The lesson of The Long Good Friday
28 February 2009
On the 30th anniversary of the release of Britain’s best gangster movie, Hardeep Singh Kohli celebrates its eerie prescience
‘I’m not a politician, I’m a businessman with a sense of history... our country is not an island any more...’
Harold Shand; gangster, visionary and entrepreneur. For many, The Long Good Friday is the finest British gangster film ever made. Much as I concur with that recommendation, to describe it as merely a gangster movie is to be excessively reductive.
When I first watched The Long Good Friday a couple of decades ago, I too loved it as a gangster movie; a film bristling with brutality, suffocatingly suspenseful and fulfilling all the criteria for excellent storytelling. Every few years I would dust off the DVD and watch it again; having done so recently with a friend, I experienced the film anew. I realised that beyond the unfolding inexorability of the protagonist’s downfall, there was a significance in the film in terms of the unfolding inexorability of British politics.
The Long Good Friday is the first truly Thatcherite piece of cinema, a movie that predicted the burgeoning growth and development of London into a world city, a magnet for new non-manufacturing business, a city willing to embrace the free market and exist at the very epicentre of a global economy. And it was through the single-minded prosperity of the City of London that the rest of the nation enjoyed the prosperity that followed.
‘What I’m looking for is someone who can contribute to what England has given to the world: culture, sophistication, genius. A little bit more than a hot dog, know what I mean?’
It seems rather apt that The Long Good Friday celebrate its 30th anniversary this year, just as the once new gold dream of London as financial centre of the world lies in tatters at our feet. The dream of Harry Shand brought us to the edge of a precipice, a precipice we have been pushed from: we are still working out whether we have landed or if we are still falling.
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David Short
February 26th, 2009 2:07pm Report this comment"On the 30th anniversary of the release of Britain’s best gangster movie, Hardeep Singh Kohli celebrates its eerie prescience"
What's to 'celebrate'? Or is it just the newly sloppy Spectator misusing the word?
The article is a lot of tripe, too, overstretching to complete incredibility the Thatcherite comparison.
For the Spectator to publish some rubbish likening Thatcherism, which is a by-word for hard, honest work, paying your taxes, doing your duty, balancing the books, with theft, murder and gangsterism, is truly shocking.
And Shand wouldn't have liked Singh very much, I fear, so the latter's admiration is one-way.
David Short
February 26th, 2009 9:14pm Report this commentPS "It seems rather apt that The Long Good Friday celebrate its 30th anniversary this year...
"Harry Shand is the standard-bearer of Thatcherism, but before Thatcherism even existed, before Lady Margaret even had her hand on the tiller of power"
Wrong, wrong....TLGF was released in November 1980, not 1979, and Mrs T had been PM for over 18 months.
And why no mention of the Provisional IRA, the true villains of this film.
I thought the Spectator 'did' politics.
And by the way, many other people would vote Get Carter as superior in the British gangster movie stakes.
At least there was some acting involved for Michael Caine. Hoskins has been playing the same stereotypical Cockney ever since, when he's not doing Tesco commercials.
Matt Ripley
February 27th, 2009 1:51am Report this commentThe Long Good Friday was made before Thatcher was elected, and released thereafter. If it did nothing else it launched the career of Helen Mirren, not to mention gave us East End scum something to aspire to.
David Short
February 27th, 2009 9:13am Report this commentIt was made in 1979, but after Thatcher was elected in May.
ian skidmore
February 27th, 2009 10:32am Report this commentwhat complete rubbish
Stephen Shammer
February 27th, 2009 12:04pm Report this comment"it launched the career of Helen Mirren...."
Didn't I see her - all of her -as Lady Macbeth with the RSC in 1974?
And in the cinema Age of Consent, Savage Messiah and
O Lucky Man! all came before LGF.
Chris Holmes
February 27th, 2009 10:49pm Report this commentThe Long, And Not Very Good, 30-Year-Old Film Review.
Hardeep imitating Art
Julian Hurstfield
February 28th, 2009 5:55pm Report this commentThat was a dreadful article, dreadfully written, about a brilliant film, which could hardly 'echo' the not yet made Godfather3.
It may be worth adding that Shand's remarks after his savage visit to Brixton prefigure the riots, and that the film had distribution difficulties (till George Harrison's Handmade Films came along) since it protrayed a triumphant IRA
Keith
March 1st, 2009 6:43am Report this commentHardeep, if you are going to pretend you know what you are talking about you've got to get the buzzwords right. It is leveraged, not levered.
A. MacAulay
March 1st, 2009 6:49pm Report this comment"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise." But why should we be required to read our way through the process? Please give Mr Singh a commission he is up to.
Marc O'Polo
March 2nd, 2009 6:29am Report this commentExcellent article. Comparisons perhaps a little stretched but a thoroughly good piece. It is a great film.
David Short:"..likening Thatcherism, which is a by-word for hard, honest work, paying your taxes, doing your duty, balancing the books, with theft, murder and gangsterism, is truly shocking." "Truly shocking"?! Keep yer 'air, on!
J W
March 2nd, 2009 9:42am Report this commentMatt Ripley;
" ..not to mention gave us East End scum something to aspire to."
I dare you to travel down White Chapel Rd and say that to the East Enders there.... er, in Bangla probably as that's the native tongue there.
The UK Rocks man!
David Short
March 2nd, 2009 11:49pm Report this commentmarc o'polo, tell us why it is an 'excellent article', or are you just a Spectator staff stooge trying to rebuff the readers? You're outvoted, I think.
And let's not forget it was not released 30 years ago! Sloppy article.
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