Withnail & I

BFI Film Classics

by Kevin Jackson

Released to a muted reception in 1987, Withnail& I has since become one of Britain's best-known cult classics. Jackson analyses the mood and magic of the film, its aesthetics and sensibility, seeking to show, without ever detracting from the film's comic brilliance, how much more there is to Withnail& I than drunkenness and swearing.

Genres: Nonfiction, Film, Criticism, Media Tie In

96 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2004

About the author

There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.

Kevin Jackson's childhood ambition was to be a vampire but instead he became the last living polymath. His colossal expertise ranged from Seneca to Sugababes, with a special interest in the occult, Ruskin, take-away food, Dante's Inferno and the moose. He was the author of numerous books on numerous subjects, including Fast: Feasting on the Streets of London (Portobello 2006), and reviewed regularly for the Sunday Times.
From: http://portobellobooks.com/3014/Kevin...

Kevin Jackson was an English writer, broadcaster and filmmaker.

He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge. After teaching in the English Department of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, he joined the BBC, first as a producer in radio and then as a director of short documentaries for television. In 1987 he was recruited to the Arts pages of The Independent. He was a freelance writer from the early 1990s and was a regular contributor to BBC radio discussion programmes.

Jackson often collaborated on projects in various media: with, among others, the film-maker Kevin Macdonald, with the cartoonist Hunt Emerson, with the musician and composer Colin Minchin (with whom he wrote lyrics for the rock opera Bite); and with the songwriter Peter Blegvad.

Jackson appears, under his own name, as a semi-fictional character in Iain Sinclair's account of a pedestrian journey around the M25, London Orbital.

Adapted from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Paul Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

“To admit to liking Withnail and I is to declare oneself unfit for adult company. It is a sad trifle, an aberration, an immature folly, to be outgrown and forgotten.”
- Kevin Jackson

“perhaps the funniest and possibly the most profound comedy ever produced by the British cinema”
- Kevin Jackson

*

This book begins with the case for the prosecution - Withnail and I is an embarrassment, only boys find it funny, the same boys who commit Monty Python sketches to memory, its humour is entirely based on being drunk or finding elderly gay men risible; admit it, it’s dreadfully reactionary, more like a self-indulgent fringe play by a first-time author never to be heard of again. Overacted and peopled by Carry On style grotesques.

The British Film Institute, God bless their little cotton socks, continues to emit this cute series of itty bitty books containing beautifully illustrated essays on selected great movies. It’s the film equivalent of the 33 1/3 series of little books on great albums. I recommend them all, except that both series suffer from the vertiginous gulfs between the aesthetic and intellectual approaches the different authors favour, so that for example the BFI Citizen Kane is an unreadable no-star screed of feminist-Freudianism but the one on 42nd Street is an undiscovered five-star marvel of comedy. You never know what you're gonna get. Kevin Jackson’s Withnail is a jovial spree, but with any movie about an alcoholic misanthrope, there are darker striations.

Something I didn’t know : Uncle Monty is based on Franco Zeffirelli. That deserves an exclamation point.

!

Turns out that in 1968, soon after graduating, Bruce Robinson, writer-director of Withnail, landed the part of Benvolio in Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet. He later described events to none other than Ruby Wax. It was a casting couch situation - “then he’s suddenly fishing in my tonsils with his tongue”.

Bruce Robinson tells his anecdote humorously, and uses his experiences in his movie (and gets bashed for homophobia for it). I read this book in the same week Rolf Harris got found guilty for groping, his offences being with young girls, going back to the 1960s. So Withnail becomes an example of how something serious so often isn’t accepted as serious because it’s expressed - by the perps - in the lighter colours of fun, silliness, joking, humour, smiles, larking around, & so victims think ... Maybe this is all part of joining the adult world. This must be what happens to everyone.

Depending on what the Italian laws are like, Bruce Robinson (aged 68) could get Franco Zeffirelli (still with us, aged 91) charged with sexual assault.

As I say, this comedy has darker edges. In fact it has a profound sadness to it. We know that Withnail, the beautiful, deranged alcoholic, is and will always be a failure. His co-conspirator in inebriation and squalor, Marlowe, will get the lead in a new production and a smart haircut and will turn and say “I’ll miss you, Withnail”. And will leave. And Withnail, alone in London Zoo, with the rain pouring, will act the part of Hamlet, but only to a company of wolves. “I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth”. I note that Kevin Jackson, author of this nice essay, recently edited The Anatomy of Melancholy.

[Ross Maclean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very sharp précis of one of the most beautifully written films, which addresses the occasional flaw while keeping resolutely focused on the myriad joys.

[Jean-françois Baillon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have to admit that the first time I watched the film I found it boring and self-indulgent. Much the same can be said about this volume, unfortunately typical of a minor tendency within the otherwise excellent collection published by the BFI, and even more typical of many books published on "cult films" by the more literate fringe of their fanbase. A high percentage of the pages consists in the mere reproduction of the dialogue from the film, and a slightly less high percentage is a lazy description of the film, scene after scene. A tiny five or perhaps seven percent of the book may leave the reader with the impression that they have learnt something that they wouldn't have found out by themselves by watching the film again. Which I did, thanks to the superb Bluray edition produced by Arrow Films in 2019. This, much more than Jackson's useless book, changed my vision of the film. My advice: watch it. Masterpiece it is not, but certainly worth anyone's time, if only for the unbelievable performances of Paul McGann, Richard E. Grant and Richard Griffiths.

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this because I obviously love Withnail & I, and for the snippets of background on the making of the film, but 80 percent of the book is re-description of the film. Which of course I already know rather well and don't need summarised. Books about individual films are a bit of a cheat, because I'm willing to give it so much just for the pleasure of spending a little more time with or in the film. Like merch. This just didn't go deep enough for me.

[Ian Newey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nostalgic. Enjoyable. Melancholic. Despite knowing the final very well, this text makes me want to watch the film yet again. Worth the price of admission for this alone.

[Gary Ellenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great movie. Great book. An equally great foreword.

[Corey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant look at a brilliant film.

[D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it and found bits of background info I never knew before. But yeah, most of this is more summarising the movie instead of analysing the content or how it was conveyed on screen. So yeah. I had fun because it reminded me of all the myriad reasons I loved the movie, but at the same time, I probably wouldn't read a book about the movie without having seen it first, so most of the text was kinda useless?

[Ian Carpenter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like reminiscing about the movie with a smart and informed friend. Much of the information can be found in the Everything You Wanted to Know book, this one tells you it while working through the plot and with a lightly erudite angle.