‘Pressure’: The seminal movie from Horace Ové
When it comes to the pioneers of black British cinema, there are few names as significant as Horace Ové. The Trinidadian-born filmmaker, photographer and true artist was the first black British director to take charge of a feature-length film, his 1976 dramatic work Pressure.
Ové’s work is of extreme importance in detailing the black experience in Britain, although he was also known to have a controversial streak within him. His unique perspective, influenced by the neo-realism of Michelangelo Antonioni, Luis Buñuel and Federico Fellini, helped to document the racism that many black people faced in Britain in the second half of the 20th century.
The director’s contributions to narrative and documentary cinema with projects such as Dream to Change the World, Reggae, and Skateboard Kings are undoubted, but it’s his 1976 film Pressure that is perhaps the most important in embodying the kind of political artistry that Ové stood for.
The film starred Herbert Norville, Oscar James, and Frank Singuineau and was written by Ové in partnership with Samuel Selvon. The gritty movie tells of Tony, a second-generation black British teenager who struggles to come to terms with his parents’ ideas about society and accept their ‘lower-than-whites’ position.
Ové once admitted that he made Pressure because he was fed up with reading news reports about events in Britain like the Brixton riots. “It is so superficial. They don’t do proper research,” the director told BFI. “That is why I made Pressure. I was tired of reading in the papers about young blacks hanging around on street corners, mugging old ladies. Nobody tried to find out why they were doing it.”
He also felt that there was a problem when it came to black filmmakers, who looked only to be allowed to make films about black people rather than universal themes. “White filmmakers, on the other hand, have a right to make films about whatever they like,” he said. “People miss out by not asking us or allowing us to do this.”
It was Ové’s personal experience as a young man in Britain that really inspired him to make his seminal film. It sees Tony engage in black power conversations that had made their way from the United States to Britain amid the discrimination and racism that was occurring in the country.
The clashes that took place in Britain were all captured by Ové and his camera. He’d already had experience with documenting his perspective, but Pressure delivered the narrative in a dramatic and emotional manner that had many people realise the kind of problems that British black communities were facing.
Check out the trailer for Pressure below.
