The sequence of events seems to paint a clear narrative. Danny Boyle made two of the most acclaimed British films of the decade. Sure, he stumbled with his next movie but that's okay, because he was ready to go to Hollywood and become a real deal big shot director. Unfortunately, studio filmmaking is a thorny, compromising path. Beaten down by the experience of CEOs barking in his ear during the making of “The Beach,” Boyle returned to his old stomping grounds at the BBC. While collaborating with playwright Jim Cartwright on an original film for television, the writer presented a previously unproduced script he had written. Taken with the material, Boyle decided to take the budget allocated for one project and shoot two on digital video, a fast emerging and much cheaper alternative to traditional film. In other words, "Strumpet" was essentially a bonus movie to emerge from the same deal that produced Boyle's next made-for-TV movie. Running all of seventy-two minutes, you get the impression that "Strumpet" is little more than a trifle but it represents a stepping stone for the director between his bigger works.
Strayman is a poet living in the city of Manchester. He has attracted a small local following for his fiery readings but lives in a largely rundown apartment with a dozen stray dogs he's adopted. His antisocial manner often makes him enemies. While wandering around town one night, he discovers a seemingly homeless woman being pawed at by a creep. He invites her back to his apartment and discovers that the girl, named Strumpet, can play the guitar. Inspired by his poetry – which Strayman scrawls on the walls – the two start to sing and play together. His neighbor and would-be talent agent records the impromptu performance. He gets the tape to record execs who like what they hear but want to polish it up. Strayman's confrontational personality and his improvisational method with Strumpet quickly gets him kicked out of the studio. Shortly afterwards, he hears Strumpet becoming a big pop star, singing reworked and commercialized versions of his lyrics. When she plays a performance at a nearby recording of a Top of the Pops episode, Strayman seeks his former musical partner out.
"Strumpet" tells a very familiar story, of art versus commerce. The protagonists make raw, highly personal music in a sincere environment strictly because they have to. Strayman has no commercial goals in mind with his writing, scribbling his poems on the walls of his apartment because he has no choice in the matter. He must express these thoughts and feelings or else go completely mad. Strumpet sets his words to music as a totally natural act, almost as a way to thank him for giving her a place to stay for the night. When their creation is presented to the money people at a music label, they don't get it. Moreover, they can't replicate the impulsive collaboration in the sterile, controlled studio environment. When Strayman is forcibly removed from the process, the result is his poem becoming a dumb and meaningless pop ditty with a big, thumping, dance-music beat behind it. When Strayman sees a drunken old woman warbling the words he wrote at a local pub's karaoke night, it represents all the soul and sincerity being sucked out of his work. Strumpet can only be saved from the heartless clutches of cold, empty capitalism by reuniting with her muse and creating the same way they used to.
This is, you'll notice, a fairly standard narrative you'll find in almost any story about artistic integrity and the commercialization of a highly personal art form. It's the punk rock ethos, of doing something strictly for the art of it and being disgusted by any and all attempt to turn that into a profitable venture. Every musician biography under the sun has tackled this same dilemma. "Strumpet" brings nothing to it. Truthfully, it's treatment of the matter strikes me as childishly simplified. The execs who steal Strayman's words and who force Strumpet to work in their preferred fashion are vacant-eyed idiots. Studio productions are presented as insincere and fake and bloated and bad and lame. Art done on the streets is raw and real and heartfelt and good and important. The question of "selling out" is something every craftsman who has tangoed with corporate concerns has had to weigh and it won't go away as long as money is being charged for something a person made. It's a complicated issue and reducing it down to simply "corporate = trash" and "homemade = good" doesn't truly tackle the idea.
Especially when – and this is a perhaps petty but I would argue important detail – the art being presented in the film is, ya know, bad. Anytime the narrative of an amazing artist going up against the soul-crushing tyranny of executive meddling is told, there's the difficult matter of making sure the eventually presented art lives up to the hype. If the music sucks, the audience simply won't care about whether it's ruined by control freak producers. Obviously, taste is totally subjective. There's a lot of music I can't stand that means something to a countless number of people. Something being to my personal liking doesn't give me the right to dismiss it for all the fans who love it. I've got to tell you though, the music in "Strumpet" is not pleasing to the ear. It does not stir the soul and move the heart and motivate the brain. Basically, the movie has one song in it that is, as far as I can tell, called "Get It Out." The lyrics are shouted and incoherent, any deeper meaning impossible to decipher. The four chord guitar strumming is repetitive and unimpressive. The seventy minute presentation plays variation of the song many times and for multiple extended sequences. Not to be a dick about this but I find Jenna B. – an actual singer, for the Manchester-based group Un-Cut – to have a meek singing voice and a muddy delivery. This is why the based-on-facts musician biopics are, no matter how repetitive they are, a reliable formula. Those are about songs that have already proven to be beloved. Untested material has a much more uphill battle to fight in selling this kind of story.
I don't think of myself as having "normie" taste in film and music. I like lots of weird, lo-fi, challenging art. However, "Strumpet" seems to cross a line from music that is willfully abrasive in an interesting way to simply being noisy. To be totally blunt, this is a film with a number of long scenes of a crazy barking man shouting and screaming at the top of his lungs while a sometimes naked lady strums tunelessly on a guitar. In fact, there's a lot of yelling in "Strumpet." The opening sequence is devoted to Strayman huffing and puffing his way through the entirety of John Cooper Clarke's "Evidently Chickentown." Whenever he becomes too upset by a given situation, he degrades into literal barking and biting. There's multiple scenes in which their would-be manager, played by Stephen Walters, rambles loudly about his vision for the music or it's value. If my theory is correct, that "Strumpet" and its companion film represent Boyle reacting to the experience of making "The Beach," all this screeching and bellowing is clearly an expression of the deep frustration he felt. Sure, that's valid. Putting your primal scream therapy to film is also, maybe, not a valuable use of the viewer's time.
Maybe “Strumpet” being so continuously loud and screaming is meant to go hand-in-hand with its visual presentation. This was Danny Boyle's first collaboration with cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, who would soon become his go-to D.P. Mantle had previously worked on “Julien Donkey-Boy,” so clearly the handheld, grainy look was something he specialized in at the time. In the year 2001, digital video technology was being adopted by a number of artists. This is the same year David Lynch started releasing a bunch of weird short films to his website, for example. Much like those examples, “Strumpet's” visual approach feels a bit like an established filmmaker playing around with a new technology. Of a director inspired by the instant and impulsive nature of digital video, as opposed to the long and expensive process of shooting to film. Some of the visuals, especially when the shadows of a pack of barking dogs are cast on a derelict wall or a P.O.V. shot of a guitar falling towards the viewer, are quite striking.
The gritty aesthetic of “Strumpet” pairs well with its themes, of valuing art that is real over commercial pap. This means we can presume the film takes place in what can be called the real world. Boyle includes some of the subtly fantastical touches he used throughout his previous films. A truck driver Strayman irritates gets revenge by dropping a load of gravel in front of his building. Strayman himself seems to be more dog than man sometimes. There's a clear metaphor here, of abandoned cultural outsiders needing to flock together should they hope to survive in this world. Ya know, that's why the guy always surrounded by stray dogs is called “Strayman” and rescues the title character off the street. However, such a surreal character does not pair well with the hyper-realistic setting of the story. Simply put, Strayman acts like a schizophrenic person for a lot of the movie. He writes on walls, cinematic shorthand for being a lunatic. He spews poetry almost as if he's narrating the voices in his head. I can not imagine any record label taking a chance on this guy. I can't imagine someone like this being allowed into the room. When paired with music that is not the most melodic, it starts to feel like “Strumpet” is not following the conceit of its own ideas.
I'm not opposed to a film that has protagonists who are loud, annoying, or difficult to appeal to. Boyle managed to make gold out of unlikable characters in “Shallow Grave” and “Trainspotting.” Nor do I demand absolute realism from any cinematic production. However, there is a difference between heroes we find interesting or plausible and heroes we can relate to at all. Strayman's erratic behavior covers up any deeper characterization he might have. There is a certain unnerving energy to Christopher Eccleston wild-eyed and foaming-at-the-mouth performance. However, I finished the film having no deeper an idea of who this person was than when I came in. As for the title character, Strumpet is so quiet and soft-spoken that we simply never get a peek into her interior life at all. Honestly, it's easy to accuse “Strumpet” of being yet another movie where the female character exists as nothing but an empty blank canvas for the male hero to project all his wants and desires onto. She's that poorly defined and Jenna B.'s performance is impossible to read.
As with a few of Boyle's previous BBC production, “Strumpet” also features a wide variety of thick accents. When combined with all the shouting and fast paced dialogue and barking, the movie becomes absolutely indecipherable at times. Perhaps, after becoming disenchanted by the studio experience of “The Beach,” this was the kind of movie the director needed to make to get his groove back. Maybe he needed to screw around with some cam-corders for a bit and scream out all the frustration and anger. I can't say I found the result anything but vague, cliched, and kind of annoying. Put this one thoroughly in the “not for me” column. [Grade: D]
Strayman is a poet living in the city of Manchester. He has attracted a small local following for his fiery readings but lives in a largely rundown apartment with a dozen stray dogs he's adopted. His antisocial manner often makes him enemies. While wandering around town one night, he discovers a seemingly homeless woman being pawed at by a creep. He invites her back to his apartment and discovers that the girl, named Strumpet, can play the guitar. Inspired by his poetry – which Strayman scrawls on the walls – the two start to sing and play together. His neighbor and would-be talent agent records the impromptu performance. He gets the tape to record execs who like what they hear but want to polish it up. Strayman's confrontational personality and his improvisational method with Strumpet quickly gets him kicked out of the studio. Shortly afterwards, he hears Strumpet becoming a big pop star, singing reworked and commercialized versions of his lyrics. When she plays a performance at a nearby recording of a Top of the Pops episode, Strayman seeks his former musical partner out.
"Strumpet" tells a very familiar story, of art versus commerce. The protagonists make raw, highly personal music in a sincere environment strictly because they have to. Strayman has no commercial goals in mind with his writing, scribbling his poems on the walls of his apartment because he has no choice in the matter. He must express these thoughts and feelings or else go completely mad. Strumpet sets his words to music as a totally natural act, almost as a way to thank him for giving her a place to stay for the night. When their creation is presented to the money people at a music label, they don't get it. Moreover, they can't replicate the impulsive collaboration in the sterile, controlled studio environment. When Strayman is forcibly removed from the process, the result is his poem becoming a dumb and meaningless pop ditty with a big, thumping, dance-music beat behind it. When Strayman sees a drunken old woman warbling the words he wrote at a local pub's karaoke night, it represents all the soul and sincerity being sucked out of his work. Strumpet can only be saved from the heartless clutches of cold, empty capitalism by reuniting with her muse and creating the same way they used to.
Especially when – and this is a perhaps petty but I would argue important detail – the art being presented in the film is, ya know, bad. Anytime the narrative of an amazing artist going up against the soul-crushing tyranny of executive meddling is told, there's the difficult matter of making sure the eventually presented art lives up to the hype. If the music sucks, the audience simply won't care about whether it's ruined by control freak producers. Obviously, taste is totally subjective. There's a lot of music I can't stand that means something to a countless number of people. Something being to my personal liking doesn't give me the right to dismiss it for all the fans who love it. I've got to tell you though, the music in "Strumpet" is not pleasing to the ear. It does not stir the soul and move the heart and motivate the brain. Basically, the movie has one song in it that is, as far as I can tell, called "Get It Out." The lyrics are shouted and incoherent, any deeper meaning impossible to decipher. The four chord guitar strumming is repetitive and unimpressive. The seventy minute presentation plays variation of the song many times and for multiple extended sequences. Not to be a dick about this but I find Jenna B. – an actual singer, for the Manchester-based group Un-Cut – to have a meek singing voice and a muddy delivery. This is why the based-on-facts musician biopics are, no matter how repetitive they are, a reliable formula. Those are about songs that have already proven to be beloved. Untested material has a much more uphill battle to fight in selling this kind of story.
I don't think of myself as having "normie" taste in film and music. I like lots of weird, lo-fi, challenging art. However, "Strumpet" seems to cross a line from music that is willfully abrasive in an interesting way to simply being noisy. To be totally blunt, this is a film with a number of long scenes of a crazy barking man shouting and screaming at the top of his lungs while a sometimes naked lady strums tunelessly on a guitar. In fact, there's a lot of yelling in "Strumpet." The opening sequence is devoted to Strayman huffing and puffing his way through the entirety of John Cooper Clarke's "Evidently Chickentown." Whenever he becomes too upset by a given situation, he degrades into literal barking and biting. There's multiple scenes in which their would-be manager, played by Stephen Walters, rambles loudly about his vision for the music or it's value. If my theory is correct, that "Strumpet" and its companion film represent Boyle reacting to the experience of making "The Beach," all this screeching and bellowing is clearly an expression of the deep frustration he felt. Sure, that's valid. Putting your primal scream therapy to film is also, maybe, not a valuable use of the viewer's time.
The gritty aesthetic of “Strumpet” pairs well with its themes, of valuing art that is real over commercial pap. This means we can presume the film takes place in what can be called the real world. Boyle includes some of the subtly fantastical touches he used throughout his previous films. A truck driver Strayman irritates gets revenge by dropping a load of gravel in front of his building. Strayman himself seems to be more dog than man sometimes. There's a clear metaphor here, of abandoned cultural outsiders needing to flock together should they hope to survive in this world. Ya know, that's why the guy always surrounded by stray dogs is called “Strayman” and rescues the title character off the street. However, such a surreal character does not pair well with the hyper-realistic setting of the story. Simply put, Strayman acts like a schizophrenic person for a lot of the movie. He writes on walls, cinematic shorthand for being a lunatic. He spews poetry almost as if he's narrating the voices in his head. I can not imagine any record label taking a chance on this guy. I can't imagine someone like this being allowed into the room. When paired with music that is not the most melodic, it starts to feel like “Strumpet” is not following the conceit of its own ideas.
I'm not opposed to a film that has protagonists who are loud, annoying, or difficult to appeal to. Boyle managed to make gold out of unlikable characters in “Shallow Grave” and “Trainspotting.” Nor do I demand absolute realism from any cinematic production. However, there is a difference between heroes we find interesting or plausible and heroes we can relate to at all. Strayman's erratic behavior covers up any deeper characterization he might have. There is a certain unnerving energy to Christopher Eccleston wild-eyed and foaming-at-the-mouth performance. However, I finished the film having no deeper an idea of who this person was than when I came in. As for the title character, Strumpet is so quiet and soft-spoken that we simply never get a peek into her interior life at all. Honestly, it's easy to accuse “Strumpet” of being yet another movie where the female character exists as nothing but an empty blank canvas for the male hero to project all his wants and desires onto. She's that poorly defined and Jenna B.'s performance is impossible to read.
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