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British Cinema

Started by wasp_f15ting, April 11, 2010, 11:44:47 AM

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wasp_f15ting

Having read the "favourite scene" thread, I am very intrigued as to some of the films which have been mentioned here. I would love some recommendation from you all as to the best British cinema past and present. I have seen the odd great British film, but I have lost touch since This is England. I heard Dead Man's shoes mentioned  few times in that thread, so I shall be checking that out tonight.

So to get things rolling here are some of my favourite films from the past / present.

The Browning Version.

I am quite obsessed by old age and death. I find that films which tackle these subjects need to be extremely well done or they fail quite easily. The Browning Version follows an extremely strict school teacher who faces retirement and ill health. The film follows him in his last days in the school. During this period he learns how he is perceived by others. The fall from grace shows his fortress of icy behaviour break for some truly moving moments. It resonates quite well with films like Wild Strawberries and Ikiru. I really enjoyed the acting too.

The Third Man

I suspect most of you have seen this.. If you haven't you must for the menacing role that Orson Welles plays.

Some worthy mentions to Fish Tank from last year, but I am tired of the old council estate stuff now. Good story though.

wherearethespoons

Quote from: wasp_f15ting on April 11, 2010, 11:44:47 AM
The Third Man

I suspect most of you have seen this.. If you haven't you must for the menacing role that Orson Welles plays.

And for the music, the masterly camera work and the overall beauty of the film. I really can't praise it enough.

Recently I watched The Fallen Idol which was the film Reed made a year before The Third Man and was also written by Graham Greene. It's hard to believe there is such a short time period between each film, in fact it's hard to believe that it's made by the same director. As good as it is, it's a long way off The Third Man in many ways.

Emma Raducanu

Happy Go Lucky is one of my favourite recent British films. Eddie Marsan plays an hillariously ill-tempered driving instructor, whose life is so misserable, he can't help being permenantly angry with the forever upbeat and playful protagonist. She's even happy when her bike gets nicked.

Raining Stones is decent council estate stuff; mainly because it's the opposite of films like Ratcatcher and focuses a lot more on humour (chasing sheep) than the drudgery. That said, there is a great scene involving a loan shark throwing a little girl's mince pies on the floor. There's humour in everything if you look deep enough.

biggytitbo

Couple of not well known enough British gems:
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
Incredibly underrated, this intelligent and grown up science fiction film is one of, if not the best (I'm struggling to think of a better one) british sci-fi films ever. Part detective thriller, part newspaper drama, part disaster film, the story unfolds by gradually ratcheting up the tension as each revelation about earth's fate is uncovered. The ambiguous ending leaves the audience to decide whether we are saved or whether we burnt.

Night of the Demon
Wonderful, black and white noiry horror. The director mostly keeps the terror unseen (although we do see the silly looking demon on a few occasions its not enough to spoil it) as black magic stalks the fog shrouded English countryside resulting in one of the most atmospheric and creepy horror films you'll ever see.  The central conceit, which I won't spoil, is repeatedly used to brilliant effect, no better than in the knock-out ending. And Dana Andrews as the sceptic that begins to doubt his own disbelief is excellent. See it, it's fucking brilliant.


Phil_A

Based on another Graham Greene story, Brighton Rock is the archetypal British gangster film. While some elements of it now appear superficially quaint(the chirpy plinky-plonky musical score for instance), there always seems to be an undercurrent of menace beneath the surface gentility, and there's a couple of moments of surprising brutality. Dicky Attenborough is magnificent as the baby-faced kingpin Pinky Brown, a really vicious little sod.

Brighton Rock

Serge

Quote from: biggytitbo on April 11, 2010, 12:33:12 PMNight of the Demon

Oh yes, a fantastic film, though as I'm pretty sure I've mentioned on here before, I love the shots of the Demon. Though there's still enough about it to make it ambiguous enough to claim it's not the supernatural at work. Niall MacGinnis as Professor Karswell is excellent, and I agree that the wrapping up of the
Spoiler alert
runes motif
[close]
is one of the greatest scenes in cinema history.
Spoiler alert
"You passed it!"
[close]
And, obviously,Kate Bush liked it enough to sample the lines, "It's in the trees! It's coming!" on the 'Hounds Of Love' album. Plus: Young Brian Wilde.

One of my favourite British films is Michael Winterbottom's 'Wonderland'. In fact, I'd say it's definitely my favourite London film of all time, particularly as it centres on South London, which is my favourite part, having lived here for over ten years now. But the scenes set in Central London resonated with me, being filmed on streets I was familiar with, in places I'd actually been (the cafe in which Gina McKee's Nadia works is one I went in several times when I was working on Charing Cross Road) and in situations I knew - the loneliness of a crowded top deck on a night bus (it makes sense if you see the film.) In fact, when I first saw it, it was in a cinema near Leicester Square, and on coming out of the cinema, it felt like still being in the film. Plus, the fact that it has a rare leading role for the utterly wonderful Gina McKee helps, although, as it's an ensemble piece, 'leading' is perhaps overdoing it. But what a cast! Shirley Henderson, John Simm, Jack Shepherd, Ian Hart, etc. I also love the fact that it takes place over five days and nothing out of the ordinary really happens, no character has a blinding revelation or changes in any way. It's just about a few days in the life of a bunch of people living in South London. Fantastic.

Johnny Townmouse

I would say that I love a few British films that are not directed by Brits, such as A Clockwork Orange, Brazil, The Remains of the Day and Spider (easily Cronenberg's best UK set film).

There are the obvious people, like Lindsay Anderson, for me mainly If... and O Lucky Man, which had a profound effect on me as a yoof. Also, Shane Meadows is doing wonderful things, and aside from the films already mentioned I would also like to give a massive big-up to A Room for Romeo Brass which I found just as excellent as Dead Man's Shoes and This is England. Carol Reed's magnificent work on The Third Man and The Fallen Idol. For me the latter does not have the scope, style and panache as his later film, but it contains so much subtlety and finely nuanced performances that I find it hard to separate the two ("Baines, Baines!"). Speaking of Joseph Cotton, I would say that Brief Encounter is in my top five British films of all time. Again, subtlety and nuance make it unbearably brilliant. Also, most of Derek Jarman's films had a massive effect on the 14-year-old me. I didn't go to galleries, but Jarman's screenings on TV taught me a huge amount about the scope and flourish of art away from the mainstream. He was a bit of a hero of mine around the time that he became very ill. I would put forward Edward II, War Requiem and Caravaggio as his best work, though I think Sebastiane was the most accomplished and magnificent thing he ever produced.

Of course, Mike Leigh and Alan Clarke are also up there, Naked and Scum in particular (also Meantime and Elephant).

There are some wonderful films that I can watch time and time again, such as A Matter of Life and Death and Withnail & I and the fantastic The Innocents.

However, I would like to nomimate the not often seen film Psychomania as my favourite.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067630/

Nicky Henson is the head of a motorbike gang in West London (Walton-on-Thames in particular) who finds out that he can kill himself and come back from the dead (facilitated by the help of his witchy mother, Beryl Reid). The whole gang do the same, and wreck mayhem on the locals. It intentionally mixes every B-movie genre going - bikers, suicide cults, hippies, supernatural, the walking dead, teen gangs.....
"The film was heavily lambasted by critics upon its release. One reviewer for the London Times wrote that the film was only fit to be shown at an "S.S. reunion party.""

What more do you need to know?

sirarthur

With a nod to the above post and foreign-born directors in England, Karel Reisz' Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a big favourite of mine.

"You swivel-eyed get!!"

Peru

Anything by Bill Douglas, Alan Clarke or Peter Watkins. Three of the greatest filmmakers who have ever lived, and three of the most underseen.

Start with:

Bill Douglas: Comrades (a total masterpiece and the equal of anything David Lean accomplished)

Alan Clarke: Made In Britain/The Firm. Clarke is the best British director of my lifetime and is both a breathtaking visual stylist and a devastating social critic. When you've seen these give Elephant a go. I'll never forgive Gus Van Sant for remaking it as a fucking American Apparel advert.

Peter Watkins: Punishment Park/The War Game/Culloden - three devastating indictments of power that adopt a documentary-style technique I have never seen before or since (Bonnie Prince Charlie is interviewed by a film crew with boom mikes etc). Punishment Park will have you out of your seat by its climax - devastating and roughly thirty years before Guantanamo Bay, ahead of its time.

These films should definitely be required viewing for those interested in British Cinema. It is also worth checking out certain films by Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway. Greenaway is the biggest dickhead in the universe but The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and A Zed & Two Noughts are well worth a look. Jarman's Edward II is also very good, though his more difficult work (The Last Of England etc) is very hard to get into.

Jemble Fred

All of my favourite films are British – only exceptions being American Werewolf (which seems more British than most British films anyway), and Ghostbusters. It's a bit scary how American movies are rarely seen as 'foreign cinema', but are just the norm.

wherearethespoons

Quote from: sirarthur on April 13, 2010, 12:22:14 PM
With a nod to the above post and foreign-born directors in England, Karel Reisz' Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a big favourite of mine.

Cheers for that, you reminded me that I still haven't got this yet. The novel is fantastic.

goldfish

I've got a real soft spot for a couple of Bill Forsyth's less famous films: That Sinking Feeling and Comfort and Joy. My dad made me watch them when I was about 10 or 11 and I've loved them ever since. They're also great examples of slightly gritty nostalgia for anyone who grew up in Glasgow in the 1980s.

That Sinking Feeling (1980)
Ronnie, Wal, Andy and Vic are four bored, unemployed teens in dreary, rainy Glasgow. Ronnie comes up with a great idea. He has noticed that stainless steel sinks are worth a lot of money and comes up with a complicated scheme: to steal sinks from a warehouse dressed as girls and using a stop-motion-potion.

Comfort and Joy (1984)
A few days before Christmas, Glasgow radio disc jockey Allan "Dicky" Bird is stunned when Maddy (Eleanor David), his kleptomaniac girlfriend of four years, suddenly announces that she is moving out. His doctor friend Colin (Patrick Malahide) tries to console him, but Bird is heartbroken.

One day, he goes for a drive to take his mind off his troubles. Noticing an attractive girl, Charlotte (Clare Grogan), in the back of a "Mr. Bunny" ice cream van, he follows it under a railway bridge on a whim and when the van stops, purchases an ice cream cone. To his amazement, three men drive up and proceed to bash in the van. The occupants retaliate with squirts of raspberry sauce. By sheer chance, Bird finds himself involved in a turf war between rival Italian ice cream vendors: the young interloper Trevor (Alex Norton) and the older, more established "Mr. McCool" (Roberto Bernardi).

Mr Colossal

Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on April 13, 2010, 12:15:49 PM


Nicky Henson is the head of a motorbike gang in West London (Walton-on-Thames in particular) who finds out that he can kill himself and come back from the dead (facilitated by the help of his witchy mother, Beryl Reid). The whole gang do the same, and wreck mayhem on the locals. It intentionally mixes every B-movie genre going - bikers, suicide cults, hippies, supernatural, the walking dead, teen gangs.....
"The film was heavily lambasted by critics upon its release. One reviewer for the London Times wrote that the film was only fit to be shown at an "S.S. reunion party.""

What more do you need to know?



This was one of those 'unidentified films'  of mine for years... I remember catching the end of some 70's b movie type film when I was little and all I could remember was that the premise was a bit like the quiet earth- in that they would be reincarnated- only he had to convince his fellow gang members to top themselves first.  I just remember there being a slight element of pastiche/70's camp as the only scene that stuck in my mind was of a biker driving into some kind of pond or lake having first wrapped himself in chains and padlocks!   I found out what It was,  but I never got round to ordering and rewatching it.

biggytitbo

Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on April 13, 2010, 12:15:49 PM
Nicky Henson is the head of a motorbike gang in West London (Walton-on-Thames in particular) who finds out that he can kill himself and come back from the dead (facilitated by the help of his witchy mother, Beryl Reid). The whole gang do the same, and wreck mayhem on the locals. It intentionally mixes every B-movie genre going - bikers, suicide cults, hippies, supernatural, the walking dead, teen gangs.....
"The film was heavily lambasted by critics upon its release. One reviewer for the London Times wrote that the film was only fit to be shown at an "S.S. reunion party.""

What more do you need to know?
It's unwatchable cack?

Serge

I don't know, sounds pretty good to me!

Wilbur

Quote from: Serge on April 13, 2010, 05:52:13 PM
I don't know, sounds pretty good to me!

Psychomania

Walton on Thames in in Surrey not West London.

Most of the road stuff was done in the  M25  area which was being built at the time.

It's worth a watch. IMVHO


biggytitbo

Quote from: Serge on April 13, 2010, 05:52:13 PM
I don't know, sounds pretty good to me!
It's not. I've seen it and its a fucking mess! Although I suppose it might be a laugh if you were very drunk or spliffed up.

wherearethespoons

I can't believe I haven't mentioned Quadrophenia yet. I'll mention it now. Quadrophenia.

Mr Colossal

I also forgot I came here to post Peter Watkin- but it was already mentioned, so second that- I bought a few of his films after stumbling upon his dystopian/orwellian popstar film Privelege a few years back...


I also quite like the archtypal 'kitchen sink' dramas...



Has anybody watched anything by Terence Davies?  I've heard they're revered quite highly by directors but he's another one i've never got round to checking out...  I actually had to google the name. I just knew there was this liverpudlian director with a few really well regarded films who has slim to none notoriety whatsoever.

biggytitbo

I saw a Long Day Closes years ago and was knocked out by it. Very beautiful film.
The Long Day Closes (1992) Closing Sequence

Johnny Townmouse

#20
Quote from: biggytitbo on April 13, 2010, 05:27:40 PM
It's unwatchable cack?

A VERY popular opinion of the film. Even Nicky Henson himself would agree with you. He thinks it's shit.

Psychomania Zombie Biker Cult Classic BBC documentary

QuoteIt's not. I've seen it and its a fucking mess! Although I suppose it might be a laugh if you were very drunk or spliffed up.

I saw it first when I was 12 and was neither drunk nor high on marijuana.

I do love subjectivity almost as much as Psychomania. Bear in mind that I also rate Michael Winner's The Nightcomers rather highly as well.

Peru

Oh, God, yes - The Long Day Closes. I think it is Davies' best film, and a proper British masterpiece. I'd even argue that you shouldn't watch the closing sequence embedded above on its own, you really need the force of the film behind it.

Johnny Townmouse

Quote from: Wilbur on April 13, 2010, 05:59:43 PM
Psychomania
Walton on Thames in in Surrey not West London.
Most of the road stuff was done in the  M25  area which was being built at the time.
It's worth a watch. IMVHO

Yep, since moving away from that very area I have a tendency to describe it as West London as a shorthand to people who have never heard of the various zones between Heathrow and London. Yes, it is indeed Surrey. I had been to the shopping centre in Psychomania that is ransacked a handful of times as a child, so seeing the dullest shithole I could imagine being over-run with the biker dead was rather thrilling.

Anscombe

Terence Davies is the greatest living British film-maker, with Peter Watkins a close second.  As much as I like Loach and Leigh, Davies and Watkins leave them in the shade.  Davies in particular is a supreme visual stylist, a true master of the cinema.  His films are worth seeing for their compositions alone.  And yet, he can barely find any funding for his films, whilst the likes of Gervais and Merchant - who as far as I can see have no idea how even to begin framing a decent shot - can make practically any film they like.  It's such a sad, but predictable, state of affairs. 

A similar thing happened to Bill Douglas, the other great unsung hero of British cinema, who effectively only made two films - his Trilogy, and Comrades - both of them masterpieces; he tried to make other films; but no one would fund them; and then he died of cancer.

I've loved Davies's films ever since I first saw The Long Day Closes when it came out, back in 1992, in the now-sadly-defunct Cambridge Arts Cinema.  It was a truly magical experience.  I agree with Peru that it is probably his best film.  But I think Distant Voices, Still Lives and the third part of the Trilogy (Death and Transfiguration) come very close indeed.  He is one of the very few British film-makers who make films which are truly his own, quite unlike anything else. 

In recent years, he has attempted to move into more generic forms of cinema.  I think his 2000 adaptation of Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth is a masterpiece.  It is a great book. but I think Davies's film actually improves on the book in a number of respects.  The film is austere, refined, highly intelligent, and demands a great deal of its audience, so utterly does it capture the rituals and rhythms of turn-of-the-century New York nouveau riche society.  He is currently trying to make a film of one of Ed McBain's 87th Precint novels - "He Who Hesitates", a very strange book about death and repressed sexuality, which I would just *love* to see Davies make a film of...it could be extraordinary, if only someone would stump up the cash. 

Emma Raducanu

How about Alex Cox's "Three Businessmen"? It's quite a good light comedy, with a slightly surrealist edge and begins in the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. It soon transpires for some bizarre reason that the hotel is deserted and off go a couple of business men in search of food. They end up wondering round Europe and Japan believeing they're still in Liverpool.

thugler

Quote from: Johnny Townmouse on April 13, 2010, 12:15:49 PM
However, I would like to nomimate the not often seen film Psychomania as my favourite.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067630/

Nicky Henson is the head of a motorbike gang in West London (Walton-on-Thames in particular) who finds out that he can kill himself and come back from the dead (facilitated by the help of his witchy mother, Beryl Reid). The whole gang do the same, and wreck mayhem on the locals. It intentionally mixes every B-movie genre going - bikers, suicide cults, hippies, supernatural, the walking dead, teen gangs.....
"The film was heavily lambasted by critics upon its release. One reviewer for the London Times wrote that the film was only fit to be shown at an "S.S. reunion party.""

What more do you need to know?

Love that film! It's hilarious. There's one scene that when I watched it with friends I had to rewind and watch again several times it was so funny.

remedial_gash

Quote from: DolphinFace on April 13, 2010, 10:55:39 PM
How about Alex Cox's "Three Businessmen"? It's quite a good light comedy, with a slightly surrealist edge and begins in the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. It soon transpires for some bizarre reason that the hotel is deserted and off go a couple of business men in search of food. They end up wondering round Europe and Japan believeing they're still in Liverpool.

Word to the mutherfucker!

I guess you could also add 'Straight to Hell' as the quintessentially British (and Irish) spaghetti western...

To add to the rather bland and worthy suggestions; I'd suggest much of Pete Walker's output, particularly "House of Mortal Sin", "Frightmare" and "Schizo", ignore the 'sexy' stuff, but maybe check back with "The House of Long Shadows" - It has Price/Lee/Cushing & Carradine.

Gash
x


wherearethespoons

I watched Saturday Night and Sunday Morning last night. It's a very good film and faithful to the novel. When it is different it makes sense for the medium of film, what with time constraints etc. etc. Plus Alan Sillitoe wrote the script so if anyone was allowed to mess with it it's him. Great stuff.

Ignatius_S

Radio On.
Anything by Humphrey Jennings.
Kind Hearts & Coronets.
The Green Man.
The Ladykillers.
Dead of Night.
Plague of the Zombies.
The Offence.
Royal Flash.
The Mick Travis triology.
Tom Jones.

Quote from: wherearethespoons on April 11, 2010, 11:59:27 AM
...Recently I watched The Fallen Idol which was the film Reed made a year before The Third Man and was also written by Graham Greene. It's hard to believe there is such a short time period between each film, in fact it's hard to believe that it's made by the same director. As good as it is, it's a long way off The Third Man in many ways.
The ending is completely changed as well.

Our Man in Havana, the third and final collaboration between Greene and Reed, is also watch watching for those who haven't – Ernie Kovacs is particularly splendid... Noel Cowerd, who was considered for Lime, co-stars.

Quote from: DolphinFace on April 13, 2010, 10:55:39 PM
How about Alex Cox's "Three Businessmen"? It's quite a good light comedy, with a slightly surrealist edge and begins in the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. It soon transpires for some bizarre reason that the hotel is deserted and off go a couple of business men in search of food. They end up wondering round Europe and Japan believeing they're still in Liverpool.

Much as I like it, it's not really British cinema – the main money came from a German TV station (it was actually made for television) and was a internationally produced film, plus a lot of the cast/crew weren't British (and penned by an American).

sirarthur

Another shout for The Green Man here too, I love that pitch-black style like Kind Hearts and Coronets and The Ladykillers.  After I saw the scene with the boss and the secretary in the hotel, it it took me ages (pre-internet) to find out what Chop Toad was (toad in the hole but with chops instead of sausages). The scenes where Alistair Sim is charming the three women musicians in the hotel bar are fantastic.

I'm not sure if Cy Endfield's Hell Drivers counts as British cinema because of his American origins (he was outed as a communist during the McCarthy era and was forced to work in Britain). It feels very British to me with an insanely star-filled cast including Stanley Baker, Patrick McGoohan, Sid James, Sean Connery, Herbert Lom, Alfie Bass, Gordon Jackson and William Hartnell.

How are we defining 'British' for the purpose of this thread? Something like Robert Aldrich's The Killing of Sister George (with good old Beryl Reid) definitely feels like a British film despite the American director.