In knots and crosses

Dundee is known for jam, journalism and jute. For a better understanding of the jute industry, which has almost disappeared from Dundee, Hopscotch Films crew was in India. John Archer shares his thoughts on the subject with Mathures Paul

The old jute mills that once dotted Calcutta are fast disappearing, only to be replaced by concrete jungles. The importance of the raw material, needless to say, will be understood not before it’s too late. Glasgow-based production company Hopscotch Films set out to make a documentary on a subject that binds Dundee to Calcutta. John Archer was in Calcutta with his large team to film Brian Cox’s Jute Journey, a subject close to the heart of actor Brian Cox. John Archer of Hopscotch Films speaks to The Statesman.

What prompted Hopscotch Films to take on a documentary on jute trade?
In Scotland, Dundee is renowned as being the city of the three Js ~ jam, jute and journalism. This is such an old cliche that we will not be mentioning it in our documentary! And sadly it is also out of date. Dundee is the home to some of Britain’s most famous comics ~ The Dandy and The Beano ~ but although the jam and marmalade manufacturing business continues, jute has disappeared. Dundee was the first place to discover how to break down jute for processing: it was the whaling capital of Britain and the whale oil was perfect for making jute pliable. At one time the city was buzzing with mills and 50,000 people worked in the mills. Among them many Irish immigrants, including Brian Cox’s parents. So, raw jute was imported from North-east India via Calcutta. We knew little of the mills which evolved later in Calcutta and which, of course, are still very busy. Many of the Scottish managers and engineers that went out from Dundee as mills declined in Scotland 1950s onwards are now living in retirement in Broughty Ferry (near Dundee). At the Cannes Film Festival last year the idea of the documentary was pitched to me by the Dundee-born film journalist Bob Flynn, who now works in Edinburgh. We discussed it and thought we could make a great documentary by interviewing former managers and engineers about their time in Calcutta, and then going to the mills ourselves to film them. Fortunately BBC Scotland agreed and funded the project with just about enough money. We will combine interviews with managers with their old eight-mm cine film to create a documentary that is rich in their memories as well as provide a glimpse to the mills and the city.
Calcutta (and Dhaka) was once known for its jute mills that employed a number of Scots as managers and engineers. Much of that has made way to concrete blocks. How difficult was the project?
There are lots of mills still active in Calcutta ~ on the northern side of the Hoogly. We were very fortunate to be able to film in Howrah Mill, which I am told is one of the more picturesque. The president there, Niranjan Das, and all his staff, were very helpful. I had met him in February ~ I was in the city working on a rather different project but took a morning out to recce the mill. He, his staff and managers ~ besides the mill itself with its atmospheric natural lighting with shafts of sunlight streaming in through the dusty air ~ have provided the visual treat of our documentary. I’d also visited St Andrews church ~ they kindly agreed to let us film in the church during their Palm Sunday service. We had been discussing this project for a while when Brian Cox suddenly announced a gap in his acting diary that he could give for this project. I was in Australia at the time and we had about four weeks to get everything organised. The filming permit and visas were very rushed and stressful for me. So I concentrated on practical arrangements and the director Brian Ross worked on the shape and script of the documentary, from the research we’d done. The filming in Calcutta itself had its challenges ~ mostly to do with travelling long distances and through crowds of people; but in retrospect, I think it went well. The problem for visiting crews is that there is so much to take in ~ so much you want to film ~ that you have to keep focussed on your story. I love the city ~ the architecture and people make it my favourite in India. It would be great to have time to go deeper into its makeup.

The research that went into the project…
Bob Flynn had met some of the people at the Dundee end. We augmented this through contacts made by our researcher in Glasgow, Dhivya Kate Chetty. As we started filming, there was a history conference in Dundee attended by the leading jute historian, now based in the USA, Gordon Stewart. We started by interviewing him. The research was conducted both on the story ~ through reading, library and Internet search ~ and on people. In Dundee, the Calcutta and Mofussil Scots Society were a great help: they are the surviving managers and engineers who worked in Calcutta. We got over 25 of them together in Dundee before we left and filmed a great evening with Brian Cox. And in Calcutta young journalist Damayantee Dhar researched potential interviewees and locations for us, talking to people we’d heard of back in Scotland. We’re very grateful to all the people who helped us in Calcutta but three people in particular went out of their way: Akbere at Akberally Tailors in Esplanade Row East where Brian had a couple of jackets made (which we filmed); Ranju Alex at the Oberoi Grand, which provided a welcome haven from the bustle of filming; and Mr Mukerji at the Tollygunge Club who generously welcomed us so warmly to film at the club, and then entertained us to a great dinner ~ I’d love to make a documentaries about all three of those people and places.

While filming, what were some of the lesser known facts about jute trade that you came across?
We didn’t know that people ate it! When we visited Champadanga to see jute plants growing, we were served delicious jute patties. But really the whole documentary has been a journey of discovery. We were mostly ignorant about the mills in Calcutta when we started. From my point of view I knew of jute as the raw material for sacks that stocked corn on my father’s farm, they were the raw material for my childhood dens. It seems to me it has a great future as a renewable and biodegradable packaging material as well as for finer cloth. With the banning of plastic bags for shopping in many countries, jute will find a new world market again.

As the documentary is called Brian Cox’s Jute Journey, would it more of a first-person narrative?
Yes, it is. It is a subject very close to Brian’s heart. It will be his journey and reflect the things he has felt and discovered, with the grounding of research.

What have been some of the creative inputs of Brian Cox?
Brian has steered the project to suit his own interests and experience, particularly in the emotional feel of the documentary. He has made it clear as we went along the things that interested him. So he was informed by the research that was done but the feel and tone of the film will be all his.

How important a role background music would play in the documentary?
The director Brian Ross and I first worked together on a music documentary last year about a very special Shetland singer Thomas Fraser. Music is important to both of us, and will be to this documentary. Before we started filming we were very keen on the music on the album A Meeting by the River by Ry Cooder and VM Bhatt, which mixes slide guitar with sitar. So we may use something like that.

Other projects...
I was in Calcutta in February on a labour of love ~ The Story of Film, a history of cinema around the world that focuses on when and where in the world cinema has been at its most exciting and innovative. This is based on the brilliant book The Story of Film by Mark Cousins, who is directing the series. We had a brilliant time in Calcutta, visiting the Pather Panchali location and interviewing the great cinematographer Soumendhu Roy. We are still working on that. We have a DVD of the Thomas Fraser documentary and concert to launch. We are waiting to hear whether the BBC will commission a documentary on John Calvin and his impact on Scotland 500 years after his birth, and have a drama short and feature film about to go into production. But my main concern right now is to edit our Jute Journey and to submit it to the Calcutta Film Festival later this year.

(John Archer was head of music and arts at BBC Scotland and the founding chief executive of Scottish Screen.)