Strengths and limitations of allegory

School of Drama, Film and Visual Arts: Film Studies

FI554: British Cinema since the 1950s

Some films lend themselves to allegorical interpretations. Offer an
allegorical or metaphorical reading of any one of the films listed
above, and assess the value and limitations of your reading.

“I’m not a politician; I’m a business man…”

The Long Good Friday as an Allegory of Thatcherism

In his book British Cinema in the 1980s, theorist and film scholar John
Hill examines the kinds of images our national cinema produced during
the putative ‘renaissance’ of this decade, and how they correspond
to a period of intense social and political change in Britain. Opposing
the notion put forward by historian Arthur Marwick – that films of the
1980s “cannot be said to conform to one particular ideology” –
Hill attempts to establish a degree of basic coherence to the cinematic
output of the period in political terms, or, more specifically in their
relation to ‘Thatcher’s Britain.’ He argues, in fact, that a
cultural critique of sorts was prevalent in mainstream British cinema
from the outset of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, and nowhere more
so than in the gangster genre or underworld thriller. For Hill, British
gangster films of the 1980s “display a determination to be more than
‘just thrillers’ by combining gangster story-lines with a degree of
social and political commentary” - a national inflection of the
‘allegorical impulse’ already implicit in Hollywood films of the
genre. For example, as John Raeburn notes, “because by definition the
gangster is beyond the boundaries of conventional society, he perforce
presents a critique of that society.” In this regard, the gangster
genre lends itself well to the didactic and moralizing concerns of
allegory, and it is unsurprising therefore that a faction of British
films in the 1980s should draw on both formats as a means of commenting
on national preoccupations.

John Mackenzie’s The Long Good Friday (1981), for instance, which was
released in the year a Conservative government was elected to office,
has been seen as a thinly veiled allegory of its increasingly
Thatcherite era in its depiction of an East End gangster who “takes to
mixing his nefarious underworld activities with crooked capitalist
endeavours.” On the surface level, this seminal British gangster
film, with its tragic, almost Shakespearean overtones, plots the demise
of one Harold Shand (arguably a career-defining role for Bob Hoskins),
the overlord of London’s criminal underworld, at the hands of a
largely unidentified and enigmatic assailant over the course of an
Easter weekend. This inopportune assault on Shand’s empire comes at a
time in which he is on the verge of securing a lucrative international
“business deal” with the American Mafia to invest in a major
Thames-side property development. However, the implementation of his
vision of a ‘new London’ and attempts to impress American visitors,
Charlie (gangster icon Eddie Constantine) and associate Tony (Stephen
Davies), with his control of the situation are hampered by a sudden
eruption of uncontrollable violence against him and his gang – the
murder of best friend Colin (Paul Freeman), the ‘blowing-up’ of his
mother’s chauffer, and the bombing of one of his pubs. In what
initially appears to be a standard gang war revenge plot, such as that
of genre classics Scarface (Haward Hawks, 1932), Public Enemy (William
A. Wellman, 1932) and later The Godfather (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972),
Shand tears about the city in search of his hidden assailants with the
intention of bloody retribution, desperately trying to uncover exactly
who is ‘having a go’ at him and why. The startling revelation
contributes yet further resonance to a provocative political subtext
already in place by this time, and also gives a specific and poignant
focus to the allegorical drift of the film.

For most commentators, including Hill, Michael Walsh and Alexander
Walker, the implicit message was unambiguous and came across loud and
clear. “It had the distinction of being almost the only film at that
date to have a Tory as a hero-figure” observes Walker, whilst for Hill
more specifically, “The Long Good Friday makes use of Bob Hoskins’
gangster to allegorise the emergent enterprise culture of
Thatcherism.” In this way, the film is now quite commonly accepted as
an important social or ‘state-of-the-nation’ film, comparable in
this respect to Hugh Hudson’s Chariots of Fire (1981), Stephen
Frears’ My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and Peter Greenaway’s The
Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (1989). Each of these films are
widely claimed to embody and reflect their social context. However, as
Hill has astutely observed, “films do more than just ‘reflect’;
they also actively explain and interpret the way in which the world is
to be perceived and understood.” Films at all levels are shot through
– irradiated with – values. In this regard, as much as The Long Good
Friday reflects a specific, if broad, political context, it is also a
sustained allegory and appraisal of the nature, implications and
prospective future of Britain under Thatcher, and in turn, of the
related political doctrine to which she lent her name. I want to assess
how this critique is established and expressed in the surface narrative
of the film. What aspects of Thatcherism and Conservative political
policy are raised? What perspectives and/or attitudes are shown towards
these issues, and how does this effect the implicit ‘message’ of the
film? In short, such questions address issues of ideology and it is here
where the central concerns of this essay lie. Moreover, I shall argue
that The Long Good Friday has the characteristic structural format of a
social problem film. Its narrative surface specifies or ‘reflects’ a
familiar social problem, identifies a set of factors out of which the
problem is supposed to arise, and suggests, albeit obliquely, a viable
means by which the problem might be solved or ameliorated. Shand’s
story ends with some ambiguity, but the film, at the same time, hastens
to dissipate any possible sense of confusion. The social message it
attempts to convey is plain and unequivocal, and it is, perhaps, in this
regard that The Long Good Friday is most specific in its relation to the
broader political concerns of Thatcherism.

Much of what occurs in the film, in the actual content of the narrative,
can be taken or ‘read’ on two levels of signification; both
diegetically – that is, with reference to the fictional world of the
film – and, by implication, on a political level. Since one informs
the other, these levels cannot be divorced, and therefore a
consideration of both the surface and metaphorical levels shall be
pertinent to an accurate exploration of the term ‘allegory’ as it
stands in an interpretation of Mackenzie’s film. In order to identify
some of the links that exist between The Long Good Friday and
Thatcherism, therefore, it is necessary to begin with a discussion of
what is meant by the concept of ‘allegory.’

In its literary form, allegory refers to a narrative in which the agents
and action, and sometimes the setting as well, are contrived so as to
make coherent sense on the literal, or what I have called the
‘surface’ level of signification, and also to signify a second,
correlated order of agents, concepts, and events that lie outside and
independent to the narrative itself. Derived from the Greek allegoria,
‘speaking otherwise,’ allegory in effect refers to an act of
interpretation – a way of understanding. In this regard, an
allegorical reading is one in which two (sometimes three or four) levels
of meaning are simultaneously accessible by way of extended metaphor
and/or analogy. In this way, as both as a ‘writerly’, compositional
technique and as a ‘readerly’, interpretative activity, allegory
invokes a dual interest in both the surface level and in the abstract
ideas or meanings – be it religious, moral, personal or, in this
case, political – which lie behind it. In the simplest terms,
according to Angus Fletcher, “allegory says one thing and means
another.” Accordingly, for literary scholar Edward A. Bloom, a
successful text of this type satisfies three sets of conditions, each of
which will be central to our understanding of the term:

1) Its surface or literal story is interesting and exciting;

2) Its abstract correlatives are clearly discernible and are consistent
in their relationship with the personifications or symbols which
represent them in the surface plot; and

3) The philosophical thesis thus acted out is of wide applicability to
human experience.

Whilst all three shall be pertinent to this essay, it is this final
condition that is initially of most interest, as it locates and
constitutes the principle overlap between the implicit concerns of
classic literary traditions of allegory, and that of British cinema in
the 1980s. I refer, of course, to a shared concern with sociological,
cultural and political issues; that is, with problems ‘of wide
applicability to human experience.’ To further extend and qualify this
basic criterion, Bloom posits that, “allegory may take various
literary forms, but procedure and didacticism of intention are the same
in all.”

We have addressed, if only in introduction, a similar didacticism of
intention implicit within The Long Good Friday in its relation to
Thatcherism. However, as Hill remarks, “Thatcherism is not an
uncontested term” and indeed the precise character of Thatcher’s
policies was seen to develop and change over the Conservative’s three
periods of office. Therefore, with this in mind I shall narrow my
interest in this broad subject to the precepts of ‘basic coherence’
observed by political commentator Stuart Hall, and more specifically, to
his definition of the ‘social neo-conservative’ policies of
Thatcherism. In this way I hope to give some focus to my allegorical
reading.

As against the ‘consensus’ approach that had dominated post-war
British politics with its diplomatic emphasis on consultation and
compromise, Margaret Thatcher’s premiership was characterized, in
part, by a renewed interest in the neo-liberal economic precepts of
“self-interest, competitive individualism and anti-statism.” This
led to the encouragement of self-made entrepreneurs, and the
legitimisation of economic self-interest and personal ambition as the
most important of social values. However, as various commentators have
observed, Thatcherism was not characterized by this approach alone - it
also sought to ‘harness,’ as Hall suggests, these neo-liberal
precepts with the more traditional conservative values of “tradition,
family and nation, respectability, patriarchalism and order.” Hall
calls this reputable mix of tradition and modernity ‘regressive
modernization,’ and in this way, new Thatcherite Conservatives looked
back to look forward in their commitment to the fortification of market
forces in Britain, and to ‘rolling back’ the frontiers of state as a
means of securing future economic efficiency. Something of a similar
combination may be seen to be provided by the protagonist of The Long
Good Friday. For many commentators, Harold Shand is a character ideally
suited to thrive, for a period at least, under such precepts, and it
here where most allegorical readings of the film and the gangster genre
take their focus. Hill for example argues that the gangster’s
commitment to big business and commerce is directly linked to the
‘enterprise culture’ encouraged by Thatcherism, and in this respect,
criminal activity is seen as “a logical extension of entrepreneurial
values.” In this way, the neo-liberal economic precepts of taking the
initiative, self-help and ambition are turned against the very
government of which they are a cornerstone, as the gangster personally
adopts illegitimate means in the pursuit of legitimate (and explicitly
Thatcherite) ends. This is a deeply subversive correlation to make,
drawing as it does a thinly veiled analogy between gangsterism and the
economic tenets of Thatcherism. It implies, therefore, a certain
correspondence, and herein a dissident warning against the proposed
implementation of what it sees as ruthless Tory policy. Nonetheless,
this subversive link is arguably implicit within The Long Good Friday;
most notably between ‘The Corporation’ and the Conservative
government of the 1980s, and, I suggest, between Shand and Thatcher as
respective leaders of these parties. It is my contention therefore, that
Shand is indeed well suited to thrive under a social neo-conservative
government - he is in many ways the quintessential Thatcherite - but
more specifically he might be seen as Thatcher’s direct representative
in the film. In the equation of allegory, Shand ‘stands for’
Thatcher, and I want to address the ideological implications of this
association as it stands in the film.

In an early and particularly memorable scene, sailing down the River
Thames and poignantly framed by Tower Bridge in the background, Shand
begins an inspired discourse on the economic and global potential of
London. I shall try to explain how, in my estimation, this passionate
speech constitutes the major narrational figure of the film, providing
the viewer with an overview of Shand’s personal ideologies and thus
the context in terms of which the narrative is to be viewed. To
anticipate some later results, I shall argue that this scene on board
Shand’s houseboat home announces the film’s aim of being an
allegorical meditation – an essay or itself a kind of speech – upon
what it takes to be the fundamental precepts that underlie the
aggressive economic policies of Thatcherism. In this way the film
establishes the general issues with which it ostensibly deals. More
specifically, there are three related major points of social
neo-conservatism that are enunciated in this scene which, for future
reference, deserve to be set out.

First, Shand’s speech introduces the concept of big business and also
suggests, albeit obliquely, the equation of economic commerce (and, by
implication Thatcherism) with gangsterism. His ambitious business plan
for the lucrative rejuvenation of the city is beset with neo-liberal
catchphrases such as ‘future prosperity’ and ‘profitable
progress’, and he calls for the ‘right people’ to mastermind the
new London - ‘proven people; with nerve, knowledge and expertise’.
Whilst each of these qualities is associated with the kind of
self-sufficient entrepreneurialism that was so strongly encouraged under
Thatcherite ideology, the camera significantly cuts at this moment to
Shand’s iniquitous henchmen, Alan (Brian Hall) and the aptly named
Razors (P. H. Moriarty). As far as I can see, this innocuous cut does
not have an interpretable literal point. However, what it does do, as
Alan winks at his scarred associate, is construct a lucid and ostensible
link between entrepreneurialism and common gangsterism - Mackenzie’s
camera having deftly created the analogy. They are the ones with
‘nerve, knowledge and expertise,’ and the offhand ability to ‘get
things done.’ Later, when not all goes to plan, Shand calls upon his
criminal empire, ‘The Corporation’, which, in a “distorted
reflection of the operations of state power,” commands the support of
both politicians (the corrupt councillor Harris) and police (the equally
corrupt Parky), for support. This is Shand’s Cabinet, and crime and
corruption are their policies.

Secondly, there is in Shand’s address a blunt assertion of the
significance of tradition, and, more to the point, an emphasis on
traditional conservative values. He describes himself as ‘a
businessman with a sense of history’ and declares that ‘today is a
day of great historical significance for London.’ Just after this,
walking with Charlie, he looks out across the Thames and back with some
nostalgia at the colourful history of the docklands – ‘used to be
the greatest docks in the world at one time this’ he asserts, with a
mixture of despondence and proud nationalism. Charlie warns him to
‘look to the future,’ but surely this is what Shand is doing. One
certainly gets the impression that his ambition to make London
‘Europe’s Capital’ and once again the heart of an empire is an
attempt to recapture these past glories, and of course, the revenue that
this would bring. In this venture he is very much the quintessential
Thatcherite; “ideologically looking backwards to past imperial glories
and ‘traditional’ values but economically looking forward and
attempting to restructure the British economy along more competitive
lines.”

Third and finally, this acute ‘sense of history’ is linked to a
fervent and unabashed patriotism. Shand is very much an Englishman, and
asserts with some conviction, that ‘our country’s not an island
anymore. We’re a leading European States’. In line with the
traditionally conservative value for state and country, Thatcher was
also a distinguished nationalist, and as Jill Nelmes observes,
“traditional, jingoistic concepts of nationalism were resurrected by
Thatcher’s Conservative government, especially in relation to the
Falklands War. Shand is certainly testament to this. Arriving home from
a business excursion to the United States in a concord with ‘British
Airways’ emblazoned across its side, and driving a Jaguar, a classic
British car, he is very much a man openly proud of his national
heritage. This is seen throughout the film; first here on the boat but
most forcibly toward the close of the narrative when the American’s
pull out of the proposed deal, complaining that Britain is “a mess…a
worse risk than Cuba.” This sentiment, of course, offends Shand’s
cherished sense of national pride, and in response he launches into a
patriotic vitriol, an aggressive tirade of accolades in defence of his
country:

Us British, we’re used to a bit more vitality, imagination, touch of
the Dunkirk spirit… What I’m looking for is someone who can
contribute to what England has given the world; culture, sophistication,
genius.

By all accounts then, the scene on the boat clearly establishes Shand as
a Tory, but, as Walker suggests, this designation must immediately be
qualified by stating that he is an example of “Toryism gone to bad and
patriotism gone even further that way.” In this way, we might
consider Shand’s undisguised and impenitent racism, which, perceived
from the viewpoint that the film does much to clarify, appears to be a
logical extension of his equally explicit sense of nationalism. Shand is
constantly defining his white British identity against a negative
‘other’ – American’s are ‘Yanks’, the French are
‘Frogs’, the German’s ‘Krauts’, black people are ‘Spades’
or ‘Nig Nogs’. His visit to Brixton is an obvious case in point.
Here he encounters the inhabitants of an Afro-Caribbean community, and
lectures accusingly at a black youth, asserting with some disgust, that
‘this used to be a nice street, decent families – no scum.’ If
ever it was needed, the contingent of black youths in the background,
one of them playing reggae music, underscores his meaning. Along with
Razors, Shand then proceeds to brutally torture ‘Erroll the Grass’
(Paul Barber), a black informer, pimp and drug dealer whom he believes
might know something about his hidden assailants. Michael Walsh provides
a particularly insightful look into this strand of the film, and
observes that “Errol is associated with the standard racist tropes of
nakedness and body odour,” in so much that Shand barges in as he is
having sex with a young white girl (perhaps further offending Shand’s
racist convictions – ‘I’m disgusted’ he says) and proceeds to
tell him to ‘put some deodorant on.’ Moreover, as they drive away
from Errol’s, Shand deploys “the most perennial of images in English
racism,” speaking of ‘dog shit on the doorstep.’

Such open contempt and vile racism reflects the hostile atmosphere
toward immigrants that Thatcher arguably helped to foster in Britain
during her time in power. When in 1978 for example, as leader of the
Opposition she spoke of Britain being “swamped by people of a
different culture,” she arguably showed a similar intolerance and
enmity toward immigrants herself. In addition, despite the
Conservative’s commitment to order, unity and social cohesion, it was
clear that Thatcherite economic policies were contributing to an
increase in social divisions and conflicts. Little was done to
assimilate immigrants into British society, and as Ceri Peach observes,
by the end of Thatcher’s period in office, “unemployment rates for
Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and Black Africans were nearly three times,
and for Black-Caribbeans twice, the average UK rate.” This led to
violent instances of public rioting in areas with a high proportion of
racial diversity, such as Toxteth, Moss Side, Notting Hill and –
qualifying Mackenzie’s choice of setting - Brixton.

Ideologically then, as a kind of contemporary morality tale, The Long
Good Friday warns against Thatcherite principles being taken too far,
especially at the expense of human decency. As Walker observes,
“Hoskins is a monster because his hankering for the Conservative
virtues is so wildly at variance with his practice of the terrorist
ones,” whilst for Marwick, moreover, Shand is “a Thatcherite gone
mad.” It is clear that the social neo-conservative precepts of
Thatcherism are somewhat embellished in Shand’s character, but indeed
only to make a point more forceful. He shows in his person the
potentially devastating consequence of self-interest and aggressive
entrepreneurialism taken to a criminal extreme, and indeed what can
happen when absolute nationalism becomes outright racism. The film
invokes these issues in turn and proceeds systematically to blur the
distinctions between them. Just as Shand’s criminal empire overlaps
with legitimate business ventures, so too the dividing line between
patriotism and racism is shown to be equally precarious. In this wat,
The Long Good Friday’s allegorical critique of Thatcherism is
established by drawing marked analogies between economic neo-liberalism
and common gangsterism, and indeed between traditional conservative
values and racial intolerance.

Having established Shand as a Thatcherite, it is this designation that
makes the identity of his hidden assailants all the more poignant. Much
of the narrative is engaged with Shand’s pursuit of this intangible
force, which, as Walsh observes, “ultimately proves to be ‘Irish’,
‘political’ and ‘fanatical.’” A great deal has been made of
Mackenzie’s explicit reference to the IRA, not least by the films
production company who demanded the film be cut by nearly ten minutes,
deleting some scenes of gratuitous violence as well as “all references
to the IRA and the British Army.” This request is testament to the
subversive nature and allegorical power of the film, a point addressed
by Hill in his judicious assessment. He considers this course of
reference to be ‘the films point’ and concludes that:

It is precisely Shand’s inability to comprehend the nature of the
political ethic confronting him which allowing for the film’s loose
allegory, echoes the inability, or unwillingness, of the British state
to comes to terms with its Irish opposition.

Indeed, given the patent foregrounding of this issue in the film,
perhaps the most evident allegorical reading one could apply to The Long
Good Friday is that Shand’s failure to come to terms with the IRA’s
presence, motivation and threat reflects the British government’s
attitude toward the very same operation. Such incredulity and confusion
is clearly manifest in a series of initially rhetorical questions –
What’s going on? Who’s having a go at me? What are they trying to
do? It is also implicit in Shand’s fruitless pursuit of answers, which
leads him only further into a state of perplexity and is ultimately
completely ineffectual. However, I want to take issue with Hill’s
proposal that this is the films ‘point,’ and with the general
critical consensus that this is what the film is ‘about.’ Such an
assessment ignores so much of what is already established in the film,
before the IRA’s introduction and indeed before Shand’s empire
begins to crumble under their interminable violence. The concerns we
have addressed in relation to Shand’s speech on the boat, for example,
are wholly ignored. Consequently, I suggest that the patent ideological
foregrounding of this issue in the film constitutes a misleading
temptation for the viewer to simply accept this course of reference
without looking for a wider filmic framework within which it is subsumed
and qualified. It is too often taken in isolation. It is my contention,
therefore, that the reference to the ‘troubles’ in Northern Ireland
is an extension and qualification of the concerns already established, a
coathanger for the films more general critique of Thatcherism. In making
this claim, I do not want to discredit the essential significance of
this reference - as we shall see it is particularly profound in its
commentary on the IRA and Thatcher’s policies toward Northern Ireland
- but more to the point, I want to consider how this strand relates and
interrelates to the wider allegorical scheme of the film, and more
specifically, how it continues to link Shand with Thatcher.

The manner in which Shand deals with the conflict and with prospective
rivals, for example, can be directly linked to Thatcher’s own politics
of confrontation, and this in turn may be linked to a critique of the
kind of aggressive atmosphere she was seen to be encouraging. Whilst the
Provisionals are perceived, according to Brian Mcllroy as “a ruthless,
efficient [and] inexplicable force,” the film purports to lay bare the
real source of Shand’s problems, and in line with his role as tragic
hero, this source lies within himself. It is overtly postulated that the
difficulties that are on display are produced, in no short measure, by
the individual shortcomings of Shand’s character, and, allowing once
more for the films loose allegory, the shortcomings of Thatcherism per
se. What precipitates Shand’s downfall and ultimately brings about his
death, is his continued resort to aggression and confrontation. In this
way, his tragic flaw or ‘hamartia’ is directly linked to his role as
the quintessential Thatcherite – it is seen as yet a further extension
of social neo-conservative precepts. For example, rejecting Jeff’s
(Derek Thompson) advice to ‘work with them’, Shand obstinately
refuses to negotiate with his Irish assailants and instead determines
upon a course of ‘annihilation’ to settle the fiasco. Such aversion
to compromise not only has links with the social and moral conservatism
of Thatcher’s polices, but also, as we shall see, her faith in
‘conviction politics.’ Similarly, Shand’s aggressive individualism
and philosophy of self-help suggests something of the entrepreneurial
values of Thatcherism, an extension of neo-liberal precepts perhaps.
Through Harris, Shand arranges a meeting with two high profile members
of the IRA, whom he and his men then murder in a set-piece killing,
effectively sealing a similar fate for themselves. This course of action
is a matter of principle for Shand, almost a knee-jerk reaction. Whilst
he can be eloquent in speech – as we have seen with his impressive
rhetoric on the boat – Shand predominantly expresses himself through
violence, and his aggressive response to adversity is, by this time,
well established in the film. We have seen him react to Jeff’s
rational, and indeed well-meaning argument regarding the strength and
depth of the IRA by stabbing him repeatedly in the neck; he has hung
local mob bosses upside down on meat hooks; and the fate of those who
have crossed him in the past is made quite explicit – ‘They’re all
dead’. Despite Parky’s warning that ‘they’re not just
gangsters,’ Shand fails to recognise the political ethic behind his
Irish assailants; for him, they are ‘just a bunch of hoods tryin’ to
muscle in,’ ‘red-neck terrorist scum’. It is unsurprising then,
given what has gone before, that Shand’s first instinct is to exact
revenge – ‘I’ll crush ‘em like beetles’.

Such a mentality might be seen as a reflection of Thatcher’s offensive
and resolute style of leadership, and indeed of the Conservative
government’s equally resolute stand on Northern Ireland. In a
publication aptly entitled Margaret Thatcher: Prime Minister
Indomitable, James E. Cronin makes reference to the “ideologically
aggressive initiatives” of Thatcherism, whilst for David Beresford,
moreover, Thatcher’s was a “politics of confrontation.” Like her
hero, Winston Churchill, Thatcher established a robust political persona
and developed a reputation as an intimidating and uncompromising leader.
She insisted that she was neither a consensus nor a pragmatic politician
but rather a “conviction politician,” and declared her intentions of
having a cabinet made up of “only the people who want to go in the
direction in which every instinct tells me we have to go” - ‘The
Iron Lady’ was an appellation she well deserved. This reputation
perhaps preceded her in 1982, when a number of killings in contested
circumstance stimulated a debate as to whether the Thatcher government
operated an illegal so-called ‘shoot to kill’ policy - a policy of
extrajudicial killings against IRA activists. Whilst such allegations
were never fully founded in a court of law, it is clear that many of the
ways Thatcher chose to solve or ameliorate political problems were, in
line with Shand, through acts of violence and intimidation. In keeping
with this ruthless policy of confrontation, for instance, the government
under Thatcher had a hard line against terrorism, and in the winter of
1981 this included refusing to grant ‘political’ status to
republican prisoners in Northern Ireland or bow to hunger strikes. For
Thatcher, as for her fictional alter-ego, there was no room for
negotiation with ‘terrorists,’ and in an echo of Shand’s own
opinions, she maintained her steadfast position: “Crime is crime is
crime. It is not political.” Beresford notes a similar aggressive
course of action was later pursued in relation to Argentina during the
Falklands War (especially the sinking of ‘The General Belgrano’,
outside of the ‘exclusion zone’) and the National Union of
Mineworkers during the coal dispute of the mid 1980s. Collectively,
these examples establish that the practice of confrontation,
intimidation, and domination, are fundamentally at the centre of
Thatcher’s policies, just as they are in the methods of leadership
favoured by Shand.

It is ideologically significant then, that Shand fails to eliminate his
adversaries with these violent measures, just as, according to Hill,
“the British state has been unable to impose a military, rather than a
political, solution to the Northern Irish conflicts with which it has
been confronted.” Considered in this way and in retrospect, the
conversation that Shand holds with Jeff in the cabin of his houseboat
home assumes an added resonance. Having come clean and admitting to
having been mixed up in a bungled deal with the IRA in Shand’s
absence, Jeff explains that the day’s anarchy is organised revenge
against Shand as head of the Corporation. As we have discussed Shand
determines upon his own act of revenge. However, before this, in a
heated debate that ultimately ends in his murder, Jeff attemps to
explain the futility of confronting the IRA on fighting terms:

You can’t wipe them out - kill ten, twenty, bring out the tanks and
the flamethrowers, they’ll pour back like an army of ants.

It is precisely this social message that the film proclaims so overtly
and that Shand himself fails to recognise, to his ultimate cost. The
film reaches its climax after the set-piece killing with Shand relaying
his conquest to the Americans – ‘All the troubles are over… I’ve
pulled the plug on ’em. However, this statement proves to be a gross
misperception and, as Jeff predicted, Shand’s victory is only
temporary. Minutes later he is driven away at gunpoint, in all
probability to his death, by the very opposition he thought he had
vanquished. The film ends with the famous prolonged shot of his bemused
reactions, moving through all manner of emotions, from horror, grief and
anger, to a rueful acceptance of his fate.

With this ideological conclusion, The Long Good Friday brings to a close
the specific social problem with which it has dealt, and herein gives
its implied appraisal (or ‘philosophical thesis’ as Bloom calls it)
of the film’s wider allegorical critique of Thatcherism. Its surface
narrative specifies IRA violence as a familiar social problem and
identifies, albeit obliquely, that a lack of congress and an automatic
policy of confrontation is to blame. However, unlike the characteristic
social problem format, the film does not explicitly suggest a means by
which the problem might be solved or ameliorated – this is done
implicitly. As we have addressed, it is overtly postulated that Shand
had only to act with more diligence, insight and understanding in order
for the tensions with the IRA to be eased. Indeed he had the opportunity
to do just this, to ‘put an end to this bloody havoc’ (as Victoria
puts it) when he and his associates met the Provisionals, who were
prepared to negotiate a settlement. But alas, his aversion to compromise
and unbending resolve to stand up to threat and intimidation put an end
to all hopes of amnesty. Therefore, the implied, although unrealised
remedy is to be found in what amounts to a renewed commitment to
diplomatic principles of consultation and compromise – that is, of the
consensus approach that Thatcher sought to eliminate with her conviction
politics. It is precisely this confrontational ethic that the film both
invokes in Shand’s aggressive retaliation against the IRA, and then
distances itself from, by showing the failure of such measures.
Shand’s defeat should thus be registered as a defeat of the principles
for which he stood, and therefore in line with the films allegory, a
defeat of Thatcherism. The implication is that ‘conviction
politics’, ‘confrontation’ and ‘aggressive individualism’, as
defined within the social neo-conservative precepts of Thatcher’s
policies, are at once inadequate to deal with such a complex political
situation and indeed, potentially devastating to the individual and thus
to society at large. It is here, I suggest, where the major subversive
voice of the film is to be found.

In summary, I suggest that The Long Good Friday invokes a particularly
distinctive period in British history where the values of post-war
consensus were abandoned and the Conservative government’s belief in
the individual and lack of support for society helped foster a culture
of belligerence, violence, racism and xenophobia. Furthermore, the
film’s didactic agenda involves exposing these intolerable aspects of
Thatcherism as a warning against their implementation. In this way,
protagonist Harold Shand is established as the quintessential
Thatcherite, a designation evident elsewhere, but most overtly
pronounced in his speech on the boat. This political manifesto is
saturated in the emerging ideas and ideologies of Thatcherism, and here,
the link between economic neo-liberalism and common gangsterism first
made. The introduction of the IRA into this equation provides a
spectacular and topical framework on which Mackenzie hangs the film’s
more general didactic concerns - with their defeat of Shand being a
defeat of Thatcherism, a scornful condemnation of aggressive Thatcherite
policy, and more specifically a profound commentary on the Northern
Ireland conflict. In this way, the film works as well as a piece of
subversive social commentary as it does as a seminal, enthralling and
accomplished British gangster film.

STRENGTHS AND LIMITATIONS:

However, to claim that one activity is homogenous to another and to draw
certain conclusions based on that analogy, as we have done here, begs
fundamental questions: Just how alike do the two activities have to be?
What kind of conclusions does an allegorical interpretation authorize?
Are there conclusions that are not proper? Such questions represent the
limitations of this kind of reading. However, I propose that we might
circumvent such restrictions by moving away from the kind of antiquated
notion of the term posited by Bloom, in which allegory is a kind of
double-talk in which there is (or ought to be) a point-to-point
compulsive relation between the surface and metaphorical levels of
signification. As Robert D. Denham observes, “this is not only
historically untrue but also theoretically unsatisfactory.” Preference
should be given to Northrop Frye’s proposal for a sliding scale of
allegorical explicitness, ranging from the most to the least
allegorical, depending on the degree of interaction between the surface
and the symbolic level of the text. In this way, allegory invites the
reader/viewer to look for further significance beyond the literal level
of the text - enriching interpretation - but it does not devalue or
render any specific reading ‘incorrect.’

From this point of view, I might also avoid a more serious limitation,
specific to my reading of The Long Good Friday. Whilst Shand was
consciously conceived by screenwriter Barrie Keeffe as a low Tory, “a
gangster version of the self made man,” Margaret Thatcher had yet to
come into political office. It is fair to say that she would have been
making speeches at this time, and thus her ideologies might have been
accessible to extent, but the fact remains that the full extent of her
‘conviction’ politics, the encouragement of aggressive individualism
and the fundamental precepts of social neo-conservatism had yet to come
about. Therefore, it would appear that the links between The Long Good
Friday and Thatcherism that I have been at lengths to identify can only
reasonably be attributed to either amazing coincidence or outrageous
foresight. However, this is not necessarily the case. As we have seen,
Shand views society from a position of entrenched conservatism, he is
the quintessential Thatcherite, and as such makes decisions based on
this position. It is not so outrageous therefore, that Thatcher’s
political career came to be comparable, given that both were based on
common precepts, on the very same Thatcherite philosophies. In short,
both Thatcher and Shand shared a common code of conduct, values and
principles - a stout belief in Thatcherism – and as such were prone to
take similar decisions in similar circumstances, therefore arriving at
similar ends.

Therefore, it matters little or not at all that Thatcher had yet to come
into office. The Long Good Friday continues to respond convincingly and,
I suggest fruitfully, to interpretation of an allegorical kind, and
this, in itself, is all the justification and qualification required.

Indeed, such is the uncanny prescience of the film, that in many ways
Thatcherism came to allegorise The Long Good Friday, the allegory
becoming the allegorised.

Perhaps, after all, it is not so much a question of assessing the value
or limitations of an allegorical reading of The Long Good Friday, but if
we can, as film scholars, evade this type of interpretation at all. For
Northrop Frye has observed that allegory is an inextricable part of the
critic’s repertoire, and that all literature is, from the point of
view of commentary, more or less allegorical:

It is not often realized that all commentary is allegorical
interpretation, an attaching of ideas to the structure of poetic
imagery. The instant that any critic permits himself to make a genuine
comment about a poem (e.g., “in Hamlet, Shakespeare appears to be
portraying the tragedy of irresolution”) he has begun to allegorize.
Commentary thus looks at literature as, in its formal phase, a potential
allegory of events and ideas.

This essay has shown that what is true for literature also holds true
for the visual art of film.

Arthur Marwick, Culture in Britain Since 1945 (Oxford: Basil
Blacxkwell, 1991) p. 153: For a similar argument, see also Kenneth
MacKinnon, The Politics of Popular Representation: Regan, Thatcher, AIDS
and the Movies (London: Associated University Presses, 1992)

See John Hill, British Cinema in the 1980s (New York: Oxford University
Press). For similar arguments see Lester Friedman, ed., British Cinema
and Thatcherism. Fires were Started (London: University of Minnesota
Press, 1993) and Sarah Street, British National Cinema (London:
Routledge, 1997)

This observation actually comes from another publication. See John
Hill, ‘Allegorising the Nation: British Gangster Films of the 1980s’
in Steve Chibnall and Robert Murphy eds., British Crime Cinema (London:
Routledge, 1999) p. 160

John Raeburn, ‘The Ganger Film’ in Wes D. Gehring, ed., Handbook of
American Film Genres (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988) p. 48

Anthony Aldgate and Jeffrey Richards eds., Best of British: Cinema and
Society from 1930 to the Present (London: I.B. Tauris Publishers, 1999)
p. 220

In line with this ‘tragic’ reading, one might, at least for a
period, entertain the idea that Shand’s veiled assailant is ‘fate’
itself. His demise certainly appears inevitable. For a comprehensive
account of the gangster and his relationship with literary notions of
tragedy, see: Robert Warshow, ‘The Gangster as Tragic Hero,’ in his
The Immediate Experience (New York: Atheneum, 1970) p. 133

or HYPERLINK "http://www.mtsu.edu/~dlavery/Gangster/"
http://www.mtsu.edu/~dlavery/Gangster/ warshow.htm

Alexander Walker, National Heroes. British Cinema in the Seventies and
Eighties (London: Harrap, 1986) p. 252

John Hill, ‘Allegorising the Nation: British Gangster Films of the
1980s’ in Steve Chibnall and Robert Murphy eds., British Crime Cinema
(London: Routledge, 1999) p. 167

John Hill, Sex, Class and Realism (London: BFI, 1986) p. 2

This definition represents that given by a number of literary
theorists. See William Harmon, C. Hugh Holman, William Flint Thrall
eds., A Handbook to Literature (London: Prentice Hall, 1999) p. 7-8:
Edward A. Bloom, Charles H. Philbrick, Elmer M. Blistein eds., The Order
of Poetry: An Introduction (New York: Odyssey Press, 1961) p. 139: J. A.
Cuddon, Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory (London:
Penguin Books, 1998) p. 20-2

Angus Fletcher, Allegory: The Theory of a Symbolic Mode (New York:
Cornell University Press, 1964) p. 2

Edward A. Bloom, Charles H. Philbrick, Elmer M. Blistein eds., The
Order of Poetry: An Introduction (New York: Odyssey Press, 1961) p. 139

Edward A. Bloom, Charles H. Philbrick, Elmer M. Blistein eds., The
Order of Poetry: An Introduction (New York: Odyssey Press, 1961) p. 139

John Hill, British Cinema in the 1980s (New York: Oxford University
Press) p. 4

Stuart Hall, The Hard Road to Renewal: Thatcherism and the Crisis of
the Left (London: Verso, 1988) p. 48

Ibid.

John Hill, ‘Allegorising the Nation: British Gangster Films of the
1980s’ in Steve Chibnall and Robert Murphy eds., British Crime Cinema
(London: Routledge, 1999) p. 162

John Hill, ‘Allegorising the Nation: British Gangster Films of the
1980s’ in Steve Chibnall and Robert Murphy eds., British Crime Cinema
(London: Routledge, 1999) p. 163

John Hill, British Cinema in the 1980s (New York: Oxford University
Press) p. 26

Jim Nelmes, Introduction to Film Studies (London: Routledge, 1999) p.
367

A reference to Castro’s revolutionaries, who upset mafia interest in
Cuba. As Hill remarks, this incident is dramatised in Francis Ford
Coppola’s The Godfather, Part II (1974).

Alexander Walker, National Heroes. British Cinema in the Seventies and
Eighties (London: 1986) p. 252

The torture is horrific as Shand repeatedly invites Razors to ‘cut’
the naked Errol with a huge blade. However, this ‘interrogation’ is
ultimately futile, as Errol does not have the information required of
him. This is an example of Shand’s lashing out without ever actually
progressing or learning what is really happening, a significant factor
given what is to come.

Michael Walsh, ‘Thinking the Unthinkable: Coming to terms with
Northern Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s’ in Justine Ashby and Andrew
Hidson eds., British Cinema Past and Present (London: Routledge, 2000)
p. 293

Ibid.

Margaret Thatcher as quoted by Kathleen Knox, ‘Britain: 'Swamp'
Comments Mire Britain's Home Secretary In Immigration Row’
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2002/04/26042002101009.asp

Ceri Peach ed., Ethnicity in the 1991 Census Vol. 2 The ethnic Minority
Populations of Great Britain (London: HMSO, 1996) p. 17

Alexander Walker, National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and
Eighties (London, 1986) p. 252

Arthur Marwick, Culture in Britain since 1945 (Oxford, Basil Blackwell,
1991) p. 150

Michael Wash, ‘Thinking the Unthinkable: Coming to terms with
Northern Ireland in the 1980s and 1990s’ in Justin Ashby and Andrew
Higson eds., British Cinema, Past and Present (London, Routledge, 2001)
p. 292

Made as part of a three-picture deal with Associated Communications
Corporation (ACC), chairman Lew Grade saw Mackenzie’s final cut as
potentially too provocative, given the social context of the time, and
demanded the film be cut. These were rejected by producer Barry Hanson,
and it was only after a protracted public controversy that the film was
sold to Handmade Films who then secured its eventual cinema release in
Mackenzie’s original form, with the IRA’s integral role in the plot
remaining intact. For details see Sophie Balhetchet, ‘The Long Good
Friday’, A.I.P and Co, No. 28, September 1980.

John Hill, ‘Images of Violence’ in Kevin Rockett, Luke Gibbons,
John Hill eds., Cinema and Ireland (London: Routledge, 1987) p. 174

Brian McIlroy, ‘The Repression of Communities’ in his Shooting to
Kill: Filmmakers and the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland (Trowbridge,
Flicks Books, 1999) p. 97

HYPERLINK
"http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?action=openPageViewer&docId=85710852"
James E. Cronin, ‘The Historical Margaret Thatcher,’ in Juliet S.
Thompson and Wayne C. Thompson eds., Margaret Thatcher : Prime Minister
Indomitable (Boulder: Westview Press, 1994) 143.

David Beresford, Ten Men Dead: The Story of the Irish Hunger Strike
(London, Grafton Books, 1987) p. 428

Margaret Thatcher as quoted by Ian Gilmour, Dancing with Dogma: Britain
under Thatcherism (London: Simon and Schuster, 1992), p. 3: She added
that she “could not waste time having any internal arguments,” and
it took her only a short time to purge her first cabinet of such
oppositional ‘wets’ as Ian Gilmour and Norman St. John Stevas.

On March 6, 1988, Mairead Farrell, Sean Savage and Daniel McCann, all
members of the IRA, were gunned down by a British Army undercover squad
on a street in Gibraltar. The families of the ‘Gibraltar Three’ took
their case to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled in
September 1995 that although there was no evidence that the UK had
operated such a policy, the killings in Gibraltar were unnecessary. For
details see: Ali Abunimah, ‘Israel’s Rule of Lawlessness’
(http://www.palestinecampaign.org/archives.asp?xid=202)

Beresford provides an overview of the 1981 Hunger Strikes in Long Kesh
Prison, aka ‘The Maze’, in which ten prisoners, beginning with Bobby
Sands, died.

Margaret Thatcher, as quoted on the website On This Day ( HYPERLINK
"http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/dates/stories/october/3/newsid_2451
000/2451503.stm"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/dates/stories/october/3/newsid_24510
00/2451503.stm )

John Hill, ‘Allegorising the Nation: British Gangster Films of the
1980s’ in Steve Chibnall and Robert Murphy eds., British Crime Cinema
(London: Routledge, 1999) p. 165

Robert D. Denham, Northrop Frye and Critical Method (London: University
Park, 1978) p. 38,

Barrie Keeffe, ‘Haunting Friday’, Sight and Sound, August 1996,
vol. 6, no. 8, pp.20-1

Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton University Press, 2000)