Poetic child realism: Scottish film and the construction of childhood

With this essay I suggest a move towards poetic realism in the representation of children in Scottish movies. After a brief discussion of the landscape context of film geographies I turn to the roots of Scottish film realism in British Free Cinema, with specific reference to filmmakers’ use of landscape and place‐characters. I then argue that Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay moves most fully towards the context of poetic child realism. Ramsay frames and foments a quirky poetic realism with non‐professional child actors placed in carefully crafted landscapes to create important moral and social stories that evolve from a series of shocks and an emotive collision of ideas.