How do you feel after watching Scum?

[Crenners]

I feel like I've got what it takes to be the daddy.

And you?

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

A bit depressed. The Davis scenes are hard to take. I still do a tiny internal fist pump and "Yeah!" at the I'm the Daddy scene though. It's cool as absolute fuck, and the best thing that Winstone has ever done.

[Blumf]

I feel like I've got what it takes to be the daddy.

Where's ya tool?

[kalowski]

Miserable. For some reason my dad let me watch it when I was about 13 and i couldn't sleep for months, convinced I was going to accidentally end up in borstal.

[Martin Van Buren Stan]

Never seen it. A couple of psycho mates of mine kept talking about that scene as if it was the hilariousist thing in history and their description put me off it for life.. We were about 8 at the time. Funnily enough I've seen dozens of the most disturbing and controversial films ever but I don't know if I'll ever watch scum

[Kelvin]

Never seen it. A couple of psycho mates of mine kept talking about that scene as if it was the hilariousist thing in history and their description put me off it for life.. We were about 8 at the time. Funnily enough I've seen dozens of the most disturbing and controversial films ever but I don't know if I'll ever watch scum

Is it the rape scene? I've also never seen the film, for similar reasons. Years ago a friend (I don't remember who) showed me a bunch of scenes from it, including the rape and maybe someone getting stabbed? No idea why. What is it with blokes thinking its' funny to show people horrible scenes without any context, it's such a weird thing to do. I probably did it myself when I was younger.     

[Crenners]

I generally don't like depressing or downbeat films or music or anything and I have no affection for gritty British 70s/80s vibes or sociopathic meathead shite. On the other hand, I found this a very powerful and strangely inspiring film. It wants to leave the viewer hopeless like the institution aims to crush the young men but there's a resistant Sisyphean dignity to certain characters which left me with a sense that humanity prevails - Mick Ford, especially. When I think about the specifics, it's a very hard-hitting film and it offers little comfort but the mere act of resistance is singularly uplifting and humanising to me.

[Noodle Lizard]

It makes me feel about the same way all of Alan Clarke's stuff does, Made In Britain being perhaps the most thematically similar I've seen. It's a unique kind of bleakness, pretty oppressive without ever feeling try-hard or "grimdark" or whatever. If.... gives me a similar feeling.

[sevendaughters]

I've only seen the original one and whilst there's absolutely a lot of darkness and misery I come away with two distinct feelings: i. what an excellent filmmaker both in terms of visually conveying things but also not oversaying anything ii. Archer (David Threlfall in the original) is an excellent character. I've worked in a youth nick (not borstal) and there are these various forms of resistance and escape that ring true via Archer.

[Magnum Valentino]

Those Archer scenes are incredible. Him "having the piss" out of the guy who shares his tea and tabs with him is excellent, and the scene where he reads the letter twice to the kid who can't read is one of my favourite things ever filmed, with the Threlfall version being the better version. The wee detail of him asking him to read the return address is amazing.

I do love Scum but it's not easy going and how I feel afterwards (TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION) is, specifically, " fuck, 'spose I've to watch the other version now".

But aye, I've done both versions many times, commentaries, extras, the lot. I'm unusually invested in it.

Get that Alan Clarke BFI blu-ray box that's just been re-released Crenners, based on your posts on here you'll love it.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Carlin gets himself a borstal bitch in the original who he exclusively refers to as his "missus". I wish they'd kept that in the second one.

[sevendaughters]

Get that Alan Clarke BFI blu-ray box that's just been re-released Crenners, based on your posts on here you'll love it.

no Road and Contact, I've heard.

[Magnum Valentino]

Yeah and the half-hour plays disc is also gone. Still the boxset was out of print for years and they've lost the rights to those two so having 90 percent of it available again is better than none of it. It's a shame though as they were two of the highlights.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

"Isn't that Cat from Red Dwarf"?
I also remember seeing Davis in Quadrophenia. He's all zonked out on speed in a club toilets.

[Replies From View]

I rarely watch it these days, oh sorry edit:  I thought you said Brum, that show about the radio controlled car with the eyes

I have never seen Scum.  Does it have eyes

[Dex Sawash]

Was struggling to recognize any of these comments and realized I was thinking about Filth

[Magnum Valentino]

Was struggling to recognize any of these comments and realized I was thinking about Filth

A film so unmemorable I didn't remember I'd seen it until I was nearly finished the novel (which I love, which I don't think says anything good about me).

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

There's no dolly mixtures here, poofter.

[elliszeroed]

I saw it while in early teens, much too young, the rape scene haunted me for ages after. Never re-watched it.

[rilk]

Last time I watched it I had to put an episode of the Flumps on afterwards

[Bence Fekete]

What I loved about Scum at the time when I 'twere but a twatty teen growing up in the 'sombre' south wales valleys was that it finally seemed like watching authentic youth male violence on tv. To put it simply. The actual difference between what we were taught to expect vs IRL

Not trying to sound like a hardcase (I most certainly ain't) but even so, by that age I'd seen enough young adult melons smashed and pulverized into concrete; pals thrown face first into stone walls, pavements and glass doorways; bleedy face slashings; stampings; bottlings; pile ons; my psycho dad chasing a neighbour down the street with a hammer. You couldn't avoid any of it.
Everything rapidly advancing from girly spats into potential killing zones. I had my own drunk scraps and this is all somewhat universal - I know. But still. You had to learn quickly that even in ostensibly safe cultures or institutional settings real, hospitalising physical sociopathic rage is omnipotent, explodes out of nowhere and accelerates fast as fuck if you're not vigilant. When you're that age there are laws beyond laws. And nobody is gonna save you if you get cornered or too lippy with the wrong mad cunt.
And you definitely didn't see any of that on tv. Even in the late 90s. Even now it's mostly rare, poorly executed or too cartoony to care for.
(CR all this with that J.Self quip in Money: real fighting's much more a race to 11 > any kind of 'on paper' physicality differential or verbal pantomime bollocks)
& Scum captures that superfly tnt unpredictability eerily well; the potentially limitless brutality of Brit feral yoof amucking, stoked with malevolent mismanagement and a dying meaningless culture, in hyper real, concentrate form unlike anything else I've seen since beyond maybe Clarke's other work and obvious imitations. Helps that it contextualises believably/gels everything else nicely (script/ pace,/casting/ dark bants etc). It was and still is a validation movie for me

Spoiler alert

Now fuck off you slag

[close]

[sevendaughters]

What I loved about Scum at the time when I 'twere but a twatty teen growing up in the 'sombre' south wales valleys was that it finally seemed like watching authentic youth male violence on tv. To put it simply. The actual difference between what we were taught to expect vs IRL

Not trying to sound like a hardcase (I most certainly ain't) but even so, by that age I'd seen enough young adult melons smashed and pulverized into concrete; pals thrown face first into stone walls, pavements and glass doorways; bleedy face slashings; stampings; bottlings; pile ons; my psycho dad chasing a neighbour down the street with a hammer. You couldn't avoid any of it.
Everything rapidly advancing from girly spats into potential killing zones. I had my own drunk scraps and this is all somewhat universal - I know. But still. You had to learn quickly that even in ostensibly safe cultures or institutional settings real, hospitalising physical sociopathic rage is omnipotent, explodes out of nowhere and accelerates fast as fuck if you're not vigilant. When you're that age there are laws beyond laws. And nobody is gonna save you if you get cornered or too lippy with the wrong mad cunt.
And you definitely didn't see any of that on tv. Even in the late 90s. Even now it's mostly rare, poorly executed or too cartoony to care for.
(CR all this with that J.Self quip in Money: real fighting's much more a race to 11 > any kind of 'on paper' physicality differential or verbal pantomime bollocks)
& Scum captures that superfly tnt unpredictability eerily well; the potentially limitless brutality of Brit feral yoof amucking, stoked with malevolent mismanagement and a dying meaningless culture, in hyper real, concentrate form unlike anything else I've seen since beyond maybe Clarke's other work and obvious imitations. Helps that it contextualises believably/gels everything else nicely (script/ pace,/casting/ dark bants etc). It was and still is a validation movie for me

Spoiler alert

Now fuck off you slag

[close]

well put. I think one think I respond to about Clarke is the way he is ostensibly interested in institutions and social groups (prison, hospital, football firms, social services, army, church, politics) and the way they shape and affect people, but how also within these dynamics there can be just one absolute rotter/sick person/psycho that pushes it too far and exposes where the social contract is. like in Made in Britain where they're trying to be all liberal to Roth but then threaten to fucking do him he carries on, or Oldman going bongotits mental in The Firm before smiling about it to the lads.

might have to rewatch Scum actually. was always talked about in hushed tones as a kid by the other lads whose parents let them do whatever so I expected a video nasty when I finally saw it. the long scenes with Archer give it some breathing space and it isn't just a Ray Winstone hardman film at all.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

I watched it's Channel Four premiere in June 1983.  It was my only viewing of the film and I think I recall hearing that this showing cut a lot of the suicide scene out.

[The Mollusk]

I watched this in a dingey high rise flat smoking hash with my alcoholic uncle and the whole culminative experience was so fucking bleak. We also watched utter shite football hooligan film Green Street afterwards. What a dire afternoon that was.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Get that Alan Clarke BFI blu-ray box that's just been re-released Crenners, based on your posts on here you'll love it.

Got this on preorder so am intrigued to see the tv play version.

"Isn't that Cat from Red Dwarf"?

I don't recall Danny John Jules but I remember seeing at least one regular from The Bill in it.

[bgmnts]

Weirdly, I feel the need to stick a cheeky few quid on the football, until i'm in my unarranged overdraft.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

The TV play version was on YouTube up until fairly recently. Can't seem to find it now.

[sevendaughters]

The TV play version was on YouTube up until fairly recently. Can't seem to find it now.

the second version is up there in full.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE7YjbpEHV0

i tend to find the original a bit more rare, which is a shame, though i do have it on dvd.

[SteveDave]

I saw the film version in the cinema a few years ago and you could've heard a pin drop at the cut to black at the end.

The silence was punctured with a cheery "That was good wun it?" from Ray Winstone as he walked in wearing a full length leather coat to do a Q&A.