Fortnight Publications Ltd.

TV's Limits Test Critical ViewerAuthor(s): Mark RobinsonSource: Fortnight, No. 249 (Mar., 1987), p. 29Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25551123 .

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Fortnight March 29

TV'S LIMITS TEST CRITICAL

VIEWER

Mark Robinson

SEEING THE other person's point of

view is often taken as a benchmark of

understanding, although the clear present ation of uncomfortable viewpoints has

always caused great difficulty for tele

vision companies. Watching television

last month there were three programmes which related to our situation and which

exposed the limitations of television in

dealing with highly charged subjects. Anne Devlin's Naming the Names

(BBC2) is a story of kthe Troubles' seen

exclusively through the eyes of a young Belfast woman, Finn McQuillen.

Through flashbacks the film offered an

explanation of how Finn could befriend,

sleep with and then lure her lover to his

death. Such occurrences are received in

Britain with a horror and incredulity fuel

led by sexist and racist assumptions. Where the film gets into difficulties is in its need to play to a British audience

in whose grasp of recent events it ap

pears to have little faith. The historical

comments and references placed in the

characters' mouths must ring hollow to

people who still live here and have any kind of an eye and ear for the rhythms of Belfast. That is plain bad art. But the

clash of this didactic strain with the

psychological drama being played out

within Finn gives rise to a more serious

problem. If Naming the Names is seen as an

attempt to show the effect of events on

an individual woman one could then go on to argue how well or badly it was car

ried off. But British viewers particularly are quite likely to be looking for in

sights into the events they read about in

the papers. If the film is viewed in this

way, then rather than contribute to an

understanding of the issues it will only confirm prejudices about the unbalanced

nature of those who continue to present their case through violence.

Anyone who doubts the staginess of

much of the dialogue in Naming the Names has only to listen to the Belfast

shipyard workers talking in David Ham

mond's documentary Steel Chest,

Nail in the Boot and the Bark

ing Dog (C4). Subtitled 'A Story of the People told by the People', the film is at its best when it simply lets people talk. David Hammond and his team have

a feel for the ordinary things which can

say so much about a community's iden

tity and values ? like the scenes in an

old-fashioned barber's shop, or shots of

workers and their families looking into

a shoe shop window. A feel also for the

visual impact of the shipyard itself, and

of the work practices inside.

Jack (Mick Ford) soothes domestic tension with Finn

(Sylvestra le Touzel) Ordinary people talking directly to

their audience without much apparent mediation by the film-makers produces

in Steel Chest a very clear self-image of shipyard workers. Some local viewers

will have been interested by this

glimpse of a world from which they have largely been excluded; others will

have provided their own commentary on

what they were watching. For a wider

audience the issue is whether the self

image being projected is justifiable. The skill of the film-maker in this kind of documentary is in coaxing from those

taking part as rigorous and critical a self

appraisal as possible, and in providing a

context for the viewer.

Something of the same challenge faced

Eamonn McCann in his report on Libya for Diverse Reports {CA). A difficult task

was not made any easier when series

editor Philip Clarke virtually washed his

hands of the programme by patron

isingly informing viewers that McCann

was *a committed socialist' and that his

report would be an attempt to see things from a Libyan point of view. This does

little service to the pluralistic concept of Diverse Reports or to the credibility of Channel Four.

Any connection between a report on

Libya and the concerns of people in Ire

land may appear tenuous in the extreme,

yet McCann's interview with Colonel

Qathafi was in one sense the most relev

ant piece of television of the month.

Relevant because it offered its audience a

choice: to listen or not to listen. To lis

ten to what Qathafi was saying about

Libya's history of poverty and foreign domination and the attitudes and feelings

which have resulted, of how American

pressure was "charging us up like a

bomb", and of how it was producing "a

generation who would retaliate".

Or not to listen, but to go on dis

missing Qathafi and others as psycho

paths intent on mindless destruction.

BELFAST WOMEN'S AID

provides support and refuge to women and children who have been physically, ment

ally or sexually abused. We are keen to involve more women

VOLUNTEERS in this demanding but

rewarding work. Drivers aged 25 or over for minibus and

helpers for children's play sessions and outings are part

icularly needed at present.

Please contact:

Angela Courtney 143a University Street

Belfast BT7 1 HP Phone: 249041/249358

Monday and Tuesday 9.30-1.00

Wednesday and Thursday 2.30 5.30

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