The Damned United (film) Some dream of becoming a football manager
First kicks, I have read the book by David Peace ‘The Damned United’ and yes I like football. This is the baggage I take into my review. The film of Damned United takes Brian Clough and gives you the essence of the man through his years managing Derby, Brighton and of the course that damned team Leeds United. A good decision in my book was to take out the Nottingham Forest glory days of Clough because by then his character had been shaped. Having read the book which presents an internalised, drink afflicted Clough who finds refuge in a hotel room I thought that this would make a terrific one man play. Alas no, the film version is what we get and who knows a sequel could be in the offing to cover his Nottingham Forest years. Peace permitting that is.
The film though has football and how teams are managed at its centre the real strength of the film resides in the male relationships that football fosters. A predominantly male preserve in the seventies and an era were television was beginning to exert an influence on the game. What we get is something akin to a Lennon and McCartney of football management in Clough and his assistant Peter Taylor, warmly played by Timothy Spall. The film gives more prominence to Taylor whom it is inferred does more of the football thinking than Clough. However Clough has the strengths of an emerging modern football manager the ability to communicate the game to the players and to a wider media. We can see this in Cloughs appearances as a football pundit on ITV’s the Big Match. Another relationship the film focuses is less friendly and more envy that is between Clough and Don Revie whom he takes over from at Leeds.
The depiction of this relationship in narrative terms is not trying to achieve balance and is very sympathetic to Clough while casting Revie as very much the past. This is rammed home as the film enters its postscript before going to credits. In the now infamous outburst Clough berates his Leeds Team with the view that ‘they have won nothing because what they had already achieved was done by cheating’. Colm Meaney who plays Revie is great and we are fortunate that his acting ability does not allow Revie to be conveyed in a completely bad light. His portrayal allows you to have a creeping doubt that Clough is not the single point of truth in the film.
The film captures the period very well though not overly cinematic but not completely television friendly the film is given to cinematic moments. One particular moment is when Clough arrives at Elland Road. The sky goes dark, rain pours and lightning strikes, cliche Shakespeare but it looks good on screen.
Director Tom Hooper does a good job. He gives the film a faint visual mark knowing that the focus will be very much on Sheens performance and Peter Morgans screenplay. The Leeds Team who Clough inherits includes John Giles. Clough refers to him only as the ‘Irishman’ a indication we are very much in the seventies. His treatment of Giles no doubt informed by the knowledge that he was Revies chosen successor for the Leeds job does have Clough with his Irishman referrals hints that Clough for all his football modernity has a conservative streak.
The portrayal of Clough by Martin Sheen is as you would expect is great. Having seen his work bringing David Frost to life you can see similarities. Both Clough and Frost are driven men, unorthodox risk takers. Frosts pursuit of the interview and Cloughs persistence in getting players to sign for Derby are a case in point.
The film while good and head and shoulders above any other football related films. Thinking here of When Saturday Comes which focus on the dream of playing the game not managing. The Damned United was a slight disappointment the film though amusing as Clough himself could be is not nearly as dark as its subject matter should be. Perhaps my love for the book which is dark is coming through.
What the film gives you is a snapshot of Clough with enough hints at his dark side which he treated with heavy dollops of alcohol. The film does offer a good depiction of male relations filtered through working in the world of football. That is a result.
