# Is there a movie uglier than 1971's Get Carter? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 17, 2019, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085 "2019-05-17T00:09:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/1 "2019-05-17T00:09:06Z")
I just now saw the Michael Caine movie Get Carter, and was stunned by what a perfect storm of visual ugliness it was. The movie portrays the activities of the criminal underground in the North of England in 1970. It’s shot in a semi-documentary style, with real locations, crowd scenes full of locals, and seemingly a lot of natural light. It’s an economically depressed area. Everything is old and damaged. There’s trash everywhere. Surfaces all look sticky. Everyone’s hair looks like Seinfeld when there wasn’t enough pressure in the showers: lank and waxy. Women’s makeup looks like tempera paint, and the men all have shining sweaty faces. The beach is a brownfield and the water is opaque black. The sky is never blue. Clothes are poorly fitting stiff polyester slabs. Interiors are cluttered, with peeling walls and stains, even in the ‘nice’ places. Dancers in the disco stand in place and spasm, but nobody seems to be having fun. Maybe it’s because of the grimy carpets. The color is all washed out browns and greys. All in all, Newcastle looks like a real shithole populated by gurning freaks. This is on top of the subject material about mobster pornographers, betrayal, and murder. I lived through the 70’s. I don’t remember it looking this bad. Would these all have been conscious choices of the cinematographer and director? Would this have stood out as particularly ugly to an English filmgoer of the early 70’s, or did normal life look like this back then? I’d have thrown myself off a parking ramp staircase if life was really as dismal as this movie portrays. The whole aesthetic was horrible. Anyway, can anyone explain the visuals here from a technical or creative standpoint? Anybody have examples of uglier movies? The only other one I can think of is Pink Flamingoes, which was trying to be ugly and offensive. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/2 "2019-05-17T00:17:05Z")
I take it you aren’t familiar with the work of Jan Švankmajer? ---
**Author:** ![LC\_Strawhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e19adc/32.png) [@LC\_Strawhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LC_Strawhouse)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/3 "2019-05-17T00:36:34Z")
Man On The Moon (the Jim Carrey movie) had surprisingly ugly-making photography, with harsh lighting and sweaty & pasty looking actors. ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/4 "2019-05-17T00:36:42Z")
(Snowboarder Bo) No. But it seems like surrealism or other ‘experimental’ works should be in a separate category from major motion picture releases. I mean, there’s ‘trying to make things look bad’ and then there’s ‘things just happen to look bad already’. I get the sense that the filmmakers for Get Carter were happy to capture some ugliness and didn’t try to pretty things up. The use of long lenses and minimal lighting probably added to the effect. But I don’t think that they went out of their way to make those locations look worse than they really were. Or maybe they did; that’s partly what I’m curious about. Would those characters have been good-looking or fashionable at the time? Would the blue cinder block house with shag carpeting and a mirror wall and a green-lit fountain have been chic? Or would it all have been cheap and tawdry even then? ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/5 "2019-05-17T01:15:14Z")
I’ve never seen the movie but noticed it was on Netflix or Hulu or something and I’ve been meaning to watch it soon. Since I haven’t seen it I can’t say, but I thought Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Keitel had a very ugly look to it, and it was a very ugly story of a very dark person, I did enjoy it though. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/6 "2019-05-17T02:46:39Z")
I don’t know if _Taxi Driver_ or _The French Connection_ could be called uglier than _Get Carter_, but they’re certainly in the running. While I’m thinking about it, one could nominate the cult comedy classic _Slap Shot_ as well. I grew up in the place where it was filmed (Johnstown, PA) and the whole wintry, corroded dying-steel-town aesthetic of the film’s visuals was spot on. Meanwhile, just this Spud’s opinion, having not been to Newcastle back in the day, but I’m pretty sure the look of _Get Carter_ was a conscious and careful choice by the director (Mike Hodges) and was meant to embody the moral rot of pretty much the entire cast. Love the film but yeah, it’s a bit hard to watch. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/7 "2019-05-17T02:58:28Z")
Penelope Spheeris’ _Suburbia_ (1983) is pretty ugly. Ditto Larry Clark’s _Kids_ (1995). In fact, now that I’ve gone there, Harmony Korine has several “ugly” films, including _Gummo_ and _Trash Humpers_. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/8 "2019-05-17T04:06:46Z")
actually a lot of 70s films were grungy and ugly … even if they were portraying an earlier time peroid … i think some of it was the film and cameras in use then … ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/9 "2019-05-17T04:55:36Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > actually a lot of 70s films were grungy and ugly … even if they were portraying an earlier time peroid … i think some of it was the film and cameras in use then … No, it was mostly post-nouvelle vague naturalism. Particularly in Britain you had your Ken Loach doing pure anti-Hollywood movies, avoiding any trace of glamour. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/10 "2019-05-17T06:13:18Z")
**Is there a movie uglier than 1971’s Get Carter?** Sure - a couple that’d give it a run for its money, anyway. Edna the Inebriate Woman (like, _daaaank_) Combat Shock The Panic in Needle Park Bad Boy Bubby Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia The Blockhouse not quite in the same category, but I wouldn’t call The Conversation sexy How Awful About Alan Pretty Woman Los Olvidados When Dwarves Started Small Hour of the Wolf The Warriors bunch on the tip of my tongue… ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/11 "2019-05-17T06:52:47Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > When Dwarves Started Small _Even Dwarfs Started Small_ isn’t an ugly movie in the OP’s sense. Some of the _action_ is ugly (and some is gut-bustingly funny), but the Lanzerote “[prison](https://film-grab.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/imported_from_media_libray/044%20(1).jpg?bwg=1547136294)” _setting_ is quite [picturesque](https://film-grab.com/wp-content/uploads/photo-gallery/imported_from_media_libray/394%20(1).jpg?bwg=1547136293), even in B&W, so I don’t think it meets the OP’s criterion of “_visually_ ugly”. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/12 "2019-05-17T07:01:36Z")
It’s an interesting thing. Two movies I thought of were _Monster_ and _Precious_, because in both of those movies they deliberately de-glamorized the characters. So I figured the directors and set designers had probably also made an effort to make the rest of those movies unattractive as well. But I checked and I was surprised to discover that wasn’t the case. While the characters were unattractive, the settings were not. They weren’t sparkly bright but they were no worse than average for a movie with an urban setting. As is usually the case, the settings looked better than their real life equivalents do. I don’t know if this was a deliberate decision; that they figured it would make the characters stand out more. Or if it was perhaps the absence of a decision; that while the filmmakers intentionally made the characters unattractive, they forgot to put the same effort into the settings and those ended up looking like typical movies settings - ie better than the reality they were supposed to be portraying. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/13 "2019-05-17T12:12:36Z")
You want ugly? Watch the 1984 version of George Orwell’s **1984**. They wanted to depict Orwell’s dystopian England as he described it, so it truly is a depressing mess. The wonderful thing is, they shot it on location, in Britain, during the precise time the story is alleged to take place. They didn’t have to build the sets or go out of their way to find ugly, depressing locale in then-present-day London. > [@](#): > > Some internet sources claim that principal photography began on 19 March 1984 and ended in October 1984.[5] However the film was released that same month, and a title card at the end of the film explicitly states, it “was photographed in and around London during the period April-June 1984, the exact time and setting imagined by the author.”[10 > **[Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(1984_film))** > > Nineteen Eighty-Four, also known as 1984, is a 1984 dystopian drama film written and directed by Michael Radford, based upon George Orwell's 1949 novel of the same name. Starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, and Cyril Cusack, the film follows the life of Winston Smith (Hurt), a low-ranking civil servant in a war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. Smith struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime's overwhelming power and influenc... ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/14 "2019-05-17T14:03:46Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > … those movies…deliberately de-glamorized the characters. Todd Solondz? ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/15 "2019-05-17T14:10:42Z")
I would bet most interiors are actually sets, so if they look grimy, peeling, run down, stained, then it was likely a deliberate choice. Given the subject matter, I could see why they’d do that to set a tone. ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/16 "2019-05-17T14:57:29Z")
The unnamed city in _Se7en_… if I lived there, I would think of nothing but fleeing. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/17 "2019-05-17T20:16:18Z")
> [@pool](#): > > I’ve never seen the movie but noticed it was on Netflix or Hulu or something and I’ve been meaning to watch it soon. Since I haven’t seen it I can’t say, but I thought Bad Lieutenant with Harvey Keitel had a very ugly look to it, and it was a very ugly story of a very dark person, I did enjoy it though. You should. Ugliness aside, it’s a very good movie. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2019, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/18 "2019-05-17T20:59:10Z")
> [@lisiate](#): > > You should. Ugliness aside, it’s a very good movie. Yeah I didn’t mean to sound like I was knocking it, it’s a great piece of cinema and I was surprised how good Keitel was in it, having not seen him in much up to that point other than like Reservoir Dogs. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/19 "2019-05-18T02:02:08Z")
Whoops. I actually meant you should see Get Carter, which is also a good movie. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2019, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085/20 "2019-05-18T03:00:15Z")
> [@Guest-starring\_Id](#): > > Todd Solondz? Solondz does de-glamorize his characters. But I don’t feel I can make the same comparison with his movies. Solondz’ movies generally have middle-class suburban settings where you wouldn’t expect to see the same kind of visual ugliness you’d see in impoverished settings like _Monster_ or _Precious_ had. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-a-movie-uglier-than-1971s-get-carter/834085.md?page=2)