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A night at the pictures: Ten decades of British film
The revival in the fortunes of British films, heralded by the Oscars showered on Chariots of Fire and Gandhi, confirmed beyond doubt by the awards to A Passage to India and The Killing Fields and celebrated by British Film Year, should have come as no surprise to us.
Yet for many years we have suffered an inferiority complex about our place in the history of cinema.
A Night at the Pictures should help to dispel such doubts. Within a lively, informative and extensively illustrated format two distinguished film critics Gilbert Adair and Nick Roddick reassess British film, from its beginnings in the 1890s to its 'Renaissance' in the 1980s, and review the unique contribution made to our cinema by directors, producers, stars and technicians alike.
Yet for many years we have suffered an inferiority complex about our place in the history of cinema.
A Night at the Pictures should help to dispel such doubts. Within a lively, informative and extensively illustrated format two distinguished film critics Gilbert Adair and Nick Roddick reassess British film, from its beginnings in the 1890s to its 'Renaissance' in the 1980s, and review the unique contribution made to our cinema by directors, producers, stars and technicians alike.
- GenresFilm
144 pages, Paperback
First published May 2, 1985
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September 11, 2016
Produced in 1985 to celebrate "British Film Year," (something I'd not previously heard of but appears to have been the brainchild of Richard Attenborough to aid the revival of the British Film Industry, that he himself had already kickstarted- what a great man) the first section focuses on what author and film critic Gilbert Adair refers to as "The British Tradition," and films that demonstrate a certain British attitude towards cinema or reflect tangible national characteristics. Whilst the second section focuses on what Nick Roddick refers to as a 'British Film Renaissance.' He suggests this was part of how Britain redefined its national identity together with the introduction of what became Film Four via the new TV network. The remaining section is a timeline of world events and the British films that were made at that time AKA filler to turn two short essays and some uninspiring pictures in to a book of a length that Joe Public might be persuaded to buy.
Adair's essay is warm, informed and not afraid of voicing opinion whilst clearly being very fond of his subject matter. It's not an easy task turning what was essentially 90 years of film history in to a brief informative article complete with high and low points and recommendations for "the best" or "most definitively British" but he does a good job. I bought the book a year or so ago at a charity book sale - fill a box for $10 sort of thing - with the idea that I might learn something new or discover films and filmmakers I had so far overlooked but in the intervening time I seem to have covered the majority of the films mentioned by Adair in my own exploration of certain famous actors and my recent fascination with British WWII pictures after reading Nicholas Monsarrat's quite fabulous The Cruel Sea. Even with that disappointment I was still impressed with the the breadth of knowledge, especially at a time with even home VHS releases were not that common.
Nick Roddick's article on the other hand was a strange and largely ugly beast for a publication that seems primarily designed as propaganda to sell cinema tickets and create enthusiasm for an industry that had just had it's government funding cut (several mentions to which are made in the book;) as he spends the majority of his word count dismissing whole swathes of modern British films for being rubbish whilst promising that the films currently in production by those same directors will surely put that right. When Adair opens the book with references to an inferiority complex in British cinema and a general anti-British film attitude held by British film critics and audiences surely he can't have known that his work would be followed by one of those critics who actually can't stand British films?
As a film fan this book feels more like a strange piece of ephemera in 2016 more than anything else, a worthwhile addition to my collection and an insight in to changing thought patterns on certain writers and directors.
For those interested in the films discussed but without the luck of having found a copy at a book sale I have created two lists Part 1: Tradition and Part 2: Revival
Adair's essay is warm, informed and not afraid of voicing opinion whilst clearly being very fond of his subject matter. It's not an easy task turning what was essentially 90 years of film history in to a brief informative article complete with high and low points and recommendations for "the best" or "most definitively British" but he does a good job. I bought the book a year or so ago at a charity book sale - fill a box for $10 sort of thing - with the idea that I might learn something new or discover films and filmmakers I had so far overlooked but in the intervening time I seem to have covered the majority of the films mentioned by Adair in my own exploration of certain famous actors and my recent fascination with British WWII pictures after reading Nicholas Monsarrat's quite fabulous The Cruel Sea. Even with that disappointment I was still impressed with the the breadth of knowledge, especially at a time with even home VHS releases were not that common.
Nick Roddick's article on the other hand was a strange and largely ugly beast for a publication that seems primarily designed as propaganda to sell cinema tickets and create enthusiasm for an industry that had just had it's government funding cut (several mentions to which are made in the book;) as he spends the majority of his word count dismissing whole swathes of modern British films for being rubbish whilst promising that the films currently in production by those same directors will surely put that right. When Adair opens the book with references to an inferiority complex in British cinema and a general anti-British film attitude held by British film critics and audiences surely he can't have known that his work would be followed by one of those critics who actually can't stand British films?
As a film fan this book feels more like a strange piece of ephemera in 2016 more than anything else, a worthwhile addition to my collection and an insight in to changing thought patterns on certain writers and directors.
For those interested in the films discussed but without the luck of having found a copy at a book sale I have created two lists Part 1: Tradition and Part 2: Revival
Displaying 1 of 1 review