Directory of World Cinema: Britain

Description

Bringing to mind rockers and royals, Buckingham Palace and the Scottish Highlands, Britain holds a special interest for international audiences who have flocked in recent years to quality exports like Fish Tank, Trainspotting and The King's Speech. A series of essays and articles exploring the definitive films of Great Britain, this addition to Intellect's Directory of World Cinema series turns the focus on England together with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

With a focus on the most cerebral and critically important films to have come out of Britain, this volume explores the diversity of genres found throughout British film, highlighting important regional variations that reflect the distinctive cultures of the countries involved. Within these genres, Emma Bell and Neil Mitchell have curated a rich collection of films for review – from Hitchcock's spy thriller The 39 Steps to Emeric Pressburger's art classic The Red Shoes to the gritty but heartfelt This is England. Interspersed throughout the book are critical essays by leading experts in the field providing insight into shifting notions of Britishness, important industry developments and the endurance of the British film industry. For those up on their Brit film facts and seeking to test their expertise, the book concludes with a series of trivia questions.

A user-friendly look at the cultural and artistic significance of British cinema from the silent era to the present, Directory of World Cinema: Britain will be an essential companion to the country's bright and resurgent film industry. 

Introduction

Film of the Year: The King’s Speech

Award of the Year: Harry Potter

The Pioneers

British Silent Cinema

Industrial Spotlight: Women in British Cinema

Cultural Crossover: Multiculturalism in British Cinema

On Location: Brighton and Hove

Directors:

David Lean

Powell and Pressburger

Shane Meadows

Melodrama

Crime

Comedy

Heritage 

Horror 

Sci-Fi 

Social Realism 

Film Culture Focus

British Arthouse Cinemas

Arthouse 

Documentary 

Scotland

Wales 

Northern Ireland

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Arts visuels
• Cinéma
• Cinéma
• Cinéma
• Cinema
• This is England
• The King's Speech
• Fishtank (disambiguation)
• General officer
• The 39 Steps
• Cinema of the United Kingdom
• History of film
• Fish Tank
• Great Britain
• Art
• Trainspotting
• General
• Britpop
• The Red Shoes

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 21 septembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781841506074
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Volume 14
DIRECTORY OF WORLD CINEMA BRITAIN
Edited by Emma Bell and Neil Mitchell
First Published in the UK in 2012 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2012 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright 2012 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Publisher: May Yao
Publishing Manager: Melanie Marshall
Cover photo: Fish Tank 2009, BBC Films/The Kobal Collection
Cover Design: Holly Rose
Copy Editor: Heather Owen
Typesetting: Mac Style, Beverley, E. Yorkshire
Directory of World Cinema ISSN 2040-7971
Directory of World Cinema eISSN 2040-798X
Directory of World Cinema: Britain ISBN 978-1-84150-557-2
Directory of World Cinema: Britain eISBN 978-1-84150-607-4
Printed and bound by Cambrian Printers, Aberystwyth, Wales.
CONTENTS
DIRECTORY OF WORLD CINEMA BRITAIN
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Film of the Year
The King s Speech
Award of the Year
Harry Potter
The Pioneers
British Silent Cinema
Industrial Spotlight
British Film Studios
Women in British Cinema
Cultural Crossover
Multiculturalism in British Cinema
On Location
Brighton and Hove
Directors
David Lean
Powell and Pressburger
Shane Meadows
Melodrama
Essay
Reviews
Crime
Essay
Reviews
Comedy
Essay
Reviews
Heritage
Essay
Reviews
Horror
Essay
Reviews
Sci-Fi
Essay
Reviews
Social Realism
Essay
Reviews
Film Culture Focus
British Arthouse Cinemas
Arthouse
Essay
Reviews
Documentary
Essay
Reviews
Scotland
Essay
Reviews
Wales
Essay
Reviews
Northern Ireland
Essay
Reviews
Recommended Reading
British Cinema Online
Test Your Knowledge
Notes on Contributors
Filmography
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This Directory would not have been possible without the efforts and generosity of the contributors, and the support and assistance of Intellect s staff, particularly May Yao and Melanie Marshall. In addition, Emma Bell would like to thank her friends and colleagues Frances Tempest, Fi Roxburgh, Frank Gray, Ewan Kirkland, Louise Fitzgerald and Jedge Pilbrow for their advice and support. Neil Mitchell would like to thank Alan Hodge, John Berra and Gabriel Solomons for welcome advice, information and support on this and other projects, as well as his family and friends for their unwavering encouragement.
Emma Bell and Neil Mitchell
INTRODUCTION
Film-making in Britain has a long and illustrious history dating back to the nineteenth century when pioneers in the embryonic technology, art and industry of motion picture production, such as photographer Eadweard Muybridge - one of the fathers of cinema - and film-makers Robert Paul and George Albert Smith, lay the foundations for Britain s renowned cinema industry.
After over 100 years of film-making, anyone compiling an overview of a national cinema is tasked with identifying a coherent definition of the national that can be sustained throughout shifting social, historical, cultural, industrial and political contexts. Films placed under the banner of British cinema can be differentiated from those of, say, Hollywood, France or Japan, yet do not all neatly fit into one definition of the national in terms of conditions of production, modes of exhibition, genre, style or content. While this is as true of Britain as it is of many national cinemas, it is the consistent diversity of British cinema that makes it so interesting to study.
Accordingly, this Directory comprises one way of organizing British cinema, which acknowledges that there are other ways of doing so. The films and film-makers here appear in loose categories - history, industry, identity and genre - that are explored on their own terms. Trying to maintain the boundaries of those categories, however, beneficially reveals how much they interlink and affect each other. In other words, this is an attempt to capture the substance and diversity of British cinema, rather than to disaggregate it.
The Directory s historicization of British cinema starts with the nineteenth-century Pioneers, particularly the Brighton school, and On Location then explores the role that Brighton and Hove have (actually) played in British cinema s creative imagination. The industrial base of British film-making is mapped throughout, but there are special sections on the silent era, British studios, women in the industry and the arthouse sector. Individual essays discuss specific practitioners - David Lean, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and Shane Meadows - whose work, in very different ways, has made an important contribution to British cinema culture.
Most of the essays and reviews discuss the social relevance of British cinema and its relationship to national identities. Britain, of course, comprises distinct regions - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - that are increasingly involved in an ongoing process of political and cultural devolution. While British cinema is notoriously Anglocentric, it is not beneficial to assume that the majority of its films are English . Britain s simultaneous unity and divisions need to be acknowledged, and the impact of devolution on the film industry explored. While many of the films throughout the Directory are Scottish in origin or substance, the independence of the Scottish industry is explored in detail in a specific chapter. Given that many surveys of British cinema neglect the modest but important film cultures of Wales and Northern Ireland, there are sections on film-making in, and representations of, those regions.
One might suggest that British cinema represents and reflects Britishness , yet Britishness is a loaded term that invites one to think of what might make a national culture unique to the exclusion of whatever does not fit that model. Any definition of Britishness has to include its endemic divisions and syntheses of regions, social classes, ethnicities and the English North/South divide. It must also acknowledge that national identities shift over time according to political, social and economic conditions, and that the ongoing process of economic and cultural globalization destabilizes ideas of the national . While many authors here examine cultural shifts in, and diversification of, national identity, an in-depth discussion on multiculturalism explores some of the ways in which British cinema reflects experiences of ethnicity, race, post-colonialism, immigration and cultural hybridity in Britain.
The remaining essays and reviews are organized by genre - melodrama, crime, comedy, horror, science fiction, art and documentary - that identify types of film in which British cinema has shown particular strength and explore the ways in which British film-makers have interpreted and developed genres. While identifying national film types is problematic, the Directory distinguishes more characteristically British genres - social realism and the heritage film - describing their origins, forms and functions.
This Directory s first review, The King s Speech , its cover film Fish Tank , and its Award of the Year film, Harry Potter , highlight issues raised above. The King s Speech is a quality heritage biopic that offers an intimate portrait of a British monarch at a pivotal moment in British history; its manner is patriotic, sentimentally Anglocentric and uncritical of the seemingly intractable British class system. The King s Speech was drawn from British source material, created by a British-American screenwriter, realized by a British director, and employed a British and Commonwealth cast and crew. It has been phenomenally successful across the globe, winning many important international awards. Fish Tank is an exploration of class and gender in the British social realist tradition, depicting a young girl struggling to find her place in a bleak urban landscape. It was written and directed by a British woman, uses regional actors and creative professionals, is mostly British funded and did reasonably well at the the arthouse and independent box office. Harry Potter is a superlative blockbuster franchise of fantasy films telling the story of a lowly orphan liberated from dreary suburban England into an epic, magical realm. It is adapted from children s books by British author JK Rowling, employed a predominantly British crew and reproduces archetypical British landscapes, landmarks and mythologies, yet is American owned and funded. Though they draw on different genres, cultural references and histories, were created in different industrial conditions and represent radically different images of Britishness, The King s Speech, Fish Tank and Harry Potter are apposite examples of contemporary British cinema.
Britain s substantial volume of classic and innovative films made the final selection of topics and titles in the Directory extremely difficult, yet the final list was chosen because, together, they reflect something of British cinema s richness and complexity. Our contributors thoughtfully talk about many other British films and film-makers that we hope the reader will find interesting and enjoyable.
Finally, in this Directory, the credit Production Designer is used to signify the person who designed the overall look of a given film. In early productions, however, that person was often credited as Art Director . As the responsibilities of an Art Director have changed significantly over time, that credit no longer always signifies the person responsible for the film s overall look. While the credit may sometimes differ in related publications or websites such as imdb.com, to ensure consistency, it was appropriate to use Production Designer