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Alan Clarke
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- See also Alan Clark, Allan Clarke.
Alan Clarke (28 October 1935 - 24 July 1990) was a television and film director, producer and writer, born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England.
Most of Clarke's output was for television rather than cinema, and featured from 1969 onwards in The Wednesday Play and Play for Today. His subject matter tended towards social realism, especially with respect to deprived or oppressed communities.
A number of his works achieved notoriety and widespread criticism from the more reactionary end of the media spectrum, including Scum (1977), dealing with the subject of borstals (youth prisons), which was banned by the BBC, and subsequently remade by Clarke as a feature film in 1979 (the original television version was eventually screened after his death). His television play Made in Britain (1982), concerning a racist skinhead's negative relationship with authorities and racial minorities, was based on a screenplay by David Leland. He directed the feature film Rita, Sue and Bob Too in 1986. His final short film (40 mins.) Elephant (1989) dealt with "the troubles" in Northern Ireland and featured a series of unrelated, motiveless shootings. The film took its title from Bernard MacLaverty's description of the troubles as "the elephant in our living room" - a reference to the collective denial of the underlying social problems of Northern Ireland.
Clarke has inspired a generation of actors, writers and directors, including Stephen Frears, Tim Roth, Ray Winstone, Gary Oldman, Danny Brocklehurst and Iain MacDonald.
Clarke's son is Gabriel Clarke, an award-winning journalist with ITV.