MovieChat Forums > Nil by Mouth (1998) Discussion > Other Council Estate Films

Other Council Estate Films


Nil By Mouth was shot on a council estate and so was part of Clockwork Orange but what other films were shot on and revolved around council estates?

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[deleted]

Sweet Sixteen
Goodbye Charlie Bright

but none of them beat this film

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check out all of shane meadows stuff... and penny woolcock's 'tina' films... sweet sixteen as mentioned above is a good example... try tracking down 'just a boys game' as wll... overall though- far too many to mention

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meantime & wonderland - both are fantastic

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check out all of shane meadows stuff

Yes definitely check out his work.

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Mike Leigh's All or Nothing (2002)...

This is your receipt for your husband...and this is my receipt for your receipt.

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[deleted]

i also liked it, but it's not at all easy to watch...and i definitely agree--Timothy Spall and Lesley Manville were fantastic...

This is your receipt for your husband...and this is my receipt for your receipt.

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all or nothing - I hated it - sometimes Mike Leigh gets it right and sometimes he is way off the mark - I'm not sure why he focuses so much on teh working classes when it is world he has never been a part of and knows nothing of. Loved 'meantime' and 'life is sweet' hated 'All or nothing''.

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"Lesley Manville were fantastic"

And of course the link is......
Lesley was Gary's first wife and mother of his eldest child..... ta da

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mike leigh was a middle class boy who lived in a fiercely working class neighbourhood for his entire upbringing... he'll have some idea about the working classes- but yes, still an 'outsiders' view

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but even his view of the middle classes is patronising and simplistic. Sometimes actors like Tim Spall and Alison Steadman can create amazing characters in Mike Leigh films and sometimes the actors miss completely and produce 1 dimensional dummies like lesley manville did in High Hopes - almost unwatchable

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[deleted]

Kes i think

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www.myspace.com/jacob_u2

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no that's Ken Loach who is a far superior film maker to Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh films:
Meantime
Naked
vera Drake
High Hopes
Life is Sweet

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sorry, what has Mike Leigh got to do with anything?
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www.myspace.com/jacob_u2

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can't you read?

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oh i see you're replying to a poster before me. well that's fine, don't insult me about it by asking such a dumb *beep* question. just remember to press 'reply' to the person you want to reply to, not to me, you dumb *beep*

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www.myspace.com/jacob_u2

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I take it you are around 15 judging from your limited ability to utilise the English language and your propensity to foul language. Come back when you are ready to actually discuss something you little t w a t

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ahahahahahaha!

i do love trolls on these boards

no, you know my age because you went on my myspace

i'm told off for foul language while you can say t w a t?

and i came to discuss the film Kes being set on a council estate like Nil By Mouth. when you replied to MY post about something completely different and i couldn't comprehend why you accused me of not being able to read.

you know what? i don't know why i'm arguing with dicks like these that generalise only teenagers to swear. i'll be the real *beep* adult here right now and walk away

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www.myspace.com/jacob_u2

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If you don't want people to look at your My Space don't post it.

No you're not an adult because you're fifteen but one day you'll have s e x with someone other than yourself and you'll be a little less angry at the world. Bless you my child.

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Anyway, back to the matter in hand.

"La Haine" is an excellent French film set on a council estate in the Parisian suburbs.

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Beautiful Thing was shot on the same estate as part of Clockwork Orange

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Thamesmead, not a pretty place.

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District 13 is set in the equivalent of a council estate.

and jacob, if you'd read page one of this thread, you'd have seen they were discussing a Mike Leigh film.

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I didn't like District 13. and yeah, if you read all the posts you'll see i realised that soon enough and the other dude ended up being a bit of a twonk about it. people on these boards don't understand that if you want to reply to a person, you press reply on their thread, not on the most recent poster every time

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www.myspace.com/jacob_u2

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what is a twonk?

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oh dear they keep deleting your posts - I wonder why? what could you be saying?

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[deleted]

French cinema at the top of its game.

I've been tasting roads my whole life.http://drunkenoncelluloid.blogspot.com

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The setinf of Trainspotting looks like 'Council Estate' to me.

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Rita and Sue and Bob Too.

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by alan-morton Rita and Sue and Bob Too.

A classic Alan Clark film, who was a British director who died way too young in his life, but still spawned some seminal working class-based dramas (which equates to UK Council estate themes) with some of the biggest names in British acting: Scum (Ray Winstone), Made in Britain (Tim Roth) and The Firm (Gary Oldham and NOT Tom Cruise!) are his best known works, but there are little known TV dramas like the adaptation of Jim Cartwright's play The Road and his Play for Today one-offs like Christine, the story of a heroin addict.

As for other Council estate-based films, they don't get much more realistic than Ken Loach's Raining Stones, which was shot on Langley council estate just down the road from myself in Middleton, Manchester. The film even had multiple roles being played by members of the family who "run" the whole estate, showing how authentic Loach intended the finished movie to be.

Another couple of Loach's best are Riff Raff which is about people working 'cash-in-hand' on building sites and My name is Joe which revolves around an ex-alcoholic.

Don't forget Alan Bleasdale's superb Boys from the Blackstuff TV series from the early 1980s, which captured the destruction of Council estate working class communites under Thatcher's Conservative Government at that time.

Also, as others have said, anything by Shane Meadows but in particular Twenty-Four Seven.

Finally, Paddy Considine's first directed film, Tyrannosaur has plenty of the poverty-class ethos Nil by Mouth originally showed us, acted superbly by Peter Mullan, who is the lead in the above mentioned My name is Joe.

All well worth tracking copies down for purest poverty class Britain!
The Boiling Rage: letting off steam in the Fishbowl of Life

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Thanks for a great post!

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watch Harry Brown (2009)

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Fish Tank and Red Road are two really good films set on council estates. Both directed by the amazing Andrea Arnold. In fact her short film Wasp is also incredibly worth watching. Unflinching, harrowing yet somehow also beautiful.

I'd like to know if there are any really cheery films set on council estates? Beautiful Thing is quite uplifting but it does have its dark moments. Mike Leigh's High Hopes is fairly optimistic too, actually. Any more?

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As an American I don't quite understand the negativity portrayed and talked about with "council estates". We have something called "public housing" (among other names) which is for the poor or low income folks but many of the folks who live in them are just hard working people who don't make much money and are not crooks or working under the table at cash jobs.

However, a number of them are gang infested hell holes consisting of non-employable people. Especially in large cities. In most areas now there are "inclusion" deals where developers are able to get low interest loans if they set aside a certain percentage of the units for the working poor and the government subsidizes the rent accouding to income. Many of these are in good neighborhoods and the rest of the tenants may be high-end middle class workers. Do y'all have such deals?

I don't see how middle class folks in the UK can afford stand alone houses or even nice condo type apartments. What are the income levels to qualify for "council estates"?

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My favorite: "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb"

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