Alan Clarke

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Alan Clarke 28 October 1935 24 July 1990 was a television and film director producer and writer born in Wallasey Merseyside England Most of Clarkes output was for television rather than cinema including work for the famous play strands The Wednesday Play and Play for Today His subject matter tended towards social realism especially with respect to deprived or oppressed communities As Dave Rolinsons book see Further reading below on Clarke details between 1962 and 1966 Clarke directed several plays at The Questors Theatre in Ealing London Between 1967 and 1969 he directed various ITV productions including plays by Alun Owen Shelter Georges Room Stella Thief Gareth Edna OBrien Which Of These Two Ladies Is He Married To and Nothings Ever Over and Roy Minton The Gentleman Caller Goodnight Albert Stand By Your Screen He also worked on the series The Informer The Gold Robbers and A Man Of Our Times but not as Sight and Sound once claimed Big Breadwinner Hog Clarke continued to work for ITV through the 1970s but now made much of his work for the BBC This included pieces for The Wednesday Play Sovereigns Company 1970 Play for Today and Play of the Month Distinctive work for these strands included further plays by Minton including Funny Farm 1975 and Scum further details below but also Sovereigns Company 1970 by Don Shaw The Hallelujah Handshake 1970 by Colin Welland and Pendas Fen 1974 by David Rudkin He also made To Encourage the Others 1972 a powerful drama documentary about the Derek Bentley case and several documentaries including Vodka Cola 1981 on multinational corporations A number of his works achieved notoriety and widespread criticism from the conservative end of the political spectrum including Scum 1977 dealing with the subject of borstals youth prisons which was banned by the BBC and subsequently remade by Clarke as a feature film in 1979 the original television version was eventually screened after his death His 1982 television play Made in Britain starring Tim Roth in his television debut as a racist skinhead and his negative relationship with authorities and racial minorities was based on a screenplay by David Leland He directed the feature film Rita Sue and Bob Too released in 1987 Clarkes work in the 1980s is fiercely stark and political including the David Leland plays Beloved Enemy 1981 on multinational corporations and PsyWarriors 1981 on military interrogation But he also directed David Bowie in Baal 1982 for the BBC part of Clarkes interest in Bertolt Brecht His film work became more sparse culminating in Contact 1984 on the British military presence in Northern Ireland Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire 1985 Road 1987 and his short film 40 mins Elephant 1989 which dealt with the troubles in Northern Ireland and featured a series of shootings with no narrative and hardly any dialogue all were based on accounts of actual sectarian killings that had taken place in Belfast The film took its title from Bernard MacLavertys description of the troubles as the elephant in our living room a reference to the collective denial of the underlying social problems of Northern Ireland His final production The Firm 1989 covered football hooliganism through the lead character played by Gary Oldman but also the politics of Thatchers Britain Clarke inspired a generation of actors writers and directors including Paul Greengrass Stephen Frears Tim Roth Ray Winstone Gary Oldman Danny Brocklehurst and Iain MacDonald Filmmaker Harmony Korine has cited Clarke as a major influence on his work Clarkes son is Gabriel Clarke an awardwinning sports journalist with ITV Description above from the Wikipedia article Alan Clarke licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia