British Cinema

[Jemble Fred]

a British film despite the American director.

In my opinion, the writer, cast and setting are the most important things – if they're all British, it doesn't matter who's directing or producing or funding the movie. There are obviously serious rules as to what can technically qualify as 'a British film', but for instance, look at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0795368 – it couldn't be a more British movie, despite Frank Oz being at the helm.

[biggytitbo]

Setting, story, actors, vernacular, and 'feel' are what make a film British, not the director or writer.

[Jemble Fred]

Well, I don't know, the writer is a different kettle of fish really – if, say, a Mexican writes a completely unrealistic script set in the UK, with no knowledge of our culture or how British people speak or live, and it's then filmed here with an all-British crew, it would still be the creation of a Mexican.

I have nothing against Mexicans, by the way. It could be a good script.

A director's vision is also crucial, of course, but to me, script and cast (not even setting, necessarily, it could be set on Venus) are the fundamental things that make a movie British or otherwise.

[sirarthur]

I think I'm with Jemble here, but what about Repulsion? Czech director, Czech and French writer, French actress in the lead, yet it feels like a 'British' film to me due to being set in London and additional cast of British character actors.

[Jemble Fred]

Has anyone seen Death At A Funeral, by the way? A far odder film than I imagined, but I enjoyed it, being a fan of great ensemble casts. Plus, if invited to fellate the great Frank Oz I would have to give it careful thought, so great a fan am I (I would eventually have to pass, but with apologies – that's how much I like him). I just love the fact that Oz made such a British film – even its commercial failure somehow makes it more British, and more special.

[sirarthur]

^ I've not seen Death At A Funeral but on the subject of big ensemble casts, Gosford Park, which I loved, feels definitely British (English really) due to the setting, cast and writer, despite an American director.

[wasp_f15ting]

This is a brilliant thread. I never knew so much quality was out there. Looking forward to hammering my amazon account come Pay day.
Maybe when we reach a conclusion with the thread Neil could do a "Best of British Cinema Shop" maybe some revenue for the site?

For my own reference sake I shall do a list of films that have been mentioned thus far, I look forward to watching these. 

Third Man
The Browning Version
The Fallen Idol
Happy Go Lucky
Raining Stones
The day the earth caught fire
Night of the demon
Brighton Rock
Wonderland
A Room for Romeo Brass
Brief Encounter
Edward II
War Requiem
Caravaggio
Sebastiane
A Matter of Life and Death
The Innocents
Psychomania
Comrades
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Love
A Zed & Two Noughts
That Sinking Feeling
Comfort and Joy
Long Day Closes
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
Radio On
Kind Hearts & Coronets.
The Green Man
The Offence.
Royal Flash.

With regards to what makes a film British, I think it could be taken two ways as Jemble has already elaborated. As long as the films are majorly British and have benefited the British film industry it should be fine. However American Directors, having written their own screenplay filming in the UK isn't what I'd consider a British film. Maybe thats a moot point for another thread!

[sirarthur]

I meant to put in my earlier post about Repulsion feeling 'British' despite European director, writers that it can work the other way around as well. Two of my all-time favourite films are The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. They are both Powell/Pressburger films featuring largely British casts, yet they don't feel particularly 'British'. The Red Shoes feels very European and Black Narcissus just feels beautiful and otherworldly. Both films are fantastic and feature the incredible photography of Jack Cardiff and are visually exquisite. By the way Wasp_15ting, if you find you enjoy A Matter of Life and Death, you may want to check out these two and maybe The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp as well.

[Mr Colossal]

I think I'm with Jemble here, but what about Repulsion? Czech director, Czech and French writer, French actress in the lead, yet it feels like a 'British' film to me due to being set in London and additional cast of British character actors.

Similarly Antonioni's Blow Up.  I think its just because they charicterise the 'swinging sixties'  so capture a definate era.  Some of the british films by foreign directors seem to capture the british scene more accurately than some of the native directors themselves... Weren't the yardbirds in that in the London club scene before they were even famous?



That's reminded me I also love  Cammell/  Roeg's Performance.   Apparently Cammel topped himself in an identical manner to an incident  in the film, by shooting himself in the stomach with a revolver and staring at his own reflection in a mirror as his life ebbed away...  But its quite an interesting film.  It starts off like a conventional gangster flick then from the point he meets jaggers bohemian lot it takes on a completely different withnail & I-esque /Bergman's Persona direction.

[Dark Poet]

Has anyone seen Death At A Funeral, by the way? A far odder film than I imagined, but I enjoyed it, being a fan of great ensemble casts. Plus, if invited to fellate the great Frank Oz I would have to give it careful thought, so great a fan am I (I would eventually have to pass, but with apologies – that's how much I like him). I just love the fact that Oz made such a British film – even its commercial failure somehow makes it more British, and more special.

The remake looks awful, although Roger Ebert prefers it:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100414/REVIEWS/100419974/1023

[Doomy Dwyer]

I just watched Billy Liar again for the first time in donkey's years. The ending still gets me. That boy wants a clip 'round the ear and no mistake. Superb performances all round, but particularly from Tom Courtenay, Rodney Bewes and the mighty Leonard Rossiter. Then there's Julie Christie who manages to embody the optimism of the sixties with a simple twirl of the handbag. Nice use of location too, you get a real feel of time and place.
Don't Look Now would have to be on my list of great British films. It's not a particularly long list admittedly, but it's from the heart. Julie Christie again with Donald Sutherland this time, a couple of great, believable performances. Truly eerie and doom laden from the beginning to the very end and another great use of location. For all its beauty Venice can also be a very sinister place and this film captures that quality and then some. Best use of dwarf outside of This Is Spinal Tap as well.   
Nil by Mouth is brilliant, especially if you enjoy spending the entire day cowering indoors curled up trembling and crying on the sofa. It's horrible, brutal and depressing. It's really fucking horrible, it makes you feel soiled, but not in a nice way. The acting from Ray Winstone, Kathy Burke and Jamie Foreman is amazing. It's got some funny bits, but even they're terrifying. It reminds me of Mean Streets in that it shows the mundane, day to day bullshit of low level gangsterdom. It's not for everyone, probably not the best way to while away a sunny sunday afternoon. You could watch this, then pop on Sexy Beast for a spot of nice, avuncular Ray Winstone. It's a good film, romantic, bit dodgy geezer, little bit woo, little bit wahey, Ben Kingsley got a knighthood for his fantastic swearing, and Lovejoy takes it up the gary. It's quite unusual and adventurous, which is surely to be encouraged in these formulaic, uninspired times.
Also, it goes without saying, there's Withnail & I and Brighton Rock. But I've just said it and you already have too.

[Jemble Fred]

The remake looks awful, although Roger Ebert prefers it:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100414/REVIEWS/100419974/1023

Bloody hell, that was a big quick for a remake wasn't it? If that's not the sure sign of a movie being a flop, I don't know what is. Admittedly the original was hugely flawed (too many characters for safety, for s start), but nothing makes me want to see that new version.

[Jemble Fred]

British Cinema really is a thing to marvel at.

Round Ireland with a Fridge the movie Trailer

[gatchamandave]

Oh dear

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/20/bond_suspended/

that's not good for British Cinema - the 007s are money in the bank.

[non capisco]

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.

As does Sidney Lumet's jet-black 'The Offence' which plays as kind of how I hoped last year's Red Riding adaptations would have turned out. It's almost like the cinematic nes plus ultra of that particular kind of bleak, down-at-heel British '70s sense of dread. Sean Connery's great in that film, he could actually act when he could be bothered.

[Serge]

I'd forgotten about 'The Offence'! Absolutely amazing film, as you say, it made me realise that Sean Connery could actually act. Ian Bannen's no slouch in it, either. And the

Spoiler alert

non-linear storytelling style

[close]

made me think that Quentin Tarantino has probably seen it.

[Marvin]

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.

What does it matter whether cinema is seen as 'foreign' or not? For that matter, surely only foreign-language films really get seen as foreign?

[Jemble Fred]

This thread's very existence relies on our seeing films as foreign cinema or British cinema. Or the thread would just be called Cinema.

[Marvin]

No, a thread to discuss films made in the UK is different to saying it's 'scary' that we don't think of films made in another English-speaking country with a similar culture as foreign. What's scary about it?

[El Unicornio, mang]

Quite recent ones (past ten years) that I have liked:

Eden Lake
Happy Go Lucky
In the Loop
Harry Brown
Sexy Beast
Nil By Mouth
Control
Hunger
Hot Fuzz
24 Hour Party People
Dead Man's Shoes
Snatch
Children of Men
Eastern Promises
Casino Royale/Quantum of Solace
The Descent

My favourite films collection is still about 9 to 1 American, but there's a quality about good British films, although they're a bit few and far between, which is a cut above a lot of Hollywood fare.

[An tSaoi]

British Cinema really is a thing to marvel at.

[Round Ireland with a Fridge the movie Trailer]

A film set in Ireland that doesn't have Seán McGinley or Gerard McSorley in it? I thought that was against the law.

[Neville Chamberlain]

I watched Eden Lake last night and was very impressed. It all seemed disturbingly believable. The fact that the 'baddies' were just little scumbag kids made the film so much better than if the couple was terrorised by some sort of monster, like in that stupid but bafflingly popular film The Descent.

I also watched Ils (Them) last night! So all in all, it was a most enjoyable home invasion/weekend-break-gone-horribly-wrong fest round my place last night!

Oh, I also watched a documentary about Broadmoor!

[Emma Raducanu]

I watched Wonderland based on the recommendation here and thought it was great. Couldn't much stand the scenes involving Darren and his girlfriend - surely designed to make the viewer feel like a pervert! I did like Darren's Father though. His horrifically poor relationship with his wife was both funny and depressing and attempting to iniciate sex was brilliantly cringeworthy. Gina McKee was generally involved in my favourite scenes (loneliness on a crowded bus and slow motion happiness) and her walking out on a date made me want to put an arm round the desperately dull fella left singing to himself in a bar.

[Serge]

Yeah, the scenes with Darren are pretty pointless, and almost have the feeling that a larger plot has been cut out of the film. I love the scene where Jack Shepherd locks himself out of the house and goes to his neighbours house until his wife gets back, and they end up dancing together. Gina McKee is fantastic in this film - well, in anything - and at least she's left with an optimistic future at the end of the film.

[Dark Poet]

How's work?

Greasy.

[Ignatius_S]

In terms of what's a British film, they loosened the terms of what's makes a 'British film' in order to get funding - basically, if you've a cast of quite a few Brit actors and crew you're in... even though it's being made by mainly foreign money and being shot overseas.

Anyway, here's three classic British films all featuring Dame Thora Hird:

Went the Day Well? - British WWII propaganda feature based on a Graham Greene short story, in which a sleepy village is infiltrated by an advance Nazi invasion force disguised as British troops. Tense, gritty and occassionally brutal, it still has the power to shock today. Thora Hird plays a land girl, who kills Germans.... and likes it.

One Good Turn - Starring the pint-sized prince of mirth and pathos, Sir Norman Wisdom, rushed out to capitalise on the massive success of his previous film. It shamelessly mines over sentimentality with the main story of an orphanage and lacks the pompous straight man that the Gump character really needed - however, diversions caused by the class structure and money are well brought out throughout the film and there's a genuine bittersweet feel to the fate of Wisdom's character. Hird plays the plain-speaking cook.

A Kind of Loving - although it lacks the dramatic impact of other contemporary kitchen sink drama, this is an excellent tale of Alan Bates' working-class lad advancing into white collar territory. Much of the film revolves around Bates getting his girlfriend pregnant, having to marry her and live with the mother in law from Hell (played to perfection by Hird). Familiar faces like James Bolam and Leonard Rossiter crop up. Bates made a rare public appearance for 'An Audience with Thora Hird' and the chat between her and him about the most famous scene in the film was rather touching. All of it is on YouTube.

Laughter in Paradise - Hird wasn't in this, but she did co-star in the not very good seventies remake. A group of relatives are left a small fortune on the condition that they complete an out-of-character task... not all complete it, but all are rewarded by their journey. Top notch cast that includes Alistair Sim and George Cole... Leslie Dwyer, stalwart character actor of so many British films and Hi-de-Hi's Mr Partridge, has a lovely cameo as a football-mad policeman. Audrey Hepburn makes an early film appearance as a cigarette girl.

The October Man - John Mills plays a mentally unstable man recently released from hospital and promptly becomes a murder suspect. Although I wouldn't say this is one of the all time greats, it's nicely done and worth catching for the great performance from Edward 'Mr Grimsdale' Chapman.

I'd forgotten about 'The Offence'! Absolutely amazing film, as you say, it made me realise that Sean Connery could actually act....

If I remember rightly, Connery did the role so soon after his (first) stint as Bond to prove his acting chops.

A mention should be given to The Hill, which he also did with Lumet and also featured Bannen (plus, a load of top notch performances by Roy Kinnear, Harry Andrews et al).

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.

I still do a double-take when they mention 'Chop Toad'! You're so right about the scenes with Sim and ladies (I've never heard a trio play with more brio) - the expression on his face as he listens to the music is wonderful.

Hell Drivers is definitely British (although it's roots are in the French, The Wages of Fear) and a marvellous film.

The Killing of Sister George is, I believe an American production, although British cast and based on a British play (that was written by a German) - however, years ago, C4 had a series of British comedy films called 'Beyond Ealing' and this one featured (I tend to see it as a British film). Also, featured was another Beryl Reid film - Entertaining Mr Sloane, which is worth a mention. A few years later, Reid (although too old for the film, but was wonderful) played in the National Theatre revival, with Malcolm McDowell as Sloane (Kenneth Cranham taking over from MM after six months)

[Dark Sky]

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.

At university in an exam we were shown a five minute clip of The Fallen Idol (though we weren't told what it was and no-one was expected to have seen it before) and had two hours to write an essay on its use of direction, music, imagery, etc. 

I got sent a special letter of commendation by the department for just how good mine was!  *smug*  I only remembered this because I found it yesterday in a box whilst looking for a repeat prescription.

Still haven't seen the film, though!  I really should, it looked amazing from the clip.

[wherearethespoons]

I got sent a special letter of commendation by the department for just how good mine was!  *smug*  I only remembered this because I found it yesterday in a box whilst looking for a repeat prescription.

What totally nerdy swot. Can you remember anything about the clip?

[Dark Sky]

I know, I'm such a nerd.  I didn't even do film studies or anything, it was a free elective.  I'm just that great.  Or "sensational", as the head of the department wrote on the letter.  Yes.  That's right.  "Sensational".  Oh yes.  Worship me, for I am your god.  Though it probably speaks for the quality of students taking Film Studies at Hull University more than anything.

The clip was of a child playing hide and seek with some scary looking woman, and it's a really tense game in a big creepy house, and there's lots of voyeuristic shots and then for some reason the boy runs out of the house and into the streets, and there's lots of shots of him through railings (symbolising imprisonment) and high shots of deserted streets and expansive spaces to heighten the sense of isolation and loneliness.  Or something.  We saw the clip twice and that was six years ago now. 

I then brought my module mark right down by writing a really terrible essay comparing Brief Encounter with Don't Look Now.

[wherearethespoons]

and then for some reason the boy runs out of the house and into the streets, and there's lots of shots of him through railings (symbolising imprisonment) and high shots of deserted streets and expansive spaces to heighten the sense of isolation and loneliness.

Well remembered.









Watching it back just then there's a spilt second that reminds of Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky.