Studying British Cinema: The 1960s

by Danny Powell

Aimed explicitly at students and teachers coming to British cinema for the first time, the Studying British Cinema series considers key texts from the decade under discussion and accessibly considers them in their artistic and historical contexts. Beginning with an extended introduction, 1960s British Cinema analyses this famously revolutionary decade, showing how changes in society and culture changed the face of Britain irreversibly, beginning freedoms and trends that would affect the way the country would be perceived forever. Using key filmic texts as its starting point, 1960s British Cinema examines the events that changed the country reflected in the film of the day. The book examines the reputation of the decade as 'swinging' and explores issues of class, race and sexuality whose boundaries paved the way for a greater awareness of the county's identity. A Glimpse of the Future - Peeping Tom (1960); Keeping it Real - Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) and Billy Liar (1963); Living the Dream - A Hard Day's Night (1964); The Empire Strikes Back - Goldfinger (1964); Sex and the Darling (1965); Agent of Change - The Ipcress File (1965); London Life - The Knack...and How to Get It (1965); Kaleidoscopic Nation - Blow Up (1966); Decadence and Rebellion - If... (1968).

Genres: Film

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2009

Reviews

[Antonomasia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A reasonably interesting guide to 11 films of the period, it is still sighingly obvious at times that this was written as a sixth form textbook. There are those episodes of patronising exposition, but it doesn't assume you're too stupid and it did give me new insights into most of the films. (Though I hadn't seen a few of them since I was younger than Danny Powell's target audience and I've watched none of them more than once.)

It has 20-30 page essay-chapters on:
Peeping Tom
Saturday Night & Sunday Morning
Billy Liar
A Hard Day's Night
Goldfinger and The Ipcress File (one of those "compare and contrast" jobs)
Darling
The Knack...and How to Get It
Blow Up
If...
The Italian Job

It's more recent and less tome-y than two other main books on this subject: Hollywood England: The British Film Industry in the Sixties andSixties British Cinema and spends a surprising amount of words on feminist viewpoints. I did want a book that would take account of these but - perhaps to fulfil a syllabus - gender role analyses sometimes take up space at the cost of less obvious or repetitive topics.

Most disappointing essay:
Darling: Powell said hardly anything I hadn't thought of whilst watching the film, and never alleviated my frustration with it. I'd describe it as a satire of shallow, self-interested media people; although the fashion and refinement make it far more aesthetically appealing than a Hollywood remake could possibly be, I found none of the characters likeable, or devilishly fascinating, or engaging, though I did sometimes feel sorry for them. It was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar and Julie Christie won Best Actress for it, and it's evidently a good quality film.
You know how you guys on Goodreads sometimes get frustrated because you didn't like a book and you feel like it's you not it? I felt a lot like that about Darling. I really really wanted to like it, but it ended up as a 3-star.
Powell also annoyed me in his chapter on this film by being oddly puritanical and sneering about a counterculture party which hinted at an orgy (though no flesh was shown, in order to get past ye olde fashioned censors) - but that was the most alive scene in the whole film.

Best insights:
1)Bond as symbol for mainstream, conservative, xenophobic masculine consumerism. James Bond had always irked me slightly, but I couldn't work out what it was (being un-straight enough to like looking at the Bond girls). But when he's implicitly described as a copy of GQ in human form, all gloss, stereotyped to sell an aspirational lifestyle and a world view to an uncreative target market, it falls into place (like so many clothes shed in a 5-star hotel room...)
2)Blow-Up [Careful now with the typos.] A dream-like somewhat surreal film which I'd allowed to drift past my eyes, creating colourful wisps of a time and place: the book put many of my unarticulated impressions into words, including the relative emptiness and routine that may be found even at the heart of the coolest most beautiful scene.

Spoilt:
The Italian Job. I like silly action comedies, and analysing the detail of scenes takes the fun out of them. Though the film's reflection of Britain as a waning international power, its role in creating Brit-gangster film iconography and its 90's resurgence as new lad canon all unquestionably deserve a mention.

Made me want to re-watch:
The Ipcress File: Harry Palmer as the social-realist, rebellious Bond, who cooks at home like Sam Tyler in Life on Mars.
Billy Liar: not seen since school. Billy's frustrations in trying to escape parents who have different horizons, and the dull cosh of an employer hovering over his head. Liz as a freer, less stereotyped woman than characters in many 60's, or indeed recent Hollywood movies. (But was she a proto manic pixie dream girl?) And The Long Blondes' Giddy Stratospheres is supposedly written from a perspective similar to hers on Billy and Helen's relationship, whilst she has greater aspirations - to get out of that small town - aspirations that she can see Billy shares ... and if only he would do something about them.

I could write more, but I want to go to sleep and you probably want to read some other reviews as well as this. Night night.