Mythical Middle England: A Quest to Capture Cinematic Imagery in Suburban Worcestershire Informed by Augé's Ethnography of the Near

Human perceptual development predisposes us to see the world in terms of binary pairs: rich/poor, north/south, good/bad, and this impulse inflects the way the film industry represents the country. Drama inhabits the extremes, and the middling areas are disregarded. According to Booker shortlisted author David Mitchell, Worcestershire is 'the most boring county, so no-one ever knows where it is.' (Black Swan Green, 2006: 215) This practice as research thesis uses Worcestershire as a microcosm through which to understand the forces that determine the latent 'cinematic potential' that resides in the genius loci of overlooked places and forgotten towns. Beginning with a consideration of the cultural-geographical forces that make genius loci, both in terms of the phenomenon of experiencing a place first-hand and the process of representation that creates and transmits an 'etymological' sense of place, I proceed to consider how cinematic representations of Worcestershire can be built up by using what already exists physically and in the social practice of the region, how new representations can be informed by the few canonical representations that came before, and the role played by myth in crafting of cinematically communicable signs and symbols.

I put these ideas into practice through The Secret Heart of England, a feature-length documentary that is a study of the ways the community seeks to understand itself and a personal quest to make Worcestershire-ness communicable, as well as the short film Water Cure, a queer Victorian romantic fantasy that takes the lessons learned from research and fieldwork and crystallises them into a dramatic-mythic form. The latter film is a proof of concept that suggests a direction of travel for future Worcestershire-set films. Through this example, and through a number of observations made throughout the thesis, this project provides a theoretical toolkit for academics and artists to better understand how genius loci can be represented, how seemingly middling towns can be reimagined and, in time, how they can accrue the kind of genius loci that encourages a confident and progressive world view in their residents.