Introducing Pressure and Burning an Illusion: Coming-of-age films

• In the following notes, Joel describes Pressure and Burning an Illusion as 'coming-of-age' films. What do you understand by this term? What coming-of-age films are you already familiar with?
• He also talks about 'culture'. What do you understand by the terms 'high culture', 'low culture', 'youth culture' and 'popular culture'?
• How do these films compare to Hollywood productions about similar themes such as Boyz in the Hood (John Singleton, USA, 1991)?

Coming-of-age films

Films, like all narrative forms, often contain several layers of meaning, commenting on a wide range of issues relevant to society as a whole, while channelling them through specific, often personal themes. For example, A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971, UK) and My Beautiful Laundrette (Stephen Frears, 1985, UK) focus on the travails of charismatic young men, while also tapping into some of the broader cultural and political themes of Britain when the films were produced.

Similarly, both Pressure and Burning an Illusion can be seen as coming-of-age movies, each film concerned, primarily, with the social awakenings of young, black British men and women. Equally they focus upon the changing social, political and cultural climate of Britain in the 1970s and 80s, where these young people were growing up.

Both films ask us to consider what is meant by the term 'culture', and this is often more problematic than it initially sounds. In Key Words (1976), Raymond Williams argues that 'culture' is one of the most difficult words in the English language to define. Superficially, it is a word that we all know and use with some degree of expertise. Even if we don't like fine art or listen to classical music we would still usually define them as 'high culture', whereas the 'popular' music and films many of us consume on a daily basis are usually given less status. In British cinema, this vertical, high/low notion of culture is often associated with the issue of class, though in Pressure and Burning an Illusion class anxieties are often intertwined or replaced with racial self-awareness and the subsequent underlying tensions. (For more information about this genre of British films go to screenonline.

As with Clockwork Orange and My Beautiful Laundrette, Pressure and Burning an Illusion are concerned with and attempt to address the plight of British youth, who are a conduit (via their class, race or sexuality) for some of the larger traumas that beset Britain during the post-war period - an ex-Empire coming to terms with its relegated world status amidst rising unemployment and, at best, a wildly fluctuating economy. In this milieu the first generation of black Britons came of age, at a time when they and the nation as a whole were trying to (re-)define themselves to each other and to the world at large.

In Pressure and Burning an Illusion the shifting of these cultural boundaries manifest themselves in a variety of ways, some more obvious and consequential than others. However, it should also be noted that the way in which we view culture is not static and how we react to or interpret something now maybe very different from how it was received at the time and this should be considered when analysing any film.

In both films, overtly political issues such as police harassment, blatant racism, poor housing and discrimination in the workforce are juxtaposed with the more subtle aspects of popular culture such as food, language, music and fashion. These have all ultimately made major contributions in the formation of a black popular cultural renaissance, now beginning to receive full critical attention for its impact on the mainstream.

Like all cultural artefacts, both Pressure and Burning an Illusion speak volumes about the times in which they were produced. To contemporary audiences, they may seem dated particularly as they were made to a tight budget, but they nevertheless hold a certain resonance for anyone who grew up in the 1970s. Much has changed in the three decades after the first black British feature film went into production, and while we can look back with a certain degree of satisfaction it would be wise to remember that much has also stayed the same.