Centered in the Eccentric:

The Imagination of Bill Forsyth



"I'll
tell
you
something,
and
not
a
lot
of
people
know
this.
We
are
clinging
to
the
surface

of
this
planet
while
it
spins
through
space
at
1000
miles
an
hour,
held
only
by
the

mystery
force
called
gravity.
.
.
.
A
lot
of
people
just
panic
when
you
tell
them
that.
They

just
fall
off."

Gregory
in
Gregory's
Girl



"It's
the
Northern
Lights,
Aurora
Borealis:
high
energy
particles
spilling
over
into
our

atmosphere.
They
get
through
the
magnetic
field
where
it's
weakest—at
the
poles."

Marina
in
Local
Hero



A
week
ago,
among
the
new
releases
at
the
video
store,
you
might

have
noticed
a
film,
starring
Burt
Reynolds,
called
Breaking
In.
A
box
office

disappointment,
the
film
appears
to
be
doing
better
on
video:
at
the
local

Blockbuster's,
all
six
copies
are
perpetually
out.
I
had
seen
the
film
in
the

theatre
last
fall:
at
a
Thursday
night
screening—it
was
to
be
replaced
the

next
day—I
was
the
only
patron.
("We
got
one,"
the
ticket
seller
called
out,

seemingly
disappointed,
to
the
projectionist.)
Not
surprisingly,
the
display

box
for
the
video
prominently
displayed
Reynolds'
name
and
image
(uncharacteristically
gray
haired
and,

sans
toupee,
balding).
Only
in
the
small
print
credits
listed
on
the
back
can
you
find
the
name
of
the

movie's
director:
Bill
Forsyth—the
first
and
greatest
filmmaker
Scotland
has
produced.
His
first
film
to
use

someone
else's
screenplay—it
was
written
by
John
Sayles—Breaking
In
was
Forsyth's
sixth
in
a
ten
year

career.

After
a
brief
apprenticeship—working
as
a
go‐fer
for
a
Glasgow
firm

doing
industrial
documentaries,
avidly
watching
foreign
films
in
local
art

houses—Forsyth
had
broken
into
feature
filmmaking
in
1979
with
That

Sinking
Feeling
(1979),
an
absurdist
comedy
about
a
group
of
Glasgow
ne'er‐
do‐wells
who
concoct
and
execute
a
plan
to
burglarize
a
plumbing
supply

house,
stealing
sinks
they
have
no
way
to
unload,
had
been
his
first—
and

also
the
first
feature
film
ever
made
by
a
Scot.
With
Gregory's
Girl
(1980),
a

whimsical
story,
set
in
Scottish
suburbia,
of
a
gangly
teenager's
(Gordon
John

Sinclair)
pursuit
of
the
first
girl
on
his
soccer
team,
Forsyth
quickly
achieved

an
international
reputation.

 The Collected Works of David Lavery 2

Local
Hero
(1983),
a
sardonic
tale
of
an
American
oil
company's
attempt
to
buy
a
small
Scottish

town,
seemed
to
confirm
his
stature
as
a
prominent
contemporary
director.
It
was
also
Forsyth's
first
big‐
budget
film
(costing
2,000,000
pounds
compared
to
Gregory's
Girl
180,000)
made
for
a
major
studio

(produced
by
David
Puttnam
for
Warner
Brothers).
The
more
melancholy
Comfort
and
Joy
(1984)

followed,
a
wry
film
about
a
Glasgow
disc
jockey,
Alan
"Dicky"
Bird
(Bill
Patterson)—host
of
the
"Early

Worm
Show"—who,
in
the
wake
of
being
ditched
by
his
kleptomaniac
lover
during
the
Christmas
season,

becomes
a
mediator
in
a
Mafia‐style
war
between
two
rival
ice‐cream
companies
and
later
an
ice
cream

entrepreneur
himself.




In
a
1983
interview
Forsyth
had
scorned
even
the
possibility
of
working
in
the
United
States,

insisting
that
"America
would
demand
compromises
which
don't
interest
me"
[Brown
160]).
With

Housekeeping
(1988),
however,
he
began
working
in
this
country
and
for
the
first
time
adapted
material

from
another
medium—writing
his
own
remarkably
faithful
screenplay
from
a
widely
praised
novel
by

Marilynne
Robinson.
The
story
of
two
orphaned
girls
(their
mother
was
a
suicide)
growing
up
under
the

strange
guidance
of
their
aunt
(Christine
Lahti)
in
Washington
state
in
the
1940s,
the
film
nevertheless

seems
of‐a‐piece,
in
style
and
content,
with
his
earlier
work.
Then
came
Breaking
In
(1989),
a
film
set
in

Portland,
Oregon
about
an
aging,
polished,
and
very
professional
safecracker's
(Burt
Reynolds)
mentoring

of
an
irresponsible
young
apprentice—a
film
whose
marketers
didn't
even
see
fit
to
publicize
as
the
work

of
the
director
of
Gregory's
Girl
and
Local
Hero,
After
early
notoriety,
Bill
Forsyth
would
appear
after
one

decade
to
be
moving
toward
directorial
anonymity.
His
consistently
inventive,
still
growing
and

developing
body
of
work
deserves
much
better.

On
several
occasions
Forsyth
has
made
clear
his
displeasure
at
the
way
his
films
are
understood.

Darker
and
more
satiric
than
ordinarily
perceived,
they
are
not
merely
comic,
and
he
does
not
think
of

himself
simply
as
a
comic
filmmaker.
"I've
never
really
thought
of
myself
as
a
funny
person,"
he
admits,

"I've
always
tended
to
use
comedy
as
a
disguise"
(Brown
56).
Brown
has
observed
that
critics
"don't
take

account
of
the
persistently
cool
and
detached
style
with
which
Forsyth
presents
his
character's

 The Collected Works of David Lavery 3

obsessiveness,
nor
of
the
ironic
bitterness
which
surfaces
discomfortingly
from
time
to
time
.
.
."
and

blames
the
short‐sightedness
on
"Rabbie
Burns
syndrome"
which
has
tainted
Forsyth
from
the
beginning:

the
idea
of
the
self‐taught
ploughman
poet
who
emerges
from
nowhere
and
wows
the
sophisticated

English
establishment
with
his
innocence
and
simplicity"
(158).

The
sparse
Forsyth
criticism
to
date
has
focused
on
his
Scottishness:
his
place
in/
departure
from

the
portrayal
of
Scotland
in
literature
and
film,
or
on
the
differences
between
his
own
film
style
and
that

of
the
dominant
tradition
of
British
cinema.
(Forsyth,
of
course,
has
encouraged
such
investigation
with

his
admission
that
"The
way
I
go
about
making
films
is
a
reaction
against
what
you
could
call
the

traditional
English
dramatically
structured
film,
and
also,
especially,
the
English
form
of
film
acting.
So
I

suppose
I'm
quite
openly
reacting
against
that.
I'm
doing
that
because
of
the
relationship
that
Scotland

has
had
with
England.
I
suppose
it's
that
inferiority
that
we
feel,
the
Scots
people,
vis‐à‐vis
England"

[quoted
by
Leonard
7].)
Almost
no
criticism
has
sought
to
interpret
Forsyth's
films
in
their
own
right.

The
present
brief
interpretation
of
Forsyth's
work
to
date
is
drawn
from
a
work‐in‐
progress
in

which
I
attempt
to
fuse
the
phenomenological
critical
method
of
the
so‐called
"Geneva
school"
of
literary

critics
with
the
traditional
auteur
approach.
Flying
in
the
face
of
contemporary
critical
trends
toward
the

objective
and
scientific,
the
Geneva
school's
nonformalist,
method
involves
consideration
of
the
whole

work
of
a
creative
mind,
understood
as
a
composite
map
of
its
personal
development:
a
representation

by
means
of
texts,
of
its
evolving
consciousness,
of
its
attempts
to
achieve,
on
the
behalf
of
the
self,

"ontological
integrity."
Within
this
mental
universe,
Geneva
school
criticism
seeks
to:
1)
discover
the

"point
of
departure"
(Poulet)—that
"act
from
which
each
imaginary
universe
opens
out"—which
lies
at

the
heart
of
each
life's
work;
2)
isolate
the
"unit
passages"
(J.
Hillis
Miller)—those
recurrent
obsessions

which
serve
as
the
fundamental
landmarks
of
a
creator's
"interior
distance":
Poulet's
name
for
the
inner

space
of
consciousness,
populated
by
the
objects
of
an
author's
world;
3)
bring
to
light
the
"original
unity

of
a
creative
mind"
(Miller)
by
following
the
"metamorphoses
of
a
circle"
(Poulet):
the
expansions
and

contractions
of
the
self,
recorded
in
the
work,
as
it
explores
and
charts
its
own
inscape.
Where
do
we

begin
with
Forsyth?
What
is
the
point
of
departure
for
his
imagination?



Again
and
again,
in
reviews
and
criticism
of
his
films,
the
word
most
likely
to
be
used
to
characterize
both

Forsyth's
style
and
his
characters
is
"eccentric."
(One
critic,
for
example,
speaks
of
the
"deadpan
matter‐
of‐factness
that
serves
to
set
off
his
eccentric
characters
and
offbeat
incidents"
[Leonard
7].)
If
the

cinematic
world
of
a
Fellini
is
"grotesque,"
that
of
Bill
Forsyth
is
"eccentric."
But
this
eccentricity,
I
want
to

suggest,
is
instrumental
to,
the
natural
bi‐product
of,
the
metamorphoses
of
a
developing
imagination.

The
eccentric,
it
would
seem,
is
not
only
Forsyth's
point
of
departure
but
his
method
as
well.

It
is
certainly
true
that
the
eccentric
is
everpresent
in
Forsyth's
works.
Consider
the
following

random
and
incomplete
catalogue
of
characters
and
events
in
his
films.
A
young
man
tries
to
commit

 The Collected Works of David Lavery 4

suicide
by
drowning
himself
in
a
bowl
of
cornflakes.
A
"telex
man"
talks
to
a
woman
only
ten
feet
away
on

the
telephone.
A
rich
oil
tycoon
(Burt
Lancaster)
hires
a
man
to
insult
him.
A
boy
puts
deodorant
on
over

his
clothes
and
later
uses
a
blowdrier
on
his
arm
pits.
A
marine
biologist
with
a
"magnificent
pair
of
lungs"

turns
out
to
be
a
mermaid.
After
nearly
running
over
the
son
of
his
driver
education
teacher,
a
student

driver
excitedly
inquires
"Was
that
my
first
emergency
stop?"
A
guest
asks
a
hotel
proprietor
for
an

adapter
so
he
can
plug
in
an
electric
brief
case.
Two
men
in
business
suits
both
carrying
briefcases,
stroll

along
a
beach.
A
minister
named
McPherson
in
a
small
Scottish
town
is
a
Nigerian
black.
Two
Scottish

villagers
debate
the
relative
merits
of
a
Rolls‐Royce
and
Mazerati.
A
teenager
tries
to
impress
a
girl
by
1)

informing
her
of
the
speed
at
which
mucus
is
propelled
out
of
the
nostrils
during
a
sneeze;
and
2)

describing
the
process
by
which
veal
is
made.
A
man
pitches
in
to
help
the
movers
carry
out
the

belongings
of
his
ex‐girlfriend,
who
has
brutally
dumped
him
with
no
prior
warning.
Rival
ice
cream

companies
debate
the
mark‐up
on
raspberry
essence.
A
teenage
female
Scottish
punk
rocker
pursues
a

very
straight
young
man
because
"he's
different."
After
masquerading
as
a
woman
during
a
burglary,
a

boy
finds
it
difficult
to
recover
his
normal
heterosexual
identity.
.
.
.
A
partial
list
only.

Of
all
of
Forsyth's
eccentrics,
Housekeeping's
Sylvie
Fisher
may

well
be
the
oddest.
She
haunts
railroad
stationws,
always
ready
to
depart.

("Sylvie
had
no
awareness
of
time,"
Ruthie
explains.
"For
her
hours
and

minutes
were
the
names
of
trains.")
Accidentally
setting
fire
to
the

curtains
while
lighting
birthday
candles,
she
puts
out
the
flames
without

missing
a
note
of
"Happy
Birthday
to
You."
When
a
flood
fills
the
house

with
a
foot
of
water,
she
carries
on
business
as
usual,
fixing
breakfast,

even
dancing
with
Ruthie,
while
splashing
around
in
fishing
boots.

(Finished
with
a
cup
of
coffee,
she
casually
tosses
the
dregs
over
her

shoulder.)
In
her
pockets,
she
carries
broken
crackers
to
feed
to

mysterious
children
she
claims
to
meet
in
the
woods.
Returning
from
one
of
her
trips
to
the
lake
one

afternoon,
her
coat
pocket
contains
a
large
fish.
She
watches
television
through
a
neighbor's
window.

Around
the
house,
she
refuses
to
turn
on
lights
because
she
wants
to
"enjoy
the
evening."
She
collects

newspapers
and
piles
them
ceiling
high
around
the
house.
(In
one
scene
she
cuts
out
an
article
of
interest

from
a
paper
and
pins
it
to
her
dress;
in
another,
she
hands
Ruthie
a
stack
of
papers
to
use
as
a
pillow.)

She
meticulously
cleans
and
stacks
tin
cans.
She
repeatedly
borrows
a
fisherman's
boat
without

permission
and,
when
he
angrily
chases
her,
counsels
Ruthie
to
ignore
him:
"He
always
does
that."
("It

must
be
his
boat,"
Ruthie
suggests.
"Either
that
or
he's
some
sort
of
lunatic,"
Sylvie
replies.)
Sylvie
is
so

eccentric,
she
doesn't
even
know
that
turkey,
not
chicken,
is
the
traditional
Thanksgiving
fare.

The
question
remains,
what
is
this
eccentricity
for?
If
not
mere
Scottish
quaintness,
or
stylistic

signature,
where
does
it
lead?
In
his
work
with
schizophrenics,
R.D.
Laing
became
convinced
that
psychic

 The Collected Works of David Lavery 5

movement
to
get
"out
of
formation"
is
often
governed
by
the
larger
desire
to
become
"in
formation"
with

that
which
is
real.
Seeking
to
sum
up
the
essence
of
Forsyth's
art,
Byron
Leonard
has
observed
that



his
films
define
a
world
of
wanderers
and
daydreamers.
His
characters
are
continually
straying

from
the
well‐worn
path
and
his
stories
mirror
this
in
their
loose,
meandering
structure.
Forsyth

seems
to
be
indifferent
to
the
usual
demands
for
a
straight‐ahead
drive
to
the
climactic
resolution

of
narrative
tensions.
Like
the
protagonist
of
Housekeeping,
he
prefers
to
"wander
off,"
confident

that
this
will
lead
to
even
richer
discoveries.
(7)



This
seems
to
me
entirely
accurate.
Indeed,
the
eccentric
becomes,
for
certain
of
Forsyth's
characters,
the

stigmata
of
a
mythic
quest.
Off
center,
they
seek
the
center.

In
the
traditional
religious
world
view,
Mircea
Eliade
has
noted,
the
center
of

the
world
is
"that
place
where
all
essential
modes
of
being
come
together,
where

communication
and
even
passage
among
them
is
possible."
"The
heart
of
reality,"

"the
extraordinary
place
where
the
real
is
integral,"
the
center
is
not
to
be
found
in

ordinary
space
and
time
but
exists
rather
in
a
"mythic
geography."
Often
an
axis

mundi
of
some
kind,
a
tree,
a
mountain,
a
ladder
symbolically
marks
the
spot:
think,

for
example,
of
the
Buddha
beneath
the
bodhi
tree.

Let's
look
at
three
experiences
of
the
center
in
Forsyth's
films.



Clip
from
Gregory's
Girl
(2:55)



Clip
from
Local
Hero
(4:00)




Clip
from
Housekeeping
(4:35)



In
his
eccentricity
Bill
Forsyth
searches
for,
and
sometimes
finds,
this
center,
and
if
his
characters

never
manage
to
set
up
Housekeeping
there,
if
in
their
metamorphoses
of
a
circle,
they
never
quite

establish
themselves
in
the
real,
it
is,
after
all
a
strange
place
to
build
a
homestead,
unless,
of
course,

imagination
has
first
built
the
foundation.




Bibliography

Brown,
John.
"A
Suitable
Job
for
a
Scot."
Sight
and
Sound
52.3:
157‐xxx.

Eliade,
Mircea.
"The
Symbolism
of
the
Center."
The
Myth
of
the
Eternal
Return:
Cosmos
and
History:

Trans.
Willard
Trask.
New
York:
Harper
and
Row,
1959.

 The Collected Works of David Lavery 6

___
and
Lawrence
E.
Sullivan.
"Center
of
the
World."
Encyclopedia
of
Religion.
Ed.
Mircea
Eliade:
C
165‐
71.

Leonard,
Byron.
"The
Wanderer's
Way."
Facets
Features,
June
1989:
7‐9.

Malcomson,
Scott.
"Modernism
Comes
to
the
Cabbage
Patch."
Film
Quarterly
38.3(1985):
16‐21.

Pym,
John.
"Housekeeping."
Sight
and
Sound
57
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The Collected Works of David Lavery 7