DOCSLIB.ORG

British Film Institute Report & Financial Statements 2007

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
British Film Institute Report & Financial Statements 2007 www.bfi.org.uk BritishBFI Film Institute ReportAnnual & Review Financial Statements2006/2007 2007 There’s more to discover about film and television BFI through the BFI. Our world-renowned archive, cinemas, festivals, films, publications and learning Annual Review resources are here to inspire you. 2006/2007 Contents About the BFI 3 Director’s Report 5 Key objectives 9 Key Targets 13 Cultural programme 15 BFI National Archive 23 BFI Southbank 25 BFI Digital Strategy 27 Education & Research 31 National Reach 35 Financial Statements 38 Appendices 41 Cover Picture: The Passenger (Professione: reporter) (1975) In This World We promote access 1 to and appreciation ABOUT THE BFI The BFI (British Film Institute) was established in 1933 to promote greater understanding, appreciation and access to film and of the widest possible television culture in Britain. In 1983 the BFI was incorporated by Royal Charter, a copy of which is available on request or from our range of British website www.bfi.org.uk. Our mission is ‘to champion moving image culture in all its and world cinema richness and diversity, across the UK, for the benefit of as wide an audience as possible, to create and encourage debate.’ We aim to grow the value of diverse cinema and television in Britain. By this we mean British and international works of artistic and historic significance that, without intervention, might not otherwise be available to the public. SUMMARY OF ROYAL CHARTER OBJECTIVES — To establish, care for and develop collections reflecting the moving image history and heritage of the United Kingdom — To encourage the development of the art of film, television and the moving image throughout the United Kingdom — To promote the use of film and television culture as a record of contemporary life and manners — To promote access to and appreciation of the widest possible range of British and world cinema — To promote education about film, television and the moving image generally, and their impact on society. The BFI’s main funder is the UK Film Council (UKFC) using resources delegated by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). It is a registered charity, number 287780. PARTNERSHIPS AND COLLABORATIONS Much of what the BFI has achieved could not have happened without the support and generosity of a number of individuals, organisations, companies, charitable trusts and foundations, to whom we are extremely grateful. The BFI has also received a number of legacies for which we are also very thankful. Picture: In This World (2002) top to bottom: Evergreen (1934); Young Frankenstein (1974); Comrades (1987); Va Savoir (2001) 2 / 3 BFI ANNUAL REVIEW 2006/2007 Bigger Than Life No-one can afford 2 to ignore film or DIRECTOR’S REPORT Film and television are a source of immense pleasure and fulfilment. They offer shared experiences which can crystallise television. Such views and inspire creativity and self-knowledge. Film and television bring greater understanding of other people and places, disregard would be even working, on occasion, as a call to action for the public good. No-one seeking to influence or understand society can afford to ignore either medium. Such disregard would be to deny the power to deny the power of storytelling itself. However, the social value of film is directly proportional to its of storytelling itself availability. In other words, the richer the spectrum on offer, the Thousands of films greater is our understanding not just or the moving image but the from the BFI are world itself. This is why the BFI exists – to champion work which seen in over 600 might not be accessible otherwise, and to provide the widest venues across possible choice of environment and opportunity for its exploration. Britain every year Our role as a UK-wide organisation has evolved in recent years following the establishment of agencies dedicated to serving the regions and the nations. The BFI’s remit now has an emphasis on national strategies, the care and distribution of our national and international collections, and the provision of online education and research resources. Along with other national cultural organisations, we strive constantly to create programmes of international significance. We believe that this is what our audiences expect of us. It would be impossible to achieve such an aim without the BFI National Archive. The collections we hold on behalf of the nation are an asset of global cultural significance. Arguably the greatest archive of film in the world, it is certainly the biggest and the busiest. Thousands of prints are shown internationally every year. In this country alone, in a single year, we expect to promote and distribute prints to more than 800 different venues. Millions of people will see a film from the BFI National Archive thanks to the growing number of television co-productions, DVDs, cinema releases and our rapidly- emerging online initiatives. It’s a common misconception that archives are only about the past. In fact, the best archives are busy acquiring, interpreting, conserving and releasing films on a daily basis, serving a range of needs from large audience cinema exhibition to specialised individual access. Picture: Bigger Than Life (1956) top to bottom: My Son the Fanatic (1997); Fast Food Nation (2006); A Year Without Love (2005) 4 / 5 BFI ANNUAL REVIEW 2006/2007 The BFI National Archive is at the heart of our organisation. A CALL TO ACTION It’s dynamic. It’s in touch with living, contemporary film-making. We’ve made great strides in most areas, but we haven’t achieved Through BFI Festivals and BFI Southbank, with their international everything we had hoped for. Supported by the UKFC and DCMS archival and contemporary programmes, the relationship is with modernisation funding, we’ve reduced and held down the symbiotic and enduring. size of the organisation, significantly increased income from fundraising, introduced efficiencies and achieved most of our A THREE-PART VISION customer-facing initiatives. However, we’ve not yet met the Three years ago we set out on an ambitious path towards ambitious growth target we set ourselves for trading income. And a long-term future. This future aspires to: we’ve had to absorb significant, unexpected, additional pension and utilities costs, as well as a one-off over-run on the capital build — care for the world’s greatest collection of film and film information, cost of BFI Southbank. This means we have a very challenging year making sure it is safe and more widely available than ever before The collections cared ahead, made more difficult by the indication of little, if any, future for by the BFI on increase in our Government funding. After a four-year standstill — sustain an international focus for film in the UK through the behalf of the nation revenue grant, without an improvement in our financial outlook creation of a national Film Centre, nurturing and providing are an asset of global the BFI cannot be sustained as it currently exists. a permanent home for the London Film Festival cultural significance The BFI is an institution emulated across the globe, admired for the — ensure that everyone in Britain, no matter where they are, has founding of the NFT, the custodianship of the London Film Festival access to the widest diversity of films and knowledge about film – and the promotion of cultural film. The BFI is respected for the work a digital distribution strategy of its Archive, and for being the home of special first films and film- Our achievements this year demonstrate the great strides we have makers. The BFI has tenaciously and joyously nurtured a love of film, already made along our chosen path. BFI Southbank, for example, and sought to reach everyone, everywhere. Now this internationally opened to resounding industry and popular acclaim. We made recognised legacy is part of global cinema history itself. crucial investments in storage facilities at the BFI National Archive I believe, as this institution’s director, we must fulfil the and launched innovative digital access systems to the Archive. responsibility of ensuring that this extraordinary work survives, We have developed a programme to exhibit Archive titles alongside thrives and continues to inspire generations to come. This is our contemporary releases in mainstream cinemas and over the Digital collective challenge. Screen Network. Not least we celebrated, triumphantly, the 50th birthday of The Times BFI London Film Festival. Amanda Nevill, Director top to bottom: Jude Law and Robin Wright Penn at the Times BFI 50th London Film Festival; top to bottom: Woman of the Dunes (1964); Pressure (1975); The African Queen (1951); Amores Perros (2000); The Man Who Would Be King (1975) Another Country (1984) 6 / 7 BFI ANNUAL REVIEW 2006/2007 BFI ANNUAL REVIEW 2006/2007 Opening Night During the London Film Festival 3 over 1,000 people crowded into HIGHLIGHTS IN 2006/07 — OBJECTIVES London’s Trafalgar Square to WHAT WE SAID WE WOULD DO EXAMPLES OF HOW WE DID Open BFI Southbank Our most dramatic transformation: During its first watch a specially commissioned week of opening thousands of visitors streamed to BFI Southbank, with its pioneering and unprecedented access to digitised material from the Archive, great new programme of short films and improved education initiatives and an adventurous contemporary programme Make critical investment in the Archive Making safe for the future: Archive material at immediate risk from deterioration was moved into upgraded, environmentally controlled storage. Existing acetate vaults have also been made airtight but further urgent investment is needed. Provide greater digital access to the BFI A digital revolution: The new Mediatheque at BFI and its collections Southbank now provides free public access to hundreds of hours of film and television. During the year more than 2.5 million records from the BFI Film & TV Database were moved online, giving people free access to 70 years of information.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Xiaoping Lin, Children of Marx and Coca Cola, Honolulu, University of Hawai’I Press, 2010
    Xiaoping Lin, Children of Marx and Coca Cola, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2010 Paola Voci (University of Otago) Xiaoping Lin’s Children of Marx and Coca Cola offers an impressive display of scholarship that confidently moves from acute film analyses to insightful art criticism and in-depth examinations of the most recent theorizations of Chinese contemporary social and cultural changes. By focusing on a rich selection of visual texts chosen among the most representative works of both the Chinese avant-garde artists and independent cinema’s filmmakers, Lin provides a convincing overview of the main tropes that have characterized the artistic reflection on the transition from socialism to capitalism in China. Such transition, the author notes, is better understood via Slavoj Žižek’s notion of trauma (p. 23) as this transition was imposed to rather than chosen by the Chinese people and has resulted in painful contradictions and social inequalities. The book’s main appeal is indeed in Lin’s strong voice, which engages the reader at the same time in a rigorous academic exploration and a personal conversation. The writing style successfully combines critical reviews of relevant scholarship and the author’s own life experiences (including his first encounter with Andy Warhol as his translator when he visited China in 1982). Similarly, the discussion of the primary texts benefits not only from Lin’s first-hand knowledge of the various exhibits and artworks as well as his subtle “insider” understanding of both the on-screen and off-screen realities explored by independent cinema, but also from his references to the larger critical discourses in which they have been analyzed (by scholars such as Dai Jinhua, Geremie Barmé, Gao Minglu, Liu Kang and Zhang Zhen).
    [Show full text]
  • 1997 Sundance Film Festival Awards Jurors
    1997 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL The 1997 Sundance Film Festival continued to attract crowds, international attention and an appreciative group of alumni fi lmmakers. Many of the Premiere fi lmmakers were returning directors (Errol Morris, Tom DiCillo, Victor Nunez, Gregg Araki, Kevin Smith), whose earlier, sometimes unknown, work had received a warm reception at Sundance. The Piper-Heidsieck tribute to independent vision went to actor/director Tim Robbins, and a major retrospective of the works of German New-Wave giant Rainer Werner Fassbinder was staged, with many of his original actors fl own in for forums. It was a fi tting tribute to both Fassbinder and the Festival and the ways that American independent cinema was indeed becoming international. AWARDS GRAND JURY PRIZE JURY PRIZE IN LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA Documentary—GIRLS LIKE US, directed by Jane C. Wagner and LANDSCAPES OF MEMORY (O SERTÃO DAS MEMÓRIAS), directed by José Araújo Tina DiFeliciantonio SPECIAL JURY AWARD IN LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA Dramatic—SUNDAY, directed by Jonathan Nossiter DEEP CRIMSON, directed by Arturo Ripstein AUDIENCE AWARD JURY PRIZE IN SHORT FILMMAKING Documentary—Paul Monette: THE BRINK OF SUMMER’S END, directed by MAN ABOUT TOWN, directed by Kris Isacsson Monte Bramer Dramatic—HURRICANE, directed by Morgan J. Freeman; and LOVE JONES, HONORABLE MENTIONS IN SHORT FILMMAKING directed by Theodore Witcher (shared) BIRDHOUSE, directed by Richard C. Zimmerman; and SYPHON-GUN, directed by KC Amos FILMMAKERS TROPHY Documentary—LICENSED TO KILL, directed by Arthur Dong Dramatic—IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, directed by Neil LaBute DIRECTING AWARD Documentary—ARTHUR DONG, director of Licensed To Kill Dramatic—MORGAN J.
    [Show full text]
  • University of Huddersfield Repository
    University of Huddersfield Repository Billam, Alistair It Always Rains on Sunday: Early Social Realism in Post-War British Cinema Original Citation Billam, Alistair (2018) It Always Rains on Sunday: Early Social Realism in Post-War British Cinema. Masters thesis, University of Huddersfield. This version is available at http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/id/eprint/34583/ The University Repository is a digital collection of the research output of the University, available on Open Access. Copyright and Moral Rights for the items on this site are retained by the individual author and/or other copyright owners. Users may access full items free of charge; copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided: • The authors, title and full bibliographic details is credited in any copy; • A hyperlink and/or URL is included for the original metadata page; and • The content is not changed in any way. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at: [email protected]. http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/ Submission in fulfilment of Masters by Research University of Huddersfield 2016 It Always Rains on Sunday: Early Social Realism in Post-War British Cinema Alistair Billam Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 3 Chapter 1: Ealing and post-war British cinema. ................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2: The community and social realism in It Always Rains on Sunday ...................................... 25 Chapter 3: Robert Hamer and It Always Rains on Sunday – the wider context.
    [Show full text]
  • SPIES, REAL and IMAGINED Coordinators: Lucy Kirk, Rena
    SPIES, REAL AND IMAGINED Coordinators: Lucy Kirk, Rena Shagan, and Maureen Sullivan "I've got a story to tell you . about spies," says Ricki Tarr in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Stories about spies raise many issues - morality, patriotism, recruiting, betrayal, conspiracy. They also tell us what motivates people to become spies - love of danger, ideology, money, blackmail . We investigate the matrix of issues and motivation through five books, both fiction and non-fiction, concentrating on the Cold War. We discuss the intelligence organizations, their spycraft, and the believability of the characters. Background material includes the history of the Cold War, its participants and events. Some of the best spy fiction is written by former case officers. Coordinator Lucy Kirk shares her experience constructing her own spy novel, including what a career officer can disclose about operations and how to fictionalize former colleagues. Readings: NOTE: Low cost used books are available from BookFinder.com. Any edition can be purchased. Please read entire book prior to first week's discussion of that book. 1. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré, {1974} FICTION: George Smiley, le Carré's continuing character, searches for a mole in Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, MI6. This is le Carré's most famous Smiley book. 2. The Main Enemy by Milton Beardon and James Risen, {2003} NONFICTION: The inside story of the CIA's final showdown with the KGB 3. Istanbul Passage by Joseph Kanon, {2012} FICTION: Formerly neutral city must take sides at the outbreak of the Cold War. 4. The Geneva Trap by Stella Rimington, {2012} FICTION: Cyber sabotage threatens West defenses.
    [Show full text]
  • Teaching Post-Mao China Not Connected
    RESOURCES FILM REVIEW ESSAY documentary style with which filmmaker Zhang Yimou is normally Teaching Post-Mao China not connected. This style—long shots of city scenes filled with people Two Classic Films and a subdued color palette—contribute to the viewer’s understand - ing of life in China in the early 1990s. The village scenes could be By Melisa Holden from anytime in twentieth century China, as the extent of moderniza - tion is limited. For example, inside peasants’ homes, viewers see Introduction steam spewing from characters’ mouths because of the severe cold The Story of Qiu Ju and Beijing Bicycle are two films that have been and lack of central heating. However, when Qiu Ju travels to the ur - used in classrooms since they were produced (1992 and 2001, respec - banized areas, it becomes obvious that the setting is the late twentieth tively). Today, these films are still relevant to high school and under - century. The film was shot only a couple of years after the Tiananmen graduate students studying history, literature, and related courses Square massacre in 1989. Zhang’s previous two films ( Ju Dou and about China, as they offer a picture of the grand scale of societal Raise the Red Lantern ) had been banned in China, but with The Story change that has happened in China in recent decades. Both films il - of Qiu Ju , Zhang depicts government officials in a positive light, lustrate contemporary China and the dichotomy between urban and therefore earning the Chinese government’s endorsement. One feels rural life there. The human issues presented transcend cultural an underlying tension through Qiu Ju’s search for justice, as if it is not boundaries and, in the case of Beijing Bicycle , feature young charac - only justice for her husband’s injured body and psyche, but also jus - ters that are the age of US students, allowing them to further relate to tice supposedly found through democracy.
    [Show full text]
  • News Competitions Diary Dates and More… Free Phone Card with the ‘BANGLA CALLING’ 660Ml Bottle Top Promotion
    thestarISSUE 9 2009 FREE Don’t miss our interview with David Roper, the ‘piano’ in 4 Poofs and a Piano ✚ News Competitions Diary dates and more… Free Phone Card with the ‘BANGLA CALLING’ 660ml bottle top promotion “When your customer orders a beer go to the fridge and open a bottle of 660ml Bangla Premium Beer. Check the bottle top, if it reads Bangla on both sides you’re a winner” 1 in every 20 bottles is a winner... Good Luck! 1000’s of free Bangla Beer phone cards have been won, determined by ‘Bangla’ printed inside the bottle cap. Check to see if you’re a winner! To enter is Free of charge, for full terms and conditions please visit www.banglabeer.co.uk BOTTLED BANGLA 2007 INTERNATIONAL MONDE GOLD AWARD BANGLA BOTTLES Shapla Paani is a natural spring water. Being drawn deep through great british granite gives Shapla Paani its exceptional thirst quenching taste. A spring situated on the edge of Bodmin Moor in the picturesque and dramatic setting of Rough Tor. The bottling plant stands on an underground lake where pure Cornish moorland kissed rainfall naturally filters through the rock to produce a pure natural spring water. Why Stock Shapla Paani? • Shapla Paani spring water is specifically designed to fit into the Asian restaurant market. • Shapla Paani is exclusive to the on-trade, so it won’t be de-valued in your local supermarket. • Premium product, the quality and purity of this spring water is exceptional. • Available in 24x330ml and 12x750ml NRB cases. • Available in both Sparkling and Still variants.
    [Show full text]
  • The North of England in British Wartime Film, 1941 to 1946. Alan
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by CLoK The North of England in British Wartime Film, 1941 to 1946. Alan Hughes, University of Central Lancashire The North of England is a place-myth as much as a material reality. Conceptually it exists as the location where the economic, political, sociological, as well as climatological and geomorphological, phenomena particular to the region are reified into a set of socio-cultural qualities that serve to define it as different to conceptualisations of England and ‘Englishness’. Whilst the abstract nature of such a construction means that the geographical boundaries of the North are implicitly ill-defined, for ease of reference, and to maintain objectivity in defining individual texts as Northern films, this paper will adhere to the notion of a ‘seven county North’ (i.e. the pre-1974 counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Northumberland, County Durham, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire) that is increasingly being used as the geographical template for the North of England within social and cultural history.1 The British film industry in 1941 As 1940 drew to a close in Britain any memories of the phoney war of the spring of that year were likely to seem but distant recollections of a bygone age long dispersed by the brutal realities of the conflict. Outside of the immediate theatres of conflict the domestic industries that had catered for the demands of an increasingly affluent and consuming population were orientated towards the needs of a war economy as plant, machinery, and labour shifted into war production.
    [Show full text]
  • Elizabethirvinephdthesis.Pdf (8.438Mb)
    CONTINUITY IN INTERMITTENT ORGANISATIONS: THE ORGANISING PRACTICES OF FESTIVAL AND COMMUNITY OF A UK FILM FESTIVAL Elizabeth Jean Irvine A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2015 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/6901 This item is protected by original copyright Continuity in Intermittent Organisations: The Organising Practices of Festival and Community of a UK Film Festival Elizabeth Jean Irvine Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews June 2014 ABSTRACT This thesis considers the relationship between practices, communities and continuity in intermittent organisational arrangements. Cultural festivals are argued to offer one such particularly rich and nuanced research context; within this study their potential to transcend intermittent enactment emerged as a significant avenue of enquiry. The engagement of organisation studies with theories of practice has produced a rich practice-based corpus, diverse in both theoretical concerns and empirical approaches to the study of practice. Nevertheless, continuity presents an, as yet, under- theorised aspect of this field. Thus, the central questions of this thesis concern: the practices that underpin the enactment of festivals; the themes emerging from these practices for further consideration; and relationships between festivals and the wider context within which they are enacted. These issues were explored empirically through a qualitative study of the enactment of a community-centred film festival. Following from the adoption of a ‘practice-lens approach’, this study yielded forty-eight practices, through which to explore five themes emerging from analysis: Safeguarding, Legitimising, Gatekeeping, Connecting and Negotiating Boundaries.
    [Show full text]
  • The Creation of the Television Arts Documentary
    University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap This paper is made available online in accordance with publisher policies. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item and our policy information available from the repository home page for further information. To see the final version of this paper please visit the publisher’s website. Access to the published version may require a subscription. Author(s): Mary M. Irwin Article Title: Monitor: The Creation of the Television Arts Documentary Year of publication: 2011 Link to published article: http;//dx.doi.org/10.3366/jbctv.2011.0042 Publisher statement: © Cambridge University Press Citation information: Journal of British Cinema and Television. Volume 8, Page 322-336 DOI 10.3366/jbctv.2011.0042, ISSN 1743-4521, Available Online October 2011 Monitor: The Creation of the Television Arts Documentary Mary M. Irwin Monitor (BBC, 1958–65), a series which showcased the arts and their creators and was presented by Huw Wheldon, is now remembered as the flagship of late 1950s and early 1960s arts documentary television broadcasting. In Arts TV: A History of Arts Television in Britain, John Walker describes Monitor as ‘a crucially important early series’ (1993: 45), arguing that ‘no one could deny its ground-breaking achievements’ (ibid.: 49). John Wyver, in Vision On: Film, Television and the Arts in Britain, called Monitor ‘among the BBC’s most celebrated contributions to “good broadcasting’’ ’ (2007: 27).1 In the edited collection Experimental British Te l e v i s i o n , Jamie Sexton refers to Monitor as the ‘BBC’s critically acclaimed arts series’ (Mulvey and Sexton 2007: 90), while Kay Dickinson, in the same collection, refers to it as a ‘well respected fortnightly Sunday arts magazine programme’, pointing out that this was where Ken Russell first made his name (ibid.: 70).
    [Show full text]
  • Index to Volume 26 January to December 2016 Compiled by Patricia Coward
    THE INTERNATIONAL FILM MAGAZINE Index to Volume 26 January to December 2016 Compiled by Patricia Coward How to use this Index The first number after a title refers to the issue month, and the second and subsequent numbers are the page references. Eg: 8:9, 32 (August, page 9 and page 32). THIS IS A SUPPLEMENT TO SIGHT & SOUND Index 2016_4.indd 1 14/12/2016 17:41 SUBJECT INDEX SUBJECT INDEX After the Storm (2016) 7:25 (magazine) 9:102 7:43; 10:47; 11:41 Orlando 6:112 effect on technological Film review titles are also Agace, Mel 1:15 American Film Institute (AFI) 3:53 Apologies 2:54 Ran 4:7; 6:94-5; 9:111 changes 8:38-43 included and are indicated by age and cinema American Friend, The 8:12 Appropriate Behaviour 1:55 Jacques Rivette 3:38, 39; 4:5, failure to cater for and represent (r) after the reference; growth in older viewers and American Gangster 11:31, 32 Aquarius (2016) 6:7; 7:18, Céline and Julie Go Boating diversity of in 2015 1:55 (b) after reference indicates their preferences 1:16 American Gigolo 4:104 20, 23; 10:13 1:103; 4:8, 56, 57; 5:52, missing older viewers, growth of and A a book review Agostini, Philippe 11:49 American Graffiti 7:53; 11:39 Arabian Nights triptych (2015) films of 1970s 3:94-5, Paris their preferences 1:16 Aguilar, Claire 2:16; 7:7 American Honey 6:7; 7:5, 18; 1:46, 49, 53, 54, 57; 3:5: nous appartient 4:56-7 viewing films in isolation, A Aguirre, Wrath of God 3:9 10:13, 23; 11:66(r) 5:70(r), 71(r); 6:58(r) Eric Rohmer 3:38, 39, 40, pleasure of 4:12; 6:111 Aaaaaaaah! 1:49, 53, 111 Agutter, Jenny 3:7 background
    [Show full text]
  • From Real Time to Reel Time: the Films of John Schlesinger
    From Real Time to Reel Time: The Films of John Schlesinger A study of the change from objective realism to subjective reality in British cinema in the 1960s By Desmond Michael Fleming Submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2011 School of Culture and Communication Faculty of Arts The University of Melbourne Produced on Archival Quality Paper Declaration This is to certify that: (i) the thesis comprises only my original work towards the PhD, (ii) due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used, (iii) the thesis is fewer than 100,000 words in length, exclusive of tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices. Abstract The 1960s was a period of change for the British cinema, as it was for so much else. The six feature films directed by John Schlesinger in that decade stand as an exemplar of what those changes were. They also demonstrate a fundamental change in the narrative form used by mainstream cinema. Through a close analysis of these films, A Kind of Loving, Billy Liar, Darling, Far From the Madding Crowd, Midnight Cowboy and Sunday Bloody Sunday, this thesis examines the changes as they took hold in mainstream cinema. In effect, the thesis establishes that the principal mode of narrative moved from one based on objective realism in the tradition of the documentary movement to one which took a subjective mode of narrative wherein the image on the screen, and the sounds attached, were not necessarily a record of the external world. The world of memory, the subjective world of the mind, became an integral part of the narrative.
    [Show full text]
  • 1. Title: 13 Tzameti ISBN: 5060018488721 Sebastian, A
    1. Title: 13 Tzameti ISBN: 5060018488721 Sebastian, a young man, has decided to follow instructions intended for someone else, without knowing where they will take him. Something else he does not know is that Gerard Dorez, a cop on a knife-edge, is tailing him. When he reaches his destination, Sebastian falls into a degenerate, clandestine world of mental chaos behind closed doors in which men gamble on the lives of others men. 2. Title: 12 Angry Men ISBN: 5050070005172 Adapted from Reginald Rose's television play, this film marked the directorial debut of Sidney Lumet. At the end of a murder trial in New York City, the 12 jurors retire to consider their verdict. The man in the dock is a young Puerto Rican accused of killing his father, and eleven of the jurors do not hesitate in finding him guilty. However, one of the jurors (Henry Fonda), reluctant to send the youngster to his death without any debate, returns a vote of not guilty. From this single event, the jurors begin to re-evaluate the case, as they look at the murder - and themselves - in a fresh light. 3. Title: 12:08 East of Bucharest ISBN: n/a 12:08pm on the 22 December 1989 was the exact time of Ceausescu's fall from power in Romania. Sixteen years on, a provincial TV talk show decides to commemorate the event by asking local heroes to reminisce about their own contributions to the revolution. But securing suitable guests proves an unexpected challenge and the producer is left with two less than ideal participants - a drink addled history teacher and a retired and lonely sometime-Santa Claus grateful for the company.
    [Show full text]