Cannes Film Festival 2015 - the Sweet Smell of Success

This year was a very orderly Cannes Film Festival with lots of activity in the under belly of the Marche Du Film (Commerical Film Market) for industry professionals.

I spent most of it down in the bunker where the booths of the worlds most active sales agents and distributors hang out. Having attended over 15 years of Cannes Film Festivals I can almost sense its tone from the smell of the Cannes street when you touch down in La Croisette in the white hot heat of the summer. This year the heat blast, smelt of the usual spicy food, engine oil, sweat and expensive perfume. In the molecules of the sweat that hits your nostrils on the street you can perceive fear or optimism. This year the smell indicated that people were in the mode of optimism that was tinged with a high streak of professionalism. The smell of wine wafting from the cafes was drowned out by strong coffee amid the flavour of the month aftershave and Eau de Cologne. The coffee and perfume said we are up for business despite the recession in the downturn that had had 5 years of dead DVD sales and where TV companies indicated their success by the number of pirated downloads the shows had had rather than the actual numbers of worldwide territorial sales.

One sales agent summed it up when he boosted that he had just purchased the most pirated download on the planet. He was joking, but he was making the point that the public desire had changed to downloading from illegal websites, so the money never reached the sales agent or the producer for that matter. The challenge for film maker is how to recoup in an atmosphere where the current Joe public chooses to download the TV shows and films from pirate sites rather than by purchasing them from legitimate Streaming and Video on Demand Platforms. The knock on effect is that recoup must be arranged  in a way to avoid the pirate's penchant for making film available on downloads before they are officially released.  So secrecy is the name of the game and a short lead in to theatrical releases that are available on all mediums at once, which avoids windows of opportunity for the pirate.

Distributors had grappled with the effect of You Tube and figured out that quality 3 D and 4 D was the way to beat the pirate who just could not replicate this pleasurable viewing experience. Therefore animation was really the safest option and many of the big companies were investing in Animation lead releases. The upshot of that was it was good news for the Independent film makers because hardly any of the Studios were coming out with story lead films with human narrative like for example the historical, action , drama about Bonnie Prince Charlie called The Great Getaway penned by writer Robbie Moffat. Indeed there were very few traditional historical human stories being touted this year, so a gap in the market, and we finally filled it. The good news for The Great Getaway there.

The serious discussions on La Croisette were about maximizing recoup on legitimate download sites and tuning into the new public who streamed a movie from their computer onto their home TV screens.

Already some Film festivals like Toronto have made an adjustment to their programming by accepting that there is a new stream of TV viewing habits that they have to take account of now. For the first time this year they will feature a TV section that reflects the public fan base for watching and downloading whole TV series like Game of Thrones and Outlander straight from downloads on Amazon and or direct from TV website and or ignored pirate sites. This year the Festival professionals had accepted they had to get to grips with it and embrace new viewer habits, which dictate that audiences want complicated human narratives that reflect the challenges of human history and try to grapple with the Universal stories of Love, Passion, Suffering, War, Revenge and Heartache.

Business as usual, then at Cannes 2015, of a no nonsense variety, where if the expensive aftershave was anything to go by most Executives were up for lunch dates.

Enter the Great Getaway then................

Quote from a Russian sales agent ' I love Cannes, the smell of the Red Carpet is the smell of success.

As for the flat shoes debate it was laughed off by the film professionals, who were making the deals, because there was no way they were abandoning their expensive comfortable shoes, which for them marked the sweet smell of success.

Bonnie Prince Charlie Film commences Location Scouting

We are continuing our Location scouting in Dumfries and Galloway and this week I had the great surprise of visiting a hilltop where a large wall had been built in World War 2 for the Dam-buster pilots to practise their missions. A fascinating artefact that remains as a monument to their work. At a time when V Day celebrations are occurring it seemed apt. The first of film workshops in Jacobite film fighting techniques, run by Seoras Wallace, will begin at the end of the month. In the meantime here is an article from the Telegraph, as a way of welcoming our composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, who has joined the team.

Article from the Telegraph in Full below

The Queen's former composer has been tempted back to write his first film score in 40 years, for a new drama about Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, who has recently retired from the post of Master of the Queen’s Music, is to write the music for a film about Bonnie Prince Charlie, which will include the biggest battle scene ever shot in Scotland.

It is the first movie music Sir Peter, who lives on Orkney, has composed since he worked on Ken Russell's 1971s films The Devils and The Boyfriend ,which between them starred Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave and Twiggy.

Sir Peter is currently working on a new children's opera for the London Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic, to be conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, based on an Orcadian sea monster.

He will also write the movie soundtrack for The Great Getaway.

The film will be set in part in Dumfries and Galloway, where the Battle of Culloden will be shot for the new £6.5m film.

It will star Peter Mullan, who previously appeared in My Name is Joe, War Horse and Neds, and Brendan Gleeson, who starred in Braveheart, Gangs of New York and the Harry Potter films.

^{Bonnie Prince Charlie}

The part of Flora MacDonald, who helped the Young Pretender escape to Skye, is rumoured to have been offered to Kristen Stewart, who played Bella Swan in the internationally successful Twilight films.

The prince has not yet been cast.

Sir Peter, who is now 80, said: "I have been offered the chance to write several film scores over the years since The Devils and The Boyfriend, but this is the first one since then that I have been inspired to accept.

"I just loved the script - its authenticity, passion and honesty. Bonnie Prince Charlie is an iconic figure surrounded by myth and to have the chance to capture his character and seminal events in music for the big screen was too good a chance to pass up."

Director Robbie Moffat met Sir Peter - known as 'Max' - in London to seal the deal.

^{Peter Mullan in Channel 4’s ‘The Fear’ (Channel 4)}

"To have one of the world's greatest composers on board is a real coup. I think Max's music is the perfect match for the film and its atmospheric and honest portryal.

"Max has a real sense of the themes of inextricably people caught up in history - of time and place - of events that have shaped today and the future. His music is made for this movie and we cannot wait to hear the results - we are sure the score will be memorable, evocative and moving."

Filming on The Great Getaway will begin in the summer with the battle scene involving more than 500 extras.

The battle will be constructed by Seoras Wallace, who shot to fame when he directed the fight scenes in Braveheart. He has worked on more than 100 major films including Gladiator and Saving Private Ryan.

The new film is the first major movie about Charles Edward Stuart since Bonnie Prince Charlie, the 1948 production starring David Niven and Margaret Leighton.

Great Getaway finds locations in Scotland

The Great Getaway Film 
Press Release

Above - Victoria Steven Wallace, Seoras Walllce, Councillor Willie Scobie, Mairi Sutherland ,Merrik, Vivien Smith picture in Stranraer the location nearby proposed 'Battle of Culloden'

Producers of the Independent British film ‘The Great Getaway’ about the flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie to the Isle of Skye are looking for their lead character of ‘The Prince’. Mairi Sutherland, Producer of The Great Getaway was surprised to discover she is competing with USA based, Sony backed, TV series with billions of dollars at its command, for the character Bonnie Prince Charlie at the same time.  She says the storylines are totally different with the Great Getaway opting for a historically accurate portrayal of the heart rending defeat of Prince Charlie at the battle of Culloden. Outlander, on the other hand features 1745, in a modern day setting with characters zipping through a time portal. She goes on to say’ It is confusing for the film industry because the budgets are different and we are now competing for crew, actors and locations. Our Charlie is the lead character – our 'proposed' budget is 7.5 million dollar, so we are not able to go for inflated American budgets for cast. We want American involvement but they must accept cuts in pay to be in genuine British films. Mairi agreed with the head of BBC Film, Christine Langan, who was quoted in the London Evening Standard about the threat of American TV series competition last week. Christine Langan said…..

‘There are 2 industries in this country. There’s obviously the ‘service’ industry that can pick up a lot of Hollywood work and foreign investment. And then there’s the British film industry that is telling British stories with a British voice and that is almost a different industry. They feed into each other. A lot of people who start in the indigenous industry go on to make films that bestride the earth. But we have to nurture our own industry and protect it. If that goes, it goes for good. There’s a lot of value in speaking the same language as the Americans, but we have to be mindful of safeguarding our own work’. 

This comes in the week that Producer Mairi Sutherland, her Associate Producer, Seoras Wallace met with the BBC Scotland Commissioner Ewan Angus to discuss whether the BBC will support ‘The Great Getaway' financially. They will also meet with a team from Stranraer who are making a bid to take the location for the Battle of Culloden and to train local film extras.

Meanwhile, Scottish based, Victoria Steven-Wallace Casting Director for The Great Getaway agreed. She said “With so many big budget US backed productions underway in the UK which are really attracting much of the best home grown talent at top rates. I think for the producers of Great Getaway it’s very hard for them and other independent producers to compete with these big budget producers and come out smiling. Having said that, ‘It’s important that actors get work regularly and I totally and wholeheartedly support the producers of ‘The Great Getaway’ because they are endeavoring to employ local actors’ crew and production talent… I do find I’m often in hard negotiations about the price for actors all the time, but that’s my job and with such a good script written by Robbie Moffat it is an easy sell this time.

Film Director Robbie Moffat is buoyed by the public support. At the moment he is opting to cast an unknown for Bonnie Prince Charlie though he hasn't given up getting a Hollywood star. ‘I want to surround Charlie with famous actors and I'm delighted that James Cosmo has come in to support the production with a letter of interest. James Cosmo is a Bafta winner and with this kind of calibre of actor we know that we can get other great actors like Peter Mullan on board as well. We are waiting to hear about Kirsten Stuart of Twilight TV series for the part of Flora MacDonald. So it’s all good at the moment.

Robbie Moffat has directed over 21 independent feature films, but he is still to get acceptance from Hollywood who keep asking who is he? What has he done? It is galling, he says and as Christine Lagan Head of BBC films said last week competing with the  US TV series reach is ’going to be challenging for the independent sector’.

Seoras Wallace associate producer and Fight Director has also come up against similar stumbling blocks in developing his William Wallace TV series hopefully to be filmed in Scotland. In terms of The Great Getaway he said "Im fully behind the production in whatever form it finally takes as it’s an excellent script and the take on the empathy that many highlanders showed to a “Foreign” king is mind boggling. For me its grist to the mill because my profession is about setting up good believable film fights that entertains and amazes audiences. The strategy planning and execution of battles like Culloden is my vocation and instead of bringing or importing stunt people from everywhere this film production is opening a door to people who have the skills but never had the opportunity to show them. I agree with the Director in that I want to give local home based talent the opportunity to get a foot on the ladder, and I certainly know by my own experience they can do it given the opportunity.

Finally Producer Mairi Sutherland said ‘ I'm enjoying putting this film together with have the support of a the company which raises money from the UK Enterprise Investment scheme so I have no reason to say the film will not get financed on way or the other. Gone are the days when we were shunned for blowing the whistle on the 1990’s Scottish Film Production Fund that had all their Committee members applying for Lottery Funds, while also applying for the public funds they managed.  Things have changed since then, and film industry people are now supportive, instead of telling us we can’t make films they are now saying Why Not?

The prospective start date for The Great Getaway the end of June 2015 and the Producers are preparing the ground, choosing locations, in the hope it will be shot in Scotland despite an offer to shot the film in Ireland, where tax credits and Irish Film Board support is more very attractive than Scottish Creative Scotland funding. Having said that, Creative Scotland is supportive – at a meeting in January, they set the producers a challenge that if they got good actors and some Hollywood names then they could put funds into the production.

‘It’s not a matter of how, It’s just a matter of when says Robbie Moffat film director and writer of the script.

The Great Getaway - Culloden and Bonnie Prince Charlie

This blog has not seen much action for the last year, but preparations for the film 'The Great Getaway' the flight of Bonnie Prince Charlie to Skye should change the long absence of news.

The last three weeks have seen location scouting in the Stranraer area of Scotland for the suitable location for the battle of Culloden scenes of the film. The film is in its final stages of financing with many pledges of support from Scottish actors, who were involved in Scotland's last great film battle, Braveheart, which was completed outside of Scotland in Ireland. In order to prevent the film again going to Ireland, the producer team are busy laying the ground for film fighting workshops in Dumfries and Galloway to lead the way to create trained extras for the battle scene that aims to employ over 500 people for the battle alone.

To get all the information on the Producers, the script and the background, please see our information pack here

Much press has followed the continuing formation of the Film Fighting Workshops, which are being helmed by the Film Veteran Fight Arranger, Seoras Wallace, who has joined the production as Associate Producer. You can view the news from the borders tv website here

There is also a substantial article on a two page spread by the Sunday Herald newspaper here

As the main Producer on the ground, I am delighted to be receiving pledges of support from actor's Tommy Flanagan and Marc Boone, of the highly successful TV series Son of Anarchy, where their show has over 8 million viewers and fans. Tommy Flanagan received his first acting break on Braveheart and hails from Scotland. I am also encouraged by letters of interest from great actors like James Cosmo. I think with the team that is assembling behind this film its promises to be a real success one way or another. It is also a triumph in screen writing by Robbie Moffat.

I can only apologise for the absence of my blog for such a long time, but it seems that there were many obstacles put in the way of  me getting the time and space to sit down and write it.

I think with some good leads, in the pipeline this blog is not likely to remain so silent for so long this year. I leave you with the 1964 film remix of the battle of Culloden and thoughts on how much of a challenge it will be to assemble over 500 trained film fighting extras by July 2015 here

More news to follow in the coming weeks......

Health and Wealth - A New Year's Resolution

My Facebook Photo

February just flew by, and here we are in March, with crocuses and snowdrops already in bloom.

Health regimes seem to be on the agenda for most of the acting and film community at this time of the year and I was going to look at some of the things that can help us all to pull it together. We can think that if we go to the gym we are being healthy but that depends on our addiction quotient. How many, teas, coffees, and alcohol did we have, before or after, we went to the gym? What can we do to tackle addictions and the denials of them all?

I made a start by tackling my own tobacco habit. Since my last blog I have switched to the e cigarette, but I have not managed to forsake nicotine entirely though I have reduced the amount and form of nicotine so that at the moment I am not taking the additional damaging fumes from tobacco. I am happy with the varieties available at www.10motives.com and I find that they last for a few days because I only smoke 10 a day, the e cigarette gives out the equivalent of 40 cigarettes before the battery dies. I’m afraid it is not as pleasurable as tobacco and doesn't have the same relaxing effect, but it definitely feels cleaner and healthier on the lungs. I hope by next month, I can report to you that I have stopped completely. The last time I gave up with e cigarettes, I was successful for about 2 months, so it is possible to stop with this approach. The biggest challenge for the smoker is that in a moment of stress, you start smoking again.  It is very important to re-programme the brain to stop thoughts that tell you can’t cope with stress, without a cigarette.

Last time on the blog, I spoke about crystal therapies, and how they are capable of helping to re –programme our brains away from addictive behaviours.

Here are the crystals which particularly help with tobacco and alcohol addiction.

Amethyst – pictured here.  It is the best crystal to use for addictions and when amplified beside quartz it can help to transport the brain away from the time wasting and damaging effects of alcohol and tobacco. Amethyst has a cleansing effect from the urge to imbibe and it helps to re-direct our brains by re-focusing onto activities of a creative nature. Around Amethyst you are more likely to do the displacement activity of putting away dishes or writing a blog, than picking up a cigarette. It is worth the expense of buying a stone, just to see it’s effect. For the price of a packet of cigarettes you should be able to get quite a large piece of stone.

Azurite – A blue stone that is very difficult to find so it’s relative, blue Sodalite is just as good, because it sooths the emotions and is able to bring self-esteem or well-being to the fore of our minds, which can offset the stress that leads to cigarette smoking or alcohol.

Cornelian – A bright orange stone, immediately energies the wearer removing fatigue very quickly and along with Amber, it is nature’s caffeine, so to speak.

Purple Fluorite – This stone is very powerful in combating addiction because it’s properties help the mind to concentrate. The wearer may also experience a level of determination that could otherwise be elusive. It is a stone for meditation and mindfulness.

I hear the sceptics saying hogwash! Well try it and see – rather buy a stone than a packet of cigarettes! As I said with the help of these stones I hope to report to you, by next month I have given up cigarettes entirely.

Wealth is also important to our Health and if we don’t feel appreciated it can effect self-esteem, which in turn is often the spark to more addictive behaviour. So I think it is helpful for those struggling to give up cigarettes or alcohol to think of the positive things they have achieved and not dwell on what they think are negative parts of their personalities.

CELEBRATING ACHIEVEMENTS (without alcohol and cigarettes)

With the Oscar season finally over, it is time to get back to basics. For those who haven’t looked at the films I have directed, you can find them with their trailers listed here.

In particular I think you will enjoy watching the film I wrote and directed called Photoshoot staring John Altman and Debbie Arnold. It is about the life of an ageing actress, May Hudson, whose reclusive nature is interrupted by the attentions of a Paparazzi, Wayne Wilson. He is challenged by his Editor, to get pictures of May Hudson to increase the circulation of the magazine, but it soon dawns on him that getting a picture of May is not going to be easy and he may have to scam her to get what he wants. He is forced to pose as a film producer, while he enlists her ex film Producer friends to trick her back into films by having her photographs taken.  Loosely based on the Hollywood film Sunset Boulevard, Photoshoot, looks at the predicament of the older women in an industry which at worst has resigned them to the scrapheap, and at best left them on the shelf.  The film takes a teasing look at the film industry and how it’s fascination for the perfect photograph is false and even brutalising to women.

For more information on John Altman look here.  For Debbie Arnold check  here.

Enjoy the Films and your discoveries with Healing Crystals.

Photo - Mairi Sutherland at the Production Guild 2006

Addiction and Silence equals Zero

January 2014 seems to have gone fleetingly with unfinished business from 2013. In my case it was a botched hasty NHS colonoscopy, which has hopefully caused no lasting complications? Time will tell. Despite that, I was thankful for the news it was not cancer.

                                          Me at Maxims in Paris, Feb 2013

The film business, reeling from the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman, finds itself re-examining it's attitude to mental and physical health. Six years ago another acting icon, Heath Ledger died in similar circumstances in the same week in 2008.

I had the privilege of sitting at the same table as Heath Ledger, in the December before he died. He entered the canteen, looking drawn and hardly recognisable in a hoodie.. He was clearly unwell, looking much stressed and I deeply regret not being able to find a card for the Pinewood studios ‘in house’ alternative clinic, when he removed himself from the table to phone New York. It was no surprise to hear two months later he was dead. It left an impression on me and I chided the head of Pinewood Studios for not fighting to keep a new alternative health clinic open there and when it closed I suggested to Ivor Dunleavy, he try to investigate means of funding an addiction and alcohol clinic on site for actors. To date nothing has been done, perhaps because actors themselves don’t speak up about their problems, for fear that they won’t get work if they admit it, so they keep their addictions to themselves. The only time it seems it becomes public knowledge is when the actor is far beyond hope and on death's door.

This is a terrible state of affairs. 

As a Producer and Production Manager for over a decade, I have seen many actors quite literary pull themselves to work trying to hide the excesses of the night before. Their aggressive stance belies the reality of the situation and most PM’s (Production Managers) keep silent to maintain the flow of the production and it's insurance proclivities. However such a silence only delays the inevitable, which is that some actors will run into trouble with drugs and alcohol at some stage of their careers. In this case it is the silence by their peers that is the enemy and the movie industry needs to adopt a more open attitude to deal with the problem. At every studio there should be a drugs and alcohol drop in centre for moments when actors face difficulty. Time and money should be put into this by those who benefit, yet face the denial.

Acting is stressful and very self-criticising often to the point of being excruciating for the performer. So while we consider the talent of these people, we must also consider the toll on them and start to put a deposit down on their careers by providing more opportunities to discuss and deal with addictions.

In a similar vein, I feel that Lifestyle and Health in the acting community is largely ignored in favour of a false cosmetic appearance of Health, which is not the same thing. It is time we started to discuss things more openly.

In way of getting the ball rolling each of my blogs this year will contain a small section on Health Matters and those who follow me on twitter will know my predilection for things like Yoga, Crystal Healing and Tibetan singing bowls. All three of them have a similar theme in that they have the ability to change the frequency of our brainwaves in such a way as to remove old habits that can clog our arteries and mental health. Crystals I find in that they are based on the mineral content of the stones have some basis for use in science. Quartz in particular has the ability to hold information similar to that of magnetic tape. By their use we can help to programme our habits into a more fruitful positive framework, by ‘tuning’ in to the life force and positive energy of the stones. Some will say this is hogwash, but it is no accident that the computer binary code is carried by quartz light pulses so it is not out with scientific knowledge to understand how Crystals transmit positive emissions of energy. In illness we can effectively put our own programme command into Crystals to ask them to assist in healing. This could mean they will assist in aligning our brain to eating the right food at the right time for our own mineral and vitamin improvement or helping by bringing someone to you who has the correct answer to your problem. Crystals work purely on a positive level and their own programme in Nature means they cannot accept negative transmissions and will move away from such suggestions. Many people speak of losing a crystal and this is most likely when the crystal itself will not tolerate negative energy. Intrinsically connected to Nature, crystals are one of the Earth Healing Entities. So with that knowledge I hope you will enjoy other such Health tips in my future blogs.

Happy New Year , if only that it is a month late!  

There is Light at the end of the tunnel

Whilst I await, the funding of the Young Pretender Film, about Bonnie Prince Charlie, to be made manifest, like some lost miracle, for it is not forthcoming, I have been preparing the course work on 'The Scottish Enlightenment'. Of course obviously at some point this research could grow into a film in the future. For now while my feet recover ( a long story) from helping the charity 'Save the Children,' I am pursuing the higher climbs of academic research. Here are some of the class notes.

Apologies for the lack of blogs in the last few months, but due to having to run around like a blue assed fly, for ventures that resulted in no cash, I have had to do other things. Needless to say, you will find the following essay has parallels with many things that are happening throughout the world today in 2013. (Some corrections are necessary as a 'work in progress' and the number of commas needed below is a matter of grammatical error for the expert or folly for the faint hearted. I make no apologies. but assume it is better to get it on paper, than quibble about it's sum total of omissions.)

What is 'The Scottish Enlightenment' you ask? It was responsible for many of the world's important inventions, the most famous inventor being James Watt, who designed the steam engine. Science was not the only beneficiary, moral philosophy economics, architecture, and art, were all effected by the brainstorm that was unleashed in Scotland between 1720 to 1790. It was to produce, Adam Smith, the economist of the book the Wealth of Nations, the architect, Robert Adam,  responsible for neo-classical buildings, David Hume, the Father of Modern Philosophy.  The list of inventors in the field of mathematics, engineering is too great to list here, but they were responsible for the next generation of Scottish inventors, namely, Alexander Graham Bell for the telephone, John Logie Baird for the Television. Alexander Fleming for Penicillin. This amazing concentration of inventions from people who were educated in Scotland, spanned almost 200 years, in intellectual activity. Today in it's shadow the modern world was created.

The Roots of the Scottish Enlightenment

If we liken the Scottish Enlightenment to a tree that grew many offshoots and branches, it was to have roots in the era before it, which had seen the success of the Protestant Religion burgeon into a force that had swallowed both Church and state so that the fine line between the legal and fiscal functions of government was inextricably linked with the morals invoked by the Church. This began to have a stifling effect on the population who could not move without being accused of fornication or at worst blasphemy. Whilst the Church had started out as a force for change and equality, after the death of John Knox, the Church began to be stultified, eroding the freedoms it once sought. The very intellectuals who had been created by the ‘Parish’ free schools system created by John Knox in his Book of Discipline, railed against the imposition of Church doctrines on secular life. The Scottish Enlightenment was to become almost a counter revolution against the hierarchical nature of the priestly imposition on the state conducted from the pulpit.

The era of the persecution of witches, which was arguably used as a means of social control, instilled fear into the population to abide by the growing repression contained in the New Calvinism, which become bereft of the Freedoms first espoused by John Knox.

JOHN KNOX AND THE SCHOOL ACT

John Knox doctrines, were to revolutionise Scottish society. In the Book of Discipline, he proposed the Parish School, should to be free and open to all parishioners. This meant education was accessible to the population in a way that had been denied to them hitherto the Schools Act of 1696. The parish schools became very successful so much so, they were a significant factor in creation of the 'Scottish Enlightenment'' because they produced a highly literate population. The statistics bear this out, in that Scotland was to have the highest number of people per head of population, who could read and write in Europe. It is estimated that the total number of people who could read and write, including numeracy, were to be as high as 90 per cent of the population. This is an amazing number and even modern states would be hard pushed to create this kind of statistic. John Knox's Parish school meant that all classes, from all strata's of society could participate in gaining a higher education, once they completed the basic parish school curriculums.

In his vision, to create a society where every child would be able to read the bible, he was also creating a society with a highly educated work force, who were able to conduct themselves in a trade or craft but, also at the same time converse, read and write about the higher matters in life of moral philosophy, art and religion.

The epitome of a Scottish Enlightenment and pupil of the parish was in fact Robert Burns the apparent 'unschooled' poet, who had been taught by a Parish teacher, in the classics of the Latin and Greek tradition. He was to become one of the key voices of The Scottish Enlightenment'.  John Knox had succeeded in his wish of creating a 'bible reading' population, but in doing so he had also created a population intelligent enough to question his creed. John Knox became of victim of his own success. He created a literate population who were ready to question his judgements, but his legacy remains today, in that he laid the basis for the principle of free, state run schools with  easy access from the general population. ( These schools, were paid for by Church collections, as well as local government donations. They put in place the Parish Teacher, to provide general knowledge, the classics and numeracy as well as the Bible. This was free and open to everyone including women and girls.)

Of this change in the People's access to education, Adam Smith said in his Wealth of Nations, that the Parish school system had taught ‘almost the whole common people to read, and a very great proportion of them to write and account. ‘

The Influence of New Ideas

Prior to 1700, the trial and execution of Thomas Aitkenhead was to galvanise, the educated Scottish middle classes, against the cruelty and absolutism of the law of blasphemy.

Thomas Aitkenhead had criticised the rule of God, in a Bible class, but the way he said this, was open to interpretation. What was an off the cuff remark, became an accusation against him, when he was accused of blasphemy, a crime that held the penalty of death. After his imprisonment and many months of trial, amid his own confession to love God’s laws, he was sentenced to death. Many lawyers and legal brains like John Locke had tried to intercede in the trial to prevent the young boys death, but the Church Elders, who were also part of the Government were adamant that the law of Blasphemy must be upheld.

The trial was very unpopular amongst the people, but despite some protests, the boy was executed. The resulting fall out with the Church elite, brought up many issues about the correctness of having a powerful Church that was intervening in the laws of the state. It meant that many intellectuals began to call for the separation of Church and state, because it seemed that extreme interpretations of the Church with regard to Blasphemy were not in line with the secular interpretations of criminal behaviour. Should the Church and State be separate? By the end of the Scottish Enlightenment,  the whole structure of Scottish Government was to change.

End of Witchcraft

Witchcraft, or rather the fear of it, was the force to be reckoned with throughout the previous, 16^th and 17^th centuries, particularly in Scotland when a wave of burnings and executions were common place in the guise of the 'Witch Hunt'.  Witch hunting had become part of the armoury of Religion, to instil fear into the congregation to uphold the values of the Church, but in doing so the Church lost the values of the Bible.  The era of superstition based on an idea of witchcraft, amid cries of ‘Burn Her, Burn Her’, was to become a thing of the past, giving way to the forces of reason. But political changes going on in England were first to make a big impact on Scotland, prior to the Scottish Enlightenment.

UNION OF THE CROWNS AND PARLIAMENTS

Before 1700, England was experiencing what was known as the ‘Killing Times’ from 1667 to 1680 under the rule of Charles the second. It was to end in 1688 with the ‘Glorious Revolution’ and the enthronement of William of Orange in a bid to bring about the end of the Stuart Monarchy. It by some quirk of fate brought the lineage of the royal line of the Kings of Scotland and England together. Before long it was to herald the Union of Parliament's between Scotland and England. This move was hastened by an Economic disaster in Scotland in 1695, known as the Darien Scheme. It was a complete monumental catastrophe for Scottish trade and wealth. The scheme was supposed to allow Scotland to claim a patch of land in Panama that would control world trade. The idea of this excited the Scottish gentry’s sense of worth, but sent them over a precipice, like Lemmings. In their attempt to get a piece of it, they invested large sums of money, to take several ships, with an army to win the land from the Natives there. They were to raise and squander 400,000, half of the total money in the country of Scotland at the time.

It ended in tears, the Scots failed to claim the land in the ensuing battles that took place with the Natives and Spanish, who also believed they were the owners of the land in Panama. The creators of the Darien scheme, Paterson and Fletcher, were defeated. They left behind them broken investors, with the economy in Scotland unable to mend the void of cash.

So much so, that when the suggestion came up to Unite the Parliaments, many of those who had invested in the Darien Scheme, were anxious to make gains from the more buoyant English economy, with its sprawling successful Empire of trade in both the East and West of the World.

Union of Parliaments

In 1707, therefore the stage was set for a Union of Economies that was tied together in the Union of Parliaments. It was brokered by the aggressive Hanoverian, the Marquis of Queensberry, who went around the Scottish aristocracy, trying to get them to sign the act of parliament that would seal the fates of the two countries. It was not agreed upon by the people, who raised a mob in Edinburgh, which effectively ran the gentry out of Parliament. In the end the Treaty of Union was signed in secret in a cellar in Edinburgh, before the Marquis and his cronies, were run out of town by an ensuing rabble. For his pains the Marquis received 12000 pounds, for arranging it all, by the English authorities.

In the book ‘How the Scots Invented the Modern World’,  Arthur Herman claims that the Treaty of Union meant that Scotland became wealthy for over 20 years and that this stable economy created the foundations for the Scottish Enlightenment.

But he points out that the taxes needed to support the Union were unpopular with the people, because they were much higher than the taxes of the previous Independent Scotland. So when Bonnie Prince Charlie, raised his head above the parapet to reclaim the Ancient Regime, he gained some support, because many thought he might reverse the Union of the countries and bring Scotland back to its own Nation.

Economic  Stability

Herman claims further, that by not spending money and time on governing, the Scots got the best of both Worlds, in that they got peace and order from a strong administrative state, with the freedom to develop and innovate without undue interference. Further Herman says that the Treaty of Union destroyed an Independent Kingdom and put Scotland’s economy into a tail spin, but it turned out to be the making of the 'Scottish Enlightenment.'

The statistics relating to the Economy at the time do seem to bear that out. Grain exports doubled. Lowland farmers were faced with falling prices due to a grain surplus. Glasgow merchants entered the Atlantic trade. By 1715 they were taking 15% of the tobacco trade and within 2 decades they were running it. Then by 1755 the value of Scottish exports had doubled.

Herman’s by line on this, is that despite the economic boom, it was something more intrinsic to Scottish culture that actually created the Scottish Enlightenment – the Universities and the Law courts unaffected by the Union were the driving force for The Scottish Enlightenment. In the coming weeks we will see how they achieved it.

What ever the ferment that caused 'The Scottish Enlightenment' the ingredients of the bubbling pot, in which it was contained, rose up from a simmer at the beginning of the 1700's to become a bubbling boiling mass of intellectual activity,  in the 1760's to 1860's, resulting in many of the inventions, we now consider made the modern world.

For more information, with entertaining video's on the people who created 'The Scottish Enlightenment' you can see a helpful website  here

SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

Strathclyde University 2013

 

Recommended Reading List.

‘How the Scots Invented the Modern World’ by Arthur Herman ( New York Times Best Seller)

‘Scots who Enlightened the World’ by Andrew Ferguson