This study will consider the function of cinema in British society’s ongoing relationship with the 1980s. Its focus on a key period of recent British film history acknowledges popular culture’s flourishing identification with this decade, reflected through a number of media including literature, music and fashion. I argue that with seventeen films set in the 1980s and produced between 2005 and 2010, British cinema is at the centre of this retrospective, providing a unique perspective on our relationship with the era. But what are the determinants of this mediated reminiscence and what does it say about the function of cinema in rendering the past? I contend that a key aspect of this channelling of popular and personal memory is the role of the writer and director. Nearly all male and mostly middle-aged, the films’ creative agents present narratives that foreground young male protagonists and specifically masculine themes. These thematic concerns, including patriarchal absence and homosocial groups, whilst anchored in the concerns of their 1980s socio-political landscape also highlight a contemporary need for the films’ authors to connect to a personal past. Through reference to sociological, cinematic and political discourse, amongst others, this study will also consider the role of memory in these films. It will contend that the films present a complex perspective of the 1980s, highlighting an ambivalent relationship with the period that transcends nostalgia. The thematic structure of this work will allow a full analysis of the films’ relationship with key aspects of the 1980s incorporating a consideration of critically neglected texts that, I argue, demonstrate a strong mediated relationship with the 1980s. Additionally the study’s unique perspective on a specific period of the recent past and its mediation through film will ensure it has a key contribution to current thinking around the relationship between contemporary masculinity, British cinema and the 1980s.

Three female protagonists—Madeleine Elster of Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), Céleste Albaret of Percy Adlon’s Céleste (1980), and Ariane of Chantal Akerman’s La Captive (2000)—are considered as the three Proustian women who form the tripart body of this thesis. In approaching them as such, the research has at its origin in the sensory encounter of the notorious ‘madeleine moment’ of Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu, in which the taste of a morsel of cake dipped in tea expands memory, collapses linear time, and from which the voluminous novel blooms. Transcribed, translated, and transposed from the literary experiences of the reader’s encounter with Proust’s writing, text transcends the page and the encounter becomes visual in the form of the moving image of film. These three filmed women all differ: the first, Hitchcock’s dizzying, dazzling Hollywood siren of San Francisco, lifted from the pages of a Parisian detective novel; the next, a German reincarnation of Proust’s devoted housekeeper, drawn from her own words, recorded fifty years after his death; the third, a closely-watching memory-making woman-loving nomadic director’s nod to the Search’s captivating Albertine Simmonet. To experience this trinity in contiguous proximity to one another through Proust is to enter a sensorial spiral in which time, bodies, text, and vision press up against one another in a movement that has the power to be as unsteadying as it can be pleasurable. Immersed in Madeleine Time, the time of these three Proustian women, allows for a consideration of the author’s life-in-writing, the Narrator’s waiting, and the reader’s own place in relation to the textual encounter. Madeleine Time is shown to suspend and sustain, nourish and withhold, prevent and provoke, to move.

This thesis proposes a new approach to film authorship that is compatible with the postmodern theory of Linda Hutcheon. By taking up, building on, and combining the work of Peter Wollen, Michel Foucault, and Will Brooker I develop a theory of film authorship that moves away from conceptualisations of the author in terms of self-expression and instead conceives of the author as a text. Additionally, I identify four different genres of authorfunction: The Romantic, modernist, feminist, and commercial genres of author-function. These four genres of author-function provide a framework and critical vocabulary for the accurate description of the ways in which author-texts are constructed. The characteristics of these four genres of author-function are derived from the major trends in theories of film authorship identified in the review of literature. In addition to these genres of author-function, I also develop my own postmodern genre of author-function. The characteristics of this postmodern genre of author-function are derived from the analysis of existing literature on two key directors of postmodern film, David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino. In particular, the postmodern genre of author-function adapts and expands upon Peter Brooker’s and Will Brooker’s affirmative reading of the role played by generic reworking in Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). The characteristics of the postmodern genre of author-function are further refined through its application as a critical framework in two case studies focusing on Tony Scott and Sally Potter. Scott and Potter serve as contrasting case studies. In addition to operating in the very different contexts of Hollywood action cinema and art cinema respectively, Scott and Potter occupy very different positions in regards to authorship. The Scott author-text is largely constructed in terms of failed authorship. In contrast, the Potter author-text is apparently more secure in its authorial status. There are, however, a number of overlaps between the Scott and Potter case studies. Firstly, films across both the Scott and Potter oeuvres exhibit stylistic features associated with postmodern film. Despite this, Scott and Potter are not included within the central canon of postmodern cinema, and occupy a more marginal position. The Scott and Potter oeuvres are also characterised as fragmented and fractured rather than in terms of unity. This further limits the possibility of constructing Scott as an auteur and suggests that the Potter author-text is more precarious than at first appears. The thesis opens with a review of literature tracing the developments of theories of film authorship. The first chapter begins by examining the place of authorship in postmodernism as conceptualised by two key theorists of postmodernism, Fredric Jameson and Linda Hutcheon. This is followed by the development of the new approach to authorship outlined above, and its demonstration through the meta-critical analysis of existing literature on Lynch and Tarantino. This analysis also facilitates the development of the postmodern genre of author-function and provides the initial characteristics of that genre. The postmodern genre of author-function is further refined and tested through the case studies. Each of these case studies follows a similar format, beginning by situating Scott and Potter in their respective contexts. The second stage of the case studies involves determining the genres of author-function in play in the construction of the Scott and Potter author-texts. The final stage of the case study focuses on the analysis of three films by each director from the perspective of the postmodern genre of author-function in order to determine what readings are yielded by this approach, and how they compare to existing approaches. The development of a postmodern genre of author-function facilitates a revaluation of postmodern cinema. The Scott case study demonstrates one aspect of this reappraisal, the revaluation of texts previously classified as meaningless spectacle in terms of a re-inventive impulse and a critical reworking of genre conventions. The Potter case study demonstrates both the political and critical potential of such a de-constructive engagement with genre, while also showcasing the ways in which adopting the postmodern genre of author-function as a critical perspective allows for texts to be reorganised around a new centre, and for new patterns of meaning and significance to be traced across the oeuvre.

During four years of Vichy rule and German Occupation, French cinema audiences were exposed to a multiplicity of filmed propaganda. Documentary films formed an important part of the cinema experience in the dark years, and from March 1943 were made obligatory in cinemas across the entire French nation. The documentaries produced, commissioned, funded and sanctioned by the cinema section of the Vichy propaganda ministry, the Secrétariat Général à l’Information (SGI), were, though, distinct from any other propaganda produced by the Vichy authorities. Far from promoting exclusionary and potentially divisive themes like anti-Semitism and collaboration, Vichy documentary films throughout all four years of Occupation projected an image of life under Pétain which was frequently idealised and represented a more moderate approach than that taken in radio or poster propaganda. Drawing on themes which had been the subject of popular support before the Occupation, in particular the family, the Empire and French international standing, along with popular symbols like the tricolore and the Marseillaise, these films ignored the upheavals of the defeat and exode of June 1940 and instead seemed to suggest that life continued as it had done before the creation of the Vichy regime. This thesis examines for the first time the continuity of themes from before the Occupation in Vichy documentary film and investigates why documentaries were so distinct from the content and approach of other Vichy-produced propaganda, especially radio and posters. By examining career trajectories and interests of those responsible for documentary production, the thesis sheds new light on the motivations of Vichy’s functionaries. The close examination of the nature of the themes and values from before the Occupation conveyed in Vichy documentary film therefore advances our knowledge regarding the competing ideas and interests at work in the dark years of Occupation.

This thesis uses close textual analysis to examine formal stylistic characteristics located in films that have, since their initial release, gained a reputation for being bad. It provides a framework that allows badness to be examined without subjectivity, further developing the concept of "objective badness" as proposed by J. Hoberman. The films examined are categorised as "badfilm", a term used to describe films that are identified, distinguished, and potentially valued for their incompetence. These claims of badness implicitly assume the audience can recognise the filmmaker's unintentional failure to achieve conventional standards of goodness. Despite this, consideration of intentionality has only recently been briefly addressed. This thesis expands further on concepts of intentionality, recognising this as being crucial in establishing objective badness. There is a tension within badfilm appreciation between enjoyment and critical acknowledgement of the inherent badness. Attempts to reconcile such conflicting responses vary. Films may be described as "so bad they're good," a problematic term with implications that have only recently been adequately considered. Alternatively, audiences downplay badness, favouring instead an auteur approach or adopting avant-garde principles as a way of understanding the unconventional aesthetic apparent in badfilm. Particularly in fan-based writing, due in part to the established reputations of certain films, responses to badfilm largely take for granted the widespread acceptance of badness. Academic responses frequently focus on reception studies, considering badfilm in terms of cult, and its audience as subculture. Consequently, detailed analysis of the ways in which badness and failure function within the films is still needed. Using American productions (1950-1970) that are already established as part of the badfilm canon, this thesis analyses textual characteristics that have been repeatedly cited as evidence of badness. Post-production sound is considered, as is performance, the use of recycled footage, and editing. The failure of individual elements, their failure to support each other, and the resulting incoherence have a direct impact on the film and its reception. In extreme cases, the failure removes the viewer from the "illusion" of cinema, emphasising the technical and mechanical aspects of film production. Objective badness is revealed through dual recognition of both the attempts to be good and the failure to achieve goodness, resulting in a film that exposes its intentions and dismantles immersive potential through an inherent, often excessive, "consistently inconsistent" incoherence. By approaching badfilm in such a way, badness can be accepted as a valuable and lucrative line of academic enquiry, unrestricted by subjectivity and taste.

In this thesis, I explore the ways in which cinematic representations reconstruct and maintain the symbolic power of the global city. Using London as a paradigmatic example, I situate the research in the 1997- 2007 period, the height of the New Labour era in Britain. I investigate the ways in which London’s symbolic power was produced and maintained during this period, using a sociological-thematic analysis of several London-set films, which I categorised by theme. The analysis, which incorporates elements of discourse and social semiotics, demonstrates how these films, with both negative and positive portrayals of the city space, are central in the construction of London as a symbolically significant global city. I discuss the consequences of this symbolic construction of the city in relation to its global image and indeed the ways in which the city is changing as a result of the blurring boundaries between the cinematic and ‘real’ cities. My analysis shows that ‘Glamorous London’, one of the thematic categories I devised, paints a picture of the city through the lens of class and racial homogeneity, and gender normativity, where the principles of neoliberal capitalism dominate the landscape. ‘Glamorous London’ is an exclusive and exclusionary place in which only certain types of individuals who fit these normative stereotypes, are welcome. At the same time, films which relate to the ‘Multi-Cultural London’ thematic category, provide a more bleak and gritty image of the city, where asylum seekers and economic migrants live ‘cheek by jowl’, struggling to survive in the city’s unforgiving underbelly. My analysis shows that Multi-Cultural London films are equally central in painting a picture of a diverse global city which is dynamic, exciting and full of possibilities. The films in this thematic category show the ‘other side’ of London’s global city identity and, more specifically, the city’s success as a global centre for capitalism and, correlatively, the city’s symbolic power as multi-faceted and full of contradictions. This thesis also provides evidence from non-cinematic media as well as from the city’s evolving landscape, to demonstrate that these cinematic trends have farreaching implications beyond cinema and indeed beyond the time period in which the film analysis is located.

This thesis elucidates current industrial and representational tendencies in South Korean films that depict Asian others. Asian others such as migrant workers, marriage migrants, overseas ethnic Koreans and North Korean defectors have become increasingly important in South Korean filmic discourse and practice since 2003. This thesis examines how contemporary Korean cinema has responded to the multicultural society and how it seeks to articulate Korean nationalism in the globalised era through the appropriation of Asian others. Such films are intertwined with governmental policies of multiculturalism and discourses on globalisation and thus reflect historical formations both inside and outside South Korean cinema. In particular, this thesis places the celebration of multicultural identity in Korean cinema into dialogue with existing debates on nationalism and sub-imperialism. Through case studies of selected films, this thesis investigates the tension between a changing society and emerging sub-imperial perspectives. The specific interest of this thesis lies in the examination of historical, geopolitical and socio-cultural trajectory in the representation of Asian others, since this discursive structure has been formed around Asia and its regional socio-political history. In doing so, this thesis aims to shift the discursive sphere of these films, which is limited to the discussion of multiculturalism and globalisation, to an expanded sphere which embraces historical and regional perspectives.

At the turn of the millennium, cultural and gender commentators were announcing that an apocalypse was under way. Men were changing. Patriarchy was crumbling. Masculinity, in short, was in crisis. Inaugurating a collective of ‘masculinity in crisis movies’, this thesis contends that Hollywood cinema also had its own relationship to the millennial crisis in masculinity. A relationship that was in fact so prevalent and extensive, that it came to the tune of 23 titles all released in the fin de millennium moment. Each film replicating the terms of wider cultural discourse, each with a representational concern with the crisis and the apparent ‘masculine malaise’.The thesis also proposes that a dichotomous structure underpinned this cinema in which two altering identity complexes were voiced. On the one side, a presence that is distinctly feminine, where existential suffering is relieved through consumerism and conformity; whilst the other, which vitally is (re)-presented as the ‘preferred’, offered a deeply masculine, often hyper-sexual, anarchic and more violent presence. This thesis will seek to investigate these representations, whilst attempting to place them in a broader macro sphere of American socio-cultural history and commentary.From visceral male anger spectacles like Fight Club (1999) and American Psycho (2000), to ‘New Man’ white collar bashing in Office Space (1999) and American Beauty (1999), this cinema seemed to be in direct dialogue with a larger, and vitally elegiac, commentary on masculinity-in-crisis.By marking key distinctions and comparisons between ‘masculinity-as-experienced’ in socio-cultural and historical readings and ‘masculinity-as-represented’ in textual approaches to the films and their surrounding paraphernalia, this work engages with both the real and reel at the fin de millennium moment. The thesis demonstrates why the concept of a single, fixed and unified ‘authentic’ definition of masculinity may be untenable, and why perhaps this cinema seemed to struggle to avoid essentialism, irony and self-parody as fragmented characters seemed to offer equally fragmented promises of redemption through ‘traditional’ displays of masculinity.What were the origins of the ‘crisis’, and how far was the crisis an actual or primarily a discursive one? Did this cinema help create or propel the crisis rather than sooth it, and how did the representation of ‘schizophrenic’ or ‘bipolar’ masculinity speak to the crisis and its audiences in general? Why did this section of Hollywood cinema decide to re-present these identities and what, if anything, can we learn from them? This research seeks to provide answers to these questions.

Jack Valenti, then President of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), formally announced the commencement of a new Motion Picture Code and Rating Program on November 1, 1968; a mode of industry self-regulation designed to replace the, by then discredited, Production Code. Despite the Program's intended role in providing freedom of choice, censorship has persisted after 1968. Censorship is defined here as the efforts by some to restrict the viewing options of others, for reasons of personal morality, commercial self-interest or ideological necessity. American moviegoers and other consumers of American cinematic culture have, paradoxically, been freed from choice. The availability of 24/7 porn on cable television and the undoubted explosion of explicit violence in mainstream cinema after 1968 are superficial distractions from the homogenising effects of both the pressure to make movies that can be screened to large predominantly teenage audiences and the pressures not to upset vocal pressure groups. In extending and mapping out the territory of the consumer the industry has, both in the types of movie on offer and in the mode of regulation chosen, effectively curtailed the space for the citizen to ask more demanding questions either about movie content or about the benefits of allowing a small number of media conglomerates to construct the viewing menu. The Program remains in place but its efficacy has been widely questioned. The thesis breaks the development of the Program into three phases organised around Richard Heffner's operation of the Program between 1974 and 1994. In the early years, despite the self-styled liberalism of the New Hollywood renaissance, both ideological and commercial constraints were applied to content. Only after Heffner's arrival in 1974 did the Program begin to function as Valenti had originally envisaged. However, the slow emergence of narrowcasting and the expansion of conglomerate ownership ensured the continuance of commercial self-censorship. These changes found maturation in a third phase of the Program's operation, after 1994. The research considers evidence of commercially motivated self-censorship as well as evidence of politically motivated censorship. The cumulative effect of industry change has been a commodification of entertainment- a denial of any interest other than that of the consumer- and the privatisation of a key part of the process of setting cultural norms. The thesis considers the risks for a functioning democracy posed by the emergence of a global entertainment complex that has an overwhelming economic interest in shaping the 'marketplace of ideas'.

Since the early 1990s, Bollywood has witnessed a significant shift from its traditional ‘formulae’, particularly in terms of formal elements (i.e. narrative, themes, mise-en-scène) in its attempt to reach international audiences. The term Masala, often used to refer to all Bollywood films, has become one of the most popular genres of Bollywood. The ‘angry young man’ era of the 1970s and 1980s has lost its popularity in the last two decades as a self-conscious genre cinema has developed in Bollywood. This change has not only influenced genre conventions but also audience expectations. As a result, genres such as horror and science fiction have gained popularity within India and abroad. Despite changes in form and expectation, the critical discourse on Bollywood has mostly retained its focus on the genres of ‘classical’ Bollywood and its ‘golden era’. These shifts in Bollywood in the new millennium require re-visiting our understanding of this cinema. One of my central arguments is that horror and science fiction have developed through a process of Bollywoodization while the dominant discourse often credits Indianization as the main factor. Bollywoodization, in this case, refers to the transnational cinematic shifts in which genre conventions from other industries are appropriated to a specific Bollywood style. This thesis aims to expand the understanding of genre cinema in Bollywood whilst claiming it as what Tom Ryall has called a ‘cinema of genres’.