History

The first film screening in Scotland took place at the Empire Palace Theater (now Empire Theater) in Edinburgh on April 13, 1896, four months after the first world screening, which was held in December 1895 in Paris by the Lumière brothers. The cinema quickly became popular in the country, first shown in various places, from churches to music halls, specialized theaters proliferated until Glasgow reached the highest density of cinemas in the kingdom at the end of the First World War. The largest cinema in Great Britain opened its doors in 1930: Green's Playhouse, now destroyed. This early enthusiasm for the seventh art led to the first edition of the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 1947, making it one of the oldest in the world (Cannes began in 1946). It was originally dedicated to documentaries, but as the festival grew in popularity, it quickly opened up to fiction. It was founded by John Grierson (1898-1972), leader of the British Documentary Movement.

The magic of the islands and the Highlands

In 1986, the cult film Highlander (Russell Mulcahy), starring Sean Connery and Christophe Lambert, featured immortal warriors. The action takes place at Eilean Donan Castle. This fairytale setting near Kyle of Lochalsh was also used as a backdrop for James Bond's adventures in The World is Not Enough (Michael Apted, 1999), while Duart Castle, on the Isle of Mull, was used for certain scenes in Haute Voltige (Jon Amiel, 1999), starring Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. The Highlands appear again in Skyfall, another film in the James Bond saga, directed in 2012 by Sam Mendes, which was intended as a return to the character's roots. The setting chosen to represent the Bond family's manor house, "Skyfall", in the film is none other than Dalness Manor, located in the Highlands, which belonged to the family of Ian Fleming (1908-1964), the writer of the famous saga from which the films are drawn. The story had come full circle. Filmed in the Highlands valleys of Glen Nevis and Glen Coe, Braveheart (1995) tells the story of the historical figure William Wallace, played and directed by Mel Gibson, and triggered a massive influx of tourists to the area. This success was matched by that of Rob Roy (Michael Caton-Jones) the same year, about the famous Trossach fighter played by Liam Neeson. The Harry Potter episodes have also been filmed in quick succession since 2001, each using a different Scottish setting to enhance the magic of the film. One of the first scenes in Ridley Scott's Prometheus (2012) begins with images of The Old Man of Storr on the Isle of Skye. Rebelle (Mark Andrews, 2012), an animated film from Pixar Studios, recounts the tribulations of a young Scottish princess in the wild and mysterious lands of the Highlands. More recently, Macbeth (Justin Kurzel, 2015), starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, also offers his vision of Scottish landscapes as hallucinatory battlefields of mist, blood and flame. The sumptuous landscapes that shaped Celtic legends are again featured in the TV series Outlander (Ronald D. Moore, 2014), in which a woman travels back in time to the end of the Second World War. She finds herself transported to 1743 Scotland, in the midst of the Jacobite rebellions. The male lead is played by a Scottish actor: Sam Heughan. Scotland also attracted Lars Von Trier, who directed Breaking the Waves (1996). In a small village in the north of the country, Bess marries Jan, who works at an oil station. This young woman, as pious as she is fragile, comes up against the violence of a world ruled by men, of whom she is the prey. This film truly stands on the borderline between these two experiences of Scotland in cinema. Between mystical landscape and industrial setting, social violence puts legends to shame. In 2021, Belgian director Bouli Lanners chose the beautiful Isle of Lewis to shoot his film L'Ombre d'un mensonge.

Against enchantment, a harder realism

Despite its enchanting landscapes, Scotland suffers from sometimes harsh social conditions, which film-makers have largely taken up. Ken Loach has always tried to give an image of an industrial and working class Britain, often impoverished. Scotland is at the heart of several of his films, the most famous of which are Sweet Sixteen (2003), Just a Kiss (2004), and The Angels' Share (2012). Paul Laverty, the screenwriter of Sweet Sixteen won the Best Screenplay Award at Cannes. Just a Kiss (2004), set in Glasgow, tells the love story of a son of Pakistani immigrants and a young Catholic teacher. The Trainspotting series, the first part of which (1996) has gained a cult following, points to the ravages of drugs in Edinburgh from the 1990s to the present day - for the second part (2017). In this line of dark works, Rubbish! (Jon S. Baird, 2013) tells the story of a depressed policeman's setbacks in the capital. It is an adaptation of a book by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh.

The revival of Scottish cinema

The beginning of the 21stcentury marks a revival for Scottish cinema. In 2001, director Lynne Ramsay won an Oscar for her film Morven Caller. In 2011, she directed We Need to Talk about Kevin, with Tilda Swinton in the lead role. The Last King of Scotland (2007) by Kevin MacDonald tells the true story of a young Scottish doctor, played by James McAvoy, who goes to Uganda and becomes close to King Idi Amin Dada. Perhaps the most original gesture of Scottish cinema remains Jonathan Glazer's quasi-experimental film, Under the Skin (2013), in which Scarlett Johansson plays an anthropophagous alien. From the suburbs to the open spaces, we cross contemporary Scotland with her. The spectator walks through this territory with the coldness of the alien whose adventures he follows.

Some famous actors

Among the most famous Scottish actors are Sean Connery (1930-2020), known (among other things) for his portrayal of British secret agent James Bond; Robert Carlyle (1961), crowned by the success of The Full Monty in 1997; and Ewan McGregor (1971), who starred in Trainspotting, played Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars Episodes I, II and III, and also has the lead role in The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski, 2010).