Scotland in Film
Brian Pendreigh's The Pocket Scottish Movie Book is an inexpensive guide to the industry, locations and filmmakers. Allan Foster's The Movie Quiz Companion is a good choice for a present.
Colin MacArthur has a more academic look at Scots influences on cinema in Brigadoon, Braveheart And The Scots: Scotland In Hollywood Cinema while Duncan Petrie's Screening Scotland focuses on the history of Scottish film production.
Fiction titles which have been adapted to the screen include Trainspotting, The Acid House, Young Adam, Regeneration, Whisky Galore, Tunes of Glory, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae, Morvern Callar, The Thirty-Nine Steps, Another Time, Another Place, The James Bond titles, (Ian Fleming has a Scottish background), The Harry Potter titles (starting with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone) and Venus Peter (from Christopher Rush's A Twelvemonth and a Day).
Documentary titles include Michael Russell's book, A Different Country, on Werner Kissling, a German filmmaker who went to Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides in the 1930s and produced a short luminous film on a vanishing way of life; Bridget MacCaskill's account of her life as a wildlife filmmaker filming otters, A Private Sort of Life is published by Whittles and I Know Where I'm Going! traces the Powell and Pressburger film's production history.
The Wicker Man, the cult film from the 1960s, continues to interest students of film: The Quest for the Wicker Man explores the roots of the film; Constructing The Wicker Man: Film And Cultural Studies Perspectives is again for students of film theory.
Actor's biographies are quite sparse. There is one of Edinburgh's favourite sons, Arise Sir Sean Connery while Ewan McGregor is well served by Ewan McGregor; The Scot Pack: The Further Adventures Of The Trainspotters And Their Fellow Travellers and Choose Life: Ewan McGregor And The British Film Revival.
Books featured in this article
- Arise Sir Sean Connery
Sean Connery is one of the world's few true superstars. The screen creator of James Bond has commanded some of the highest fees in Hollywood and is lauded by critics and public alike. John Parker traces the astonishing rise to stardom of a tough street kid from Edinburgh. - Brigadoon, Braveheart And The Scots: Scotland In Hollywood Cinema
'Brigadoon' and 'Braveheart' have an important resonance for Scots, and for non-Scots for whom such films provide general impressions of Scottishness. This book discusses the films' representations of Scotland and the Scots. - Constructing The Wicker Man: Film And Cultural Studies Perspectives
In giving the Wicker Man the academic attention it deserves, this book demonstrates many of the reasons why the film has acquired cult status. The essays provide insights into what is a complex and contentious film by exploring its many possible readings. - A Different Country
When Werner Kissling died in a nursing home in Dumfries in 1988, few realized that he left behind him one of the most extensive photographic records of the Hebrides ever made. This collection includes over 100 of Kissling's Hebridean photographs. - Ewan McGregor: From Junkie To Jedi
This in-depth biography charts Ewan McGregor's phenomenal rise to stardom. His screen career began with Lipstick on Your Collar. He then went on to star in Shallow Grave, Trainspotting and Emma proving his acting diversity. - I Know Where I'm Going!
Set in the wild Scottish Highlands, this film follows the journey of a headstrong young woman forced by her encounter with this magical, mythic world and its exotic customs to revise her materialistic priorities. Pam Cook explores this most enigmatic and entrancing of Powell and Pressburger films. - The Pocket Scottish Movie Book
Scotland has always punched more than its weight when it comes to big screen entertainment. This volume pulls together all the facts, figures and anecdotes in order to provide a guide to all things Scottish in cinema. - A Private Sort Of Life
Bridget MacCaskill has been observing professionally otters for many years. Here, she tells the story of two otter cubs from birth until adulthood, their relationship with their parents and the other otter family on the loch, and with other animals. - The Quest For The Wicker Man: History, Folklore And Pagan Perspectives
A study of the pagan beliefs behind the all-time classic horror film - 'The Wicker Man'. This volume emerged from a cross-disciplinary conference held at the University of Glasgow's Crichton Campus in Dumfries on 14-15 July, 2003.
Books which have been adapted for film
- The Acid House
The Acid House presents a collection of short stories by Irvine Welsh. Using a range of approaches from bitter realism to demented fantasy, the stories cover a diverse range of subjects and are told in Welsh's distinctive style. - Another Time, Another Place
Jessie Kesson's Another Time, Another Place movingly portrays the tragic consequences of a clash of cultures in a haunting tale of love and war. A young farm-worker's wife has forbidden feelings for an Italian prisoner of war billeted in her village. - Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone
Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he is rescued by a beetle-eyed giant of a man, enrols at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. - Household Ghosts: A James Kennaway Omnibus
Tunes of Glory explores tensions and conflicts in the officers' mess of a regiment. Household Ghosts is a tale of tension, love triangles and the persistence of the past. Silence tells of the meeting and the union between a white man and a black woman. - Kidnapped
'Kidnapped' is an adventure story in which the tensions run deep, not only between pursuer and the pursued, but in ancient misunderstandings between the two heroes: Whig and Jacobite; Lowland rationalist and romantic Highlander. - The Last King Of Scotland
'The Last King of Scotland' combines elements of thriller noir with brilliant comedy, in the grand tradition of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and, more recently, William Boyd. Serious concerns are mixed with extravagant spectacle. - The Master Of Ballantrae: A Winter's Tale
The Master of Ballantrae opens in the old Scottish house of Durisdeer. Its adventure draws in sea voyages, piracy, buried treasure and centres on the fatal rivalry between two brothers and the kinswoman who loves one brother but marries the other. - Morvern Callar
This contemporary debut novel from Scottish author Alan Warner centres on Morvern Callar who wakens one morning to discover her boyfriend has committed suicide in the kitchen. Her reaction is both intriguing and immoral and her ensuing actions appalling. - The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie
Miss Brodie is a teacher who exerts a powerful influence over the group of 'special girls' at the Marcia Blaine Academy. Each is famous for something & are initiated into a world of adult games & extra-curricular activities they will never forget. - The Thirty-Nine Steps
Richard Hannay's ennui comes to an abrupt end when a murder is committed in his flat. Only a few days before the dead man had revealed to him an assassination plot which would have terrible consequences for international peace. - Trainspotting
The story of Edinburgh heroin addicts which changed the face of British fiction. - Whisky Galore
It is 1943, and the war has brought rationing to the Hebridean Islands. It looks like the end of the world when the whisky is about to run out, and the locals are about to despair when a ship with a cargo of whisky is wrecked. - The Wicker Man: A Novel
A novelization of the Anthony Shaffer script, this is a tale of a policeman on the trail of a missing girl being lured to the island of Summerisle. As May Day approaches, shamanistic and erotic events erupt around him. Was the girl a human sacrifice? - Young Adam
This existential thriller is set on a barge travelling along the canal that runs between Glasgow and Edinburgh. What plot there is revolves around the discovery of the corpse of a young woman found floating on the canal.
Poster for the film 'Whisky Galore', 1946
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