Better Things (2008 film)
Encyclopedia
Better Things is a 2008 film written and directed by Duane Hopkins
. Set in present day rural England
, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other. Noted for its precise, painterly compositions, meticulous editing and bold approach to sound design, Hopkins’ debut is a lyrical and honest look at intersecting lives, loves and losses in rural England.
.
An intensive casting process then started in and around the West Midlands where the film was set. Hopkins built on the real-world casting techniques he had employed in his earlier short films, concentrating on ordinary people whose experiences were similar to those of his written characters, and whom he also found photographically compelling. As the film explores the issue of heroin addiction and the physical and emotional functions of drugs for the user, Hopkins cast several young people who themselves had been addicted to heroin.
Shooting was conducted on location over 6 weeks in October and November 2006.
, May 2008.
, chosen as one of Film Comment Selects
best films of 2009, and shortlisted for The Guardian
's First Film Award 2009.
It was, however, also attacked in some quarters for its supposed bleakness and unrelenting tone.
Many favourable critics responded to what they found to be the film’s visual beauty, and an innovative cinematic reworking of the British Social Realist
form. Variety
compared the film in different ways to works by American photographer Nan Goldin
(particularly her Ballad of Sexual Dependency), and the British directors Lynne Ramsay and Alan Clarke
. The film journalist Richard T Kelly referred to Bruno Dumont
and Robert Bresson
in his appreciation of the film’s approach.
Other critics drew visual and thematic connections to Romanticism
, noting imagery "reminiscent of Gainsborough
or Constable
– to grandiloquent, tempestuous shots evoking Caspar David Friedrich
, and the bold style of other late Romantics". Vilhelm Hammershøi
is similarly referenced, as well as "the film’s most vivid and direct quotation – that of Henry Wallis
’ Chatterton". Much was made of the film's perceived stylistic innovations that moved away from the traditional British Social Realist modes of Loach
or Leigh
whilst still rendering avowedly realist characters and subject matter. With Better Things Hopkins was positioned as part of a 'British New Wave' of directors, alongside Steve McQueen
and others, demonstrating that there was a 'new generation of British cinema coming to the boil'. This thread was later taken up in New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, with a detailed analysis of contemporary British realist cinema that used Better Things as a point of entry in discussing how 'the likes of Hopkins, Andrea Arnold
and Lynne Ramsay can be seen to adopt an approach that places a greater emphasis on the poetic potentials of realist imagery at the expense of social-political didacticism'. Other critics found a strong vein of social intent in the film and emphasised its uncommon vision of life in present day rural communities; in hailing a 'steelily impressive debut' the Radio Times
stated that "Duane Hopkins's first feature is a compelling and highly credible insight into the deterioration of life in rural Britain". Better Things won several awards and nominations internationally following its premiere at Cannes
, including the FIPRESCI
Critics Award for Best Film at Stockholm International Film Festival
.
Duane Hopkins
Duane Hopkins is an English film director, artist and photographer, best known for directing the independent film Better Things .- Career :...
. Set in present day rural England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the film presents a multi-narrative tale following the young and old on their journeys of withdrawal and commitment to each other. Noted for its precise, painterly compositions, meticulous editing and bold approach to sound design, Hopkins’ debut is a lyrical and honest look at intersecting lives, loves and losses in rural England.
Production
Hopkins began work on the screenplay for Better Things in 2003, and in 2004 was awarded the MEDIA New Talent Award for Best Screenplay by an under 35 year old at the Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
.
An intensive casting process then started in and around the West Midlands where the film was set. Hopkins built on the real-world casting techniques he had employed in his earlier short films, concentrating on ordinary people whose experiences were similar to those of his written characters, and whom he also found photographically compelling. As the film explores the issue of heroin addiction and the physical and emotional functions of drugs for the user, Hopkins cast several young people who themselves had been addicted to heroin.
Shooting was conducted on location over 6 weeks in October and November 2006.
Release
Better Things premiered in the official selection of International Critics' Week at the Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, May 2008.
Critical reception
The critical response to Better Things was overwhelmingly positive, with the film reviewed as Film of the Month in Sight and Sound magazine, film of the week in Le MondeLe Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
, chosen as one of Film Comment Selects
Film Comment Selects
Film Comment Selects is an annual program hosted by the Film Society of Lincoln Center and curated by the editors and writers of Film Comment magazine. It aims to provide a cutting-edge lineup of eclectic and international films, many of which have appeared on the international film festival...
best films of 2009, and shortlisted for The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
's First Film Award 2009.
It was, however, also attacked in some quarters for its supposed bleakness and unrelenting tone.
Many favourable critics responded to what they found to be the film’s visual beauty, and an innovative cinematic reworking of the British Social Realist
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
form. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
compared the film in different ways to works by American photographer Nan Goldin
Nan Goldin
Nancy "Nan" Goldin is an American photographer.-Life and work:Goldin was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the Boston, Massachusetts suburb of Lexington, to middle class Jewish parents whose ideas, moderately liberal and progressive, were put to the test when on April 12, 1965 their eldest...
(particularly her Ballad of Sexual Dependency), and the British directors Lynne Ramsay and Alan Clarke
Alan Clarke
Alan Clarke was a television and film director, producer and writer, born in Wallasey, Merseyside, England.Most of Clarke's output was for television rather than cinema, including work for the famous play strands The Wednesday Play and Play for Today...
. The film journalist Richard T Kelly referred to Bruno Dumont
Bruno Dumont
Bruno Dumont is a French film director. To date, he has directed five feature films, all of which border somewhere between realistic drama and the avant-garde. His films have won several awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Two of Dumont's films have won the Grand Prix award: both L'Humanité and...
and Robert Bresson
Robert Bresson
-Life and career:Bresson was born at Bromont-Lamothe, Puy-de-Dôme, the son of Marie-Élisabeth and Léon Bresson. Little is known of his early life and the year of his birth, 1901 or 1907, varies depending on the source. He was educated at Lycée Lakanal in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, close to Paris, and...
in his appreciation of the film’s approach.
Other critics drew visual and thematic connections to Romanticism
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
, noting imagery "reminiscent of Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape painter.-Suffolk:Thomas Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woolen goods. At the age of thirteen he impressed his father with his penciling skills so that he let...
or Constable
John Constable
John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
– to grandiloquent, tempestuous shots evoking Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich
Caspar David Friedrich was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscapes which typically feature contemplative figures silhouetted against night skies, morning...
, and the bold style of other late Romantics". Vilhelm Hammershøi
Vilhelm Hammershøi
Vilhelm Hammershøi , often written in English Vilhelm Hammershoi , was a Danish painter. He is known for his poetic, low-key portraits and interiors. In 1997, Denmark issued a postage stamp in his honor.-Life:...
is similarly referenced, as well as "the film’s most vivid and direct quotation – that of Henry Wallis
Henry Wallis
Henry Wallis was an English Pre-Raphaelite painter, writer and collector.Born in London on 21 February 1830, his father's name and occupation are unknown. When in 1845 his mother, Mary Anne Thomas, married Andrew Wallis, a prosperous London architect, Henry took his stepfather's surname. His...
’ Chatterton". Much was made of the film's perceived stylistic innovations that moved away from the traditional British Social Realist modes of Loach
Ken Loach
Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...
or Leigh
Mike Leigh
Michael "Mike" Leigh, OBE is a British writer and director of film and theatre. He studied theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and studied further at the Camberwell School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design. He began as a theatre director and playwright in the mid 1960s...
whilst still rendering avowedly realist characters and subject matter. With Better Things Hopkins was positioned as part of a 'British New Wave' of directors, alongside Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen (artist)
Steve Rodney McQueen CBE is a British artist and filmmaker. He is a winner of the Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival, a Turner Prize and BAFTA.-Early years:...
and others, demonstrating that there was a 'new generation of British cinema coming to the boil'. This thread was later taken up in New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film, with a detailed analysis of contemporary British realist cinema that used Better Things as a point of entry in discussing how 'the likes of Hopkins, Andrea Arnold
Andrea Arnold
Andrea Arnold OBE is a filmmaker and former actress from England, who made her feature film directorial debut in 2006 with Red Road.-Early TV work:...
and Lynne Ramsay can be seen to adopt an approach that places a greater emphasis on the poetic potentials of realist imagery at the expense of social-political didacticism'. Other critics found a strong vein of social intent in the film and emphasised its uncommon vision of life in present day rural communities; in hailing a 'steelily impressive debut' the Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
stated that "Duane Hopkins's first feature is a compelling and highly credible insight into the deterioration of life in rural Britain". Better Things won several awards and nominations internationally following its premiere at Cannes
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, including the FIPRESCI
FIPRESCI
The International Federation of Film Critics is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world for "the promotion and development of film culture and for the safeguarding of professional interests." It was founded in June 1930 in...
Critics Award for Best Film at Stockholm International Film Festival
Stockholm International Film Festival
The Stockholm International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year in the second half of November...
.
Awards and nominations
- Winner: FIPRESCI (Critics’) Award for Best Film, Stockholm International Film FestivalStockholm International Film FestivalThe Stockholm International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year in the second half of November...
2008 - Winner: Best Cinematography, The Golden Brigg Kiev 2009
- Winner: SIGNISSIGNISSIGNIS is a Roman Catholic lay ecclesial movement for professionals in the communication media, including radio, television, cinema, video, media education, Internet and new technology. It is a non-profit organization with representation from over 140 countries...
Award for Best Film from World Catholic Association for Communication, Alba Film Festival 2009 - Winner: MEDIA New Talent Prize for Screenwriting 2004
- Nominated: Camera d’Or, Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film FestivalThe Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
2008 - Nominated: Michael Powell Award, Edinburgh International Film FestivalEdinburgh International Film FestivalThe Edinburgh International Film Festival is an annual fortnight of cinema screenings and related events taking place each June. Established in 1947, it is the world's oldest continually running film festival...
2008 - Nominated: Diesel Discovery Award, Toronto International Film FestivalToronto International Film FestivalThe Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
2008 - Nominated: Finnkino Prize, Helsinki Film FestivalHelsinki Film FestivalThe Helsinki International Film Festival - Love & Anarchy is a non-competitive film festival held since 1988 in Helsinki, Finland, yearly in September. The festival promotes the artistry of filmmaking, the inventive, visually stunning and controversial new films, revealing the promising talents of...
2008