ABSTRACT
that Ray may have learnt his lesson and will henceforth work for change within the law. This use of women to represent acceptable values is less satisfactory and adventurous to Monk than the representation of femininity in Shopping and Shallow Grave, where women are not in any way weaker or less smart than the men, and in Smalltime where they turn out to be more resourceful and self-sufficient. In the real under-world it is difficult to imagine any dilution of the tough macho ethos, but it is encouraging to see-thirty years after Performance-that ethos being questioned and challenged. The English underworld is no less mean or nasty than it ever was but it continues to provide inspiration for tales of treachery, courage and troubled sexuality which enriches British cinema in at least as fruitful a way as adaptations of Jane Austen and Henry James.
