Scum

Some background first... the 'borstal' was a kind of prison unique to Britain between 1902 and 1982, designed specifically to seperate young prisoners from older and institutionalised convicts. The idea was that the system would be more conducive to reform amongst juvenile delinquents but the failure of borstals to be anything other than prisons led to their dissolution in the early 1980s. This film, Scum, was originally filmed in 1977 as a teleplay about the borstal system but the graphic nature of it's content (specifically, violence) drew so much controversy that it was banned by the BBC before even going to air. Director Alan Clarke responded by remaking the teleplay as a film. It remains a brutal and unflinching indictment of a process of institutionalisation that ruined lives and reinforced systems of prejudice and violence in the UK.

Carlin (an incredibly young Ray Winstone) is a new inmate at a borstal, transferred in after having assaulted a warden at a previous borstal. He wants to keep his head down and do his time, but the resident alpha male Banks (John Blundell) feels threatened by his presence and draws Carlin into a power struggle that sees him take over as the 'Daddy' of the inmates. We also follow the stories of other inmates - Davis (Julian Firth), a meek and mild-mannered boy who has 'victim' written all over him, and Archer (Mick Ford), the unlikely 'Steve McQueen' of the borstal.

It should be no news to modern viewers that prisons only serve to reinforce criminal behaviour for the most part... we've seen this process of institutionalisation in the television show Oz and films like The Shawshank Redemption, Animal Factory, Bronson, etc. In Scum it's made patently clear that a chidlren's gaol turns juvenile criminals into real criminals. Unlike most prison dramas, Scum takes a very, very close look at society's need and reasoning for prisons, with particular emphasis on their (in)effectiveness in the quest for reform. I think where Scum rises above films that deal with the subject matter is that it makes no concession whatsoever to what an audience expects from a prison narrative. There's no breakout, no ultimate authority to appeal to, and (most importantly) no real heroes to cheer for.

Take Carlin for instance... he initially draws our sympathy via an identifiable attitude. At first he seems almost frightened to be in a borstal, and he takes on a subservient tone in relating to other characters. His backstory is thoroughly working class, with both he and Archer depicted as class victims forced into the borstal system by their families' poverty. All indications point to Carlin as our hero, but then he makes a violent play for the alpha position within the prison. It's clearly something he needs to do in order to survive, but the (realistic) level of accompanying violence, racism and downright viciousness alienates the viewer and puts them outside the expectation that this is an overtly fictionalised narrative. Scum isn't about Carlin at all, he just represents what happens in these borstals. The film is, first and foremost, about the borstal.

Archer steals most of his scenes as the film's intellectual heart, demonstrating an erudite rebelliousness that decnstructs the prison system and makes its flaws explicit for the benefit of the viewer. Normally such a character would seem like an overly-obvious mouthpiece for the writer but in Scum it's a welcome counterpoint to all the suicide, beatings, rape and bigotry. It also helps the viewer understand the relationship of power behind the system in clear, unarguable terms. Every step and every response of the officers only serve to enforce the balance of power. Their response to a cry for help from a distressed Davis is to ignore it, and their further response to a resulting prisoner protest is to force an epic confrontation... they never once seek to address any problems, they only reinforce them.

Scum is a brutal and confronting film but I'm not sure if I'd call it gratuitous as it has high ideals of education and exposure in mind. It's just the unvarnished and horribly bleak truth, sincerely depicted and thoroughly unforgettable.

DIRECTOR: Alan Clarke
WRITER/SOURCE: Roy Minton, based on the 1977 TV version of the same script.
KEY ACTORS: Ray Winstone, Mick Ford, Julian Firth, John Blundell, Phil Daniels, Philip Jackson.

RELATED TEXTS:
- Scum, the TV film made two years earlier. Some of the supporting cast is different and there's a subplot about Carlin taking on a 'missus'. By most accounts the film version is more graphic.
- Alan Clarke made another telemovie about youth violence in 1982, Made in Britain, which dealt with skinheads and racism.
- I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang was one of the first convict-centric films to affect reformation in a prison system - in this case it was the American chain gangs of the 1920s and 1930s.
- The 1980 film Brubaker also deals with prison reform, this time based on a true story.
- Bad Boys is an American film about juvenile detention that stars a young Sean Penn.