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Ascendancy is a serious and austere examination of English guilt in the Irish
question, made at a time when independent filmmaking in Britain was driven by a
clear political agenda. Its central character, Connie Wintour, is an English
aristocrat driven to despair by the actions of warlike men: her beloved brother,
lost at the Somme; her father, a corrupt businessman and aspiring politician;
and her prospective romantic partner, a cynical British soldier. Connie's angst
manifests itself in mental and physical illness, to the point where she is
emotionally shattered by witnessing a bloody battle on the streets of Belfast.
The film's conclusion is particularly bleak: refusing to eat, Connie is
force-fed through a pipe. Here the film makes an implicit connection with the
Northern Irish political climate in the early 1980s, which was characterised by
protests and hunger strikes from republican prisoners in British jails.
This intellectual art film was a result of the early stages of collaboration
between the British Film Institute's Production Board, under Peter Sainsbury, and
the emergent Channel Four. Sainsbury was part of a politicised generation of
decision makers at the BFI with a proven track record in arthouse exhibition; he
had been co-founder of London's famous alternative venue The Other Cinema in
1970. His stated policy - to strengthen the links between the Institute's
production, distribution and exhibition activities - paid off handsomely with
the critical and (relative) commercial success of Peter Greenaway's The
Draughtsman's Contract, made the same year as Ascendancy. There is little of
Greenaway's grand cinematic sweep here; by comparison this film, with its
confined spaces and restrained naturalism, feels rather televisual.
Appropriately enough, it found a place in Channel Four's fondly-remembered
programming strand for experimental and avant-garde work, Eleventh Hour
(1982-87).
The casting of Connie was an interesting strategy; Julie Covington was better
known as a singer and an actress in musicals, including Evita and ITV's Rock
Follies (1976-77). Much of the dramatic tension in Ascendancy results from the
contrast between its lead actress's dowdy and sombre appearance and her rich,
melodious speaking voice, often employed in voice-over. Covington's star persona
gets no further outlet here, but the film does have striking sequences of street
violence driven by strident military marching music and drumming. Within the
context of this film, which wilfully denies many of the conventional pleasures
of cinema spectatorship, such moments are genuinely transcendent.
James Caterer
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1. Pretending to sleep (1:54)
Production stills
