Robert Burns -Humanism, God and Social Conscience

Robert Burns was an ‘Everyman’ in the way that he was able to appeal to believers in God and those firmly against Organised Religion. His approach in taking an equivocal position on the human spiritual condition earned him admiration from the Humanist Movement, who considered him their own, but he also gained admirers in the radical and reforming Religious Movements.  An ‘Everyman’ is defined as an ordinary person representative of the human race.

In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual ^[1][2], with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances. The name derives from a 15th century English morality play called Everyman.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/everyman#ixzz2AmyM16Gf

The New York Times reported a speech by Robert Ingersoll in 1878, one of the founders of modern humanism, on Robert Burns. This is what Ingersoll had to say.

‘The man was a radical a real genuine man. This man believed in the dignity of labour in the nobility of the useful. This man believed in human love, in making heaven here, in judging men by their deeds instead of creeds and titles. This man believed in the liberty of the soul of thought and speech. This man believed in the sacred rights of the individual, he sympathised with the suffering and the oppressed. This man had the genius to change suffering and toil into song to enrich poverty, to make a peasant feel like a prince of the blood, to fill the lives of the lowly with love and light.’

 

The Chair of the Irish Humanist Association, Iain Decoys in an article in the Irish Humanism Magazine of 2009 ,called Robert Burns: A Scottish Sceptic. He makes the case that Robert Burns was a possible follower of Humanism before there was a movement for it. He eruditely defines Robert’s type of Religious perception as one of a sceptic in religious matters, who argued publically for 'tolerance and social justice.’ He robustly argues against the idea the Robert Burns was a supporter of the sectarian Religious Right wing, despite their supporters arguing that he was an advocate of their position.

 

Deboy’s explains how Burns is often mis –represented in his historical place in the scheme of things.  He says that ‘Burns has been called ‘The Ploughman Poet’, but this is somewhat misleading. It implies he was anti –intellectual, that he rejected a cosmopolitan lifestyle in favour of a more primitive, perhaps naïve way of life. But is completely at odds with his position in Enlightenment Edinburgh.’  He goes on to say Burns independence of mind leads him into deep scepticism about Religion when he attacks the Calvinistic hypocrisy of the Church in Holy Willies prayer. He even suggests that Burns may have questioned the Divinity of Christ though this is not substantiated in Burns writings. He correctly, however points out that Burns recognised an’ unbending moral code of seeming righteous religions could be at odds with social justice ‘.

He goes on to say Burns had to be careful about declaring his scepticism openly as this could ruin his reputation. Even his friends found it difficult to guess whether he had faith or whether he was mocking it. But whatever the case, there is a declaration of faith in this statement to Mrs Dunlop.

‘Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters, I trust thou art no imposter, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence beyond death and the grave is not one of the many impositions which time after time have been palmed off on a credulous mankind’

But this is of course, a letter to one of the ‘whited sepulchres’, Mrs Dunlop, to whom he would be obsequious because she was an advocate of the Calvinistic views of the Church and a person who had the power to make his life difficult.

Preview of Robert Burns and Women

On the blog the return button is not working so there is no chance of making paragraphs so one must, as it were, read it in one breath. For the Romantics among us this is  my view on Robert Burns and Women (Pre - View of Academic Course Notes)

Robert Burns was a lover of women from the outset, and it almost seems his poetry was just catching up with his passion for them.

In his life he had 6 children out of wedlock and 9 children with Jean. Only 3 of the children survived family life, meaning that 6 of them died before adulthood. It is estimated that he must have had over 10 sexual affairs and countless other unconsummated dalliances with women, who then also became the focus of his poetry. His sexual encounters are legendary because he wrote about them and they are real life affairs making the power of his poetry all the more Romantic because each poem refers to real women in his life at that time. It was as if he was embarking on a theatrical seduction in some cases in that he knew they would become the subject of his poetry but it seems, he also cared for these women at the same time, it was not just mere poetic license.

 

However there is a downside. He seems to have taken most of the women for granted and once they are pregnant he has all but abandoned them. The worse example of this is the pregnancy of Jenny Clow who was the servant girl of Clarinda, known as Agnes McLehose. It is as if he in, not taking Clarinda to bed, takes his sexual frustrations out on the maid. By all accounts when Clarinda points out how ill Jenny is from the baby, Burns just is not interested in helping out with the child or contributing financially. Therefore there is something amiss in his attitude to women. In the case of Clarinda she suffers from immense social pressures because she is related as a cousin to Lord Craig and her upbringing in the social elite in Glasgow where her father was a surgeon, meant that she could not easily shake off the controversy raging in Ayrshire over his latest pregnant love Jean Armour. However Clarinda may have thought that he would choose her over Jean and she expresses bitter disappointment that he bows to social pressure to marry the maid. It is as if Robert Burns is continually living out some higher idea he has of sexual love that he just can’t quite seem to capture in real life, which he seems to easily master in Poetry. He seems to deliberately portray himself as a man seeking love through his muses, but who fails either to find a Women to return his love, or he for her. His poems are always seeking the moment, and when love is found, it slips away. The best example of this is in the poem Ae Fond Kiss, about Clarinda with whom he parts or similarly with Highland Mary who dies in child birth before he can bring her to his heart. Such tragedy is the stuff of poetry and myth but what makes his poetry work is that the verses are about real women, his real loves. Somehow therefore Burns in his literary personality is the epitome of the Romantic Lover, which in Literature has its equivalents in Bronte’s Heathcliff, or in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. But what make Burn’s Romance work more effectively even than these Literary Romances, is that none of the poems are divorced from his real life. These women he writes about are his girlfriends, lovers, and friends to the point that his descriptions of them gave him an ethereal quality creating the international image as a man always in love, always passionate and always rejected – a perfect companion for the Muses, for whom he lusted. Living up to this image was however not easy and it maybe in fact where the fantasy failed to create the reality particularly in his marriage where the sheer struggle to feed the children was taking its toll on both partners. The fact he stood by Jean although she was not his idea of his literary Romantic Love is the measure of the man, in that he stayed with her despite it all, protecting her and making sure she was provided for in life and even after he was gone.

Film shows it's educational potential

I was surprised when I was asked to teach classes about the poet Robert Burns. But I suppose I should not under estimate the amount of research I put into the screenplay, called, Red Rose about the life of the poet. After five years of research it was finally made in 2003 and then it was distributed across Europe by HBO who translated the script into 11 different languages for their TV channels. It was also screened on TV in China where it was translated into Manderin. At home in Scotland the Sun Newspaper distributed the film with 500,000 DVD's in its daily news circulation. The film therefore reached a mass audience. The fact that a Heritage Course can emerge from this shows that films are part of popular culture, effective in education and stimulate the economy.

Above is the Alloway Church made famous by the Robert Burns poem Tam O'Shanter. Today, the film will help create the basis of a six week course on the life of the poet. Im flattered to be a 'Visting Lecturer'. However I must say it wont stop me from producing films because it is only for a few hours a week and I have plenty other films to be getting on with namely another bio pic on the Life of the little known documentary maker Jenny Gilbertson, who made films about the Shetland Islands in Scotland and the life of the Inuit Indians in Canada. (Seriously worthy cultural stuff) But it doesnt stop there because Im developing an array of different script ideas and possiblities...but I must say the Templar script is langishing unfinished. Something to do for those wintery dark nights I suppose.

Alloway Church again with that famous bell tower image. Photos taken by Mairi Sutherland. Sadly the documentaries have alluded me for now, but it is difficult to make them the prime focus with so much else going on. One has to cast ones seeds as it were on all types of ground to see which ones grows first. In the meantime it seems Robert Burns is the focus again at least for the time being. I still await the sound mix of Going Green Movie........

Red Rose Trailer.mov

Final Cut Completed

July and August are practically dead for film makers because the acquisition executives go on holiday until September - trying to raise a cogent statement from anybody on the phone is impossible. So those in the know, carry on with their productions waiting until the distribution community gets back to work. I, in the meantime wait to see when the sound mix of Going Green will come about. I completed the final cut in July and I'm happy to say Going Green lived up to it's intial pitch as a 'feel good road movie'. Here are the lead actors, Darren Enright and Rachael Rath, looking over their lines in between shots, in Spetember last year during the shooting of Going Green.

While I wait for the sound mix, I have turned my attention to the subject of my first screenplay, Robert Burns who is on my mind because I am devising evening classes about his life for the University of Strathclyde. Below are some photgraphs from the making of the film, Red Rose, about Robert Burns.

Above, Jean Armour, wife of Robert Burns played by Lucy Russell along side Robert Burns played by Michael Rodgers.

Above, Jean and Robert Burns in a pastoral scene with newborn child.

Michael Rodgers catches the attention of actress Rebecca Palmer who received an award of best actress for her role as Burn's lover, Maria Riddell.

Always good to have a Redcoat standing by to keep the establisment on their toes. Captain Dodds played by Thomas Hartley.

Red Carpet Ticket

Here I am on the Red Carpet at the Cannes 2012 Festival. It's a bad picture I agree taken on my mobile phone by another Cinema attendee who didn't know how to use the camera and he received lessons there and then. I was attending the Lumiere theatre to see a 'Taste of Money' and I had a ticket for the 'Balcon'. Unknown to me those allocated Balcon tickets are not allowed to walk across the entire carpet, and only get access from the side near the stairs. To my disappointment I did not get the photograph I wanted by my paparazi friend who was working on the centre stage of the Carpet. To get the photo I would have had to make the embarrassing walk through others coming towards me, so I lost my nerve and delicately ascended the stairs with my mobile phone and Cinefil friend. It is quite an acheivement to get centre stage with Red carpet photos. It should not have been that difficult. As a member of the Marche Du Film the commercial part of the Independent screenings I'm supposed to be able to attend any screening except the Lumiere Cinema Competion Films, for which I'm allocated the choice to receive them on a daily basis from the Festival website. However the website is on a timer and many tickets get timed out before the cinema allocations are finished. To get a guarenteed ticket for the Lumiere you have to go on line at 8am and even then depending on your allowance of points given for the whole ten days you might not have enough for your choosen film. So it is a lottery. Many March Du Film professionals complain that they are not even allocated Lumiere tickets on the allocations. One such film producer was Lien Chau Zhang, photographed with me below who decided to see if we could join the local French people of Cannes, with their signs requesting a ticket for the Lumiere screening of the film 'Mud'. I was amused as you can see by the irony of trying this, but we didn't get anyone to give up their pre-arranged tickets. I was not surprised.

Somehow the tickets on a first come first served basis didn't seem to reach the throng of film makers but were dispensed to the Local French glitterati. My paparazi friend used to laugh because he would see the same people walk across the Red Carpet on every screening and he would struggle to find the Movie Stars of the films. As a professional he worked the carpet every day and was guarded about the photos he took. We smiled and laughed together and I told him I promised to get the right tickets for the 'Assenture' part of the Lumiere Theatre for next years Festival. That was it - my one Red Carpet photo. Again Janet Price Ward mentioned in my last blog was irate about how she could never get tickets for the Lumiere despite living locally and also being a member of the Marche Du Film commercial market while holding a registration badge. Her opinion was that they are sold long before the Festival began. I sound like Im moaning but well I had more to moan about like many others it was very noticable that almost all the Competition Films were distributed by the same distributor called Le Pacte. Had they accidentally got lucky and just happened to have choosen almost all the films in Competition. Maybe they had 'good taste' and they knew what they were doing? Either way the film industry doyens saw the Logo film after film and begun to mutter under there breaths again. Eventually Indiewire spoke up by making the observation that Le Pacte had more than an usual number of films in the Awards Line Up if not all. How could this be? Whatever is the case free speach requires diversity in commerce. Nor can commerce applaud such monoplies of product in the hands of only a few because ultimately that one voice will eventually determine the creative voice of the talent while it grows in the market. Democracy also requires a less demanding totalitarian approach by the Captains of Industry because this works both ways. Films that are bought by investors purely to grace an at risk portfolio may not survive the cynical use of of them purely as assets to float Hedge Funds. Producers must beware of such deals because they are only workable if the hedge funders are afloat and the distributors honour their outlays. The case in point is ICAP a commodies brokers who went into film sales without understanding the 15 year turn around of a picture. They went out of business because they did not value the product in the long term, but only as a quick turn around for their investment. A short sighted policy, which only valued the films as if they were like bricks in a one off sale. Not so a film has multiple capacity for sales in different countries over a long time scale. Below Cannes 2012 in celebration at night during a firework display caught in the lamp light of a back street. (Photo by Mairi Sutherland)

Celebrations aside one statistic that none of us can be proud of is that this year saw the percentage of Female Film Directors go down to 5% in worldwide numbers within the film industry. Indiewire listed the following statistics for the overall work force in the film industry where it seems Women are far from being equal citizens. This study analyzed behind-the-scenes employment of 2,636 individuals working on the top 250 domestic grossing films (foreign films omitted) of 2011. • 38% of films employed 0 or 1 woman in the roles considered, 23% employed 2 women, 30% employed 3 to 5 women, and 7% employed 6 to 9 women. • A historical comparison of women’s employment on the top 250 films in 2011 and 1998 reveals that the percentage of women directors has declined. The percentages of women writers and producers have increased slightly. The percentages of women executive producers, editors, and cinematographers have remained the same. • Women comprised 5% of all directors working on the top 250 films of 2011. Ninety four percent (94%) of the films had no female directors. • Women accounted for 14% of writers working on the top 250 films of 2011. Seventy seven percent (77%) of the films had no female writers. • Women comprised 18% of all executive producers working on the top 250 films of 2011. Fifty nine percent (59%) of the films had no female executive producers. • Women accounted for 25% of all producers working on the top 250 films of 2011. Thirty six percent (36%) of the films had no female producers. • Women accounted for 20% of all editors working on the top 250 films of 2011. Seventy six percent (76%) of the films had no female editors. • Women comprised 4% of all cinematographers working on the top 250 films of 2011. Ninety six percent (96%) of the films had no female cinematographers. • Women were most likely to work in the documentary, drama, and comedy genres. They were least likely to work in the horror, action, and animated genres. Report compiled by Dr. Martha M. Lauzen, Executive Director, Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, School of Theatre, Television and Film, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, 92182, 619.594.6301. If you are a women, please join the film industry, it needs you!

Cannes Film Festival 2012 - Pornography Licensed to Thrill

Here in the rain of Cannes 2012 is from left to right, Calum Johnson, (Director of Little District), actor Darren Enright and Mairi Sutherland outside the Film Screening Cinema. Despite several down pours from an unusual amount of rain in May for the Cannes Film Market, the screenings of the films Little District and Villains, supported by Palm Tree Entertainment, were well attended with a respectable number of film distributors. Stealth Media helmed by the Michael Cowan has taken up handling the sales of these two pictures. Some of the rest of the film catalogue is going on to Screen Media and other trusted sales consultants.

Above Robbie Moffat director of Villains with the actors of the film Darren Enright and Chris Bearne. Whilst Palm Tree Entertainment achieved, its goals for the festival tinged with success garnered from years in the business, I could not help noticing many aspects of the Festival organisation and selection which are often ignored by many film makers in their clamour for recognition. At first it is not entirely noticeable that there is an accepted and increasingly oppressive assumption by the Festival Organizers that women must adhere to traditional social mores of being submissive, non-creative, social appendages, whose sole purpose is to become a sex object or a clothes horse, the two not being mutually exclusive to each other. But how do I substantiate such a claim in 2012 when apparently women have supposedly been liberated? One only has to look at the type of films choosen by the Selection Committee to see that things have not moved along in France for Women. The film in competition Post Tenebras Lux certainly raised the bar on this subject by controversially showing women in a bad light, through a pornographic scene placed gratuitously inside a story about bad parents living in a rural area of Mexico. The scene in question was set in a Turkish bath, not something found in Mexico, where it seems the locals had orgies there regularly. The orgy commenced with the homosexual violent rape of boys in a toilet, though not clearly seen by the audience because this was filmed in the distance, the impact of the action was never the less the same - pornographic. The rest of the scene shows a nubile female being pimped to boys by an older women, who holds her while she has sex with one of them. The girl then thanks the older women for helping her, which is a laughable moment in that any women being taken by a few boys in a public bath is certainly not going to like it. In this sickening moment I realized that this was no better than a sleazy pornography story of the kind one avoided on foreign adult channels. As if the pornography was not enough on its own, the French added insult to injury, by rewarding the film director of Post Tenebras Lux with the Best Director Prize. Their defense is that the story line was pointing out parental corruption, but I would argue that this could have been achieved with a better script and without the pornography. Sadly such a story is not a one off because another film with pornographic content was Korean Film 'A Taste of Money' crafted by the accomplished Hang Sang-Soo. While the film was about the corruption which money brings to a political elite, the film was cheapened by a scene that showed 3 'servants' performing fellatio, while clad in pseudo sadomasochistic outfits. One can only assume that film directors of this calabre know that such sex scenes give their film selling power, but they fail to see the social effects on women. Janette Price Ward a PR consultant for many film companies in Cannes over the years, said that the sexual content of many films 'In Competition' could be judged by the easy availability of tickets for these films, because their box office was not guarded or valued by the French organizers. She went on to say that sexual content was a common prerequisite for films selected for 'In Competition' Section of the Festival. She also had a bee in her bonnet not just about the casual preponderance of pornography in most competition films she had seen over the years but also how the Red Carpet tickets were dispensed. She said the Red carpet was mainly only to a French elite of Cannes, and not the Market Du Film goers who paid for the festival with their badge registrations. ( More about this later in another blog) I began to wonder how many films 'En Competition' had had gratuitous sexual content in them because I had only managed to get Red Carpet Tickets for two of the films, thus confirming Janet's hypothesis. Whatever is the case, any film that has what could be regarded as a legal definition of pornography, should not be honored by the Selection Committee. In that this is ignored, shows how much women's rights are disregarded at the Cannes Film Festival.

Me with wet hair at the Cannes Film festival Oh La La! And just in time to meet Euan McGregor! But it seems many agree about this, and only mutter under their breath, rather than trying to speak out for fear of being seen to criticize the autocratic selection process. Some close to that process this year did seem uneasy about the way women were portrayed. In a chance meeting with the actor Euan Mcgregor who was on the Jury for the Festival, I found him voicing concern that he had not seen enough Female Film Director's Films. In discussing it with him, he suggested that as a female film director I was indeed a rare commodity and he was unsettled about how women were treated generally in the film business, if not just in France. So people like him had noticed something was not quite right about how the selectors had related to Women, so it was not just me then! A few weeks earlier the Guardian Newspaper had also commented on the small number of female film directors selected in Cannes. Considering that only 6 percent of women are working as film directors reveals how much sexual chauvinism exists in keeping this statistic in place while conversely 94 percent of men are holding the position of authority as film directors. Nor has the number of female producers of film increased with only 15 percent making this grade. The most powerful industry in the world perpetuates the most powerful discrimination against women in the world! Few Arab Spring Film Makers! Furthermore the absence of the Arab Spring Film makers except for one Egyptian Film in Competition further showed how completely out of touch the Festival Selection Committee was with the rest of the world. The planet had seen several revolutions since last year but you would never know from the Cannes Film Festival Selection. The Arab voice is strongly needed if only to correct the over insistence and misuse of pornography against women, which is rightly condemned in Arabic settings. Again a chance meeting lead me further to see how Cannes Film festival organizers have fallen into the abusive practices, which maintain the oppression of women. A young girl, on her way back home, had just resigned from her job as a Stewardess on a Yacht in the Harbour of the Cannes Riviera. I asked her why she had done this. She explained that it was commonly expected that as well as serving the guests they might also perform sexual favours for the Yacht owners. She was not going to prostitute herself. She was off to get another job despite the incentive of earning over 20,000 in one season. She was concerned about her friend who had stayed, because she had been threatened for not complying with the 'sexual requirement' of the job. She was a strong girl and she was angered by what she had seen as the wealthy elite forcing hidden forms of 'prostitution' in the guise of a service industry. So this is the under belly of the Cannes Film Festival. Inside the veneer of the glitter and 'gold' the fact is, women are still treated as second class citizens in 2012. Changing this will not be easy unless actors and film directors refuse to participate in the sexual exploitation of their art and stop ignoring the blurred line between sex and pornography. There is also a bigger social message that is being missed in Cannes Film festival by ignoring the impact of pornography on society. The court case involving the 12 year old on the Isle of Skye, who raped 3 girls while accessing internet porn sites, shows how the innocent can be mislead by pornography into believing it is an ordinary form of sexual expression. It falls on institutions like the Cannes Film Festival to take a more responsible approach to the promulgation of pornography by refusing to showcase it no matter how good the rest of a film may appear. What is galling is that a voice which represents only 6 percent of the film industry is hardly likely to be loud enough to drown out the advocates of porn who seem to be in control of the selection process itself.

Mairi Sutherland 'Producer Film Direstor' with Janet Price Ward, Public Relations Specialist