Studying British Cinema – serie

The horror film reveals as much, if not more, about the British psyche as the more respectable heritage film or the critically revered social realist drama. Yet, like a mad relative locked in the attic, British horror cinema has for too long been ignored and maligned. Even when it has been celebrated, neglect is not far behind and what studies there have been concentrate largely on the output of Hammer, the best-known producers of British horror. But this is only part of the story. It's a tradition that encompasses the last days of British music hall theater, celebrated auteurs such as Alfred Hitchcock and Roman Polanski and opportunistic, unashamed hacks. Frightmares is an in-depth analysis of the home-grown horror film, each chapter anchored by close studies of key titles, consisting of textual analysis, production history, marketing and reception. Although broadly chronological, attention is also paid to the thematic links, emphasizing both the wide range of the genre and highlighting some of its less-explored avenues.Chapters focus on the origins of British horror and its foreign influences, Hammer (of course), the influence of American International Pictures and other American and European filmmakers in 1960s Britain, the 'savage Seventies' and the new wave of twenty-first century British horror. The result is an authoritative, comprehensive and, most importantly, entertaining survey of this most exuberant field of British cinema.

The 1990s were years of contradiction for British cinema. On the one hand, the exhibition and production of British films bounced back from the dark days of the early 1980s, in which cinema attendance and filmmaking slumped to an all-time low. On the other hand, foreign investment now played a major role in supporting the industry, with companies erecting cinema multiplexs and, particularly in the case of American investment, pouring money into big budget British productions. While this kept studios, technicians, directors, and actors busy, none of the profits from these films made it back to Britain. Through a detailed analysis of twenty films, Studying British Cinema: 1990s painstakingly reexamines this fragile revival of British film fortunes. Placing these and other films against a backdrop of vibrant cultural, technological, and political change, the volume illuminates a decade that would come to be known as "Cool Brittania," evoking a deliberate comparison with the events of the 1960s.

Studying British Cinema: 1999–2009 adopts a number of approaches to popularist, mainstream, and esoteric arthouse films. The book considers the institutional and financial factors that influence U.K. film production and assesses issues of genre, representation, authorship, and social, economic, and political contexts. The growth of coproduction is considered by looking at both Aardman Animation and the Harry Potter franchise (2001 to the present). Representations of social class factor into films as diverse as Red Road (2006) and Love, Actually (2003), and developments in social realism, primarily by female directors, are examined. The revival of the British science fiction and horror film is also covered in detail, and ethnic groups and new economic migrants are viewed in two separate chapters, as well as the growth of films concerning British protagonists in Africa. One section offers a close analysis of two of the most important directors of the decade: Michael Winterbottom and Shane Meadows.