A Bunch of Amateurs
Kim Hopkins’ documentary about the Bradford Movie Makers should delight all amateur filmmakers.
This is a film about the group known as the Bradford Movie Makers which was first instituted back in 1932 when it was called the Bradford Ciné Club. Such bodies appear to have been very popular in the north of England in times gone by. However, the number still functioning has been much reduced and this film by Kim Hopkins takes an affectionate look at a club short of members and struggling to survive. The picture that has resulted feels very authentic and I can well imagine that any viewers who have themselves participated in such groups will love A Bunch of Amateurs. If it appealed to me much less than that, there are two reasons that explain my response but many may not agree with my view.
Anyone with an intense enthusiasm for amateur filmmaking may be puzzled that my prime reaction to this documentary was to find it deeply depressing. In deciding on what approach she wanted to take, Kim Hopkins has opted for a fly-on-the-wall style which simply observes the members of the Bradford Movie Makers in recent times. Thus, the film focuses on a group that may still meet every Monday but it does so in a ramshackle building and only survives due to its landlord letting the rent fall into arrears. The two central figures, Colin Egglestone and Harry Nicholls, are both elderly and in so far as this film is a portrait of old age the picture painted is a bleak one, be it a decline in health or the deaths of loved ones. Two other featured members of the group bring no cheer to the table either: one is prone to angry outbursts and the other appears to be a sad loner who has a crippled brother. If the other figures are left mainly in the background, Marie, the one newcomer, is given more footage, but her role seems to be as an administrator organising events. In particular a fund-raising gala is set up but disastrously nobody comes, not even the two who have booked tickets in advance thus bringing in income of £10. After that comes Covid and a period when meetings have to be put on hold.
It might well be hoped that the group’s determined efforts to continue would counter all this downbeat content. However, with no look back to the club’s brighter past history, there is no contrast to their present-day struggles and no interview footage is included in which the various members might have made us share their enthusiasm by explaining what filmmaking means to them. Consequently, A Bunch of Amateurs relies strongly on the viewer already having an inbuilt enthusiasm for their craft. Earlier this year we had a very fine documentary, Men Who Sing, which covered comparable ground save that it concerned not amateur filmmakers but a Welsh male-voice choir. That film too studied a group of mainly elderly men that had difficulty in finding newcomers, but it involved the viewer far more and brought out positive elements that made it feel anything but downbeat. Contributing to that was the fact that most viewers can enjoy the sound that a choir makes. Here, in contrast, we are invited to delight in scenes being shot for four films that the group is making including a horror movie and an endeavour to duplicate the opening scene of the 1955 film musical Oklahoma! In the latter case, the elderly Harry Nicholls is the instigator as he seeks to replace Gordon MacRae entering on horseback even though he can't ride a horse. The trickery involved in bringing this off may bring some humour into the proceedings, but even that is muted since one has no wish to laugh at the endeavours of these amateurs even if they feel inept or absurd (in fact it turns out that their Oklahoma! film has a hidden twist but that is only revealed when the finished piece is screened). If what we see of these four projects appeals, then you are the right audience for this film. But, despite the competence of this documentary, I do regard it as a film of specialised interest in the sense that I have explained.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Featuring Colin Egglestone, Harry Nicholls, Philip Wainman, Joe Ogden, Marie McCahery, Andrew Cockerill, Ian Egglestone, Jeannette Wilson, Keith Wilcock, Edmund Davies, David Marshall, Judith Simpson, Ian J. Simpson, Jim Walker.
Dir Kim Hopkins, Pro Kim Hopkins and Margaréta Szabó, Written by Kim Hopkins, Ph Kim Hopkins, Ed Leah Marino, Music Terence Dunn.
Labor of Love Films/Screen Yorkshire/BFI Doc Society Film Fund-Republic Film.
95 mins. UK. 2022. UK Rel: 11 November 2022. Cert. 12A.
