newcastlecentric

It would be a safe assumption to say that never before has a production company or film crew been so hell-bent on using Newcastle as a set location on account of its beautiful architecture and clean streets, but there’s a first for everything.

The clean and friendly streets of the city centre have been held hostage to the shoot of the highly esteemed Bollywood production Kaun Bola, featuring Bollywood legend, Arshad Wasi.

But as filming in our city comes to an end next week, we think it’s worth taking a look back at what attracted the average film maker of the 20th Century to venture north for the sake of cinema.

Stormy Monday (1988) Directed by Mike Figgis
Never again we’d imagine, will this fine city play host to the star studded presence of Hollywood A/B-listers Tommy Lee Jones and Melanie Griffith.

What were they doing here, you ask? Well, chuck in Sean Bean, Sting, 1980s Tyneside infrastructure and a helping of violent crime and you’ve got yourself a northern English movie. Again, crime and the roughly thrown together organisation of it, as well as gangsters, prostitutes and overall corruption are the pivotal themes at play.

Never an industry to eschew the unrelenting force of the US Dollar, Stormy Monday was urged to cast the American stars in exchange for a helping of cash (in contrast to the modest Channel 4 budget it was working with previously) which would secure the success of the film both in Britain and overseas.

Funny then that the film’s principal story line should work around the idea of wealthy and American investors arriving in Newcastle to kindly offer their financial services on a regeneration project, wanting nothing more than domination and unyielding power in return.

Thanks America, what would we do without you?

Get Carter (1971) Directed by Mike Hodges
London-dwelling gangster, Jack Carter returns to the sketchy northern streets of his youth to attend the funeral of his brother.

Suspecting foul play, he risks life and limb at avenging the suspected murder of his long gone sibling, culminating in a scene that we know all too well, involving that legendary, multi-story car park and the late Brian Mosley being flung to his demise.

Being one of the most iconic and renowned works of cinema to have been filmed in the region, Get Carter is still viewed in cult status, as is the famously clunky, concrete tower that is worshipped by film boffins, Michael Caine fanatics and copious amounts of pigeon shit; yet despised by most po-faced town planners and anyone over the age of 65.

The bleak and run-down streets of Newcastle were perfect however, some say, at capturing the depressingly derelict and cash poor atmosphere of the North and lest we forget the constant need for culture to remind us of that on-going north-south divide.

Though a tale of an angry brother who seeks to employ violent tactics in order to roll out a bit of rough justice for the sake of a fraternal bond? Sounds like the bare bones of many an Eastender’s storyline perhaps.

Purely Belter (2000) Directed by Mark Herman
No gangsters, Americans or southern influences here, but if you thought you’d happened upon a non-violent, cinematic Geordie creation, you’re a fool.

Here we have local actors Chris Beattie and Greg McLane as a couple of football obsessed teenagers at the heart of a Newcastle United season ticket acquisition journey. Cue get rich-quick schemes and good old fashioned tomfoolery.

Sounds like a delightful, Jim Carrey-inspired cat and mouse tale doesn’t it? Well not quite. Aside from the theft of kind-hearted football ace, and man of the people, Alan Shearer’s car, the story deals with the harsh realities of domestic violence and child abuse as a sub-plot.

Goal (2005) Directed by Danny Cannon
Mexico meets Monument with a brief stop-off in the United States in this FIFA approved football flick.

When a young and talented football fan shuffles his way across the US border from Mexico with his down-trodden family, he begins to pave the way for a new life as an illegal immigrant in the Land of opportunity.

That is until an ex-footballer/talent scout glimpses a bit of potential in the young lad’s keepy-uppy technique and whisks him off to northern England for Newcastle United try outs.

Santi, the young Mexican with promising skill, has not only got a bare-faced, negative minded thief for a father, but a list of obstacles as long as Keegan’s period of resignation that may keep him from reaching his life long ambition.

But in a Billy Elliot-inspired finale, all’s well that ends well so we can safely assume that not everyone in Geordie cinema meets a disappointing or gruesome end, providing of course that they’re from a different part of the world.

So just in case anyone was daft enough to think us northerners have a bit of fun amidst dodging violent crimes, standing in the dole queue and letting financially advantageous southerners chip away at our hardened spirit, cinematic history thus far is here to nip that in the bud, cos nowt good ever happens up north, well, at least not to the northerners.

We’ll have to see what becomes of Arshad Wasi and the Bollywood gang for an insight into what the future holds for Newcastle’s place on the Silver Screen.

Photo by > sieg on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

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