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Seventies British Cinema
Seventies British Cinema provides a comprehensive re-evaluation of British film in the 1970s. The decade has long been written off in critical discussions as a 'doldrums' period in British cinema, perhaps because the industry, facing near economic collapse, turned to 'unacceptable' low culture genres such as sexploitation comedies or extreme horror.
The contributors to this new collection argue that 1970s cinema is ripe for giving serious critical attention to populist genre films, they also consider the development of a British art cinema in the work of Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway, and the beginnings of an independent sector fostered by the BFI Production Board and producers like Don Boyd. A host of highly individual directors managed to produce interesting and cinematically innovative work against the odds, from Nicolas Roeg to Ken Russell to Mike Hodges. As well as providing a historical and cinematic context for understanding Seventies cinema, the volume also features chapters addressing Hammer horror, the Carry On films, Bond films of the Roger Moore period, Jubilee and other films that responded to Punk rock; heritage cinema and case studies of key seventies films such as The Wicker Man and Straw Dogs . In all, the book provides the final missing piece in the rediscovery of British cinema's complex and protean history.
Ruth Barton, James Chapman, Ian Conrich, Wheeler Winston Dixon, Christophe Dupin, Steve Gerrard, Sheldon Hall
I. Q. Hunter, James Leggott, Claire Monk, Paul Newland, Dan North, Robert Shail, Justin Smith and Sarah Street.
The contributors to this new collection argue that 1970s cinema is ripe for giving serious critical attention to populist genre films, they also consider the development of a British art cinema in the work of Derek Jarman and Peter Greenaway, and the beginnings of an independent sector fostered by the BFI Production Board and producers like Don Boyd. A host of highly individual directors managed to produce interesting and cinematically innovative work against the odds, from Nicolas Roeg to Ken Russell to Mike Hodges. As well as providing a historical and cinematic context for understanding Seventies cinema, the volume also features chapters addressing Hammer horror, the Carry On films, Bond films of the Roger Moore period, Jubilee and other films that responded to Punk rock; heritage cinema and case studies of key seventies films such as The Wicker Man and Straw Dogs . In all, the book provides the final missing piece in the rediscovery of British cinema's complex and protean history.
Ruth Barton, James Chapman, Ian Conrich, Wheeler Winston Dixon, Christophe Dupin, Steve Gerrard, Sheldon Hall
I. Q. Hunter, James Leggott, Claire Monk, Paul Newland, Dan North, Robert Shail, Justin Smith and Sarah Street.
- GenresFilm
208 pages, Hardcover
First published December 15, 2008
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March 8, 2015
‘The decade that taste forgot’ is, according to Robert Shail in his introduction, the popular perception of the 1970s, and here is a compendium of essays on that era’s British films to either reaffirm or refute it. As I was born at the start of the 70s, and frequently went to the cinema from the middle of the decade on, I’m familiar with a lot of the more generic films of the era, and I’m happy to say this book has short chapters on many of them: the Amicus ‘Lost World’ films, the Carry On films, Hammer horrors, the big-budget Agatha Christie adaptations of the time, Roger Moore as James Bond — all films I’d have seen multiple times on Saturday afternoon telly way before I ever stopped to think about whether they were tasteful or not. The fact that I’m still catching up on 70s British horror films (which I was too young to see at the time), perhaps proves I’m a lost cause taste-wise.
Alongside the pulpier fare, there are essays here on British social realist cinema, punk cinema, the producer Don Boyd, the funding of British films in the decade, and the role of the BFI in the 1970s. Not an exhaustive history, but an interesting overview, aimed at opening up debate on what seems an overlooked era of British filmmaking. I could happily read a second volume.
Alongside the pulpier fare, there are essays here on British social realist cinema, punk cinema, the producer Don Boyd, the funding of British films in the decade, and the role of the BFI in the 1970s. Not an exhaustive history, but an interesting overview, aimed at opening up debate on what seems an overlooked era of British filmmaking. I could happily read a second volume.
Displaying 1 of 1 review