The surprising record held by Gary Oldman’s ‘Nil By Mouth’
While some great actors prove themselves to be mighty filmmakers, like Orson Welles or Charles Laughton, there are those who perhaps should’ve stuck to being in front of the camera, such as Chris Evans and Dan Aykroyd. When Gary Oldman, one of the finest actors of his generation, announced he would be making his directorial debut in 1997, fans were hoping that he would fall into the former category, and luckily, he succeeded.
He created the brutal yet personal Nil By Mouth, which was highly celebrated for its grittiness and breathtaking performances, particularly from Ray Winstone and Cathy Burke. The film saw the pair play husband and wife, a dysfunctional couple caught up in violence and substance abuse.
Considering that one of Oldman’s first roles was in the Mike Leigh social realist drama Meantime, it’s not a surprise that the actor has seemingly always been attracted to these kinds of intense and hard-hitting stories. Inspired by the kitchen sink dramas of the 1960s and the harsh slices of working-class life portrayed by the likes of Alan Clarke and David Leland, the film doesn’t hold back in presenting viewers with the realities experienced by many families in Britain, such as trauma and domestic abuse.
The film sees Burke’s character, Val, become pregnant, but Winstone’s unstable Ray frequently lashes out, unleashing violence over his family to detrimental effect. It’s a fantastic study of toxic masculinity, with Winstone’s scarily real performance earning him a Bafta nomination, while Oldman took home ‘Best British Film’ and ‘Best Original Screenplay’ at the ceremony.
Nil By Mouth, which also starred Charlie Creed-Miles and Oldman’s sister Laila Morse (better known as Mo from EastEnders), was inspired by Oldman’s own childhood experiences of growing up in London. While his alcoholic father abandoned the family when he was young, he found himself witnessing many complicated relationships between residents on his council estate, and these memories evidently never left him, shaping his approach to his directorial debut.
While the film featured plenty of intense scenes, it also set an unusual record in the process that has yet to be beaten – it contains the most instances of the word “cunt” being spoken in cinema history. It’s hardly surprising that a British movie about abuse, drug addiction, alcoholism, and poverty contains the most utterances of the word – which many consider to be one of the most offensive words in the English dictionary – but it certainly is used commonly in Britain, and its place in the film hardly feels forced.
Talking to The Guardian about the movie, Winstone explained, “There was plenty of swearing, but that was the language of people who don’t know how to express themselves any other way. There’s a million ways to say the word ‘cunt’ too. It can be a term of endearment: ‘Don’t be a silly cunt.’ It’s part of the English language, part of the language of the people Gary had written about.”
You can hear the word used 82 times throughout the movie, which runs for just over two hours. While that might seem like a lot, it’s hardly the most offensive thing within the film, which explores spousal abuse and addiction to much more frightening effect. Meanwhile, Nil By Mouth temporarily set the record for the film with the most uses of the word “fuck,” with characters saying it 428 times. It’s certainly impressive that Oldman was able to squeeze so many expletives into the script without making it feel trite or over dramatic – and win a Bafta for it, too – but that is simply a testament to his skill as a filmmaker, and it’s baffling that he has never made another film since.
Oldman’s film has since been beaten by Swearnet: The Movie for its use of the word “fuck,” but as far as movies that use the word “cunt,” go, Nil By Mouth still holds the record by a country mile.
