1. What is a British Film?
Heritage Film?
Regionally based?
Multi-ethnic UK?
Genre specific success?

2. British Film
• 1940s British Industry
The British Film Industry Today
• Factors and features that are similar to
Hollywood
• What is a British Film?
Financial/ Thematic/Narrative- form ideas about
this

3. The Golden Age
• 1940s
War outbreak in 1939- blow to cinemas, closed
because of bombing threat
• Morale low, individuals craved escape
• The government realised this and started making
films that they could use to improve national
morale and demonise the enemy.
• Nature of films of this time also the birth of
representation of class and society perception
shift

4. Two major studios- 1938-1959
Ealing Gainsborough
Ealing Gainsborough

5. Ealing- late 40s early 50s
• Genre: Comedy
• Changing social world- laughed at it
• Challenged class and social hierarchies/gender
• Poked fun at authority and outmoded
conventions
Passport to Pimlico / Kind hearts and Coronets/
The Lavender Hill Mob/The Lady Killers
Ealing Montage

6. Gainsborough Studios
The Wicked Lady
• Escapist films
• Glossy, dramatic BUT…..
• they did challenged roles in gender and
relationships

7. Summary
• The films of this era are a product of their
context
• Challenging or escapist
• What do the films of this era say about britain
and British people?
• Fighting repression? Anti – authority?
• Do they confirm or challenge traditional
viewpoints

8. Contemporary British Cinema
• Late 1970s decline in British Cinema. Why?
• Videos!
• The Multiplex brought back viewers to the
cinema in the 1980s/
• Not just HW BB…lots of British BIG films in this
era

9. Thatcher’s Britain
• Chariots of Fire/ A Room with a View
• cf trailer
• Rwitha view
• Both presented England as a country of well-
mannered middle class individuals

10. • MBL
• Sammy and Rosie

11. The reality of 1980s Britain left to
others………….Stephen Frears!
• He articulated the gap between those who
had and those who had not.
• He looked at Race/ Gender/Sexuality
• My Beautiful Launderette
• Sammy and Rosie get Laid

12. Finance British Film
• Finance is a hot topic
• Lottery money-
• Lots of criticism /lots of small
projects, invested in scripts rather than
selecting Films. Volume/ Ratcatcher
• Ratcatcher
• Tony Blair’s government set up Film Council

13. The Film Council
• Aimed to provide funding for film
• Allocated lottery money and managed invest for
British Films
• Set up in response to criticism of lottery money
allocation
£5 million a year to scripts
£5 million a year projects that are deemed original
/ independent type cinema
£10 million to films with more global appeal
• TV can also finance film (film 4 and the BBC)

14. British Film Council
Abolished by the coalition in 2010
british-cinema-golden-age
uk-film-council-axemen

15. What is a British Film?