Tuesday 24 February 2009

Film and the mainstream issue

Watching a private screening of Stiletto before Christmas, it was noticeable how its square target at mainstream audiences disregarded its deaf input.
Stiletto (www.stilettofilm.co.uk) is a murder mystery thriller, centring round a hapless artist (Tom Harper) who tries to avert a supposed crisis initiated by a well-groomed sultry blonde (Beth Winslet). A classic homage that directly references its grant-maker - Apex Arts and Film London/Waltham Forest’s Hitchcock Production Fund – it’s a nicely crafted short that makes great use of the colour red as a recurring motif alerting us to impending danger.
Stiletto’s production team constituted a deaf director working with an entirely hearing cast and crew. This achievement may not necessarily seem that unusual in a population context. Skillset’s estimate that deaf and disabled people constituted 2.3% of the wider media workforce in 2003 should be treated with caution: for one film-maker openly declaring his deafness, several may underplay theirs. Choosing instead to work quietly ‘from within’, some may even dissociate themselves from any whiff of deaf culture whatsoever.
Not so William Mager, Stiletto’s director. Shorts like Hope and Betrayal (both 2002), and collaborations with Jonathan Reid (2003’s Text, Batteries and Earwax and its 2007 sequel, The Association) and Remark! (Reservoir Wolves, 2001), indicate a long-lasting bond with the Deaf Community that he clearly values.
Mager has, of course, worked on The Culture Show, Crimewatch and Waking The Dead as well as BBC TV’s See Hear. This edge over many of his deaf competitors is what gives Stiletto its polish, making it arguably the most high-profile of his three ‘hearing’ shorts so far - which made its inclusion in the 2008 Deaffest programme all the more odd, given how it stood apart from all those cosy Deaf films.
Talking to the director recently, he took pains to stress the need to prove his mainstream capabilities, worrying that placing a deaf character in Stiletto might imply “a “comfort zone” of working with deaf actors, which would perhaps limit my opportunities.”
Breakthroughs for deaf filmmakers are certainly rare. Interviewed by The Times in South Africa recently, Louis Neethling highlighted the difficulties of ‘transcending being labelled’: “Making films about deafness isn’t very glamorous and therefore a very small budget is given when you work in these fields. So you learn to get the most out of very little.”
Neethling is nonetheless determined to see more openly deaf people in mainstream film roles, setting up Mutt & Jeff Pictures for that purpose: “Why do we have to stick to issue-related or medical storylines? Why can't we have deaf actors in everyday-life stories?”
Mager doesn’t share Neethling’s passion in quite the same way; he would much rather be developing two discrete strands: “Deafness is always going to be part of me and the films I make.
“But I also have strong mainstream ambitions in the long term, and some of the stories I want to tell are rooted in other aspects of my life, such as Sheffield, where I grew up, and East London, where I live now.”
This is rather like attending a partially hearing unit within a mainstream school, spending half the time with deaf schoolchildren, half with hearing. A ‘dual identity’ then emerges where you conform by presenting two contrasting faces to each world.
Being only half-true to yourself most of the time, however, risks losing you both audiences eventually. Why shouldn’t Mager look into incorporating this duality into one, singular, theme? Revelations of an interest in European arthouse recently may appear to contradict his avowed fervour for going ‘mainstream’, yet could provide new inspiration for quirkier film-making tactics.
Let’s not forget all those mainstream films that have been derided for being too afraid to be unconventional in their portrayals of disability: Rainman, Forrest Gump, guilty all. By placing his multiculturalism in a mainstream context, William Mager could be setting himself the challenge of his entire career: entertaining both audiences to the full.

Since the column went to print, Stiletto was selected to appear in Tokyo Short Shorts, an international film festival in Japan next June. Tokyo Short Shorts is an official qualifier of short films for the Oscars and BAFTAs, and every film that competes for the festival’s awards is eligible for submission. The Hearing Times would like to congratulate William Mager, his cast and crew for this huge achievement.

(c) Melissa Mostyn 2009