Culture: Cinema

Lord Bates Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I am a working film-maker, a former trustee of both the BFI and the UK Film Council, and a trustee of multiple arts organisations recorded on the register.

I want to address just three points. Last year, the arts community greeted with howls of outrage Culture Secretary Maria Miller’s assertion that we must focus on culture’s “economic impact”. She said that,

“there is no doubt as to the real social and educational case for public investment. But that is never going to be the argument that wins the day”.

She has continued to insist on privileging an economic measure. This value-driven approach misunderstands both the multiple values of art and how the sector operates. The creative economy is a complex ecosystem where the most valuable flowerings may gestate in long and very unpredictable ways.

No number of focus groups or spreadsheets could predict the mainstream success of strip-teasing steelworkers in “The Full Monty”, women’s football in “Bend it Like Beckham” or, indeed, the plasticine chickens in “Chicken Run”. Art seeks not to replicate that which has sold well in the past but to break new ground. Even the most commercial films rely on having actors, directors and technicians who have learnt their craft and rejuvenate their creativity by making subsidised art movies or working in other artistic mediums.

Misunderstanding cultural values, which are crucial to any development of the economic strength of the cultural or entertainment industries, risks undermining the very thing that the Culture Secretary is hoping to promote. The current crop of successes that saw the UK film industry dominate this year’s awards circuit were, of course, commissioned before the coalition was in power. Films take a long time to conceive, to write, to fund, to make and to get to the public. We will have to wait another decade before we can truly say whether the current policy has made the sector risk-averse or has undermined the original and non-commercial sparks that brought the likes of Steve McQueen, Danny Boyle, Alfonso Cuarón and Clio Barnard to prominence.

Last year in this Chamber my noble friend Lord Clancarty questioned the Competition Commission ruling on the Cineworld/Picturehouse merger. Again, by failing to recognise the distinction between an art cinema and a mainstream multiplex, the Competition Commission jeopardised art cinemas in Aberdeen, Bury and Cambridge, despite audience-building and supporting British and specialist cinema being key tenets of the review of the noble Lord, Lord Smith. It was an absurd decision in which there were no winners. Will the Minister now undertake to sit down with the Competition Commission to seek a way that allows the commission to attach a cultural measure when deciding on competition issues in the cultural industries? I am asking not for the Cineworld decision to be overturned, or for an inappropriate representation to an independent body to be made, but for Her Majesty’s Government’s convening power to be used to engage all stakeholders in a process that would deliver cultural breadth and depth of provision of British and specialist cinema right across the UK.

The Cultural Learning Alliance is just one of dozens of organisations to express dismay that for the first time in more than 20 years no mention of film has been made in the new national curriculum. It states:

“This is a real blow, and one that will make it extremely difficult to ensure that young people have the literacy skills to succeed in a world dominated by these forms of communication and expression”.

I am the founder of a charity that pioneered the educational use of film for school-age children, and I am now a founding trustee of Into Film, a new organisation charged with delivering the BFI’s 5 to 19 education offer in schools. We have a community of 8,000 clubs and the 300,000 weekly members are shown to have better communication skills, improved literacy, both verbal and written, and better educational outcomes overall.

We are a nation whose identity is inextricably bound up with the commercial films we produce, from James Bond and “Gregory’s Girl” to “Kes” and “Oliver Twist”. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, does not demand that we consider the value of the commercial industry, which of course contributes £4.6 billion to GDP and provides more than 100,000 jobs; he presents us with a more difficult question about how we might support cinema culture. Implicit in the Question is that culture is different from commerce and that we must support it.

Film is a meeting place of drama, music, literature, technical skills and art. It provides a gateway to other cultural experiences. It is a route for young people to discuss almost any subject. It comes in multiple languages from all corners of the earth, offering a window into our ever-more globalised world. In short, it delivers cultural and knowledge capital, which is desperately needed by the young. Ninety-two per cent of teachers running clubs say that they see the educational benefits, 99% of teachers say that it improves communication skills and 78% of teachers say that it positively impacts on reading and writing. Film is an explosive tool in educating the young. Head teachers need the imprimatur and explicit support of the Department for Education confidently to put film at the centre of the curriculum. Teachers need to be taught to use it effectively and creatively as part of their training. The educational success of using film as a key component of education, with its ability to improve literacy, behaviour and critical thinking, needs formal recognition and protection into the future. Young people are the citizens, audience and film-makers of the future. Her Majesty’s Government handsomely support the creative economy. They need both in voice and in deed now to support the cultural economy. They are not separate but synonymous.

[Lord Bates (Con)]

When the clock hits six minutes, time is up.