In the immediate post-war years, the war is curiously, although not totally, absent in British film, which seem to be occupied with “getting on” with life and offering distraction from the realities of post-war life. It is the time of the celebrated Ealing comedies, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Ladykillers (1955), Dickens adaptations, and the Archers’ most ambitious projects. Critics tend to ignore these films that suppress the presence of the war when drawing connections to the post-war situation. However, the impact of the war is very much present in these films through the types of characters portrayed and common themes of displacement and isolation. In looking at representation of middle-class women and men in British film of the post-war period, I examine the screen personae of Celia Johnson and Deborah Kerr, and Michael Redgrave and Alec Guinness. I look at how, through their various film incarnations, these four actors create screen personae of solid, dependable middle-class men and women, with their accompanying ideals of duty, community responsibility and obligation. I contextualize these identities in hardships of post-war life, using Angus Calder’s The People’s War. Focussing on Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) and Jules Dassin’s Night and the City (1951), I re-examine British film noir, suggesting these films reveal British vulnerability and anxieties about their own displacement by America during the so-called “American Occupation” of Britain. In these films, maladjusted, childlike American protagonists disrupt and upset the social stability of the ancient cities – London and Vienna – where they find themselves. The structural damage of these cities creates liminal space that allows outsiders like Holly Martins, Harry Lime, and Harry Fabian the room to operate and to disturb. The final chapter speculates on the possible reason for re-casting and adapting the iconic British narrative of Charles Dickens: Great Expectations (1946), Nicholas Nickleby (1947), Oliver Twist (1948) and Scrooge (1951). Drawing connections between the post-war study The Neglected Child and His Family and D.W. Winnicott’s theories on childhood development, I suggest that these narratives consider the problem of neglected children in post-war Britain through the safety of historical and literary distancing. / May 2007

In the immediate post-war years, the war is curiously, although not totally, absent in British film, which seem to be occupied with “getting on” with life and offering distraction from the realities of post-war life. It is the time of the celebrated Ealing comedies, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Ladykillers (1955), Dickens adaptations, and the Archers’ most ambitious projects. Critics tend to ignore these films that suppress the presence of the war when drawing connections to the post-war situation. However, the impact of the war is very much present in these films through the types of characters portrayed and common themes of displacement and isolation. In looking at representation of middle-class women and men in British film of the post-war period, I examine the screen personae of Celia Johnson and Deborah Kerr, and Michael Redgrave and Alec Guinness. I look at how, through their various film incarnations, these four actors create screen personae of solid, dependable middle-class men and women, with their accompanying ideals of duty, community responsibility and obligation. I contextualize these identities in hardships of post-war life, using Angus Calder’s The People’s War. Focussing on Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) and Jules Dassin’s Night and the City (1951), I re-examine British film noir, suggesting these films reveal British vulnerability and anxieties about their own displacement by America during the so-called “American Occupation” of Britain. In these films, maladjusted, childlike American protagonists disrupt and upset the social stability of the ancient cities – London and Vienna – where they find themselves. The structural damage of these cities creates liminal space that allows outsiders like Holly Martins, Harry Lime, and Harry Fabian the room to operate and to disturb. The final chapter speculates on the possible reason for re-casting and adapting the iconic British narrative of Charles Dickens: Great Expectations (1946), Nicholas Nickleby (1947), Oliver Twist (1948) and Scrooge (1951). Drawing connections between the post-war study The Neglected Child and His Family and D.W. Winnicott’s theories on childhood development, I suggest that these narratives consider the problem of neglected children in post-war Britain through the safety of historical and literary distancing.

In the immediate post-war years, the war is curiously, although not totally, absent in British film, which seem to be occupied with “getting on” with life and offering distraction from the realities of post-war life. It is the time of the celebrated Ealing comedies, such as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) and The Ladykillers (1955), Dickens adaptations, and the Archers’ most ambitious projects. Critics tend to ignore these films that suppress the presence of the war when drawing connections to the post-war situation. However, the impact of the war is very much present in these films through the types of characters portrayed and common themes of displacement and isolation. In looking at representation of middle-class women and men in British film of the post-war period, I examine the screen personae of Celia Johnson and Deborah Kerr, and Michael Redgrave and Alec Guinness. I look at how, through their various film incarnations, these four actors create screen personae of solid, dependable middle-class men and women, with their accompanying ideals of duty, community responsibility and obligation. I contextualize these identities in hardships of post-war life, using Angus Calder’s The People’s War. Focussing on Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949) and Jules Dassin’s Night and the City (1951), I re-examine British film noir, suggesting these films reveal British vulnerability and anxieties about their own displacement by America during the so-called “American Occupation” of Britain. In these films, maladjusted, childlike American protagonists disrupt and upset the social stability of the ancient cities – London and Vienna – where they find themselves. The structural damage of these cities creates liminal space that allows outsiders like Holly Martins, Harry Lime, and Harry Fabian the room to operate and to disturb. The final chapter speculates on the possible reason for re-casting and adapting the iconic British narrative of Charles Dickens: Great Expectations (1946), Nicholas Nickleby (1947), Oliver Twist (1948) and Scrooge (1951). Drawing connections between the post-war study The Neglected Child and His Family and D.W. Winnicott’s theories on childhood development, I suggest that these narratives consider the problem of neglected children in post-war Britain through the safety of historical and literary distancing.

Over the last two centuries, a succession of childhood pursuits has been blamed for deterioration in children's health, morality, education and literacy, as well as increases in juvenile delinquency, yet there has also been a constant voice in opposition to these charges. In Britain this debate reached something of a climax in the 1930s, due to the massive growth of cinema and its huge popularity with young people. This thesis aims to explore all aspects of the controversy surrounding children's cinemagoing in the thirties, with a particular focus on the mechanisms used to try and control or contain children's viewing, together with an assessment of the extent to which these mechanisms were successful. Its main arguments are that while concerns about child viewers motivated the development of film censorship practices in Britain and elsewhere, the debate is too complex and varied to be seen as a straightforward moral panic. In addition, it argues that, despite the attempts of the BBFC and others, children were essentially the regulators of their own viewing, as they frequently subverted or circumvented the largely ineffectual mechanisms of official cinema regulation. Moreover it suggests that, in a period when school, home and even leisure tended to be strong on discipline, the cinema was colonised by children as an alternative site of recreation. Matinees in particular were the birthplace of a new and somewhat subversive children's culture, which only started to be `tamed' with the introduction of more formal children's cinema clubs towards the end of the decade. Finally, the productive nature of the debate surrounding children, cinema and censorship is explored in a cases tudy of the 1930s MGM Tarzan films, which assesses the extent to which issues relating to the child audience may have helped to shape a genre.

No description available.

Le cinéma mettant en scène des anglais d'origines indienne ou pakistanaise, se déroulant sur le territoire britannique et traitant de relations avec les habitants qu'ils soient anglais dits de souche, anglais issus de l'immigration ou de familles métissées est appelé British-Asian cinema. Quelle image moderne de la britannicité les films British-Asians propagent-ils? L'identité anglaise n'est pas liée à la couleur de la peau ou aux origines ethniques mais au sentiment d'être anglais et de partager une culture commune. Beaucoup de personnes issues de l'immigration se disent aujourd'hui anglaises comme cela a pu être expliqué dans le très surprenant documentaire "100% English". Ces diverses représentations transparaissent dans les médias et de façon claire et accessible dans les films. Le cinéma agit comme un moyen de propager dans le monde entier une image de la britannicité. C'est dans ce contexte de redéfinition identitaire britannique que le gouvernement de Tony Blair a misé sur le cinéma britannique et son développement dans toute sa diversité. Nous pouvons nous interroger sur ce qu'est cette représentation britannique, mais aussi anglaise, vu sous cet angle particulier du mélange culturel au cinéma. L'intégration, réussie ou non, les mariages forcés, la religion, les stéréotypes culturels britanniques et Asians sont autant d'obstacles à franchir pour affirmer une identité britannique. Certains anglais ne savent plus qui ils sont réellement, on en vient à faire des tests ADN pour évaluer son niveau d'anglicité et toute légitimité à être anglais. Il est étonnant d'observer qu'à l'inverse, ces nouveaux britanniques issus de parents indiens ou pakistanais, affichent souvent une identité britannique et anglaise claire, peut être même exacerbée et mieux définie. / Cinema staging English people of Indian or Pakistani origins, taking place in Britain, is called "British-Asian cinema". What is the modern image of Britishness that British-Asian films convey? In this respect, English identity is not linked to the color of the skin or to ethnic origins but to a common culture. Various representations appear in media and in a clear ans approachable manner in films. The cinema acts as a means to spread an image of Britishness worldwide. It is in this context of British self-defining or redefing that the government of Tony Blair gave support to the British cinema and its development in all its diversity. Analysing British representation through the lens of cinema seems quite interesting. Whether it is represented as successful integration or forced mariages, religious fanaticism, the Asian cultural stereotypes are obstacles to overcome to assert a British identity. Moreover, some English people do not know who they are, indeed they ended up making DNA tests to assess their level of Englishness and any legitimacy to be English, as it is explained in the TV documentary "100% English". It is striking to notice that on the opposite, these new British people of Indian or Pakistani parents, often show a clear British and English identity, which can sometimes be exacerbated and very accurately defined.

This thesis has two interrelated research objectives. First, to understand the circulation of Chinese cinema in Britain through the cultural authorities and gatekeepers responsible for the canonisation of international film. Second, to use Chinese-language films as case studies through which to deconstruct and better understand the mechanisms that make up British film cultures and their tastemaking practices. English-language Chinese film studies has long been preoccupied with the semantic issue of how to define such a loaded and diverse concept as “Chinese cinema”, with investigations generally focusing on film form and production contexts. This thesis extends these studies to include considerations of the role played by film circulation, to observe how the parameters of these analyses and the films of their focus are defined in the first instance. This thesis traces the lineage of Chinese cinema as it has appeared in Britain's film cultures from 1954 through to 2014 when this project began. Taking emblematic moments of this history as case studies to anchor the investigation, each chapter contextualises the cultures into which Chinese-language films arrived. Using the sociological theories of Pierre Bourdieu and others, these investigations note how, in addition to their negotiation of international trends, domestic skirmishes for cultural authority within Britain have had significant effects on the perceived value of Chinese cinema. This thesis considers the various social, cultural, and class contexts that support Britain's key tastemakers in the circulation of Chinese cinema. It shows not only the ways modes of evaluation and film availability are cultivated through these contexts, but that the activities therein result also from, and curate, assumptions toward Chinese as a cultural, political and ethnic signifier. Those commanding the discourse around Chinese cinema in Britain have done so with conceptions about Chineseness that result from and contribute to domestic conflicts of taste, class and social standing. The inevitable intersections between film tastes and cultural assumptions have worked to curate a parochial definition of Chinese cinema that prioritises certain kinds of films at the expense of others, dependent more on the idiosyncrasies of British film cultures than the activities of Chinese film industries.

No description available.

Ken Russell (1927-2011) was a renegade talent and the self-styled enfant terrible of British cinema. His legacy as a film-maker consists of a large number of films on the lives of artists, mainly composers. But Russell’s approach to artist biography was highly unorthodox: rather than reconstruct a factual account he offered a deeply personal interpretation of artists’ lives based on his own understanding of their work. In a programmatic text for his film on Mahler (1974), Russell explained that his films ‘evolve through a stream of consciousness in which the man and the myth, the music and its meaning, time, place, dream and fact all flow and blend into the mainstream of the film itself’ and that ‘my film is simply about some of the things I feel when I think of Mahler’s life and listen to his music’.This book is an attempt to explain what that statement means and to unpack its implications for the practice of life writing. It takes a baroque approach to performance and performativity to show how Russell not simply made highly inventive films on other artists, but also constructed those films as a kind of self-portrait. Russell’s work then becomes a performance of self through art. In four chapters of detailed analysis this book reconstructs Russell’s method, from the very first films he made for the BBC in the early 1960s through his major feature films of the 1970s and 1980s. / Doctorat en Histoire, histoire de l'art et archéologie / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This doctoral thesis studies a cycle of British film and television fictions produced in the years 2005-2011 and set retrospectively in the 1980s. In its identification and in-depth textual and contextual analysis of what it terms the ‘Eighties Cycle’, it offers a significant contribution to British film and television scholarship. It examines eighties-set productions as members of a sub-genre of British recent-past period dramas begging unique consideration outside of comparisons to British ‘heritage’ dramas, to contemporary social dramas or to actual history. It shows that incentives for depicting the eighties are wide-ranging; consequently, it situates productions within their cultural and industrial contexts, exploring how these dictate which eighties codes are cited and how they are textually used. The Introduction delineates the Eighties Cycle, establishes the project’s academic and historical basis and outlines its approach. Chapter 1 situates the work within the academic fields that inform it, briefly surveying histories and socio-cultural studies before examining and assessing existing scholarship on Eighties Cycle productions alongside critical literature on 1980s, 90s and contemporary British film and television; nostalgia and retro; modern media, history and memory; British and American period screen fiction; and transmedia storytelling. Chapter 2 considers how a selection of productions employing ‘the eighties’ as a visual and audio style invoke and assign meaning to commonly recognised aesthetic codes according to their targeted audiences and/or intended messages. Chapter 3 investigates semi-autobiographical dramas that bear the mark of remembering, from the vantage point of the present, a time of fast expansions and shifts in the global media landscape. Chapter 4 explores how historical fictions locate historical knowledge in the decade’s refraction through modern media and reconstruct, deconstruct or ironise these mediations to meet particular cultural or industrial demands. Chapter 5 identifies two spin-offs that exploit shifts toward transmedia production and distribution by using eighties iconography as the set pieces for an immersive fantasy world, considering how and why their source texts are adapted and what this implies for past representation. Finally, the Conclusion reviews the project’s findings and briefly considers possible factors for the cycle’s deceleration and transformation after 2011. Ultimately, this project sees the Eighties Cycle as a by-product of shifts in Britain toward advanced globalisation and new mediation that have facilitated access to domestic and international mediated recent pasts. These productions operate within a distinct recent-past period screen fiction mode, engaging audiences equipped with comprehensive notions of the eighties as circulated in media. Meaning is produced in how these notions are structured; sometimes they are lauded, sometimes parodied, sometimes criticised or ironised, and sometimes they are simply cited for the sheer pleasure of recall.