British Cinema

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amy Sargeant
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Silent Period ◽  
Costume Design ◽  
Film Culture ◽  
Critical Writing ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
History Of ◽  
Underground Film ◽  
The 1960S

Before the 1960s, much historical and critical writing on British cinema was generated outside of the academy—for instance, a multivolume, largely economic history of the silent period, subsequently republished in the 1990s, was commissioned by the British Film Institute and sought extant personnel as consultants. With the introduction of film courses to British universities came an unfortunate prejudice against the homegrown product, largely inherited from European commentators. A small contingent of trailblazers then led a group of writers, teachers, and disciples who did not affect to despise British films and who found British cinema a worthwhile subject of study and analysis. British cinema became no longer “an unknown continent.” The number of designated courses has proliferated alongside the publication of increasingly specialized and focused monographs and edited collections, devoted to specific periods, genres, themes, individual directors, individual films, and individual stars and actors (a distinction recurrently made in British cinema discourse). In recent years, attention has broadened from discussions of British cinema as narrowly “national” (something possibly peculiar and insular) to a just appreciation of demonstrable transnational exchanges in historical and contemporary contexts. Coverage has correspondingly deepened, with volumes devoted to particular roles in production: cinematography, composition, editing, and set and costume design. It has also extended to “cult” and “alternative” areas of production and reception, addressing not only films that fall into these provisional categories but also their audiences. Fandom itself has become a topic of investigation. Furthermore, a trend toward “bottom-up” history and a reevaluation of personal and collective memory as the basis for the writing of history have encouraged both investigation of the cinema in Britain as a social space and a broader investigation of mainstream and underground film culture.

Hammer and British Cinema

2016 ◽  
pp. 23-34
Author(s):  
Victoria Grace Walden
Keyword(s):  
Social Responsibility ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Cinema ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Good Taste ◽  
The Press ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines the relationship between Hammer Films and British cinema. The history of British cinema has been characterised by a strong dedication to realism, in its many forms. From the documentaries of the 1930s with a focus on social responsibility to the gritty kitchen sink dramas of the 1960s, and even the naturalistic aesthetic of television police dramas, the British moving-image industries have a strong heritage of realism. If this is the case, Hammer horror, despite its international fame as a specifically British brand of filmmaking, does not seem characteristic of British national cinema at all. On one hand, Hammer's horrors are clearly fantastical; on the other hand, they amalgamate infrequent and abrupt moments of gore with a 'neat unpretentious realism'. Moreover, the films were lambasted in the press for not exhibiting 'good taste' or restraint. The chapter then assesses to what extent Hammer horror can be understood as British.

Witchfinder General

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian Cooper
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
First Century ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
Depth Study ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

Witchfinder General (1968), known as The Conqueror Worm in America, was directed by Michael Reeves and occupies a unique place in British cinema. Equally praised and vilified, the film fictionalizes the exploits of Matthew Hopkins, a prolific, real-life ‘witch hunter’, during the English Civil War. For critic Mark Kermode, the release proved to be ‘the single most significant horror film produced in the United Kingdom in the 1960s’, while playwright Alan Bennett called the work ‘the most persistently sadistic and rotten film I've ever seen’. Steadily gaining a cult reputation, unimpeded by the director's death just months after the film's release, the film is now treated as a landmark, though problematic, accomplishment, as it exists in a number of recut, retitled, and rescored versions. This in-depth study positions the film within the history of horror and discusses its importance as a British and heritage film. It also considers the inheritance of Hopkins, the script's relationship to the novel by Ronald Bassett, and the iconic persona of the film's star, Vincent Price. The author conducts close textual readings of specific scenes and explores the film's various contexts, from the creation of the X certificate and the tradition of Hammer gothic, to the influence on Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) and the ‘torture porn’ of twenty-first-century horror.

scholarly journals Choosing Death: Working-Class Coming of Age in Contemporary British Cinema

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 746-768 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Dave
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Space ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
The Social ◽  
British Cinema ◽  
History Of ◽  
Raymond Williams ◽  
The Individual

Starting with Franco Moretti's hypothesis of a relationship between the experience of modernity and the coming of age narrative in the European novel, this article explores representations of the working-class Bildung in contemporary British films that can be seen as responding to social and economic changes generally associated with neoliberalism. Contrasting the emphasis on the individual negotiation of social space in the films of Danny Boyle with work from a range of directors, including Ken Loach, Penny Woolcock, Shane Meadows and Anton Corbijn, along with recent production cycles such as the football film, the article seeks to identify representations of working-class experiences, both limiting and liberating, which mark the inherently problematic attempt to imagine a successful working-class coming of age. In doing so, the article considers the usefulness of Raymond Williams’ class-inflected account of traditions of the social bond, in particular his notion of a ‘common culture’. At the same time, it examines how such representations of working-class life often emphasise the experience of class conflict, distinguished here from class struggle, and how, formally, this emphasis can result in narratives which are marked less by what Moretti describes as the ‘novelistic’, temporising structures of the classical Bildungsroman and more by the sense of crisis and trauma found in the late Bildungsroman and modern tragedy. Ultimately, the article argues for the relevance of the long view of the social history of Britain, as a pioneer culture of capitalism, in understanding these aspects of the representation of class cultures in contemporary British film.

“Old” Economic History in the United States: 1939–1954

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristel de Rouvray
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Scientific Revolution ◽  
The United States ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The 1960S

This paper investigates the actions of a small, yet influential group of American economists who sought to claim economic history for themselves and use it as a springboard to launch a wider transformation of economics. Their actions constitute an episode of dissent in the history of twentieth century economics, albeit an unusual one. These dissenters were not a socially or intellectually marginalized group, but rather a set of privileged scholars who were able to leverage their contacts within the profession and amongst its patrons to further their vision. Their actions could almost be described in Kuhnian terms: they consciously sought to trigger a “paradigm shift” to bring about a social science better suited, in their views, to a world in political and economic turmoil (Kuhn 1962). In spite of the Kuhnian allusion to “scientific revolution,” this paper is not about the 1960s “cliometric revolution,” but about the 1940s and '50s and the little known events that led to the creation of the Economic History Association, the Journal of Economic History, and Explorations in Entrepreneurial History (subsequently Explorations in Economic History).

London

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Schen
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Local History ◽  
British Society ◽  
Moral Norms ◽  
Cultural Economic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Metropolitan Center ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

The city of London began as a Roman settlement along the River Thames and grew into Europe’s first urban area of a million inhabitants. London was unique within Britain, and in many ways in Europe, yet it was deeply intertwined with the provinces and other cities. The city’s location on a great river meant that goods, people, and ideas flowed into and out of the city for centuries, to or from the countryside as well as far-flung areas of the globe. London has exerted enormous influence over the other towns and cities of England and Great Britain, and has similarly been shaped by in-migration from these places and from abroad. London began to rebound to its pre-plague population levels by 1500 and proceeded to grow rapidly. The works included here talk variously of London, including its suburbs, and a metropolis, to describe its inexorable expansion across former fields and to the borders of neighbors. As it grew, its significance in the economy of the world, in its connections to empire and trade, became predominant and its merchants and investors carved a new place for themselves in British society. The city was not just important in economic terms to England, Britain, and eventually a global empire—it attracted and nourished intellectuals and artists, playwrights and writers, scientists and natural historians, and provided the setting for the display of status, consumption of new goods, and the development of fresh tastes. Positioned next to the political center of Westminster, it housed and provided a public stage for parliamentarians, political protesters, members of court, and the monarchy. At the same time, London provided opportunity to poor and un- or underemployed men and women to work, even if in professions or criminal activities outside or on the edges of social and moral norms of the period. For those who struggled, there was charity and beneficence, and punishment and forced work or separation from families. The focus on social and economic history that shaped historical writing of the 1960s into the 1980s elevated local history but influenced the questions asked of the metropolitan center. The last several decades have brought a resurgence of interest in the history of London, in the important religious, cultural, economic, social, and political developments that marked its transformation over a few hundred years.

The R. D. Freeman Collection of Foxwell's Papers—Its Rescue

2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. D. Freeman
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economics ◽  
National University ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The University ◽  
Deep Interest

When I was studying the history of economic thought at the University of Melbourne in 1959 I was extremely fortunate to have Graham Tucker as my tutor. Tucker was Reader in Economic History in Melbourne during the second half of the 1960s and then became Professor at the Australian National University in Canberra. Taciturn, understated, and droll, Tucker was a wonderful teacher who inspired a deep interest in the history of economics in all those who came under his influence. He was responsible for provoking my interest in Herbert Somerton Foxwell, although at the time it was more one of curiosity about a man who was in many ways an enigma.

How Did the Modern Chinese Economy Develop? —A Review Article

1991 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 604-628 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramon H. Myers
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Output Growth ◽  
Chinese Economy ◽  
Modern Sector ◽  
Major Question ◽  
History Of ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
The 1960S

Unsurprisingly, writings on the economic history of nineteenth and twentieth century China have been confusing and full of controversy. A major question is whether the Chinese economy experienced per capita output growth, stagnated, or declined between 1870 and World War II. Studies prior to 1937 usually claimed that the rural economy's output per capita declined, with only modest expansion of a small, modern sector restricted to railroads and manufacturing firms, and that this modern sector declined during the great world depression of the 1930s (Myers 1970:13–18; Ozaki 1939; Tawney 1932). A few studies of the 1960s and 1970s generally confirmed this view (Eastman 1974:chap. 5; Paauw 1952:3–26). Various theories attempted to explain this continuing or deepening poverty in China, including some, such as Ch'en Han-seng's, that emphasized exploitation or the misdistribution of wealth (Myers 1970).

Imran Ali. The Punjab under Imperialism 1885 - 1947. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. ix + 264 pp.$ 49.50 (Hardback).

1989 ◽  
Vol 28 (3) ◽  
pp. 266-272
Author(s):  
Khwaja Sarmad
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Green Revolution ◽  
Growth Potential ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
Independence Movement ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Suitable Environment

The title of Ali's book needs to be clarified. The work does not cover what is currently the entire Punjab, East and West. It is an economic history of the development of the canal colonies in the Punjab. These canal colonies fell entirely into Pakistan's area when the subcontinent was partitioned in 1947. So the work has special significance for the canal colony region of the Punjab, Pakistan. As such, Ali's book fills a great need for two reasons. First, in Pakistan the green revolution has been based in the canal colonies. The rate and comprehensiveness of adoption of the package has been greater in the canal colonies compared to the other regions. If the canal colonies provided such a suitable environment for the adoption of agrarian technical change in the 1960s, then there is a need to assess their emergence and economic impact in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The question is: Did the emergence of the canal colonies result in an agrarian revolution at that time? This forms Ali's main problematic. And his answer is that the political and economic objectives of British imperial interests in the Punjab overrode their development interests, with the result that the canal colonies did not fulm their growth potential. The second need that Ali's work fills is to raise the question of the political behaviour of the Punjab. This question needs to be raised for two time periods, namely in the state of Pakistan since 1947, and earlier, during the independence movement in the first half of this century.

“There Is Nothing Wrong about Being Money Grubbing!” Milton Friedman’s Provocative “Capitalism and the Jews” in Context, 1972–88

2021 ◽  
pp. 313-345
Author(s):  
Nicolas Vallois ◽  
Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche
Keyword(s):  
Economic History ◽  
Free Market ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Scholarly Contribution ◽  
The 1960S

In 1972, Milton Friedman gave a presidential lecture before the Mont Pèlerin Society titled “Capitalism and the Jews.” The lecture was subsequently published as an essay in the 1980s. This article focuses on Friedman’s public interventions on the theme of capitalism and the Jews from the 1960s to the 1980s. We take a different perspectives from Jeff Lipkes’s recent paper on the topic, published in this journal. While Lipkes examines the internal content of Friedman’s arguments and their historical rectitude, we argue that “Capitalism and the Jews” shall not be read as a scholarly contribution to Jewish economic history. Flirting with stereotypes, Friedman was not looking to be theoretically sound and correct, but to persuade his audiences of the virtues of the free market. We therefore argue that “Capitalism and the Jews” has to be read within the surrounding political and polemical context of its writing and publication. Our article contributes to recent scholarship on the history of the complex relationships between conservatism and free-market ideas. It also provides a case study in the history of economic thought on discrimination and minorities.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document