Down To The Waterline

No money in our jackets
And our jeans are torn
Your hands are cold
But your lips are warm

From Dire Straits.  Saw them play this on their first US tour in late '78 or early '79 at the Paradise Club in Boston.  I can listen to Mark Knopfler's guitar for hours and we'll do some more posts featuring his playing.  Along with his Dire Straits and solo career he's also written several film scores.

My favorite is Local Hero (1983).  Set in the Scottish highlands, it's about an American oil company's attempt to buy a small Scottish village so it can build an oil terminal - that is, to the extent the movie is about anything because it just sort of ambles along in a low-key humorous way.  The stars are Peter Riegert ("Boon" in Animal House) and Burt Lancaster in one of his last films.  We'd camped in the area where the film is set while on a trip in the U.K. in 1978 so it provided a little extra jolt to see some of that beautiful coast again.

The movie was the centerpiece of a trio of films directed by Bill Forsyth in the early 1980s, the first being Gregory's Girl and the last Comfort And Joy, which is about the rivalry of two Glasgow ice cream companies and the secret to making ice cream fritters.  All are set in Scotland (we only understood about half the dialogue in Gregory's Girl) and we really enjoyed all of them.  None of them had a traditional story arc and I saw a quote that said something to the effect that Forsyth made films "using the scenes other directors would cut".  After that he went off to Hollywood, lost his mojo, and never made anything watchable again.

To see how Knopfler's music works together with Forsyth's direction here's a clip from Local Hero.  It's the last scene, but don't worry it doesn't spoil anything if you want to see the whole film sometime.