.

# Kind friends and companions

# Come join me in rhyme

# And lift up your voices

# In chorus with mine

# Let's drink and be merry

# All grief to refrain

# For we may or might never all meet here again... #

Who's like us? We're complex,

a beautiful mess of contradictions.

Stereotypes?

Best enjoyed when we're laughing at them.

But, hey, if the kilt fits, why not wear it?