There is just something so human about the story of Tish Murtha, be it her tremendous body of work or the lament of the lack of opportunities afforded to working-class women. You find yourself compelled in this bittersweet documentary.
Born in the northern coastal town of South Shields, Tish Murtha was driven by a fierce conviction to record the impact of Thatcher-era de-industrialisation upon local communities. Her striking black and white photos convey tenderness and intimacy that set her apart from her peers, and her work would become a powerful record of a world decimated by a new and ruthless form of capitalism.
In the long history of art, there is a reoccurring belief that more likely than not, your work will only be fully appreciated once you are gone. Paul Sng’s documentary Tish compounds that belief by adding another name to that list in Tish Murtha, a photographer who could capture the most astonishingly bittersweet of images yet would never be fully celebrated for it.
Add to this that Murtha was not one to acquiesce to the wants of those more in power than herself. Then you have a situation where a tremendous artist was never going to get that lift that their work and ability so clearly deserved. As we discover, people around her wanted her to concede occasionally. Still, a proud woman from a working-class background would and could never do such a thing when living in the 70s and 80s of Thatcher’s Britain. Others around her (usually male and middle-class) could continue to rise in their career. Murtha’s regrettably but not unexpectedly stuttered.
The arts sector within the UK has long had a problem with how working-class people can obtain the same avenues as those from “better off” backgrounds. Many have encountered it, including myself. If your face in any form does not fit, then you are the one who must change. Never does the system need to fix itself to be open to all; no, we must concede to be the shape that fits in the correct hole. Otherwise, any future is snipped away in the blink of an eye. As Sng and Ella Murtha crucially show us, Tish Murtha was one to keep the firmest grasp of her integrity; it allowed her work to have an honesty to it that maybe otherwise would have been lost.
In Murtha’s photography, we often see her subjects’ desolate surroundings. Crumbling buildings plenty, but always the focus brings you back to the person; we see so much in the look or action of her subjects that you realise how close you would need to be with them to capture it. Could a photographer from London, for example, come and get the same shots? Of course not. The eyes would give away a mistrust. Here though, they barely even act as if Murtha is there, and you can’t help but be drawn to it. The fact her work ends up where it does by the end of the film is a testament to her skill and intuition as an artist, as it is an indictment to the art world that let such a talent fall away until her death.
While the film is full of sentimentality to the person, the artist that Tish Murtha was, there is a stark honesty that seeps its way through the social climate in which she experienced. It doesn’t take away from how personal Tish is, though, which is inevitable with Ella’s hand. We get her point of view as well, which is just as important; she saw her mother’s struggle and not only did Tish struggle because of her own background, but because she was a woman, which in her era and even now feels more like a hindrance in some circles. By adding in her own experiences, we get an even rounder idea of who Tish Murtha was and the lasting impact her work evokes.
Tish is an exceptional documentary and much more than a biopic. It shows us how one-sided some aspects of the UK was and still is. Never lacking in emotion, Paul Sng and Ella Murtha have compelled us.
★★★★
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