INTRODUCTION

Borderline (1930) is a lost classic of the British avant-garde, an experimental film depicting the inner states of characters involved in an inter-racial love triangle.

World-renowned jazz saxophonist Courtney Pine was commissioned to write a new score for Borderline through Necessary Journeys, an Arts Council England funded initiative. Pine’s soundtrack re-casts Borderline in a new light with an alternative set of meanings.

Borderline is a film at war with British cinema… A synopsis can barely begin to do justice to this strange, oblique work that has only recently begun to attract critical attention… Borderline is a necessarily ragged work whose full repertoire of affective and intellectual resonances has become more rather than less transparent over time. It presents a series of unstable and in many ways deeply riven frames in order to articulate a cluster of interlinked theories on the temporality and fluidity of clear-cut divisions between homosexuality and heterosexuality. Its triangulation of black, white and mulatto characters also renders more complex racial positions founded on mere black/white binaries. Its rejection of dominant ‘social problem’ or melodramatic modes in favour of off-kilter, avant-gardist strategies anticipates such landmark films as John Boorman’s Leo the Last (1970) and Isaac Julien’s Looking for Langston (1989).

— Sukhdev Sandhu, ‘Borderline and the Emergence of Black British Cinema’ (excerpt) from Necessary Journeys, Arts Council England 2005

A ground-breaking film for its treatment of race and sexuality, Borderline (1930) was directed by Kenneth Macpherson, editor of the influential intellectual film journal Close Up (1927-33), the first British journal dedicated to film as a modernist art form. Macpherson had previously made three short films, but this was his first feature and by far his most ambitious effort.

Borderline stars the poet HD (real name Hilda Doolittle) and Macpherson's wife, writer Winifred Bryher, both on the editorial board of Close Up, as well as the black American actor, singer and political activist Paul Robeson and his wife, Eslanda Robeson. The narrative is relatively simple, depicting an inter-racial love triangle, but Borderline's attempts to portray the extreme psychological states of its characters render it a quite complex film.

The film concentrates on the inner states of its protagonists, using a technique that HD referred to as 'clatter-montage', in which rapid montage combinations create an effect close to superimposition. This method was inspired by the editing methods used by Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, yet the film's attempt to probe psychological states was more directly inspired by the German filmmaker, GW Pabst.

The film also probes racial issues. Pete (Paul Robeson) is black, while Adah (Eslanda Robeson) is described by the film notes as being 'mulatto'. Pete, who is married to Adah, visits his wife at an inn, where she has been having an affair with Thorne (Gavin Arthur), who is also involved with Astrid (HD). Here he encounters racial prejudice from Astrid as well as an old lady. After Thorne has accidentally killed Astrid, Pete is forced out of town, whilst Thorne escapes punishment, thus underlining racial inequality. Although Pete and Thorne are reconciled at the end, the unfairness of their treatment remains.

As well as its explicit themes of racial prejudice, Borderline also contains an implicit homoerotic subtext. Although there are no overt references to homosexuality, the topic is alluded to in some of the performances. Marginal characters, such as the manageress and barmaid at the inn, have an air of sexual ambivalence, while the (male) pianist is seen gazing longingly at a picture of Pete on his piano. This homoerotic view of Pete is reinforced by the way in which the camera frequently lingers over Robeson's semi-naked body. It is also worth noting that HD was lesbian, and is thought to have had an affair with Bryher.

— Jamie Sexton

Restored print of Borderline courtesy British Film Institute

Part of UBS Openings: The Long Weekend - Abstract Sunday

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