Understanding England Watchlist

As with any of my watchlists, these selections are made purely on the basis of what connected with me. Sometimes they are the “best” movies and TV shows on the subject, but more often it’s just that these are what stuck with me.

Music

My Generation (2017)

Full of fantastic historical footage and period music, this documentary is hosted by Michael Caine, who tells his own story of rising to stardom as the first Cockney sex symbol. He recounts how he chose his stage name on the fly — his given name was Maurice Joseph Micklewhite. He wanted to be Michael White, but that name was already taken. So when his agent asked him what surname he’d like instead, he looked up and saw an advertisement for The Caine Mutiny with his favorite actor, Humphrey Bogart. He jokes that if he’d been standing a door or two down, his name might’ve been “Michael 101 Dalmations.”

The narrative is interspersed with audio including archival clips of John Lennon as well as off-screen interviews with Paul McCartney, Marianne Faithful, Twiggy and others who were in London during the swinging ‘60s. We don’t see the interview subjects in the current day, but we hear them reminiscing with Caine. It really paints a picture of post-war London and the repressive attitudes that the youth of the time were rebelling against.

Blitzed: The ‘80s Blitz Kids Story (2020)

Did you know Boy George is a kleptomaniac? That’s among the insights we learn from this fascinating documentary about the Blitz Club, which operated in London’s Covent Garden in the early ‘80s and was opened by colorful characters Steve Strange and Rusty Egan. It was a vibrant time of gender-bending self-expression, wild fashion and rebellious creativity where everyone worshipped David Bowie. The “New Romantic” scene at The Blitz birthed some of the most successful musical artists of the decade, including Culture Club (with Boy George singing, of course), Sade, Ultravox — and an opportunistic group of musicians called Spandau Ballet who formed specifically to be The Blitz’s house band.

Keep On Burning: The Story of Northern Soul (2012)

Everyone knows The Beatles were inspired by American R&B and soul music, but you may not realize the extent to which Brits embraced these artists. A thriving underground scene emerged in Manchester in the ‘60s and ‘70s centered around rare recordings and live performances by greats like Ben E. King, Edwin Starr, Junior Walker, Mary Wells, Ike and Tina Turner, and Sam and Dave.

Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten (2007)

The extraordinary life of the lead singer and rhythm guitarist for The Clash is explored in this beautiful documentary that takes you from his lonely privileged upbringing as a kid of a diplomat to the tragic death of his brother and through his journey as a rock star and cultural icon. His voice defined punk. He was a real people’s prince of rock music who gave up the advantages that were bestowed on him at birth in order to open our eyes to the beauty and ugliness around us.

Factory: Manchester from Joy Division to Happy Mondays (2007)

Another view of Manchester (or Madchester) comes into focus in this look at the late ‘70s and early ‘80s: The rise of Joy Division is cut short by the death of lead singer Ian Curtis right before the group is set to tour America. Even though the remaining band members continued on as New Order, their success was tarnished by mismanagement of their money. I fell in love with New Order when I was in junior high and my friend Stacie played me the song “Bizarre Love Triangle” for the first time. I instantly felt this was “my” music. How could a band from a cold industrial city in the north of England send such a shock through the heart of a little girl in Colorado? Even though I never listened to much Joy Division, I am forever grateful to Ian Curtis for lighting the torch that would become one of my favorite bands. As the people who knew him talk about his death in this documentary, it’s clear that his loss still feels shocking and unreal: For them, it is the grief of mourning a talented friend whose spirit continues to inspire and motivate, even from the great beyond.

Literature

Last Will & Testament (2012)

I was shocked the first time I watched this. I had never questioned that the man called William Shakespeare from Stratford-Upon-Avon wrote the greatest works in human history, but this documentary presents an extremely convincing case that the real author of Shakespeare’s plays was far more mysterious than ever imagined.

What Was Virginia Woolf Afraid Of? (2020)

Virginia Woolf was a real gossip, apparently. This documentary reveals her to be a harsh critic of not only her enemies, but her friends as well. But maybe it was that astute talent for observation that made her so far ahead of her time. Coming from a privileged background, she could have easily coasted through life, but her inner demons and muses wouldn’t let her escape her destiny as one of the greatest cultural critics of the 20th Century.

As an English lit major, I of course, read her work in college, but it wasn’t until the screen adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s stunning book The Hours that I fully appreciated her courage. This documentary adds even more complexity to her character. For example, it’s easy to dismiss her struggles as “mental illness,” but she was also haunted by tragedy and literally bombarded by the world around her — during WWII, the home she shared with her husband Leonard was destroyed by a bomb, so they moved — and their new house was also bombed. On her final day of life in 1941, she leaves a note for Leonard that says, “I cannot go on any longer in these terrible times . . .” It wasn’t until days later that her hat and cane were recovered from the banks of the Ouse River in Sussex and it would be weeks before her body was found. But hers is more than just a sad story: Virginia Woolf fought to bring her voice to the world, and in the end, she succeeded.

Rural Britain: A Novel Approach (2008)

In this charming doc series, host Liam Dale ambles through villages and countryside with his hiker hat and walking stick to reveal the landscapes that produced some of literature’s greatest works. In the introduction, he says, “To travel around Britain in search of the rural landscapes that have inspire great writers to put quill to parchment will reveal some truly beautiful locations: from Thomas Hardy’s Wessex to Jane Austen’s Hampshire, George Eliot’s Warwickshire, the Bronte sisters’ Yorkshire and DH Lawrence’s Nottinghamshire.”

The Real Middle Earth (2003)

Not only does this documentary explore the locations that inspired JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, but it tells the story of the man, who created the whole world of Middle Earth in his spare time while working as a “philologist” (someone who studies languages) and professor at Oxford. Even though he and his friend CS Lewis were to become the fathers of modern fantasy writing, Tolkien faced a lot of resistance from his peers at the time. He was criticized for not spending more time on his serious academic work, but I think we can all agree that his writing hobby turned out to be far more influential on history and humanity than any published paper he might have produced. In this documentary, editor Helen Armstrong says, “Tolkien loved words of every sort, particularly names — particularly names that had beautiful and mysterious sounds to them . . . The sound of the words conjured up images in his mind . . . places you would only see in dreams or perhaps in a beautiful picture.” So even though it was rural England that inspired the Shire, it was the inner landscapes of the creative mind that he captured in his stories.

Murder

Alma: The Master’s Muse (2008)

Master of suspense Alfred Hitchock was born in 1899 in what is now the London borough of Waltham Forest. He was a lonely well-mannered boy who didn’t have many playmates. It wasn’t until he started working in films and met his future wife, Alma Reville, that he seemed to blossom in to the creative force who would later entertain millions with his films and TV shows. Alma is just another example of “behind every great man is a great woman.” She was instrumental in his success and, if she’d been born in later times, she may have been better known for her own work as well.

The Long Shadow (2023)

If you know who the real-life Yorkshire Ripper turned out to be then watching this dramatization of the police investigation into his horrific murders is beyond frustrating. They follow dead ends and get distracted by false leads; they miss the clues and fail to make important connections. In reality, these attacks were so random, so brutal, so heartless, that it seemed only a monster could’ve committed them, but as with any serial killer, he turns out to be just a man. This TV series vividly paints the picture of a drab and dreary Britain of the 1970s, both in terms of the environments, but also the old-school mindsets of misogyny and classism.

Jack the Ripper: The Case Reopened (2019)

“Jack the Ripper” committed Britain’s most famous murders in the Whitechapel area of London in 1888, and the mystery of his identity has haunted us ever since. This documentary applies modern-day criminal profiling techniques to identify who the filmmakers believe to be the most likely suspect. When this documentary came out in 2019, they were making this educated guess based on circumstantial evidence, but just this year — 137 years after the murders — recent DNA findings seem to confirm this documentary’s suspicions. Historian Russell Edwards claims to have found a 100% DNA match to the killer on the shawl belonging to Ripper victim Catherine Eddowes, and it is the same person identified by the filmmakers. But if it’s true, then the real circumstances surrounding Jack the Ripper are far sadder and more tormenting than simply a serial killer with a thirst for blood: It’s truly a story of mental illness.

Politics on TV

American Experience: The Vote (2023)

OK, so it’s about America, but this documentary shows how it all started with the Pankhursts and the suffragette movement in England. My first exposure to the history of women’s fight for the vote was the character of Mrs. Banks in Mary Poppins, which isn’t exactly a feminist manifesto. So watching this documentary was a real eye-opener. At one point, it is stated that “Women weren’t given the vote — we took it.” It also ties back to Virginia Woolf: One of the commentators describes how Woolf’s essay, “Three Guineas” in the late ‘30s “makes the equation between the patriarchal tyranny of the Victorian household and what is happening in the fascist movement. So she draws a very bold and very angry comparison between the kind of fathers that existed in Victorian families and those who prevent their daughters from having an education or going out to work, and the way in which someone like Mussolini was encouraging a macho, war-like, aggressive, repressive way of thinking about the world.”

The Crown

So, is The Crown fact or fiction? Probably both. For me, the best part of watching the story unfold over multiple generations of the British royal family is meeting the “side characters” such as Princess Margaret, portrayed by the stunning Vanessa Kirby, the deep and soulful Helena Bonham Carter, and the lovely Lesley Mannville. Of course the whole cast is incredible. I never thought I’d be attracted to Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, (but hellllooooo Matt Clark!) or Prince/King Charles (how you doin’, Dominic West?), but that’s the magic of this series — it seems to bring the past which once felt so far away firmly into the present. The accuracy of the story matters less to me than the feelings evoked by this shared history that has so impacted our world.

Black Doves (2024)

I was mesmerized by Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw in this fresh take on a British Intelligence and London’s seedy underbelly. It’s not often that you see a woman and man on screen who aren’t connected romantically but still have so much chemistry. The story twists and turns through the past and present, revealing nuggets of truth along the way, but it’s less about the mystery and more about the relationships between the characters. Keira Knightley is phenomenal as Helen Webb, a woman mourning the death of her true love while trying to maintain her outward position in society and fight a dark underworld. There’s also a great supporting performance by Sarah Lancashire (of Happy Valley fame). But it’s the performance by Ben Whishaw as Sam Young, a gay man who is also a trained killer, that really makes this story feel unique.

The Diplomat (2023)

Keri Russell sheds any semblance of her former teen actress persona in this role: There is nothing sweet or demure about Ambassador Kate Wyler. She balks at wearing evening dresses and strips down to more practical clothing whenever possible. She is fast-talking, fast-thinking and driven — but she lacks ambition for herself. It’s only through the twists of fate and backdoor maneuvering by her husband (beautifully played by Rufus Sewell, aka, Jasper from The Holiday!) that Kate stumbles into positions of increasing influence and power. It’s her reluctant heroism that makes her such a likable character. And the support team around her including Ato Essandoh as Stuart Hayford and Ali Ahn as Eidra Park are equally entertaining to watch.

Slow Horses (2022)

This is Gary Oldman at his curmudgeony best. He’s kind of the “king of the losers” as the head of an MI5 office full of rejects and bumblers, but like any great underdog story, his team ends up surprising everyone. Kristen Scott Thomas is graceful and cool as ever as his adversary Diana Taverner, and Jack Lowden (aka Mr. Saoirse Ronan in real life!) gives an adrenaline-filled performance as the tenacious River Cartwright.