Feel good brit flick of the year...

[jenks]

seems to me that ackroyd (and others) have built an argument out of the catholic influence on 'english' culture long after the reformation - not just recusant shakespeare but the English music of Tallis, Byrd etc.

the idea is that these'outsiders' repackage the culture back to the host with that mixture of romanticism and heady mysticism so often lacking from protestant cultures. now whether we agree with it...that's another matter, it's certainly suggestive.

 

[Melmoth]

Fair enough Rambler, I think it was the mention of British 'instincts' which sent me haring off up the wrong tree. The bland capaciousness of Britishness as a descriptor renders it fairly useless though. Also I can't really see how the great Hitchcock films like North by NW, The Birds or Vertigo accord to your prescriptions of low budgets and Shakespearean acting!

 

[Rambler]

Come on, what is Vertigo if it's not a claustrophobic film?! I'm not saying that low budgets are essential to British filsm, what I'm getting at is that it is a feature of the British film industry, and those who learn their trade in it are going to tend to have a set of stylistic/technical preferences that they then carry on throughout their work - I think, N by NW possibly not withstanding, most Hitchcock films fit that sort of mould.

On Tallis and Byrd - their own personal religious preferences aside, they were officially approved composers because Elizabeth I was canny enough to recognise the enormous diplomatic benefits of having a lavish court, so that when dignitaries from Italy, France, Spain, etc visited, they could return and report that 'Yes, she's a Protestant queen, but the sheer quality (and extravagance, and 'heady romanticism') of the music and literature at her court suggests that England isn't going to the dogs and is in safe hands.' It was a simple way of making her palatable to her European rivals.

 

[craner]

Did nobody mention Pride & Prejudice?

 

[D84]

I recently watched a couple of British `80s political movies which I found quite enjoyable, worthy additions to anyone's film canon:

The Ploughman's Lunch
which was about the revision of Britain's history by mostly well to do brats (the characterisation of the protagonists isn't flattering) in MI5 and the advertising industry, who concocted the "ploughman's lunch" to get people to buy sandwiches at pubs. It's a film I'll have to see again though as there was a lot packed in which I think went over my head. Was there a metaphor in there as well for the seduction and betrayal of the British left by the right, or am I looking too deeply?

A Very British Coup
I was caught by the blurb on the back of the cover at the video shop - something like: "With the North Sea oil exhausted and nothing left to privatise..." which I thought was getting close to an accurate prediction. It's a what if story where a guy from Sheffield leads Labour to victory over Margaret Thatcher. It was great fun to watch, very much a political thriller with lots of great lines. Somehow I doubt that Harry Perkins would have anything to do with New Labour though..

Again a lot of time is spent dealing with MI5 and its pernicious effect on British public life - I have to say that I had never considered it that much until I'd seen these two films and I'm convinced - esp. after seeing a couple of episodes of Spooks, which tried to have it both ways: spying as an amoral nightmare, but still somehow patriotic..

Are there any other movies in this style? This should be a rich seam of material to be turned into film and it seems to be a particular obsession with British TV writers - well, at least if you consider the subtext of a lot of the Doctor Who stories and the whole story behind Blake's 7, or even Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister. But yeah I guess we're moving closer into the realm of TV and not film, but I can't see Australian or US producers doing much similar, although I can imagine Europeans creating similar works.

I just remembered: has anyone mentioned Peter Watkins yet?

I've been meaning to track his work down but haven't had a chance yet. Was it here that I first read about him?

 

[francesco]

Kubrik. Ok he was born in NYC, but lived and worked on his greatest films in UK.

 

[jd_]

Check out "Close Your Eyes" if you haven't seen it. Just watched it the other day and it was really great. I normally can't get into police hunting down the serial killer stuff at all but this one was way above the rest. It's got a complete shit cover (at least over here) but the film's worth seeing. It feels like Deep Red or The Tenant or something. Actually except for a few mentions of e-mail and faxes and what not you could probably be fooled into thinking it was an old 70s horror film. I think the dirty underground police station would really appeal to you K-punk.

 

[ambrose]

i think the best things to look for in british cinema are rather inconspicuous, small, good rather than excellent films. in the modern era at any rate

for example: bullet boy (ignore iffy accents)
a way of life (ignore david grey soundtrack)
last resort (dont ignore anything, this is great!!!!)

are just some examples i can think of.

 

[k-punk]

Check out "Close Your Eyes" if you haven't seen it. Just watched it the other day and it was really great. I normally can't get into police hunting down the serial killer stuff at all but this one was way above the rest. It's got a complete shit cover (at least over here) but the film's worth seeing. It feels like Deep Red or The Tenant or something. Actually except for a few mentions of e-mail and faxes and what not you could probably be fooled into thinking it was an old 70s horror film. I think the dirty underground police station would really appeal to you K-punk.

yes, sounds right up my street...

 

[owen]

A Very British Coup
I was caught by the blurb on the back of the cover at the video shop - something like: "With the North Sea oil exhausted and nothing left to privatise..." which I thought was getting close to an accurate prediction. It's a what if story where a guy from Sheffield leads Labour to victory over Margaret Thatcher. It was great fun to watch, very much a political thriller with lots of great lines. Somehow I doubt that Harry Perkins would have anything to do with New Labour though..

the writer of 'a very british coup', chris mullin, was a new labour minister for a bit. funnily enough he was heavily involved in the privatisation of air traffic control.

make of that what you will

 

[D84]

the writer of 'a very british coup', chris mullin, was a new labour minister for a bit. funnily enough he was heavily involved in the privatisation of air traffic control.

make of that what you will

Damn....

 

[D84]

I had to get more info on Chris Mullin after Owen's expose (to me at least) and found this in case anyone might be interested:

Changing his approach to politics, he then became the scourge of the legal establishment - criticising them through the press, in the Commons and through his book, An Error of Judgment, for miscarriages of justice. He also became a political novelist with his A Very British Coup, which was subsequently turned into a TV drama.

He became a probing chairman of the home affairs select committee in 1997; an MP with credibility who proved it was possible to thrive outside the New Labour net.

But not for long. In 1999 he became a junior minister, shuffled upwards not just for his talent but to silence his dissident voice. The irony of a former firebrand of the left being charged with the privatisation of British skies was not lost on commentators.

The metamorphosis was complete when, after the fall of Peter Mandelson, he became No 2 at the Department of International Development, under fellow reinvented leftwinger Clare Short.​

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/profiles/story/0,9396,458072,00.html

He was also one of the Labour MPs who backed the government, by opposing the amendment that the case for war with Iraq was "unproven" (ie. he voted that the case for war was "proven"). http://www.iconservatives.org.uk/commons_vote_on_war_26_march.htm

Disappointing is not the word...

I also found this review which was interesting:
http://www.trashfiction.co.uk/very_british_coup.html

Still it was a good video despite the writer's craven hypocrisy...

 

[owen]

oh don't get me wrong, it's a terrific film, even if mullin's quisling status is rivalled only by blunkett.

they repeated it (rather optimistically) on channel 4 in May 1997...

 

[bassnation]

have you seen bullet boy, mark? it's really engaging, a good story, pretty conscious and moral without being preachy and features an absolutely scintillating performance from so solid's asher d. it is a good british film.

it is pretty good - but essentially its carlitos way in east london, isn't it?

the other british film i saw recently is "dead man's shoes" one of the most moving and intense films i've ever seen. its a revenge story but it turns the genre on its head by examining how revenge impacts on the perpetrator as well as the victims, the cost involved to everyone.

every time i watch it, it makes me cry - not many films are that powerful in my experience.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419677/

 

[henrymiller]

"'The Germans have given us the paranoid depths of Expressionism, the Italians created Neo-Realism, the French have perfected brooding Melodramatic Existentialism, while the British bask in the bathetic glow of a plucky little yokel, a couple of nude scenes and a happy-clappy sing-song finale."

while acknowledging that british cinema is on a bad wicket, this kind of stuff has been written by british journalists since the '20s, ever since german expressionism crossed the channel. and it's easy to make counter-arguments: britain had hitchcock, it invented the documentary (actually it invented most of cinema's narrative syntax before griffith), it has made visionaries like powell and roeg. but the industry collapsed some time between 1955 and 1970, and 'cinema' is really an off-shoot of TV. i don't know that the german or italian cinemas are in better nick. fwiw, there are a fair few good french directors still working -- nothing rom-commy about assayas or noe.