Toxteth Cowboy
VIDEO
SHORT FILM

Toxteth Cowboy is the second installment in the growing collection of films sharing a wackiness that masks nuanced themes of societal zeitgeist discussion produced by No Cash Value. In many ways it is a “one man picture” (Hitchcock & Gottlieb 2014, p157) as Alfred Hitchcock famously described his work. It was Written, Directed, Produced and Stars Sam Vivian. However Hitchcock also professes that films cannot be made by one person alone. Alex Quinn once again was pivotal in bringing this film to life in the role of Editor and Camera Operator. 

Toxteth Cowboy is a postmodern-gothic-social realist western set in Liverpool. It possesses many genre defying elements to uniquely define it within its own subgenre: The British Western. Imagine the product of a combination of Fistful of dollars (Leone, 1962), The Holy Grail (Gilliam & Jones, 1975) and The Ratcatcher (Ramsay, 1999). Similar in themes to that of the revisionist-western masterpiece Unforgiven (Eastwood, 11992) which portrays the view that violent, misogynistic men were, and are, protected by systemic patriarchy (Adiche, 2014, p10) our film looks to frame this conversation within the British social class setting. Put simply, the core of this film’s didactic purpose is how actions have far reaching consequences that can cross generational borders. Themes of domestic abuse, national identity and capitalist/ class greed run throughout. It is an age old story of brotherly betrayal, Cane and Abel style, and about reconciling the traumas of or parent’s generation with that of our own.